Today
on Cape Cod Hyannis is the hub of business. Route 132, Route 28,
Main Street, these roads in Hyannis are lined virtually end to end
with shops, restaurants, and other attractions. However there was a
time before the endless array of businesses, it was a time before the
Cape Cod Mall. In the middle of the 20th century Route
132 was a rural road, in place of stores there were thousands of
trees. In the time between Hyannis being a rural village and it
being the center of activity on Cape Cod there was an attraction that
enthralled children and although it was short-lived it seemed to be a
catalyst for the modernization of Cape Cod’s center. It was
Storyland and this is its story and its impact.
The
idea for a children’s amusement park in the center of Cape Cod came
from the mind of George G. Spalt, a Cape summer resident. Formerly
from Loudonville, New York and working as a contractor in Albany
Spalt saw several small children’s amusement parks during vacations
to the Adirondack Mountains during the early 1950’s specifically
Storytown USA which opened in 1954. George Spalt was inspired to
create his own amusement park and found a perfect location along
Route 132 in Hyannis only a half-mile from the airport.
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| Courtesy of The Imaginary World.com |
Plans
were put in motion in March 1955 when Spalt, only thirty-four at the
time, purchased a nine-acre lot on a heavily wooded section of Route
132. The park was based around the Mother Goose nursery rhymes.
There were thirty structures scattered around the property along
trails leading from the parking lot which had room for up to 400
vehicles. All in all the design of Storyland took three months and
cost Spalt $40,000 to build ($384,000 in 2020). The park opened in
June 1955 situated between a Sunoco gas station and the Top O’ the
Morn Motel.
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| Courtesy of Imaginary World.com |
From the get go Storyland was a huge hit for its target audience. The trail leading to the park was like an entrance to a fairy tale world with attendants dressed as clowns. Nursery rhyme characters like the Big Bad Wolf, the Three Bears, Old Woman Who Lived In a Shoe, House That Jack Built, and many more were there to be seen. Many of them had large colorful buildings and figures. These were the work of Matthew Cobb, a talented artist whose great-great grandfather Daniel Cobb had run a general store in Barnstable at the turn of the 19th century. There were actors playing characters like Little Red Riding Hood, other figures were mechanical like the Big Bad Wolf who was voiced by an unseen actor including Cotuit Kettleer baseball player Frank Burleson in 1955. There were booths for candy and gifts and to top it all off there was a barnyard with farm animals, ponies, and even a duck pond.
Spalt’s
take on the children’s amusement park was a success. Children came
for birthdays, on field trips, or just on a whim with their families.
During its first few years not much changed in the surrounding area.
Route 132 remained wooded and rural, so much so that when the
locusts returned in 1957 you could hear their hum as you drove along
the road. Hyannis though was always destined to become the hub of
Cape Cod it seems.
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| Courtesy of The Imaginary World.com |
In 1961 plans began for the All-Cape Shopping Center located on forty-acres of land between Route 132 and Route 28 to the west of the Airport Rotary. Centered around Picture Pond the property would be Cape Cod’s largest shopping center, the land east of Storyland was bulldozed. The first business to be erected on the property was Abercrombie & Fitch going up in April 1963. Although the plaza never fully materialized it set plans in motion for the development of the area in the future. Miniature golf courses, restaurants, and hotels began to spring up in the area around Storyland during the early 1960’s. Despite its relative success the land Spalt’s property sat on was highly coveted.
Based
on Storyland’s success Spalt developed Adventureland in
Newburyport, MA as well as Cowboy Town in Plainville, MA as he
expanded his amusement park collection. A big change in Hyannis was
in the works though. Over a period of two years negotiations were
going on for the Storyland property and surrounding area with the
desire to create Cape Cod’s largest shopping center and actually
have it open this time. In July 1968 the negotiations were completed
and signed off on at the Neptune Room restaurant. Anchored by Sears,
Filene’s, and Woolworth the Cape Cod Mall was announced with an
estimated price tag of $6 million ($44 million in 2020).
Storyland
was on borrowed time during the 1968 season and George Spalt looked
for alternative locations for his beloved amusement park. As luck
would have it Spalt found a new home for his amusement park in
Orleans. In January 1969 the process began of moving all of the
structures from the Hyannis property to a filled in cranberry bog
near the Orleans Rotary. It was moved and ready to reopen in time
for the summer.
As
for the Cape Cod Mall the skeleton structure began
to rise from the ground during the summer of 1969 with the first
section of the complex opening to the public on Tuesday August 4,
1970. Twenty-eight stores would open that day bringing a culmination
of the four and a half years from planning to completion. Today the
mall is a Cape Cod staple, checking in at over 800,000 square feet
and currently undergoing yet another expansion with Target opening
this past fall and Dick’s Sporting Goods in the spring of 2020.
Storyland’s
second chapter in Orleans was not quite as successful as its tenure
in Hyannis. By 1974 the park was closed and sat abandoned for
several years. The property eventually became home to Stop & Shop. For those of a certain age that grew up on Cape Cod the
short-lived little amusement park known as Storyland will live
forever in their memories.
View my previous blog posts: In My Footsteps: My Cape Cod Roots
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2 comments:
We have home movies of our trip to Storyland in the early 1960's.
Does anyone remember a music venue at Storyland, Hyannis, that was called The Carousel? I don't think I am dreaming this, but I seem to remember a small, dark, smoky, place, where "underground" live music was played.
Thanks so much.
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