Willow Grove Park

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Willow Grove Park was an amusement park located in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania (a part of Abington Township) that operated for eighty years from 1896 to 1976. The park also operated under the name Six Gun Territory for a short while just before closing. After closure, the land remained unused until 1982 when a large shopping mall known as Willow Grove Park Mall opened on the site. The mall pays homage to its predecessor by displaying banners and artifacts from the land's days as an amusement park, including a reproduction of one of the park's two merry-go-rounds.

Originally a trolley park, Willow Grove was for a long time one of the premier amusement parks in the United States, until being eclipsed by the openings of Great Adventure in Jackson, NJ, Disneyland and other more modern theme parks beginning in the 1950s.

Until its demolition in 1976, one of the biggest attractions in the park was the music pavilion, at which John Philip Sousa and his band played all but one year between 1901 and 1926.

A documentary of the park was created in 1991 titled "Life was a Lark at Willow Grove Park" [NTSC / 1991 / 50 MINS]. The title is based of the popular park slogan "Life is a lark at Willow Grove Park".

[edit] Willow Grove Park, named Paradise

James A. Michener wrote a semi-autobiographical novel titled The Fires of Spring, telling the story of a young orphan boy named David Harper growning up in a poorhouse in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, which is near Willow Grove. In the Spring (season) of his life, David went down to the Amusement park named Paradise to begin working, and there he began learning about life and the fires of passion. The story includes a character named John Philip Sousa.