The Secrets of Camden Park with Clinton Burley
This week on the Tri-State Time Machine, Vanessa and Jason take you on a nostalgic ride through the secrets and untold stories of one of West Virginia’s most iconic landmarks—Camden Park.
Joined by Huntington native and storyteller Clinton Burley, they pull back the curtain on more than a century of thrills, ghostly legends, and family traditions.
From the early days as a “park and ride” trolley stop to the evolution into the Tri State’s beloved playground, Clinton shares insider tales about his family’s deep ties to the park, wild memories from the old zoo (including the story of Trixie the elephant!), and the fascinating history behind legendary rides like the Big Dipper.
The episode also dishes on quirky local traditions, the unforgettable taste of a Pronto Pup, and how Camden Park has become a generational touchstone for families across West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio. So buckle up and get ready for a journey packed with laughter, surprises, and heartfelt memories—because this ride is just getting started.
Moments
00:00 From Furniture Factory to Camden Park
06:16 Camden Park Origins and Growth
11:28 Camden Park Train Ride Overview
20:41 "Camden Park's 1956 Roller Coaster Deal"
24:42 Park's Decline After Family Sale
30:20 Skyliner Incident: 1970s School Trip
36:46 "Stark Sign Co. Projects"
39:40 Nostalgic Theme Park Memories
46:10 "Origin of the Pronto Pup"
49:00 Vacation Travel Style Differences
54:36 Rowboat Fears vs. Nostalgia
59:05 "Nostalgia for Frog Catapult Game"
01:08:36 Amusement Ride Incident Recap
01:10:39 From Turnpike to Ground-Level Flume
01:16:56 Affordable, Meaningful Family Fun
01:20:18 Tri State Time Machine Promo
This episode is sponsored by Alex R. White, PLLC.
If you have a memory you would want me to talk more about, just send me an email at TSTM@mail.com. Or post a comment on the Tri-State Machine FB Group page.
Welcome to the Tri-State Time Machine.
I'm your host Vanessa Hankins. This is a podcast where my guests and I share our memories and present day stories of the Tri-State Area. That's West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio.
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Copyright 2025 Vanessa Hankins
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Transcript
This is the Tri State Time Machine brought to you by Alex R. White, pllc@suedistractedriver.com each week, your host Vanessa Hankins and her guests share memories and stories about the past, the present and the future of the Tri State area. That's West Virginia, Kentucky and the Ohio areas. If you used to live here or you currently live here, you're going to catch yourself saying out loud, wow, I remember that. Now here's Vanessa.
Vanessa Hankins [:Hey, guys, it's Vanessa. And we're back with the Tri State Time Machine. Today's going to be a little bit different. We're going to talk about some legends. And you know, every town has its legends. And here in Huntington, one place that holds more than a century of thrills, laughter and secrets. From the clatter of the Big Dipper to the whispers of forgotten rods, to the ghostly tales after dark, Cannon park has been a part of our summers, our childhoods, and our history. But how much do we really know about it and what's behind those gates? Today we're pulling back the curtain with Huntington native and storyteller Clinton Burley to uncover the untold stories and the hidden history and maybe even a few mysteries of West Virginia's most iconic amusement park.
Vanessa Hankins [:Buckle up. This ride's about to start.
Jason [:You know, as always, we always have these incredible guests. Funny enough, I have a lot of local tie ins to Mr. Burley. Our family's really kind of grew up together. We're forefathers in our church and everything. And the history that you're getting ready to learn from this is very inside, I think of even, you know, with this Disney and things like that, behind the scenes, all this stuff. Today we're going to do some secrets of Camden Park. And this is just really exciting to me.
Vanessa Hankins [:So excited. Yeah, I'm like a little kid over here. I'm like all Ghetti smile, can't be wiped off my face.
Jason [:So I want everybody to brace in this. So, Clinton, before we kind of dive into the secrets, what's your personal connection to Camden Park?
Clinton Burley [:Well, the. Thanks for having me, first of all. But the family roots run deep. My dad was a native of Logan county and came to Huntington to go to Marshall after World War II. And at that time, the park was just being purchased by Mr. J.P. boylan, who had. Was purchasing it from a guy by the name of Colonel Via.
Clinton Burley [:Now, I don't know if Colonel was in the military sense or if it was in the sense of a Kentucky.
Vanessa Hankins [:Right, right.
Clinton Burley [:I don't know, maybe he was Related to Colonel Sanders? I don't know. But anyway, Colonel Via had owned the park for some time, and it's not as the park evolved to. At that time, it was almost a rough and tumble place. They had a beer license. It was known for knockdown drag outs on the midway. And it wasn't necessarily family friendly. And Mr. Boylan's vision was to make that park family friendly.
Clinton Burley [:And the Boylan family was also involved in the furniture business here in town.
Vanessa Hankins [:Okay, I was wondering why I'd heard the name before. Yeah, that makes sense.
Clinton Burley [:So in Westmoreland, there was a furniture factory that sat. If you're facing the. The building that now holds Sue's Antique Mall on Waverly Road, Just to the right of that, there was a wood frame furniture factory. Furniture was produced there and much of it was sold at their family store, which was United Furniture, Hal Greer and fourth. So my dad, knowing people in the coal fields, was hired as a Marshall student to go into the coal fields and sell furniture to company stores and furniture stores there. He did exceedingly well, Mr. Boylan, and now bought the park and looked at my dad and said, I want you to come to the park to start selling picnics to people from the coal fields for church groups, work groups and so forth to come to Huntington to go to Camden park because we're turning this family friendly. He did.
Clinton Burley [:That was also successful. And before you know it, my dad was managing the business part of the park. His partner, gentleman named Harry Nudd, who was an an engineer by trade, was brought in to manage the. The ride Park. And Mr. Boylan just let these young guys take that park and make it theirs.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah.
Clinton Burley [:And it just was wonderful. My dad and Harry both ended up in with minor ownership stakes. And my dad remained the office manager of the park until his death in 1981.
Vanessa Hankins [:Oh, wow.
Clinton Burley [:So it was quite a ride. And it's a little family mark on a Tri State tradition.
Vanessa Hankins [:I love that. That's such a. That's a cool story. And it's also, it's just exciting for me because as a little kid, I'm thinking of like behind the scenes. I never thought of like a family being part of it. I mean, you know, a family owns it, but you don't think of it in that realm. You're just thinking, these are hottie toddy businessmen and they're just here to make money. They don't care if we're having fun at the park, you know, and clearly they did.
Vanessa Hankins [:These were family men. These were people who were bringing their own children there.
Clinton Burley [:100%. Harry had children, of course, my dad had. There are three of us boys. And they truly looked at that park in that era as a place for families to escape. And that was the whole push. You know, this was. This was pre Disney World. This was pre Kings Island.
Clinton Burley [:Kings island didn't come around in 1972.
Vanessa Hankins [:Right.
Clinton Burley [:And so you put yourself in the early 50s through the mid to late 70s, a trip to Camden park was a huge deal for families. It was something they looked forward to year round and it mattered to folks.
Vanessa Hankins [:Absolutely.
Jason [:What great visionaries. Again, before Kings island, before all Disney, all that was just outstanding.
Vanessa Hankins [:I don't know how many listeners at home, I think a lot of our older crowd will remember, but some of the younger people that listen to Safe, er, Safety Town. Goodness, my head never leaves work. Camden park started as kind of like a parking ride. It was before its time, but it was a park and ride between Huntington and Kentucky. So it started out as like a place where people went and took walks between waiting for their next ride and things like that. So it really developed quite quickly into the family. Once. Once he jumped, it sounds like when he dove in, he dove in full throttle.
Clinton Burley [:They did. And you're correct. In the. In the United States, in the early 1900s, there were hundreds of what were referred to as trolley parks. And the reason that they developed those was to keep their weekend business solid because people would ride the trolley between Huntington and Ashland during the week for work and shopping and so forth. But in the weekends it dropped off. So the thought was, if we have a way to get them to an entertainment spot, and if you think about it, Camden park is halfway between Huntington downtown and Ashland downtown.
Vanessa Hankins [:Absolutely.
Clinton Burley [:Place to do it. So you put on your Sunday best, you hop on the trolley and you go down to see the Indian Mound. Walk in the park. Take your date with you. There was a lake down there in that era and they had paddle boats. You know, you just put yourself in that mindset. Pretty neat.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah, absolutely. I can only imagine we were talking before we started recording about what is my favorite book, the Gate to Westmoreland. I've talked about it a million times on the podcast, but to read about the way it evolved over the years, about Cannon park evolving, it just. It's so wondrous. You get lost in your imagination of what that must have been like as a young child doing that with your family, and I just think that's the coolest thing.
