Indiana Beach by W.C. Madden

Author:W.C. Madden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2014-08-10T16:00:00+00:00

1980s

Another roller coaster and other different rides were brought to Indiana Beach in the ’80s. Also, the best marketing plan for the park was born during the era and remains today. Tom started advertising the park in the southern Chicago suburbs. “Half of our business comes from Illinois,” Tom said in the Logansport Pharos-Tribune. Once again, Top 40 bands were brought in to entertain in the Roof Garden Lounge and ballroom. Admission was raised in 1982 to fifty cents and then a dollar in 1987. And a couple of fires brought small setbacks to the park in the era.

While the devastating fire in 1930 came at the beginning of the season, the fire that took the Haunted House came on the last day the park was open in 1980. The fire broke out soon after the park closed on Saturday night at midnight. Indiana Beach employees fought the blaze with their fire hoses, but there was no stopping it. “It was a wooden structure,” explained Ruth.

The Monticello and Buffalo Fire Departments also responded to the fire, but it was a losing cause, and the structure was totally destroyed. The value of the building was set at $40,000. Assistant Fire Chief Robert Hickman recalled the fire, as that was his second year with the Monticello Fire Department. “It was a hot fire,” he remembered. “We contained it to the house only.” The state fire marshal was called in to investigate the fire and could not determine a cause. The structure was built and owned by Lance and Bert Douglas, who moved to Florida after it burned down.

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