Author to share tales, photos of Idlewild Park at Saturday historical society program

Once settled on campus, she started contributing articles to the Bulletin, made connections with the community and discovered the amusement park that she might have been to a couple of times with cousins.

“I appreciated not only Idlewild’s history, but also all the beautiful scenery and picturesque environment, the Loyalhanna Creek, those wonderful trees,” she said. “It’s a special amusement park.”

On Saturday, Feb. 19, Sopko, who lives in Plum, will share her enthusiasm for the iconic park at the annual membership meeting of the Latrobe Area Historical Society. The program begins at 10 a.m. at the society’s headquarters at 416 Weldon St., Latrobe. Entry is free for society members and others may attend if they join the society. Annual dues are $15 per person or $20 per family.

Sopko’s program will be based on her book, “Idlewild: History and Memories of Pennsylvania’s Oldest Amusement Park,” which was released in 2018 by The History Press, part of Arcadia Publishing. Her talk will include a slideshow of some of the 161 images that are in the book.

Idlewild Park was founded in 1878 as a picnic grove that attracted visitors from as far away as Pittsburgh. It’s located along what was Thomas Mellon’s Ligonier Valley Rail Road. The picnic site grew to include rides, Story Book Forest, a western town, SoakZone and a railroad with a theme that mirrored the television show of local native Fred Rogers.

Idlewild is the third-oldest running amusement park in the United States and the 12th in the world. It’s received numerous awards and was once named “America’s Most Beautiful Theme Park.”

Sopko teamed up with Shirley G. McQuillis Iscrupe to write “Ligonier Valley Vignettes: Tales From the Laurel Highlands.” That collaboration was her first book. Then she spent several years gathering information and photos for her book about Idlewild Park.

She found resources and photos from people who worked at the park or visited there, from several local historical societies and from a visit to the Philadelphia Toboggan and Carrousel Company that installed the carrousel in 1931 and built the roller coaster.

“I talked to people who grew up at the park because their parents worked there,” she said. “Bill Luther was a longtime superintendent and I connected with his grandson, Dr. John Smetanka, who teaches at St. Vincent College. So his mother grew up at the park and the family had a lovely scrapbook of photos from Mr. Luther’s time.”

The earliest photo in the book is from 1886, and there are copies of land deeds dating back to 1770. There are even connections to Arthur St. Clair, who once had legal claims to the land. St. Clair served with the British army during the French and Indian War and was a major general in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.

There are many historical ties to Idlewild Park, and its presence has contributed to local development.

“The railroad really made an impact on the Ligonier Valley,” Sopko said. “The establishment of Idlewild was the beginning of this thriving tourist industry of the Laurel Highlands in the Latrobe and Ligonier area.”

Countless lives were affected, too. Many youngsters not only enjoyed family outings and school picnics at the park, but they also got summer jobs there. Many adults came back to work, year after year.

Sopko would like to connect with those people and anyone else who has memories, photos and any other information about Idlewild Park. She’s still not finished with her research. She’s interested in the park beyond the book that she will talk about on Saturday.

“I’ll never forget bringing my laptop to the park and setting it up on a picnic table under a tree and working on my manuscript while I enjoyed the sunshine,” she said. “I was listening to music from the carrousel and the lift of the roller coaster. I’ll never forget that really special experience. I love sharing history and educating people about Idlewild’s unique story. It’s really a treasure that we have in this area.”

Sopko, who works for an investment management company, is working on her third book. That one will be about the lost amusement parks in western Pennsylvania.