Jason [:Absolutely, yeah.
Vanessa Hankins [:Let's talk a little bit about your earliest memory from the park.
Clinton Burley [:I have to use the word family. And the reason I have to use that word, family, is that between the. The park opening every summer in late April, through school starting the day after Labor Day, the park was only closed one day a week.
Vanessa Hankins [:Oh, wow.
Clinton Burley [:It was closed on Mondays. And other than that, it was open from 10am to 10pm six days a week. And my dad was there from 8am until midnight and would get up again and do it the next day. We had our family dinners at Camden park in South Park.
Vanessa Hankins [:I believe it. That'd be the only way to see him.
Clinton Burley [:Yeah. So the. So the. The earliest memories I have is my mom loading us up and going down there and. And having family dinner in the Camden park cafeteria, which had exceptional food. And you could pay 10 cents to go through the front gate and go back there. Anybody could walk in for 10 cents. And you could go to the cafeteria and have a full meal.
Clinton Burley [:And on Sundays after church, they were lined up out the door.
Vanessa Hankins [:Oh, I believe it.
Clinton Burley [:That's the way that it was. And of course, I had to insist to ride the handcars on the way back out.
Vanessa Hankins [:Always. You always have to.
Jason [:Great marketing those kids. Rides right there.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yes, right there at the front. So you can't miss it. I love that. Cannon park has been a Huntington icon for over a century. If you had to pick one thing that you're going to tell us today that people would be surprised to know, what would it be?
Clinton Burley [:Well, it's what's buried at Camden Park.
Vanessa Hankins [:Okay.
Clinton Burley [:And this. This one. This one will surprise people. And I think I'd like to take folks forward a few hundred years.
Vanessa Hankins [:Okay.
Clinton Burley [:And you can put yourself in a mindset where it's the year 25. 25. And an archaeologist happens onto Camden park, decides that there's unusual things there, and they just need to excavate it. And they start looking around and they get down 20ft and they start finding some really strange things, things that really shouldn't be present. Buried 20ft underground in Huntington, West Virginia.
Vanessa Hankins [:West Virginia. Right.
Clinton Burley [:And I would imagine that there's someone out there right now driving their car or listening to this while they cut the grass or shovel snow. That's saying, oh, he's gonna talk about the Indian Mound.
Vanessa Hankins [:It's always the Indian Mound.
Clinton Burley [:That's not even close.
Vanessa Hankins [:I'm excited for this. Like, I can hardly wait. I'm such a little kid.
Jason [:Expensive building.
Vanessa Hankins [:I know. This is so fun.
Clinton Burley [:Let me kind of set the scene to where this archeological dig is going to take.
Vanessa Hankins [:Okay.
Clinton Burley [:So we know where we are and then we'll get into what we're going to find and why it's there. Okay, you have gone into Camden park today and you get on the train and you ride the train all the way around the loop and you are almost back to the station. You have passed the area which now has a little pond and a swan boat ride. And there is a cinder block building off to your right that used to be a concession stand for the showground.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yes.
Clinton Burley [:You go just past that and you look off to the right and there is a wide flat spot to your right just before the station.
Vanessa Hankins [:I know exactly what you're talking about because me and my daughter, when we were riding the train, we were like, we wonder what was there. Something had to be there.
Clinton Burley [:So you start digging that spot and you go down about 20ft and you're going to find bones and you dig further and you're going to find tusks. There is an elephant.
Vanessa Hankins [:Is the elephant there?
Clinton Burley [:Trixie the elephant?
Vanessa Hankins [:Oh, my goodness.
Clinton Burley [:Beside the train at Camden Park. How neat.
Vanessa Hankins [:I knew I was. I was hoping we were going to talk about the elephants because I think that is the coolest thing in the world that they had on that one.
Clinton Burley [:Time was fabled down there. And, and, and some of this I have to say. You know, the park had a very active zoo up until the very early 70s. And Trixie was housed in what we would consider today to be frankly, inhumane conditions for an elephant.
Vanessa Hankins [:Right.
Clinton Burley [:We know better.
Vanessa Hankins [:It was very small and things like that.
Clinton Burley [:No question.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah.
Clinton Burley [:But her enclosure was actually down in the ground somewhat. And what it was. As you cross the railroad tracks and you are walking down toward the Little Dipper and the log flume, on the right hand side, you'll see a wall that is there. That is cinder block that is partially still there.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yes.
Clinton Burley [:That was part of the. I'll just call it a pit because actually that's what it was.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah.
Clinton Burley [:Where, where Trixie lived. And Trixie was, was high enough in that pit that, that she could put her trunk up. There was machines there that sold peanuts and you could get peanuts out of the machine and you could hold them up and Trixie come over and she would feed herself peanuts.
Vanessa Hankins [:I love it.
Clinton Burley [:And she was, she was a star attraction at Camden Park. But Trixie died unexpectedly. They literally found her deceased in her enclosure. And so now we've got a problem in that. We, we got an elephant.
Vanessa Hankins [:What do we do with this giant animal? Yeah.
Clinton Burley [:And they, they literally took that. What is now a flat spot. And they dug another pit and they had to use a crane to lift her out and move her just to the east and put her down in that pit.
Vanessa Hankins [:Oh, my goodness.
Clinton Burley [:So the remnants of an elephant are buried at Camden Park.
Vanessa Hankins [:I would have never guessed that. Ever.
Jason [:On top of the Indian burial ground and everything else that's there.
Vanessa Hankins [:I was gonna say, yeah, like the Indian burial ground. Everybody knows it. Because that was like the thing that scared you when you were a kid when you came by on the trains. You know, that's not even a start. Who knew that Trixie was there? And I love that her name was Trixie. Like, that's fantastic.
Jason [:It just fits.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yes.
Clinton Burley [:Another interesting little zoo story. When Marshall had a live buffalo, a live Marco, if you will, in the Fairfield Stadium days, he was kept at Camden Park. Oh, and small world he was. If you're on the train again and you just leave the station, you make the little curve on the left hand side. There was a, an enclosure there with big steel rails. And that's where Marco lived.
Vanessa Hankins [:Okay.
Clinton Burley [:And they cut a deal with Camden Park. A couple times a year they would get a stock trailer and they would load Marco up and take him to Fairfield Stadium. There are pictures out there. Thank heaven that Al Gore invented the Internet because now we can see this for all of us.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yes.
Clinton Burley [:But there's pictures out there, kind of images of the day that Marco got loose on the ground.
Vanessa Hankins [:Oh my gosh.
Clinton Burley [:That was the last time that he left park.
Jason [:Guarantee it.
Clinton Burley [:And in that picture, my, my oldest brother, who's now deceased, but my oldest brother Larry actually was one of Marco's handlers and took him up there and was there that day that that happened.
Vanessa Hankins [:How funny.
Clinton Burley [:There you go.
Jason [:Marshall fans.
Vanessa Hankins [:Could you imagine the fear?
Clinton Burley [:What do we do?
Vanessa Hankins [:Marco's loose.
Clinton Burley [:But they had had an assortment of animals all through that zoo. And when they decided to sell or to, to close the zoo, all of the animals were purchased by other zoos with the exception of one cockatoo. And this cockatoo was, was placed in a, in a storage building out there. And my brother's were out there feeding it. And they come home to my mom. And I was a little guy. I was considerably younger than my brothers. And my brothers came to my mom and they were just distraught.
Clinton Burley [:They said this bird's just going crazy. Said it's used having all these people around it and said the other zoos didn't buy it. And it's living in this storage building and we're feeding it and my mom, about the third time they came home, she gave in. She looked at my dad, she said, here's the deal. She said, if Camden park buys the cage and the food, I'll take the bird. Oh. Richard lived with us for 25 years.
Vanessa Hankins [:Oh, my goodness. How funny.
Jason [:These are wild stories.
Clinton Burley [:I love this.
Vanessa Hankins [:They really are. I'm having, like, the most fun. This is. I love all my previous guests. We love you, But I am having so much fun right now. I'm like a little kid in a candy store.
Jason [:A great tie in to where we live and everything else.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yes. It's so awesome.
