Chippewa Lake Amusement Park

When Adrian’s brother Joe moved back to Cleveland from Baton Rouge, we wanted to lure him into remembering how cool the CLE area is. First things first, we hit up some of the new breweries downtown and got him some good grub and some good beer. One afternoon, when attempting to find something to do other than drink and spend money, we ended up driving to Medina County to visit Chippewa Lake Amusement Park.

Chippewa Lake is an abandoned Amusement Park that has a history beginning somewere around 1878. The park lasted about 100 years and closed in 1978, with no one taking over the grounds. Today everything is overtaken by vegetation and is becoming so weathered many of it’s buildings are now just heaping piles of rotting wood.

This was a place I had never heard of until this day, and I’ve never been one to go explore abandoned sites before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. We arrived to the google maps address for Chippewa Lake Amusement Park, which was actually a wrap around dirt drive with trailer houses along it. My 2016 Jeep Patriot CLEARLY did not belong here, and, rightfully so, one of the residents came outside and had her phone at the ready, assuming to capture a photo or video of these annoying kids sitting in a car located in a clearly posted “no parking” area.

Adrian and Joe got out and spoke to the woman, who put her guard down when she realized we were not there to vandalize, and pointed us down the road to the old entrance that “is not opened anymore.” YES, we know that. That is precisely why we are here. Upon driving down the road we found what must have been the old sign showing the entrance to the park. BINGO. We found it.

I parked the Jeep, again in a location CLEARLY stating there was to be no parking and no trespassing. My goody-two-shoes side was bursting inside but hey, gotta break the rules to have fun sometimes I suppose. I was also lured by the photo opportunity that could lie behind the half broken ‘No Trespassing’ fence.

When you wiggle through the downtrodden fence, you are left to wander through brush and prickly weeds. If you allow your feet to follow your curiosity, you finally come across the first viewing of old tracks.

By this time, the sun was dropping quickly and we realized we had created ourselves a very eerie and adrenaline filled evening. There is no good way to describe the the current state of the rest of Chippewa Lake Amusement Park using words, so I will have to let my photographs from the night do the talking. This was my first time capturing an abandoned site, shooting at night, and shooting in full manual, so these images and this time spent with Adrian and Joe will likely always hold a special place in my heart.

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