Ebenezer Floppen Slopper's Wonderful Water Slides, Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois. (1980-1987)

Ebenezer Floppen Slopper's Wonderful Water Slides (aka Doc Rivers Raging Rapids Water Park) is an abandoned waterpark located on a large hill on Roosevelt Road and Route 83 in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois. 

It first opened on July 5, 1980, with two 800 foot concrete water slides and gradually added 5 additional slides and a wading pool. The water park became a major summer attraction for residents of surrounding towns and communities as people lined up for rides down the large winding slides.

When the two main slides first began operation, people slid down in groups of up to eight people at a time on rubber mats. The 5 other slides added to the park included 2 flat racer slides in which people slid down headfirst on folded rubber mats, 2 semi-enclosed tube body slides, and a smaller inner tube slide which emptied into a nearby wading pool. The slides were also unique in that they were lined with a blue rubber foam material which would prevent injuries from contacts with the slide walls. Due to the design of the 2 main large concrete slides, especially with the V-shaped configuration of their sidewalls, people could also slide quite high up the walls of the slides, especially when hitting a turn at high speeds.

Around 1987, the large concrete slides were resurfaced with flat bottoms with humps and bumps in which people went down solo, on inner tubes, getting bumped up and down and sideways as they went down the renovated slides and the park was renamed "Doc River's Roaring Rapids Water Park."

The park subsequently closed for good at the end of the 1989 season for unknown reasons.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Dellwood (Amusement) Park, Joliet, Illinois. (1905-ca.1938)

Dellwood Park was built by the Chicago & Joliet Electric Railway Company to help promote ridership on the line. Costing nearly $300,000 to build, Dellwood Park officially opened on July 4, 1905, and quickly became one of the most outstanding and beautiful park sites in the state. 

Dellwood Park Attractions Map.
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For over 30 years, this park, located in Lockport, was one of the region's finest amusement, recreational and picnic areas. Thousands of people came to the park annually by rail from Chicago and other surrounding communities.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Custer Bowery Amusement Park, Kankakee, Illinois. (1890s-1920s)

This was an amusement park, built by the Wabash Railroad to encourage weekend riders. It was located just east of the railroad and just west of the Kankakee River. Ten-car excursion trains bearing Chicago fun-seekers, mainly from German neighborhoods, would arrive early in the morning and return to Chicago very late in the evening.

There were picnic groves, concession stands, a merry-go-round, sideshows, games of chance, and a dance floor. A German Oom-pah band could be heard every weekend in summer.

Another attraction for the excursionists was a little riverboat operated by Nick White, an enterprising railroad conductor. For 25¢, riders were given a two and one-half mile cruise upstream from the docks just outside the park.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.