A bus full of Hillsdale College students traveled to Cedar Point Saturday, partly because of the work done by a former Hillsdale student.
LaMarcus A. Thompson, known as the “father of the American roller coaster” and the “father of gravity,” attended Hillsdale College in the winter of 1866 for a single semester. He was the first to popularize the roller coaster and was most well-known for his scenic railways.
“He was basically the first one that was successful at marketing a roller coaster,” American Coaster Enthusiasts Historian Dave Hahner said. “Other people did animation before Walt Disney, but he learned how to make money off it, same with Thompson.”
According to the 1866-67 college registry, Thompson enrolled to study as a member of the English preparatory department at Hillsdale.
Though he attended the college for a short period of time, his 1919 obituary in the Collegian reported he remembered the college, attending the second Eastern Alumni Association meeting, and its influence upon his life.
Linda Moore, public service librarian and college archivist, said it was up to him, however, to pay for his education.
Unable to afford it, Thompson left for Elkhart, Indiana when he was 19 to start a bakery, grocery store, and later, Eagle Knitting Company mills, where he made a fortune.
Born in Jersey, Ohio, Thompson moved with his parents and five siblings to a farm in Hillsdale County’s Ransom Township at the age of three. There, Thompson built a butter rotary churn – the first in the country — and an ox cart for his father by the time he turned 13 years old. By 17, he had mastered carpentry.
Thompson’s creativity lasted long throughout his life. He had over 30 patents to his name and built at least 120 roller coasters in North America in addition to several in Europe and South America.
According to American Coaster Enthusiasts Founder Richard Munch, historians have found that, because of newspaper archives placed online within the past decade, Thompson did not actually invent the roller coaster, as was commonly believed.
National Amusement Park Historical Association Historian Jim Futrell agreed.
“He was most responsible for popularizing it,” Futrell said. “He was really an innovator. He turned that into a career.”
Thompson’s debut with the Switchback Railway occurred June 16, 1884 at Coney Island in New York City, America’s most well-known resort at the time.
“It was the center of the amusement industry,” Futrell said. “You know the old saying, the old song, ‘New York, New York, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere’? I think it applied to people in the amusement industry too.”
For a nickel, visitors would climb up the platform on either side of two parallel wooden tracks. Riders sat on benches facing sideway in the roller coaster’s carts, which were unattached to the rails. As gravity drew them downward, they traveled at a riveting six miles per hour over hills of not more than 10 feet. At the end, two men would lift the cart from one track to the other, and it would be sent back.
“By today’s standards it was very gentle, but back in 1884, it was pretty thrilling,” Hahner said.
The 600-foot-long ride that cost just over $2,000 to build made Thompson hundreds everyday. The L.A. Thompson Railway Company was born as Thompson turned an invention into a career in which he made millions.
While Thompson traveled throughout the country, he gained inspiration in New Orleans, where he saw a circular gravity device at a fair or carnival and began developing the idea for his switchback, according to Munch.
In Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, Thompson also rode the Mauch Chunk Railway, an old mine track turned tourist attraction that took riders on an hour-long trip down the mine’s hill. Some reports indicated the ride had more visitors at one point than Niagara Falls.
Thompson wondered if he could create a smaller version of it, so he chose the popular location of Coney Island that brought hundreds to its beach and boardwalk that already featured a carousel and other stand-alone amusements.
Roller coaster legend tells of how Thompson, a Sunday school teacher and devout Christian, built the railways in response to the debauchery also found at Coney Island, including gambling, drinking, and going to brothels.
“They claimed it was because he wanted to save the sinners,” Hahner said. “He also had his thoughts that he could save the world and offer a wholesome form of entertainment.”
After the success of the switchback, Thompson created another style of roller coaster with another designer James A. Griffiths: the scenic railway, his most popular.
More similar to the modern-day roller coasters Walt Disney would later build, the railway featured dioramas and paintings related to the ride’s particular themes: the Wild West, a coal mine, the Orient, or European villages.
“At the time, movies were just getting started,” Futell said. “There was no TV. There was really no mass entertainment, and travel was very difficult. It was a way to take people to different lands and give them experiences they couldn’t otherwise encounter.”
Even more attractive was the scenic railways’ uses of electrical lighting to highlight the images around the passengers as they road.
“Back then, most people didn’t have lights in their house,” Futell said. “Any use of electrical lighting was a novelty.”
His 1910 masterpiece in Venice, California featured fake mountains and Egyptian temples.
While the rides still lacked the speed and heights today’s roller coaster fans find as the norm, it did have a cable that would return the cart to the top at the end of the ride.
Though successful, the railways had their challenges.
“Any time you rode a thrill ride, it was ride at your own risk,” Hahner said.
Carts tipped over, they crashed into one another, and there wasn’t anything to keep passengers in their seats.
“He got sued quite a bit,” Munch said.
Nonetheless, Thompson’s company was a major success until he retired four years before his death on his birthday, March 8, 1919 at the age of 71. His business had expanded to have offices not only in New York City, but also London, England; Chicago, Illinois; and eventually out West.
Many of those who would improve roller coaster designs later had their start at the L.A. Thompson Railway Company, such as John Miller, the “father of the modern roller coaster,” who invented the contraption that attached the roller coaster cart to the rails.
Thompson, however, made himself into a celebrity as, wherever he traveled, newspapers would cover his visits and people would come to meet him.
“A lot of people consider him one of the most celebrated roller coaster designers of all time,” Munch said.
Yet, Thompson was known for being a well-respected employer and genuine man. The Collegian reported he remembered his friends in Hillsdale County even after he left.
“People say he was a very nice man, a very religious man,” Munch said. “He lived a straight life, treated people very nicely.”
Even though he did not complete college, Thompson never stopped learning. In fact, he reportedly built a new library near his last home in Glen Cove, New York. He also added an entire room onto his house for the purpose of using his three-and-a-half-inch disc telescope that he made himself and avidly read about math and science in his own library.
The Willow Grove Park near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania demolished his last roller coaster, the Alps, in 1978. Nonetheless, Thompson’s work lives on in the screams and scenes of today’s amusement parks.
“We now have 400 feet roller coasters,” Hahner said, “but it all started out with Thompson’s simple design.”