Manhattan Beach, which was located on the shore of Sloan’s Lake, opened as a summer resort in 1890 and transformed into a true amusement park before its demise in 1914. Manhattan Beach was home to Denver’s first roller coaster and merry-go-round, a steamboat that cruised Sloan’s Lake, and dozens of other amusements during its short existence. Although it’s been gone for more than a century, the park is still remembered for both a tragedy and its role in Denver’s amusement park history.
David Forsyth Bio
David Forsyth has a Ph.D. in history from the University of Colorado at Boulder and is the director of the Gilpin Historical Society. He is the author of Images of America: Black Hawk and Central City, Denver’s Lakeside Amusement Park: From the White City Beautiful to a Century of Fun, and Eben Smith: The Dean of Western Mining. His articles on topics that include bars, murders, bowling alleys, and amusement parks have appeared in Colorado Heritage, International Bowling Industry, and the National Amusement Park Historical Association Chronicle among others.