This was once an Amusement Park

Burlington Island from the Bristol waterfront

  I remember going to the waterfront in Bristol when I was a child.  My parents would sometimes take us to look at the boats that went up and down the river.  The waterfront park we watched from sits across the river from Burlington Island, which I later learned was once the site of an amusement park.  There was a lake contained within the island, and several rides, including a roller coaster, Ferris wheel, and a carousel.  But by the time I was a child and visited the waterfront, any visible semblance of an amusement park was long gone.  There are some old ruins that can be seen by the boaters who stop on the island, but nothing that can be seen from the Pennsylvania shore.

  To learn more about the island’s history, I did a quick online search and found out there was more to it than just the amusement park.  At one time the island was inhabited and it is in fact the site of the first European settlement in what would become New Jersey.  It had held a fort and a trading post at different times.  Around 1900 it became a recreational park, and soon the rides were built.  It lasted until 1928, when a fire destroyed most of the rides, and another fire in 1934 finished off what was left of the amusement park.  Later it was owned by Penn Warner Cement Company, although I don’t know if the island itself had a specific use for them.  It is now managed by the City of Burlington.

  During its amusement park heyday, Burlington Island obviously could only be reached by boat from Bristol, so people got to the island by ferry.  On the Burlington side, the channel is fairly narrow, so there may have been foot bridges connecting the island to the land.  If there were foot bridges, they are gone now.  Any ferries across the river, of course, are long gone as well, but the island is still accessible to boaters.  From the pictures I have seen, there is a trail there, and some relics from the old amusement park. The boaters who visit the island use it for fishing, and some adventurous activities like diving into the lake.