Jason [:Are there any rides or attractions that had unusual stories that maybe you could tell us a little bit about?
Clinton Burley [:Well, I think that the key thing about that has to be the Big Dipper. And the first roller coaster that was built in Camden park was built by the trolley company, the Camden Interstate Railway. And it was built in 1912, and it was called the New Sensation. And it had outlived its usefulness. And it's unusual to say this, but the Big Dipper and Camden park have a direct tie in to the Palmer House Hilton Hotel in downtown Chicago, which is still open today.
Vanessa Hankins [:How so? I am dying, like, I am, like, on the edge of my seat all day today. I can already feel it. Yeah, this is wonderful.
Clinton Burley [:So we have to go back to around 1956. The new sensation is showing its age and it needs replaced, and there is a desire to do that, and the funding is in place to do that. And my dad and Harry Nudd got on a train in Huntington and rode the train to Chicago to attend the convention of a group called the International association of. Of Amusement Parks and Attractions.
Vanessa Hankins [:Now, not to interrupt you, but that's still a thing today, correct?
Clinton Burley [:Absolutely.
Vanessa Hankins [:Okay. I thought so.
Clinton Burley [:That's simply the trade group of amusement parks.
Vanessa Hankins [:Okay.
Clinton Burley [:And they have an annual convention that. As a kid, when I went with my dad, it was like an amusement park candy store.
Vanessa Hankins [:I can only imagine.
Clinton Burley [:I have vivid memories of going on those trips with him and seeing new rods that were coming out and where they were going. And it was just. It was fascinating. But in 1956, when they are ready to replace the New Sensation, they go to Chicago and they meet these guys from a company called National Amusement, which is the company that. That actually built the roller coaster train, if you will. And they cut a verbal deal that national was going to construct the cars and bring the track and do all this. And Camden park was going to design and was going to handle the lumber part construction of the roller coaster.
Vanessa Hankins [:Like, the frame makes sense with the lumber.
Jason [:We had tie ins here.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah, yeah.
Clinton Burley [:I mean, you think about Canova. Canova was loaded with lumber yards. Hamer family, just Ritter lumber, all the lumber. So after they cut this verbal deal, my dad and Harry Nudd went to the bar at the Palmer House Hilton hotel. And in a literal sense, the engineering mind of Harry Nudd, I can't say enough about it. The man was an engineer, engineering genius, and he sat at the bar and on the back of a napkin, did the initial design of the big Dipper that still stands at Camden park today.
Vanessa Hankins [:That's amazing.
Clinton Burley [:70 plus years.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah.
Clinton Burley [:That roller coaster has stood. That started as a man's vision in Chicago at a bar, on the back of a napkin.
Vanessa Hankins [:I love that. Like, and I think all good business stories start with, we went back to the hotel bar.
Jason [:That idea is on a napkin.
Vanessa Hankins [:I love that. That's awesome. So we've talked about, you know, a few of the behind the scenes things and things like that. But what is the strangest rumor that you've ever heard about Cannon Park? And is there any truth to it?
Clinton Burley [:100%. And this rumor is still there today. I have been to the park twice this year. It is a blessing to me to be able to take my grandson.
Vanessa Hankins [:Absolutely. My daughter loves it. She's 13 and she is obsessed.
Clinton Burley [:So our little guy and our whole family have gone twice this year. And Even my early 30s age daughters still like to ride the Big dipper.
Vanessa Hankins [:Absolutely.
Clinton Burley [:And the most unfounded, an incorrect, but still legend of a ride at Camden park is there are snakes in the tunnel.
Vanessa Hankins [:Oh, my gosh. I remember when I was a kid, 100% always heard that, and it terrified me.
Clinton Burley [:Two weeks ago, we're at the park and we're standing in line for a ride, and there's these little kids behind me, and I'm just kind of listening to her talk. And one of the little boys said, I've always heard there's snakes in that tunnel. And I'm thinking, those snakes, they're like 70 years old.
Vanessa Hankins [:They should be dead at this time.
Clinton Burley [:That's it.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah. That's so funny because I remember that as a little kid, like, because I actually am like, I'm terrified of snakes. That's one of my fears now to this day. And that was always my biggest fear. But I did it anyways because it was the thrill, you know. Oh, yeah, you did it anyways. And you always sat in the very back seat, too.
Jason [:That adrenaline gets ready.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah. You have to. You have to.
Jason [:So let me ask you, were there any plans for rods or attractions that never got built, to your knowledge?
Clinton Burley [:Not to my knowledge. During the time that my dad and Harry were there, there was a lot of investment that the Boylan family made in keeping rods refreshed and moving them in, moving them out. There's a lot of pictures of rods that came and went. And, you know, after my dad's death in 1981 and then after we were completely out of that minority stake, the park fell on hard times. There was no question there were some gentlemen who were from Roanoke, Virginia, who bought the park and frankly, used it only as an investment to make cash without being respectful of its place of importance in our community. In our community, frankly, that was a sin. My dad and Harry and the Boylan family thought they were doing the right thing by selling the park to these guys. Thankfully.
Clinton Burley [:Well, after my dad's death, and it sounds terrible to say it's thankfully, but thankfully, those guys from Virginia defaulted on the notes.
Vanessa Hankins [:Sound like that was destined to happen with the way that they got into it for the wrong reasons.
Clinton Burley [:There's no doubt. Well, it was a little shady. They also owned a small park down in Roanoke called Lakeside. And Lakeside had a huge flood. It was the trolley park of roanoke. And in 1985, when so much of West Virginia was decimated by flooding, it also affected the Roanoke Valley. Lakeside was lost. They took the entire insurance payment for an entire amusement park and put it in their pockets, of course, instead of rebuilding the park.
Clinton Burley [:So when they defaulted on the loans to get, you know, that they bought Camden park with, thankfully, the. The Boylan family stepped back in and. And. And save. Save the park. No question. Now people can come back, and it's very easy to sit back and be a keyboard warrior and say, the park's not kept up. We need new rods.
Clinton Burley [:We need this, we need that. I'm thankful.
Vanessa Hankins [:That's what I was getting ready to say. I'm thankful that it's there today because it sounds like we were very, very close to losing it.
Clinton Burley [:We were so close to losing Camden park, you could taste it. Those. Those guys sold off those wooden carousel horses. Another sin. So many things went wrong. But the Boylan family understands this legacy. And the grandson, and I'm assuming great grandchildren of JP Boylan, who my dad and Harry work with, they've done the right thing by that park because they get it. And anyone who says they should do this or should do that need to know that that stuff costs a lot of Money.
Clinton Burley [:I'm thankful for whatever they do to keep that park alive.
Vanessa Hankins [:Absolutely.
Jason [:I tell people, put your money where your mouth is.
Vanessa Hankins [:That really is your go to.
Jason [:Everybody wants to judge. It's like, well, try to help out, have a solution.
Clinton Burley [:Yeah, well, you know, I can't imagine even the cost of insurance.
Jason [:Oh, can you imagine?
Vanessa Hankins [:That's always, like, where my head goes. We were actually talking. We took our daughters to Cannon park earlier this summer, and we. My daughter loves a sky lift. Like, that's her thing. And another thing, I'm afraid of heights. That's my two things, snakes and heights. And I'm up there and I just keep thinking I see these little kids, you know, come around us on the other side, and I'm like, what is stopping them from just raising that and jumping right out down into the, you know, the golf course or something, you know, And I'm like, oh, my gosh.
Vanessa Hankins [:Like, the insurance liability on that risk alone, like, not even talking about tripping and falling or any little thing like that. But one thing that I am very impressed with, even with hearing, you know, those keyboard warriors and things like that, and everyone always has something negative to say online. I feel like I was so impressed by how clean the grounds were. We never once even in the restrooms. And I remember back in the day, it being so busy in there that they couldn't keep up with the bathrooms. People would break the locks on the bathroom doors. Do you remember when you had to pay, like a dime or a nickel or something like that?
Clinton Burley [:I bought my first car off those dimes.
Jason [:Thank you for your contribution.
Vanessa Hankins [:Thank you for your contribution.
Clinton Burley [:Really glad you had.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah, it was funny because my daughter Carly, she was asking me, she was like, what. What is this on the door? And I said, well, you used to have to put a coin in it to use the restroom. I said, that kept it down from people coming in here and just messing around and destroying things. And I said, because if you weren't going to go in there and waste your coin, you had no business going in there. So that kept down on that kind of stuff. And she was like, you know, that's crazy. I can't imagine. And I was like, it was just part of it.
