Vintage Postcards - Cedar Fair 'Coasters

Disney parks are generally not known for their roller coasters (with a few exceptions), but Cedar Fair-owned parks are world-famous for 'coasters! Ken Martinez has some vintage postcards featuring some of these roller coasters - here's Ken:

Coasters at parks eventually owned by Cedar Fair

Sometimes when I look at my postcards, I try to figure out how to group some of them for an article. I decided with these lone postcards to group them into coasters that operate/operated in a park eventually owned by Cedar Fair.

I love this red border jumbo card of the High Roller at Valleyfair! This wood creation was the park’s first major roller coaster and built by International Amusement Devices (IAD) . It reaches a height of 70 feet and a speed of 50 mph. It’s the only one in today’s postcards that’s still running in its original location.

Here’s the world’s first modern inverted coaster, the Roaring 20’s “Corkscrew” I’m still trying to figure out when the coaster track was painted blue as it started out all-white when it first opened. I assume it was probably painted blue around the time the Roaring 20’s “Airfield” section with its parachute “Sky Jump” was added. You can still ride the original coaster, but no in the original park. Today, you’ll need to travel to Silverwood, Idaho if you want to ride the world’s first modern inverted coaster.

And here’s another first. The first stand-up roller coaster built and operated in the United States opened at Kings Island, Ohio on April 22, 1984. King Cobra was built by the Japanese firm Togo. They didn’t build many of these and today, only five of their standup coasters are still in operation today, none of which are in the United States. King Cobra closed in 2001.

Kings Island’s sister park Kings Dominion also added a Togo Stand-up coaster in 1986 named ‘Shockwave”. It too was removed, but only recently in 2015. Both Shockwave and King Cobra were the same height, speed and approximately the same length.