Friday, April 15, 2011

Trip to the Moon!

Entrance to the ride.

 Take a trip out of this world on Luna, the spaceship of the 1901 Buffalo Exposition! Among one of the amusements in the Midway was the ride "Trip to the Moon".While most amusements in the Midway charged a small 25 cent fee, the owners of this gravity-defying ride charged a whopping 50 cents (Eck)! On Susan Eck's website called "Doing the Pan...", she takes us, the readers and viewers, on a ride just as if we were in 1901. She writes:




"We’re inside the darkened auditorium now. A guide is telling us where we are going . It sounds a lot like that H.G. Wells story just in the Cosmopolitan magazine last winter, “First Men on the Moon.”
Behind us our ship is descending to our level. Our guide is directing us to get on board.

"The ship is moving! It is swaying, the big wings are waving, and we can see far below us the Exposition and city of Buffalo, even Niagara Falls!

Trip to the Moon ride at the Midway! (Eck)
Now the wings are waving more powerfully. It does feel like we are moving, and moving through a thundercloud with lightning and thunder around us. The wind is howling!
That’s better. We’re in space now and the moon is directly ahead. Our ship is descending rapidly and you can feel it touch the moon surface.
Our guide tells us to disembark and we wander over the rugged surface amid strange fungus-like vegetation. Now we’re told to descend into the dark interior of the moon

Interior of the "Moon" (Eck)

"Look at the little Selenites! They’re barely half our size and they have rows of spikes on their backs...

Palace of the Man on the Moon (Eck).
 "Now we're arriving at the Palace of the Man in the Moon and enter a great cavern to see the King of the Selenites himself. Moon maidens dance for us, we watch a pageant. We are offered samples of green cheese. The cavern is brightly lit and the colors are dazzling in gold and red and blue and green. 

  
Moon Calf exit (Eck).
 I haven’t been able to figure out how all of this was done, but too soon our 20 minute trip is over and we’re leaving the concession by walking out of the mouth of this Moon Calf."


Susan Eck does a fantastic job of taking us in this present day on a trip back to the 1901 "Trip to the Moon" amusement ride. I think the way she wrote it had the most impact for me--- it made you feel like you were there. She even included a picture of the pass visitors wore on the ride, pictured to the left. Eck continues on with the history of this ride. She writes that in 1902, the owners moved this amusement ride to Coney Island, where it continued its success. This ride was so popular at the Buffalo Pan-American Expo that even President William McKinley, before his fatal death at the exposition, took a journey on Luna and landed on the moon!

P.S. -- Make sure to take a careful look at the first picture in this post -- the bird's eye view of the Luna. Notice the Pan-American Expo below and the tall, dramatic Electric Tower?!

5 comments:

  1. Works Cited

    Eck, Susan J. ""Doing the Pan..."" Pan American Exposition 1901 Buffalo. Web. 15 Apr. 2011. .

    Eck, Susan J. Entrance to the ride. Digital image. Pan American Exposition Buffalo 1901. Doing the Pan. Web. 15 Apr. 2011. .

    Eck, Susan J. Interior of the Moon. Digital image. Pan American Exposition Buffalo 1901. Doing the Pan. Web. 15 Apr. 2011. .

    Eck, Susan J. Moon Calf Exit. Digital image. Pan American Exposition Buffalo 1901. Doing the Pan. Web. 15 Apr. 2011. .

    Eck, Susan J. Palace of the Man on the Moon. Digital image. Pan American Exposition Buffalo 1901. Doing the Pan. Web. 15 Apr. 2011. .

    Eck, Susan J. Trip to the Moon. Digital image. Pan American Exposition Buffalo 1901. Doing the Pan. Web. 15 Apr. 2011. .

    Eck, Susan J. Visitor Pass. Digital image. Pan American Exposition Buffalo 1901. Doing the Pan. Web. 15 Apr. 2011. .

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  2. Every time I look at this post, I can't believe how awesome these pictures are! It's just amazing how frustrated I was in the beginning about not being able to find anything, but now we can look inside the "Trip to the Moon" ride!

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  3. Your photos won't come up for me. Boo! :-( The Pan-Am Exposition was amazing. Bumped into researching some Buffalo history.

    Good luck finishing your last semester! Are you at UB or Buff State or other?

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  4. Hey! Check out this website: http://panam1901.org/
    It's an awesome website with photos I've never seen before. And the amount of information the woman gives is fantastic! I'm at SUNY Empire State, all online... was at UB for a while and I worked in the art gallery there! UB does have a special spot in my life! Good luck with researching Buffalo history and if you need help with anything, let me know!

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