Boardwalks, penny arcades, bumper cars, fried dough, and saltwater taffy—that’s the kind of Americana people have come to expect in certain seaside towns along the New England coast. On our own bit of shoreline sits one of the oldest and most storied amusement parks in the region: Salem Willows. So well known is it to locals, it’s easy to take for granted. But delve into its history and discover a place so notable it deserves respect for its staying power.
THE OPENING
“The Willows,” as it is generally called, is a 35-acre waterfront property located at the tip of the Salem peninsula, and named for the European white willow trees that were planted in 1801 on behalf of patients at the nearby “contagious disease hospital.” (They still grace the lawn today, two centuries later.) This “pest house” was destroyed by fire in 1848, and the area was subsequently designated a city park. By 1877, the Naumkeag Street Railway Company was running horse-drawn trolleys to The Willows and had acquired land to build an amusement park.
Area residents flocked to The Willows to enjoy the once-famous “shore dinners,” test their skills at the shooting gallery, and rollerskate at the Willows Pavilion, an architecturally unusual structure built largely of recycled materials from the Siege of Paris Pavilion at a Boston exposition. It held a theater,a roller-skating rink, and a 300-seat second-floor restaurant. In the rear tower, a camera obscura projected scenes from the surrounding area onto a table in a darkened room.
Adding to the park’s popularity were special events that included fireworks displays, music and theatre programs, high-wire acts, and hot air balloon rides. “The Salem Evening News, which tracked happenings at the park in a regular column, reported The Willows attracted 5,000 visitors in a single day,” according to Salem historian Jim McAllister.
THE AREA
In 1904, there were three seasonal hotels operating in the Juniper Point residential neighborhood adjacent to The Willows: The Atlantic House, The Central House, and The Ocean View House— all catered to summertime visitors seeking reprieve from hot, crowded cities. Sadly, not one remains today.
THE LINE
Two of The Willows’ most popular attractions still stand: E. W. Hobbs and the Salem Lowe restaurant. The late Buddy Hobbs’s family has been selling popcorn, flavored popcorn bars, saltwater taffy, and other refreshments on “The Line” since the 1890s. Also once found on The Line—a commercial strip of restaurants and amusements—were the Whip, Dodgem Junior bumper cars, and a shooting gallery, all of which are now just distant memories, though the penny arcade continues to draw a crowd. Curiously—and a sign of the times—the building that now sits at the very end of The Line originally housed a carousel powered by a mule tethered to a central pole in the basement.
THE FOOD
In 1874, thanks to the pioneering efforts of Judge Chase, who opened The Willow House, Restaurant Row gained a footing. Located just beyond a bend in the road, his two-and-a-half-story restaurant overlooked the harbor and served diners for over seven decades. Regrettably, Chase’s place burned down in 1952. (The 78-year-old building was gone in a 20-minute midnight blaze.)
By 1912, The Willow House had been joined by Ebsen’s, Swenbeck’s Park Cafe, and three other restaurants, turning Restaurant Row into a fixture for nearly a century. Its demise was largely the result of a series of fires between 1952 and the mid-1970s.
The Willows was once renowned for its shore dinners, which featured fried fish, lobster, and chowder and could be found at any of the establishments that lined the Row. In 1941, Sallie Belle Cox, a Salem native and “self-proclaimed professor of fish, lobster, and clamology,” published an article about the fish dinners. A trip to the Salem Willows for a shore dinner inevitably ended at Ebsen’s, where Cox learned the secret behind the Row’s famous fried fish: Before it was cooked in deep fat, the fish was dipped in “fancy buckeye cornmeal…no batter, no crumbs, no eggs.”
Perhaps most lauded is E. W. Hobbs, which has been in continuous operation and run by the same family since 1897. When current owner Priscilla Hobbs was a child, she watched her father and grandfather make their acclaimed buttered popcorn on the same century-old equipment that she and her brother, Charlie, use today. “I tell my grandkids to start learning those machines,” Priscilla says. “We need to get the sixth generation trained!” Downing’s Seafood Restaurant and “Blind Pat” Kenneally’s double-jointed peanuts stand were also among the early tenants, notes McAllister.
Second to E. W. Hobbs in terms of fame and longevity is Salem Lowe, which opened in 1912. According to McAllister, its story even reached New York, where, in 1994, an anthropologist and Brown University researcher, Imogene Lim, gave a lecture at the American Museum of Natural History on the chop suey sandwich, “an American specialty with immigrant roots that has been a mainstay in many coastal towns with amusement parks since the 1940s.” In a 1994 Salem Evening News article, Lim broke the news to local residents that Fall River, not Salem, was most likely the birthplace of the beloved sandwich. That revelation hasn’t discouraged the thousands of visitors who make the trip to Salem Lowe each year for one of their treasured noodle, onion, and sprout sandwiches.
Because it was a city park, no alcohol was permitted at Salem Willows, nor could it be sold within the park’s borders. But for many years, parched park patrons made their way to The Juniper House, which was bisected by the park boundary line; alcohol was served in the half of the building that lay outside of the park. Despite being dry, one Salem Willows publication included a drink recipe from Captain Dan Sweeney of the Pier Transit Co., who shared the secret for mixing up a batch of Port of Salem Grog, which called for “a healthy dollop of New England Rum.”
THE CULTURE
The Salem Willows of yesteryear also featured a bandstand that bopped with jazz and the big band beats that were experiencing a heyday between World Wars I and II. In the early 1920s, two Salem brothers, Charles and Cy Shribman, decided to open a dance hall, the Charleshurst. They chose as a location the building at the corner of Fort Avenue and Bay View Avenue that now houses the Willows Casino. “On summer nights…throngs of young people, arriving by trolley, automobile, or on foot, would descend on the Charleshurst to dance to the music of orchestras led by the likes of Paul Whiteman, Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, Count Basie, and Guy Lombardo,” says McAllister. Two of the biggest names to play the hall were Duke Ellington and Glenn Miller.
THE AMUSEMENTS
In 1870, one of the most popular rides at The Willows was Brown’s Flying Horses carousel. Joseph Brown, a native of Bavaria, has been credited with making all of the hand-carved and painted animals, and even using real horsehair for tails. He is also said to have built a miniature village at the center of the carousel and used a pipe organ for musical accompaniment. At first, the carousel was turned manually, then by a mule, and ultimately by a steam-driven engine. It ran for 70 years until the horses were sold in 1945 to Macy’s department store for their Christmas display. Eventually, the carousel gave way to a Tilt-A-Whirl, one of the world’s smallest roller coasters, a helicopter ride, and a miniature train. By century’s end, these, too, were things of the past. (A new carousel was installed on The Line in 1993, with re-painted cast-aluminum animals.) Other major attractions were The Willows Park Theatre and a water chute at the intersection of Fort and Columbus Avenues.
Whether a seasoned goer or a first-time visitor, be sure to look at The Willows through the lens of history—it’s all the more appreciable. Salemwillowspark.com, derbysquaretours.com