When I first saw this circa early 1900s photo of the Washington Gardens Chutes Amusement Park, with a rollercoaster, Chutes Water Slide, and Chutes Theater, I assumed it was at the beach. Probably Santa Monica or Venice. So imagine my surprise when I found it stood at the corner of Washington Blvd and Main St, south of downtown Los Angeles. Geographically, it makes sense, seeing as how Los Angeles itself didn’t extend too far beyond the edges of (what we now call) downtown so to get to the beach was a bit of a hike. But Washington Gardens was nowhere near the LA River, so now I’m wondering the logistics of maintaining all that water.

Gary H said: “Your post unlocked an entire rabbit hole for me. I learned about Paul Boyton, a mid 1800s showman, adventurer, water sport/stunt originator, and founder of the first amusement park. He had a whole history before in NY and Atlantic City, then went out with PT Barnum in 1887, and ended up in Chicago. Inspired by the 1892 Chicago Columbian Exposition , he created the first amusement park and Chutes there in 1894.

In 1895 he created another Chutes and a park that later became Coney Island, and also opened the hugely successful Chutes in SF on the Haight, which later moved to Fulton St. I didn’t find a connection to the LA Chutes which launched around the same time, but wiki does say that Boyton licensed the concept, so I guess that was probably one of them.”