Vanessa Hankins [:Like you. It was part of the experience. And I started telling her about the Roller Inc. And how it was long before us, you know, and she always makes fun of me because the carousel is my favorite ride of all the rides. I mean, I like the Big Dipper. I mean, it's thrill seeker, but just sitting there and relaxing and hearing that music and just kind of seeing the other people also take their break from the sun. And you know, the little kids just in awe that they're going up and down. And I just always loved that.
Vanessa Hankins [:But it's so funny to look at it from a child's standpoint now as an adult and think about the things that they're just mind blown by. Like a little thing such as the queen in the bathroom door, you know. So funny.
Clinton Burley [:Yeah. Talking about the Skyliner and that insurance connection. There was a really bad incident down there around probably 1976 or 77, and it was early in the season. And what had occurred was there was a school group from one of the counties down in southeast Kentucky in the, in the big sandy valley that brought a school group up to, up to the park for the day. And the children were riding all the rides. There was a young lady who got on the skylit Skyliner and was riding it. And as you're. As you're on the Skyliner and you're going past the pavilion on your right as you're heading east with the big metal cover over it, there was a speaker that was mounted on that that was part of the parkes PA system.
Clinton Burley [:And when it was time for this school group to begin to load the buses, the teachers had the park office make an announcement that all students with the whatever, Whatever elementary school needed to.
Vanessa Hankins [:Report to the gate, make their way to the front. Yeah.
Clinton Burley [:And this girl was on the Skyliner and was afraid they wouldn't wait for her. And she did exactly what you just said. She literally raised the bar and jumped out onto the golf course.
Vanessa Hankins [:Goodness gracious.
Clinton Burley [:And of course, clearly she ended up in the hospital. Was nothing the park did.
Vanessa Hankins [:Right.
Clinton Burley [:But she was on there by herself on that specific Skyliner car. And as I recall, she had some fractures and she was in the hospital, but.
Vanessa Hankins [:Oh, I guarantee it.
Clinton Burley [:Okay.
Jason [:Thank God that was it.
Clinton Burley [:Yeah, 100%. But in her little elementary mind.
Vanessa Hankins [:They're gonna leave me. Yeah, my Carly would do that. Like, I could see my Carly doing that. She's so ditzy.
Clinton Burley [:Yeah, that's. That was my dad and Harry had a really bad day that day.
Vanessa Hankins [:Oh, I guarantee it. Yeah, that's a lot to take in. I've always wondered about that. And actually this is totally random, but last night I was scrolling TikTok going down the rabbit hole of amusement park. Different things. And because my head's always in the podcast. So a ride on a cruise carnival line, a slide, a water slide, Broke off and the gentleman came through it out on the cruise line. I was just like, imagine the bad day.
Vanessa Hankins [:Not only is that person having, but the staff and everyone else that witnessed it and things like that. I can't imagine being on vacation and something so terrible happening. And I laugh because it's one of those things that make you uncomfortable because it could happen to anyone. Accidents happen anywhere. So I can only imagine how bad of a day that that was for your father and, and his friends and all the other people around and I'm sure all the little kids that were there that day with them also. A lot of, that's a lot of trauma that. That really is. Let's talk a little bit about.
Vanessa Hankins [:I mean, we've already talked about it a little, but talk more about how Cannon park shaped the identity of Huntington and the Tri State. I mean, we've talked about people coming in from counties from, in Kentucky. I'm sure they came over from Ohio. It really became this icon of family fun. And that clown was right in the center of it, you know.
Clinton Burley [:Yeah. And you know, the, the tagline for Camden park in advertising for decades was the Tri State's favorite playground.
Vanessa Hankins [:Favorite playground. I love that.
Clinton Burley [:And it was, that was a, that was a good tagline that really mattered. And the sign of the Happy Clown really personifies that. As I've talked to people in my adult years in some way or the other, the, the discussion turns to Camden Park. They will talk about these trips to Huntington. And in my job, I spend a lot of time in southern West Virginia, southeast Kentucky and people will talk about that. Oh, when I was a kid, we'd go to Camden park and you know, we didn't have Route 23, which was four lane. And we wound on the two lane roads. That seemed like it took forever.
Clinton Burley [:And we would always stretch and look to see who could see the clown.
Vanessa Hankins [:Who could see it first. Oh, I love that.
Clinton Burley [:And you know, you're there. That's cute. And the Happy Clown actually has its own storied history that goes past Camden park but is also in other places in Westmoreland.
Vanessa Hankins [:Really?
Clinton Burley [:That's a fact. So the predecessor of the Happy Clown is sitting over. Well, not anymore. Was setting over in an area north of Cincinnati near Middletown, Ohio. There was a park over there called Le Swordsville Lake. And Le Swordsville Lake was also a family owned park. And those guys in this region kind of had a camaraderie. Same thing down in Bowling Green, Kentucky Beach Bend Park.
Clinton Burley [:We made an annual pilgrimage to see our friends At Beach Bend Park.
Vanessa Hankins [:I've heard of stories of it.
Clinton Burley [:It's just what we did.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah.
Clinton Burley [:And so we would go to these parks because my dad knew these guys, and. And we became friends. And my dad and Harry took a trip to Le Swordsville Lake to see their new sign. And they were enamored by Le Swordsville Lake sign.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah.
Clinton Burley [:And they found out that it was constructed by a company called the Stark Sign Company. And they came back to West Virginia, and they reached out to Stark Sign Co. And they said, we want something that looks similar to the sign at Le Sourgeville Lake. And they came back with this design, and they constructed what is now the Happy Clown. Well, while they were constructing the Happy Clown, east of Camden park on Waverly Road, right beside Chandler's, there was a group that was getting ready to build a new drive in called the Parkette. They went down to Camden park and talked to the guys from the Stark Sign Company and said, could you make us a sign for our drive in? And they said, certainly. We'll sell all the signs.
Vanessa Hankins [:Absolutely.
Clinton Burley [:So the way. So the park had, of course, closed. It was torn down. Chandler's uses that spot as a parking lot. The sign for the Parkette is the base of that is now the sign, the upright sign for Chandler's. And I want you, the next time you drive by, to look at the base of that sign. The block on the base of that sign is identical to the block on the base of the Camden Park.
Vanessa Hankins [:Now, we're both Westmorelanders, so we'll be on our way home. Yeah. We'll be singing on our way home.
Clinton Burley [:It is identical to the brick on the base.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah.
Clinton Burley [:Of the Le Swordsville Lake sign. And it's also identical to the brick on the base of the remnants of the roller rink, because the roller rink was built at the same time.
Vanessa Hankins [:Oh, how funny.
Jason [:Makes sense. Yeah.
Clinton Burley [:That's so cool.
Vanessa Hankins [:I loved the roller rink, man. That was so fun.
Clinton Burley [:One of the worst days of my life. I had such fun there. And, you know, growing up, if my dad was going to go to work in the wintertime for a few hours on a weekend, I called friends. Hey, my dad's going to work. He'll swing by and pick you up. We'll go skating. Soul there. But us.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah. How fun.
Clinton Burley [:You know, wintertime parks closed, cold. Call some friends, bundle up. Hey, want to go knock our teeth out on the dodgem for a couple hours? Okay. And we would.
Vanessa Hankins [:That's so fun. I remember it being such a big deal that my Grandma would give me the money to get in and then a dollar to spend at concessions. So I could usually get like a soda and a candy bar, which. Those were the days when you could do that. Those are the days when you could do a lot cheaper, I'm sure too. But I just remember saving my dollar that way I could go to the theme park as well. And like, I would save it that way I didn't have to ask my grandma for the money to go into the park. And I'm like, you know, grandma, can I go? Blah, blah.
Vanessa Hankins [:Well, you know, we don't really have. It's okay. I have it, Grandma, it's fine. I just didn't have soda and a candy bar all, you know, all winter long while we were going skating. Yes, yes. So I loved skating there so much. And it. We lived right down in Canova near the oil tanks.
Vanessa Hankins [:We lived in that area of Canova. And I mean, aside from breaking in and climbing the oil tanks, Cannon park was like the next best thrill that we could do, you know. So it was. It was really exciting. You've talked a little bit about the connections along the way from out of town, people and companies and things like that. Are there any hidden features or forgotten spots on the ground that come to mind at all?
