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"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.
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