Idora Park - Attractions

Attractions

Idora Park boasted the first outdoor public address system built by Magnavox, the first radio theater in the West and a huge searchlight—like many things at Idora Park—reputed to be the largest in the world.

Idora Park was a walled-in park that had a zoo, an ostrich farm, animal shows, a dance hall, racetrack, a huge outdoor amphitheater, a Japanese garden, bear grotto and a main street called the Glad Way, Penny Arcade, photo gallery and shooting gallery. In 1904 a ballpark with a 3000 seat double deck grandstand was erected and after the '06 earthquake the Pacific Coast Baseball League relocated there. The park had the largest roller skating rink in California and largest West of Chicago that rented clamp-on skates and had a bandstand in its center, and a Mountain slide that sported a firework volcanic display on Saturday nights and balloon ascensions wherein the husband and wife acrobat team of Frank and Carrie Hamilton parachuteted down after their act.

One attraction was "The Laying Hens" where you threw a ball at a wooden hen sitting on a barnyard fence and if you hit it, it fell over and delivered a hard-boiled egg for you to eat. The park offered electric souvenirs, so-called "Jap" ping-pong, a musical arcade, dancing pavilion, Roof Garden and Grill, lunch counters, open air concerts and numerus refreshment booths.