Happiest Place In South Central Pa...

Good morning everyone,

Hope you all are having a great week so far. These two photos were shot at Dutch Wonderland Amusement Park down here in Amish Country. Right along Route 30.

The park has kind of a special meaning to me as this was my very first job I ever had(I've only ever had two, this one and where I work now at the 911 center) so it was cool to take my son and nephews here for the first time. Quite a few different changes since I worked here, but I was still able to navigate my way through without having to look at the park map.


Back when I worked there, Dutch Wonderland sort of had a black cloud to it. The department I belonged to, Lafayette Fire Company had responded to several major incidents over the years at the park. When it was donation time, the park was always very good to us and when my boss found out I was a member of the FD, If I wanted to leave on a call, I could and get paid for it. I only ever did that twice in the years I worked there, and both were for second alarm fires in my companies first due and both happened in the daytime when manpower was low.

Some of the incidents over the years;

-The Dutch Wonderland Sign Burned, 1.5 Million Fire Damage(Just to the sign)
-The Castle Burned Twice-Both 2nd alarm fires
-The Monorail Station Once-2nd alarm
-The Riverboat ride burned at dock-local alarm

I want to say that one of the monorail cars burned as well but I can't remember...

I hope you enjoyed your brief Lancaster County History Lesson..

Thanks for visiting my blog and feel free to leave any comments...


Have a great week!