Clinton Burley [:And one of those is as you are walking down toward the cafeteria and you go just past that entrance on the left hand side, there are some doors there that go into a building which I don't know what they use it for anymore, probably storage. But that was a small restaurant that was called the Malt Shop.
Vanessa Hankins [:Okay.
Clinton Burley [:And they made fresh malts and they also had things like hot dogs and hamburgers and milkshake, but everything was just made fresh. And I think that at the time we didn't. It's just what happened. But today we think about it more about buying local.
Vanessa Hankins [:Right?
Clinton Burley [:And the malt shop was the quintessential place that it was personified that we bought local because the malt shop was filled with hot dogs and hamburgers from Buddy Logan at SS Logan Packing Company. Earl Hiner's buns were just part of Camden Park. When I was working there on busy days, my dad would look at me and he'd say, go up to Hiner's, get a truckload of buns. We're gonna run out. And I drive that pickup truck up there and we load up buns. I didn't even sign my name.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah, they just knew you. I love it.
Clinton Burley [:Well, they knew the park was good.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah, sure.
Clinton Burley [:The Relationship between the business owners in this community in that era was one of trust.
Vanessa Hankins [:Absolutely.
Clinton Burley [:And whatever we needed, it's. If we needed 500 extra bags of ice from the Ice House on 7th Avenue, we got 500 bags of ice, no questions asked. That's the relationship that those folks had at this time. And I think to a certain degree, that's lost. And that's sad.
Vanessa Hankins [:I think so, too. And I think that's probably been a part of. My favorite part of listening to you tell this story is these relationships between all these different people that made this amazing thing happen for the community. And you really. You don't have that anymore. You don't. You wouldn't even go to, like, a Kings island and imagine them going down the street to pick up something local. Everything is being shipped in by semis and, you know, all the things.
Vanessa Hankins [:And I think, like you said, that was definitely the support local if I ever have heard it. I think that's really cool. I hate that I missed out on that.
Clinton Burley [:That sounds really awesome. It was a special time. But at the same time, it's just times you live through. And I think as we age, everybody finds things that they reminisce about that aren't there just because of the evolution of society. Not absolutely sound like a sociologist, but this happens. You look back on that. But I do look at that as a positive.
Jason [:Gives you a level of comfort thinking about the past and then trying to rekindle with that a little.
Clinton Burley [:And I will forever be thankful to Buddy Logan for his hot dogs, the Cavalier Wieners, because they sit at the core of a Pronto Pup.
Vanessa Hankins [:Absolutely.
Clinton Burley [:And a Pronto Pup is a thing of magic.
Vanessa Hankins [:It really is. And for those of you at home that we have listeners all over, so some of them have never been to our area before, but they just love our stories. And to listen in. But a Pronto Pup, it's essential. You don't go to Cannon park without getting one.
Clinton Burley [:That's a fact. And here's the tragedy is that some people see that hot dog on a stick with coating around it, and they make the strategic error of referring to that piece of. It's a delicacy. They refer to it as a corn dog. Yes, always.
Vanessa Hankins [:And they are mistaken. They are mistaken.
Clinton Burley [:That is sacrilegious right there. Because a Pronto Pup is not a corn dog. And it will. A corn dog will never measure up to a Pronto Pup. But few people know why.
Vanessa Hankins [:Let's hear it.
Clinton Burley [:Because this is, like, the best day ever.
Vanessa Hankins [:Jason, I'm Like, I'm so happy.
Clinton Burley [:Because Pronto Pups, the flour is not cornmeal based. Rather, it is based on a derivative of pancake batter.
Jason [:Makes sense.
Vanessa Hankins [:Sweet.
Jason [:Little sweet.
Clinton Burley [:So it's sweeter and it's softer, and it doesn't have that crunchy outer layer, and it gives more flavor. Now, Pronto Pups originated on the other side of America.
Vanessa Hankins [:Oh, really?
Clinton Burley [:In Oregon.
Vanessa Hankins [:Okay.
Clinton Burley [:And they. They came about because of a fluke. There was a guy out there in Oregon who had a hot dog stand, but he didn't like it that his hot dog buns got ruined when he. They had a lot of rain because of the moisture. So he was trying to think of something that he could cook that would allow him to be able to use the wieners that he had purchased. And he came up with this product, and he ended up marketing it to parks and so forth across the country. And Camden park picked up the Pronto Pup. And frankly, when the fire happened, it took out the roller ink in the office and the skeeball.
Clinton Burley [:We lost the Pronto Pup stand, which. It sounds corny to somebody who doesn't know how much the Pronto Pup stand meant to this community.
Vanessa Hankins [:It really did. It meant so much.
Clinton Burley [:Yeah, it definitely did. And. And I'm glad that the Boylan family today still dip Pronto Puffs by Pronto Pup law. You can't serve ketchup with them. That's. That's.
Vanessa Hankins [:No, no, That'll ruin it.
Clinton Burley [:Brush. A little mustard. But they're best in their. In their natural state. But there are actually Pronto Pup stands in Oregon. You can buy Pronto Pup kits for your home off of the Pronto Pup website.
Vanessa Hankins [:I just figured out what we're doing.
Clinton Burley [:Next weekend, and if you get real squirrely, you can go to Oregon. And in front of a Pronto Pup stand is a little machine that if you were walking out of a grocery store at some point, you probably put a dime in a machine and there was a little horse there. It would say, ride, Sandy. You can ride a Pronto Pup. Oh, my God. You can ride a Pronto Pup.
Jason [:They marked it all the way.
Vanessa Hankins [:You are going to die when you see this. We will share this with you on social media.
Jason [:Absolutely.
Vanessa Hankins [:This is fantastic.
Clinton Burley [:Yeah.
Vanessa Hankins [:Now, did you pull this from their website?
Clinton Burley [:Yeah.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah.
Clinton Burley [:When you get into the Pronto Pup.
Vanessa Hankins [:Oh, my gosh. This is hilarious.
Clinton Burley [:But, yeah, there. There's. There's fun stuff out there on Pronto.
Vanessa Hankins [:I can hear all the inappropriate comments. My husband would have to say.
Clinton Burley [:Yeah, we'll Leave that for now.
Jason [:Yeah.
Vanessa Hankins [:But. Oh, my gosh, like, that's so funny. And what. And like, this is what. And I'm looking at, you know, this young lady writing the Pronto Public. It's saddled up. It's got, you know, the places for you to put your feet and everything else. And this is what road trips were made of.
Vanessa Hankins [:So my husband, we were just having this conversation because we just got back from vacation, and he's a. I want to hurry up and get to wherever we're going in the exact time that GPS tells us we're going to make it. And I am more of a. Let's leave half day early or a day early, and let's stop as many places as we can, not only to stretch our legs, but I want to see the giant strawberry on the way to Myrtle Park. Myrtle Beach. You know, I want to. I want to see the. There's.
Vanessa Hankins [:He makes fun of me so bad for this, but anyone that goes to Myrtle beach, and a lot of us do in this area, there is this place if you go one direction right before Bennettsville, that is this huge concrete, like they make yard ornaments. They're massive.
Jason [:I know exactly where you're.
Vanessa Hankins [:And I just think it looks like an amusement park to me. It looks so fun. And he will not let me go there. And the one time I was driving that I could have went, they were closed, and I was so bummed. But this is exactly what road trips were made of, is for picture moments like this and memories like this.
Jason [:True memories.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yes.
Clinton Burley [:It's Roadside America.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yes. I love it. I love it so much.
Jason [:So, you know, Cannon park has been around, obviously, long enough to collect its own version of ghost stories. Any tales that are worth sharing with our listeners of something you might know.
Clinton Burley [:I don't know of any actual ghost stories that I've ever heard. I don't think Trixie's hanging around there.
Jason [:Good luck if you run into them.
Clinton Burley [:Right.
Jason [:That's surprising.
Clinton Burley [:What's that tusk? I don't. I don't think that's the case. But there was always legends related to that, that Indian mound. And I think it's wonderful that the Indian mound has never been excavated. It. There's been so many of those that have been. I think it adds some. A little mystery to the thing.
Clinton Burley [:I think that it's respectful to leave it as is. And I think we're better off not knowing what.
Vanessa Hankins [:I agree.
Clinton Burley [:Yeah, that's. That's. That's a fact. And. And, you know, the other thing that people used to walk by the Indian Mound a lot. And some of your older listeners will remember this. You would walk past the Indian Mound, wind behind the cafeteria, go down the hill to twelve Pole Creek, down a paved road, and you could climb on the. The Camden.
