The ballroom featured a lot of prominent, nationally known bands — Cab Calloway, Paul Whitman. People like that would come to Island Park.”

Town Historian Jim Garman

Editor’s note: Town Historian Jim Garman lectured on the history of North Portsmouth on Jan. 25 at the CFP Arts, Wellness, and Community Center in Common Fence Point. We’ve previously covered Common Fence Point and the Hummocks, and wrap up the series this week with Garman’s thoughts on Island Park.

PORTSMOUTH — The amusement park that drew thousands of visitors from all over the region to Island Park a century ago was not only evidence of a bustling tourist industry, but also an indicator of what climate change and major storms have done to the local waterfront.

Town Historian Jim Garman, during his Jan. 25 lecture on the history of North Portsmouth, displayed startling vintage aerial photo that clearly shows how deep the beach along Park Avenue once was.

The roller-coaster, dance hall, carousel, shooting gallery and other rides and structures in the park were all located on the waterfront side of Park Avenue, illustrating just how much the beach has eroded in the past 100 years.

“You look at Island Park Beach right now — you’d never get all that stuff onto it,” said Garman.

The community, considered remote but attractive because of its beach, began as a cottage colony in 1898 with plans to establish a trolley park, Garman said. “The trolley parks were amusement parks, mostly, that were established to take advantage of trolley ridership,” he explained.

The Newport Street Railway, an electric trolley line operating between Fall River and Newport, started up in June 1898, and would make a stop in Island Park. (Newport had had its own trolley line since 1889.) “Trolleys were everywhere, and on this island it (cost) a nickel a town,” Garman said.

The first park owner was Hyman Schwartz of Fall River before the Cashman family took it over in 1925. During prohibition (1920-1933), there were a number of speakeasies in the neighborhood. “You could probably find a beer in Island Park,” Garman said.

The roller-coaster, built in 1926, was the second largest in the eastern United States. When it was damaged by a storm, a bigger one called “The Bullet” was built. The amusement park was also known for “Carver’s Famous Diving Horses,” in which a rider of a horse forced the animal to leap from a high platform into a small pond of water below. Animal rights activists cried foul, and the attraction waned in popularity at other parks after World War II.

The dance hall was a big attraction. “The ballroom featured a lot of prominent, nationally known bands — Cab Calloway, Paul Whitman. People like that would come to Island Park,” said Garman.

The ballroom also hosted dance marathons, a popular diversion during the Great Depression. Garman found an advertisement for a seven-hour marathon, with the winning couple getting $30. A regional band, Miner-Doyle’s Orchestra, played there often, he said.

Some of the cottages at Island Park suffered serious fires in the 1920s and 1920s, well before the town’s fire department was established in 1935. Volunteers would drop hoses in the river to battle the blazes, he said.

By 1925, the trolley lines stopped running after William Vanderbilt got the idea to replace them with bus lines. That took a lot of customers away from the amusement park, Garman said. Then, in 1927, the Island Park Shore Dinner Company filed for bankruptcy because it was seeing only 30 good days for business, Garman said.

Falling on hard times

Things got worse. The Depression hit in 1929, the dance hall and beer hall were destroyed by fire in 1933, and we all know what happened in 1938 — the final nail in the coffin for Island Park being a tourist attraction. A 12-foot wall of water came up the Sakonnet River on Sept. 21, 1938, destroying everything in its wake.

“Some of the houses on Park Avenue were washed up by the Montaup Country Club,” said Garman, noting that 18 people died in Island Park alone. The Escape Bridge, which connects Island Park to the Hummocks, didn’t get built until 1962. “A lot of people were trapped in Island Park during the hurricane.”

The neighborhood passed into a quiet era with a flea market, bowling alley, and Bob Hamilton’s Press springing up, he said. In recent years, however, Island Park has been somewhat revitalized with more winterized homes, sidewalks, good restaurants, bars and coffee shops, he said.