In the mid-1970s, Eugene Mulvihill and several investors backed Vernon Valley/Great Gorge, a ski resort located in Vernon Township, New Jersey. To understand how Action Park not only survived but thrived with a business philosophy out of Mad Max, Mental Floss spoke to well over a dozen former employees and guests who recalled an environment of fun, sun, and tending to broken bones at the most intense amusement park ever constructed. "You can have an awesome time, but you can also hurt yourself if you don’t use good judgment." Most all of the rides at Action Park could be navigated safely, but “My dad’s whole idea was to do an amusement park differently, not where you just got strapped in and twisted around, but one where you controlled what was going on," Andy says. If you were a reckless guest, sometimes it did. A total of five fatalities were reported, creating a mythology that danger lurked around every water-soaked corner. It was not uncommon for guests to see bloody and bandaged patrons being driven across the grass in carts equipped with EMTs and stretchers. Bodies flew off rides like crash test dummies skin was peeled off in layers.
From 1978 to 1996, up to 20,000 people a day from the tri-state area would flock to Eugene’s oasis, which emphasized a ride-at-your-own-risk philosophy that earned it the nicknames “Traction Park” and “Class Action Park.” Speeding at high velocity down cement slides, boozy guests would try to push their limits-and Mulvihill would let them.
The Cannonball Loop would be open only sporadically over the next 13 years, a perpetual work-in-progress that mirrored the state of Action Park itself. “The problem was if the momentum didn’t keep you on top of the wall, you’d fall three or four feet to the other side on your face, breaking your nose or your teeth.” “It was just trial and error.” Andy agreed to test it while wearing his hockey equipment. “There wasn’t really any engineering,” Andy tells Mental Floss. The idea was that a park attendee would climb into the mouth of the ride some 50 feet off the ground, get hosed down to reduce friction, and then speed through the tube like a chambered bullet, clearing the loop and emerging at the other end into a shallow pool.Īction Park owner Eugene Mulvihill enlisted his teenaged son, Andy, to test it while it was still under haphazard construction by a squad of welders. Dubbed the Cannonball Loop, it seemed to obey the laws of cartoon physics, with a steep enclosed slide feeding a 360-degree turn at the bottom. In the summer of 1983, Action Park-a collection of water-themed amusement rides installed over a ski resort in the rural town of Vernon, New Jersey- debuted their newest attraction.
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