Looking around at the cityscape that surrounds downtown Los Angeles, who’d ever have thought that an amusement park used to lay south of where the 10 Freeway now cuts south of downtown. It was called Chutes Park and it occupied a huge area bounded by Grand Ave, Main Street, Washington Blvd and 21st St. It opened in 1899 and what we’re seeing in this circa 1906 photo is main attraction The 10-cent entrance ticket included one trip on Shoot the Chutes flume ride, and over the years there was also a merry-go-round, Japanese village, shooting gallery, bowling alley, zoo, 1400-seat Chutes vaudeville theater, baseball and football fields, roller coaster, skating rink, novelty attractions with names like Sheik Hadji Tahar’s Famous Arabian Horsemen and Billikin’s Temple of Mirth, and a panorama which offered a daily reenactment of the Civil War sea battle of the Monitor and the Merrimac. It was renamed Luna Park in 1911 and was gone by 1914, when the land was then known as Horsley Park.
Satellite photo showing location of Chutes Park, south of downtown Los Angeles:
Looking around at the cityscape that surrounds downtown Los Angeles, who’d ever have thought that an amusement park used to lay south of where the 10 Freeway now cuts south of downtown. It was called Chutes Park and it occupied a huge area bounded by Grand Ave, Main Street, Washington Blvd and 21st St. It opened in 1899 and what we’re seeing in this circa 1906 photo is main attraction The 10-cent entrance ticket included one trip on Shoot the Chutes flume ride, and over the years there was also a merry-go-round, Japanese village, shooting gallery, bowling alley, zoo, 1400-seat Chutes vaudeville theater, baseball and football fields, roller coaster, skating rink, novelty attractions with names like Sheik Hadji Tahar’s Famous Arabian Horsemen and Billikin’s Temple of Mirth, and a panorama which offered a daily reenactment of the Civil War sea battle of the Monitor and the Merrimac. It was renamed Luna Park in 1911 and was gone by 1914, when the land was then known as Horsley Park.
Thank you for the overlay map showing the location. It helps.