Clinton Burley [:Camden Queen.
Vanessa Hankins [:Camden Queen.
Jason [:We just talked about.
Vanessa Hankins [:We were just talking about it. Yes.
Clinton Burley [:Yeah. And the Camden Queen came there. There was a gentleman here in town who was a riverboat pilot by trade who had retired from the barge lines and had bought that stern wheeler and brought it to Huntington. And he went to my dad and Harry and said, I think we can make a goat bringing this boat here.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah.
Clinton Burley [:And those guys were always. It's kind of like the Mad Men days from the television show.
Vanessa Hankins [:I love that show.
Clinton Burley [:Yeah. So they sit and they thought about how they can promote the Camden Queen, and they decided that they needed a guy to be the spokesman for their TV commercials who looked like and acted like Mark Twain.
Vanessa Hankins [:Okay.
Clinton Burley [:And so the Camden Queen TV ads were. Were predicated on that, about riding the old steamboat and that sort of thing. And. But. But the. The riverman's name was Gene Lister, and he was a. He was a good man. And he ran that on a revenue sharing program where the park would advertise it and sell the tickets.
Clinton Burley [:They would keep a portion and Mr. Lister would keep a portion, and he would run those. Those. Those boat rides out there. And it was very successful. But then Gene was ready to totally retire and the boat was sold. But thankfully, the boat still floats and serves today.
Vanessa Hankins [:Oh, that's awesome. I was getting ready to ask that.
Clinton Burley [:It is up on a canal up in the upper part York, and it runs under the name of the Caldwell Bell.
Vanessa Hankins [:Caldwell Bell.
Clinton Burley [:And I just saw this summer, and if you're listening to this at some other point, this is the summer of 2025, so this may already be, but I saw where the Caldwell Bell was for sale.
Jason [:Boy.
Clinton Burley [:And instantly I popped that out.
Vanessa Hankins [:This is opportunity, Jason.
Clinton Burley [:We need a GoFundMe. We need to bring the Camden.
Vanessa Hankins [:We absolutely do. That would be so fun.
Clinton Burley [:It would be Mag. I don't know who would drive it, who would maintain it, but to get her home would be. Would be.
Jason [:Bring it home and the rest will follow.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah. Oh, my gosh.
Clinton Burley [:I'm glad she's still around.
Jason [:Yeah.
Clinton Burley [:Glad that families can still enjoy that time together. Absolutely. Good stuff.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah. I think that's really awesome. We were actually talking about how. Where it costs a little bit more to do the boat ride, about how, like, sometimes we got to do it Sometimes we didn't. And it was really a big bummer when your friends were taking off down the. You know, down the canal there, and you're just, I guess I'll go ride the Big Dipper while you're gone, you know?
Clinton Burley [:Yeah, you can. You can still cruise 12 pole. You just have to do it in a rowboat.
Vanessa Hankins [:You just have to do it in a rowboat. And we've done that a few times, my husband and I. Cause he likes to fish in those stupid little john boats that seem so dangerous to me. I would assume. I would rather the Big Dipper be on fire and me still be riding it, as opposed to getting in a john boat. Those things freak me out so bad. I don't know if it's the fear of what's in the water or just getting wet in general, but I don't like it at all. How do you think that the park has kept its nostalgic feel over the years?
Clinton Burley [:Tradition within families. And you have alluded to this through this conversation. You had a great time growing up at Camden park, and one of the things that you wanted to do was take your daughter.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yes.
Clinton Burley [:And your daughter's having fun at Camden park right now.
Vanessa Hankins [:It's so funny how much she loves it. Like, Jason gets a kick out of it. Because I'm like, carly, do you want to go to Kings island this weekend? Can we just go?
Jason [:She's, like the mascot of Kings.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah. She really could be their spokesperson.
Clinton Burley [:And there will come a day that she will take her children to Camden Park. And that's the magic of that place. It's easy to say it's not Disney World. It's easy to say it's not Kings Island. And all of that is fact.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yes.
Clinton Burley [:But it's also fact that that place matters to this community.
Jason [:Absolutely.
Clinton Burley [:Because of what it means to our families. And granted, I grew up in the place. It's very special to our family. I took my daughters there, and they had a ball. But you know what? We're taking that grandson.
Vanessa Hankins [:You're taking the grandson now.
Clinton Burley [:He's ready to turn three. And that is just as magical to me, watching his eyes light up day after day when we go there. And that's what keeps Camden park special.
Vanessa Hankins [:I literally. I remember you as you say that. I'm reflecting on the first time I took my son. He's 23. He just turned 23. The very first time that we took him to Camden Park. All he wanted to do was ride those little boats. The little boats was like, everything.
Jason [:Have a picture of me in that little boat.
Vanessa Hankins [:I have a picture. Yes. So I have a picture of James in the little boats, and he is just living his best life. And my little brother, they're pretty close in age. My little brother and my son, and they're just sitting on the boat together. My brother's got his arm, like, around James because he was smaller. We didn't want him jumping out and jumping in that little bit of water and. And all that.
Clinton Burley [:But so think about that picture, and think about how many hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pictures are sitting in people's homes, maybe in dusty boxes or wherever they may be, of children at Camden park that are in homes in our region.
Vanessa Hankins [:Absolutely.
Jason [:That's what keeps people coming back.
Clinton Burley [:It is a snapshot of what matters in our community.
Vanessa Hankins [:It really is. And it's so funny that, like you just said, Jason, I have a picture of me on that boat. I do. I don't have any photos of me at Cannon park as a kid. Like, it wasn't that big of a thing to have cameras back then. I mean, I'm sure they exist somewhere, but with house fires and things like that, they fell on the way. But I think I may have just found my new calling. I'm gonna do a deep dive on everybody.
Vanessa Hankins [:Send me all of your Cannon park photos. Let's do it over the years, because I think that would be really cool to have. That'd be really cool to see. And they've got all those buildings. Maybe I can talk the family into. Hey, can I. Can I start a little memorial in here?
Jason [:I remember my first memories there.
Clinton Burley [:Camden.
Jason [:And my grandfather telling me that when he was a little boy and his mother taking him. And even now, I catch myself still thinking about them being there as he as a kid and his mom being there with him.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah.
Jason [:Walking through the streets. Yeah.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah. The same areas. The same little avenues. Avenues.
Clinton Burley [:To think about is first dates at Kanden Park. Yes. Because safe, visible, public place. Right. Good little getaway. Have some fun. Casually break the ice.
Jason [:Laugh. Yeah.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah.
Clinton Burley [:100.
Vanessa Hankins [:Play some games and.
Clinton Burley [:Yeah. Try to show off and win the girl.
Jason [:Yes.
Vanessa Hankins [:Get the. Get the big gorilla or the teddy bear.
Clinton Burley [:You know, those are just pieces of. This will sound a little corny, but it's really pieces of this puzzle that makes the place what it is.
Vanessa Hankins [:I agree. You know, the one thing I was. Not to be gloomy and doomy, but the one thing I was very sad about is where the little frog pond, like, where you hit with the hammer that's like a seating area, which is great to have a little seating area for food and get out of the sun. But, man, how I love that game. I never won that game ever in my life, but I would have had so much fun. I was telling my daughter about it, and I was explaining to her how you did it, and she was like, you skyrocketed real frogs. And I was like, no, they weren't real, you know, and she just could not wrap her head around why we would put frogs on this catapult. And, you know, and I said, if you hit it just right, you could get it across and hit somebody across the way.
Vanessa Hankins [:I said, that was always mine and my cousin's favorite thing to do. We were little hellions.
Clinton Burley [:It was known as the frog.
Vanessa Hankins [:Bob the Frog. Bog. Okay.
Clinton Burley [:Yeah, that was the frog.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah, I love that. I. I thought that was the coolest thing and something I. I do find really cool that they are doing today. They. They do have what was a arcade back when I was much younger, which the arcade is still there, but it's now in a building a little further back and it's smaller. But in that front part, they now have, like a souvenir shop and all that kind of stuff. But I remember, like, it just being so hot, and.
Vanessa Hankins [:And that's all I would beg for. Can I have some tokens to go play the skeeball? That was like my favorite thing, you know, So I want to go play the skeeball and get out of that hot sun. Because when we went, we were there all day. We would take a cooler and you would. If you were lucky, you were there on a night when they had entertainment. I remember very vividly seeing my very first country concert there. I remember very many times seeing Mr. Billy Ray Cyrus there.
