"Glen Echo Nights - 1967" by Paul McGehee. Glen Echo Amusement Park was the place to be in Montgomery County, Maryland back in the day. The Park first opened in 1891 as a cultural meeting place known as a 'chautauqua' where all of the leading thinkers of the day could put themselves on display and "promote liberal and practical education". After a few years of that concept, the more lucrative amusement rides began to be phased in to support the project, until it became a full-blown amusement park with rides, a hair-raising wooden roller coaster, a beautiful Dentzel carousel with carved wooden horses and animals moving to the music of a Wurlitzer Band Organ, a shooting gallery and many other arcade attractions. The Spanish Ballroom, at one time a beer garden, hosted dances to the live music of the nation's top bands as they swung through town. Originally a segregated park, that changed in 1961 after peaceful civic activism from local college kids staging sit-ins around the region...and the amusements were open to everyone thereafter. Glen Echo provided thrills and laughter to the people of DC, Virginia and Maryland into 1968, when rising insurance rates made it prohibitive for small parks like this across the nation to continue to thrive. Most of the rides were dismantled, sold off or scrapped. After public outcry kept the abandoned property from being developed, the Park became part of the National Park Service in 1970, and has continued to grow to this day into a place of music and the arts, featuring children's theatre and puppet stages, outdoor concerts, and many art studios one can visit and watch everything from painting to glass-blowing. It's a great place to go for a picnic and let the kids play. The 1921 carousel is one of the few working reminders of its amusement park past. In some ways, Glen Echo Park has come full-circle to the original intent of the 'chautauqua' park it started out as back in the 1890's. "Glen Echo Nights - 1967" is faithfully reproduced as an archival-quality print from McGehee's original color pencil and acrylic artwork, each hand-signed by the artist. Image size: 13 1/2" x 11"