Yesterday we = Jeff, his brother Mark, his mom & dad, & I – went to Charlesown State Park to go on a tour of Rose Island. Rose Island was an amusement park until it was destroyed by the Ohio River Flood of 1937. It was abandoned after that, and was virtually inaccessible until the park started excavating it maybe ten years ago. Normally it’s a pretty straight downhill hike to even get to the bridge to get to the island – meaning it’s almost straight uphill to get back to your car – but on the weekends they have a shuttle to take you to the entrance. Jeff’s folks had been wanting to go, so it worked out great that we were able to take them Sunday. The stories they told about the amusement park were so interesting. There were just a few structures that they found intact when the state park people started exploring it, and this was one of them. They had all kinds of theories about what it might have been, and then just two months ago a man whose father had been a manager of the amusement park, and who had lived there as a child, had come to the park and told them a lot about the details of what things were and where different things had been located. As it turns out, this was a cooler where people could get a drink of water as soon as they got to Rose Island. It’s about six feet deep, and it was filled with ice and water, and there were spigots coming out the sides. The owner of the island told them – this was well before truth in advertising laws 🙂 – it was fresh cold spring water. There was a lid on it, so they had no idea there wasn’t a pump down in there. Sort of an early Yeti 🙂
One of the original roadbeds, leading down from the Devil’s Backbone Outcropping. Another interesting thing the tour guide told us was the story of the Welsh Prince Madoc, who according to legend arrived in this country in the 900’s. Some people believe he ended up in this area of the country, and was absorbed along with his men into the Native American tribes who lived there. When Lewis & Clark made their expedition, they found Indians whose language was very close to Welsh, as well as tribes of what they called White Indians. Very interesting.