Vanessa Hankins [:I mean, there was so many just fun moments from my childhood that again, I love now that the Wayne County Fair is at Camden Park. It's so cool. And I love that we can say down here in Westmoreland. Well, you know, we're in Huntington now, but where we live in Westmoreland, that's home. It's in our backyard, you know, so it's so cool to have that.
Clinton Burley [:I guess country music. Country music and Camden park were hand in hand from the time that my dad and Harry first got involved with the park. They knew a draw would be to bring in. They couldn't bring in whatever at any era was the.
Vanessa Hankins [:The it person.
Clinton Burley [:Exactly.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah.
Clinton Burley [:They got up and comers because they afford it. But one little story that Went through our family for decades was something that happened down there in the early days of them bringing in country stars. There was a little girl who was an emerging star at 12 years old who played Camden park. And they didn't have a showground at that time. And they sat her up on the midway and she had a hit song out and people loaded the midway to watch this little girl. And the problem was she was so short.
Vanessa Hankins [:Oh, no.
Clinton Burley [:She still is now, there's a hint. And they couldn't see her.
Vanessa Hankins [:Oh, no.
Clinton Burley [:And the little girl at 12 years old asked for a ladder and she took her microphone and her wire and she climbed the ladder and did her songs from the roof of the ice cream stand on the midway.
Vanessa Hankins [:Here's me over here having anxiety because I'm thinking of all the. The height of it all.
Clinton Burley [:And the little girl is. Or yeah, still is, Brenda Lee of lots of country songs, but we hear her most rocking around the Christmas tree.
Vanessa Hankins [:Around the Christmas tree, yes.
Clinton Burley [:And Brenda Lee played Camden Park.
Vanessa Hankins [:I did not know that. That's so funny. And like, how brave of her at 12 to be like, let's fix this. Give me a ladder.
Clinton Burley [:And the thing about Brenda Lee is that they always talked about that she's a little petite lady.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah.
Clinton Burley [:But, yeah, she played Camden park early in her career as a little girl.
Vanessa Hankins [:That's really cool. That's so neat.
Clinton Burley [:You'll never look at the top of the ice cream.
Vanessa Hankins [:I know, I know. It's so cool because I'm thinking, you know, as imagine being, you know, 11, 12, 13, and being in that crowd like, oh my gosh, like she got to go on top of the ice cream chop. Like, that's so, you know, I think that's so cool.
Clinton Burley [:The other story about this was that my dad often told, related to Brenda Lee being there. And that would have been probably around 1957, something like that. But she was still a little girl at heart. And my dad always laughed that the park for years always had country stars there. Memorial Day, fourth of July, Labor Day on each side of that. And they always did four 30 minute shows a day. 12:30, 3, 5:30 and 8. Fireworks at 10.
Vanessa Hankins [:Fireworks at 10.
Jason [:I remember that.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah, that's how we scheduled our day meet here at this, this time here when this one goes off and then at fireworks, everybody has to be at the gate waiting.
Clinton Burley [:And Brenda Lee would do her set. And then my dad laughed. She. He said she came to the office and she was, you know, a little country girl, but she was still a girl. At heart. And she's in an amusement park.
Vanessa Hankins [:She wants to ride those rides.
Clinton Burley [:And she goes into the office and she says, Mr. Burley, I'd really like to have some tickets to ride rides.
Vanessa Hankins [:Oh, I love it. Yeah.
Clinton Burley [:And the little girl, the country star in between her sets, road rides at Camden Park.
Vanessa Hankins [:That's so awesome.
Jason [:You know what? And to our listeners, you will never, ever think about Brenda Lee the same again when you hear that Christmas song. Because it's going to go as long as we live.
Vanessa Hankins [:I. Absolutely.
Jason [:You're going to think about her on the ice cream and asking for tickets to go to My Candle Park.
Vanessa Hankins [:Right.
Jason [:Thank you for that story.
Vanessa Hankins [:That's awesome. That is. It's really awesome. Kind of in the sense of we've talked about the past a lot. Let's talk a little bit about the future. If you think the park or is there a ride that you think that the park or a new attraction could add to maybe revive a little. If there is one thing you could think of, what would it be?
Clinton Burley [:I think that they did a great service to our community in the leading up to the 1981 season. When they put in the log flume, I think that really mattered. And I think when I look at the rods that are out there today, I think it would be good to put in one of those. And I don't know what the names these things would be.
Vanessa Hankins [:Oh, they always have crazy names.
Clinton Burley [:One of the drops type rides.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yes.
Clinton Burley [:Where you sit in the chair and you go up the lift and then it just simply drops.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah.
Clinton Burley [:I could see that setting right in the very front of the park. Perhaps in the area where the paratrooper is. And I cherish that paratrooper. But somewhere in that area that's very visible from Route 60. Yeah, I think it would be a marquee ride.
Vanessa Hankins [:So I don't know if you know something that we don't know and you don't have to tell us, but actually, when we were at Cannon park the last time, one of the workers told us that the paratrooper has broke down and they are not going to repair it. So it is actually going to be taken out soon. So maybe it can.
Jason [:I was sat down by that. But I'll tell you, this is good news.
Clinton Burley [:Yeah, Well, I don't. I don't have. I don't speak. Sure.
Vanessa Hankins [:Right. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Clinton Burley [:I mean, I have such respect for what they're doing. Don't read anything into that. Right. But I don't have any inside knowledge. But I have noticed this Year that the paratrooper isn't running.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yes.
Clinton Burley [:And I wondered about that. So I. I wouldn't be surprised. So perhaps that's something.
Vanessa Hankins [:But, I mean, and that could just be worker hearsay. I. I don't know. So don't take. Take it. Don't take it and run. But. But it has not been running this summer, so.
Clinton Burley [:And I.
Vanessa Hankins [:It's a great one.
Clinton Burley [:Was installed in easily in the mid-60s earlier.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yeah.
Clinton Burley [:So it's done its service.
Jason [:It did, yeah, absolutely.
Vanessa Hankins [:You know, one of my favorite rods. We'll talk about the rods for a minute. This is kind of off track here, but my favorite ride was the Spider for many, many years. Because you could see the whole park when you got to the highest point and you could look to see like, okay, my friends from school are over there. Mom and dad are over there. Like, here's where I'm gonna go when I get off this ride. What line is longer? Which one's shorter? Where should we go? But we were actually there the day that it broke. One of the, you know how like the bottom closed up.
Vanessa Hankins [:One came open when the ride was going. And I think, I think I was a little boy, Nobody quote me on that. But like, I think his legs got hurt a little bit, but he was able to be taken out in an ambulance and he was fine. Like, it was a local kid, actually, that lived out in Wayne. I remember that specifically because I remember being on WSAZ and it being like a big, you know, small town hoopla. But I was so sad that they didn't bring it back. I was so, so sad about it, and I loved it so much. But now it's just kind of a fence there and it's just kind of depressing.
Clinton Burley [:As an adult, it looks a little sad. I'll say that the Spider was never a popular ride that people wanted to operate.
Jason [:Really.
Clinton Burley [:More people threw up on the Spider than any other riding.
Vanessa Hankins [:They always did have the water hose right there so they could spray them out.
Clinton Burley [:Yes. The water hose at the Spider got a lot of work. Yeah. And the ride operators were like, oh, my gosh, you're putting me on a Spider today. Oh, my gosh, I can't. Oh. Gonna have to spray that stuff all day long because that's where it happened. You know, you have you a malt, you have your pronto pipe, maybe wash that down, go do some spins, and then you get to see a good old hot day.
Clinton Burley [:Yeah, exactly.
Vanessa Hankins [:See, I would think that the Scrambler would be that way because that's the one that kind of makes me a little puky now as an adult. It never did when I was a kid, but as an adult now, I can't. I can't do it anymore.
Jason [:Like, it literally went up mountain all around. That ride was the ride.
Vanessa Hankins [:It really did. And, you know, we were just talking about the Log Flume while we were in Myrtle Beach. We went to Family Kingdom, and they have a Log Flume as well. But it's. It's, like, intense. It has a really deep drop. Scared the bejesus out of me. I was not prepared for it.
