Who is lamarcus thompson

But the Great Depression caused the number of roller coasters to decrease and many amusement parks to be torn down. The technology languished until , when the opening of Disneyland in southern California ushered in a new Golden Age for the roller coaster.

Since then, further innovations have come fast and furious—new track elements, launch systems, seating, and elaborate ride themes—and today, roller coasters are more popular and pervasive than ever. Further Reading: Adams, Judith A. Cartmell, Robert. APS News Archives. Librarians Authors Referees Media Students. Login Become a Member Contact Us. January First U. Thompson built numerous other scenic railways until his retirement in He died in Follow Us.

LaMarcus Thompson. April Meeting Goes Mile-High in Social Discuss Sign Up Login. Home inventors La Marcus Adna Thompson. About Inventor LaMarcus Adna Thompson — was an American inventor and businessman most famous for developing a variety of gravity rides.

Follow Us on. Chennai Coimbatore Madurai Puducherry Trichy. Jodhpur Vijayawada Visakhapatnam Lucknow Nagpur. Bengaluru Noida Agra Patna kochi. Jaipur Mysore Mangalore Kanpur Dehradun. Chandigarh Goa Pune Bhopal Surat. Thompson spent the next three years improving his design, obtaining another 30 patents and building the coaster in cities across the country. In just four years, he had built 50 of them.

While his competitors were focused primarily on making their rides higher, faster, and steeper, Thompson began to experiment with visuals…first with tunnels and lights, and then with scenery to create a new type of ride. The first one opened in with great success, leading him to form his own company, opened for the express purpose of building Scenic Railways around the world. Each version of his Scenic Railway was more elaborate than the previous version, containing more and more visuals.

The most notable was the installation in Venice, California. Opened in , the track ran among artificial hills lights, and replicas of temples, foreshadowing attractions that would be built by Disney decades later. Thompson the man was himself a visionary. Similar to many of his contemporaries and those who followed, he thought many of the leisure pastimes of his day to be unsavory.

The saloon and the brothel were popular attractions of the day, and the cities were crowded and dirty. He envisioned the amusement park and the rides as a more wholesome alternative form of entertainment and a place to escape. Thompson passed away in One of his designs lives on in Melbourne's Luna Park in Australia, although much of the scenery has long since been removed.

While not actually credited for being the inventor of the roller coaster, Thompson was the one who introduced it to the masses, entertaining people and inspiring others to build their own, creating a ride that would one day become the king of the midway and pioneering the art of the themed ride. We can offer sunshine that glows bright in the afterthought, and scatters the darkness of the tenement for the price of a nickel or a dime.

Thompson Tweet. That side profile of Thompson makes him look a bit like Spencer Tracy, don't ya think? Thank you, Derek, for educating us about the amusement park industry one article at a time! Or am I missing something or reading it wrong? That's a misleading statement.