Vanessa Hankins [:And I was like, thank God that ours at home doesn't do this, because I don't know that I would ride it, because it drops down, like, under the ground a little bit. You can see where they've dug the track, and it's below ground a little bit. So I just wasn't expecting it. And I was like, goodness gracious. Like, this is a lot for me.
Clinton Burley [:The predecessor of the Log Flume in that space was the West Virginia Turnpike, and those were motorized cars that initially did not have one of the center tracks for the cars to go on. And you could just simply drive all the way back through there in these cars. And then eventually they put in that track. And to kind of keep the cars a little more controlled, they wanted to retire that, and they did install that. And that's an unusual flume ride where the vast majority of the ride is actually at ground level. Most log flumes, you go up, you go around, and you come down that ride. Actually, as far as ride operators, the Log Flume has several different places for operators to be, and one of those is the very top of the final big drop.
Vanessa Hankins [:There's usually one at both. Well, there was last time we were there, and that.
Clinton Burley [:That one at the top, that is the most prestigious and preferred spot for ride operators who happen to be teenage boys to work in the entire park.
Vanessa Hankins [:I guarantee it. I guarantee it.
Clinton Burley [:They. They go down that first little hill, and they get wet on those tops, and then they climb.
Jason [:Game changer.
Clinton Burley [:And look out. And. And if you pay close attention at the top of that ride, the. The seat where the ride operator sits always sets up a little higher so they're above the dog as it comes through. Yeah, there's a reason for that. That's.
Vanessa Hankins [:That's fantastic. You. And not this. I mean, it's a little bit of. Changing the subject. I was very surprised by the one that I rode at Family Kingdom. It was very violent, like, very. Like the water Moved very quickly.
Vanessa Hankins [:So you're just getting, like, roared around in that water because the tracks are.
Clinton Burley [:Like a roaring rapids ride.
Vanessa Hankins [:Yes, it really was. And it made me thankful for ours, like, for how calm it was. It was funny because my daughter was like, mom, we got so much more wet on that one. And I was like, well, I think probably ours was probably anticipated to be like this, but maybe a lot of people didn't like it because I didn't like it at all. Yeah, it was not for me. What do you hope that people will remember about Cannon Park 50 years from now?
Clinton Burley [:I will say the same thing we started with, and that's family, because the fabric, Well, I should say the thread, I guess, that has woven this discussion together all comes back to memories made within those 26 acres with friends and family, and that's really what's important there. And, yeah, it may have lost some of its luster through the years, but the excitement of kids going in there and having a good day and the parents being able to watch their children have fun and make those memories together, that's what gives that acreage its magic. And I think that 50 years from now, there will be people that will be talking like we're talking today about their memories of being at Camden Park.
Vanessa Hankins [:I agree.
Clinton Burley [:There's not many things in life that generation after generation, after generations, families can talk about that has brought such joy and happiness to so many people. That is. And it's still there. You see things on Facebook. Somebody put something out about Camden park, and people just pour in comments.
Vanessa Hankins [:Oh, yeah, I wish they would do this. I wish they'd put in that.
Clinton Burley [:And then people that live far away. Oh, my gosh. When I was growing up, I was there all the time. And posting things like we've commented about today. All that stuff is just so neat.
Vanessa Hankins [:Absolutely. I think it's. It's always fun to read the comments. And I do this a lot with Safety Town as well. There is a group I'm sure you're a member of on Facebook. I'm sure you are Jason as well. You grew up in Huntington, if. I think his name is Maurice Hart.
Vanessa Hankins [:Okay. Maurice Hart. Yes.
Clinton Burley [:Dear friend of mine.
Vanessa Hankins [:Wonderfully smart man. And he'll do these posts, and you can tell he's really thought them out. And he's just. He speaks so well, and he. When he puts, you know, I guess fingers to type, you know, instead of word to mouth or pen to paper, people just are moved by that. And they will get on there and share their memories and that it's such a. That group is just so fun for that very reason of the memories that people pop up. I love those closed groups because you don't get as many as the naysayers that are.
Vanessa Hankins [:They need this, they need that, they need to do better. You know, it's the people. Oh, my gosh. I love. Just like you talked about. You know, I took my. I went there, I took my children there, and now I'm taking my grandchildren there. And it's just.
Vanessa Hankins [:It's a beautiful thing.
Clinton Burley [:We're.
Vanessa Hankins [:We're very blessed to have it. We really are. I told Jason we were having lunch right before this, and I said, you know, I didn't realize that we were the only theme park in West Virginia. I didn't realize that.
Clinton Burley [:Yeah, Shawnee park was down in the Bluefield area. It closed ages ago, and it was.
Vanessa Hankins [:Kind of nothing compared to Cannon park, size wise. Right.
Clinton Burley [:Several rods, about 10 acres. Also family owned, but not near the size and scope of what Camden is.
Vanessa Hankins [:Gotcha. Okay.
Jason [:So in closing, you know what I'd like to kind of do. And I already know, I think, you know, I always try to think of. What would you describe Camden park in one word? But I think I already know what it is.
Clinton Burley [:Comes back to family.
Jason [:Absolutely.
Clinton Burley [:You can't look at it as a destination like Disney World and where you plan for three years to go, and you go down there and a mouse steals your wallet. Empty. It's not like that. It's affordable, family fun that means something to people. And you can go a few times a summer and leave your cares out by the happy clown. He'll take care of them and you can pick them up on the way back out. And you can get back to life and stop at Austin's ice cream on the way out. That's always a blessing as well.
Clinton Burley [:But that's what it comes down to, Jason. And I think that we can't lose sight of that. There's a lot of history there. There's a lot of secrets there. But the fun thing is it's there.
Vanessa Hankins [:It's there. Absolutely. And, you know, year round, I know I keep talking about my daughter, but there is not a day that we don't drive by Cannon park if it's closed, if it's not the season, you know, oh, mom, it's. And she'll know the exact number of days until their opening day. Like. And she counts it down. Like, buddy, she is on it.
Jason [:I love that.
Vanessa Hankins [:And she will count down until the spooktacular. She's ready for that. She in fourth grade? Fifth. Fourth or fifth grade. I forget which one. They walk from the elementary school down in Westmoreland from Kellogg, and they still do that field trip. So, like that year, she counted down the days of their walk to Camden Park.
Clinton Burley [:So to that, I would say she doesn't take Camden park for granted.
Vanessa Hankins [:No, no, not at all. She loves that.
Clinton Burley [:I think that that's something that we. We also have to keep in our mind, is that we drive by it on Waverly Road. It's just part of the fabric of our community.
Vanessa Hankins [:Absolutely.
Clinton Burley [:And you may be a Camden park naysayer or whatever it may be, but the reality is don't take that park for granted. Take the time to walk through the gate, go in there and enjoy it. Do your part to help keep it here for the next generation. Because if we take things for granted in our community, we'll lose them. And we can look around us and see where that's happened a lot.
Vanessa Hankins [:Absolutely.
Clinton Burley [:We don't want that happening to Camden Park.
Jason [:Couldn't agree more.
Vanessa Hankins [:I agree. And I think with that, I think that's a great place to wrap up. And you guys, if you have stuck with us for the last hour and 20 minutes, then congratulations, because I really. You've got patience for one. But you also love history like we do, and you clung to it like I have this entire time. This has really been one of the most fun episodes that we've recorded in a long time. We have a lot of really serious stuff and sometimes it gets heavy. And this has been nothing but pure.
Jason [:Joy, a true privilege.
Vanessa Hankins [:So I am so thankful for you reaching out. And I'm sorry that it took us so long to get connected.
Clinton Burley [:You know, it is quite, quite all right. I've had so such fun with you. I love that place. And that place is in my heart.
Vanessa Hankins [:Absolutely.
Clinton Burley [:And it's in my family's heart. And just glad to share some of this stuff and some of that. Some of that fun stuff and just stay dry on the log. Fluent.
Jason [:That's right.
Vanessa Hankins [:All right, guys, we are out of here.
Jason [:Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Tri State Time Machine. Brought to you by Alex R. White pllcudistractedriver.com if you have a memory you want Vanessa to talk more about, just send her an email@tstmail.com or post a comment on the Tri State Time Machine Facebook page. Did you like the episode? Be sure to share it with friends and family. It's the only way we can continue this fun work. That we do, you can find a link in the Show Notes that you can use to share it. And be sure to let our sponsors know you like like the podcast as well.
Jason [:Their contact information can be found in this episode's Show Notes.
