History of the roller coaster

Roller coaster amusement rides have origins back to ice slides constructed in 18th-century Russia. Early technology featured sleds or wheeled carts that were sent down hills of snow reinforced by wooden supports. The technology evolved in the 19th century to feature railroad track using wheeled cars that were securely locked to the track. Newer innovations emerged in the early 20th century with side friction and underfriction technologies to allow for greater speeds and sharper turns. By the mid-to-late 20th century, these elements intensified with the introduction of steel roller coaster designs and the ability to invert riders.
History.
Beginnings.
The world's oldest roller coasters descended from the "Russian Mountains," which were specially constructed hills of snow located in the gardens of palaces around the Russian capital, Saint Petersburg, in the 18th century. This attraction was called a "Katalnaya Gorka" ("Катальная" "Горка") or "sliding mountain" in Russian. The slides were built to a height of between and , had a 50-degree drop, and were reinforced by wooden supports, and had ice on top. Sometimes wheeled carts were used instead of sleds. These slides became popular with the Russian upper class, and with Catherine II of Russia herself, who had such mountains built in the gardens of the Oranienbaum Palace near St. Petersburg, with a pavilion next to it for drinking tea after the sliding. "Russian mountains" remains the term for roller coasters in many languages, such as Spanish ('), Italian ('), and French ('). Ironically, the Russian term for roller coaster, ' (amerikanskie gorki), translates literally as "American mountains."
Russian soldiers occupying Paris from 1815 through 1816, after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, may have introduced the Russian amusement of sledding down steep hills. In July 1817, a French banker named Nicolas Beaujon opened the Parc Beaujon, an amusement park on the Champs Elysees. Its most famous feature was the "Promenades Aériennes" or "Aerial Strolls." It featured wheeled cars securely locked to the track, guide rails to keep them on course, and higher speeds. The three-wheel carts were towed to the top of a tower, and then released to descend two curving tracks on either side. King Louis XVIII of France came to see the park, but it is not recorded if he tried the ride. Before long there were seven similar rides in Paris: "Les Montagnes françaises" (The French Mountains), "le Delta", "les Montagnes de Belleville" (The Mountains of Belleville), "les Montagnes américaines" (the American Mountains), "Les Montages lilliputiennes", (The miniature mountains), "Les Montagnes suisses" (The Swiss mountains) and "Les Montagnes égyptiennes" (The Egyptian mountains).
In the beginning, these attractions were primarily for the upper classes. In 1845 a new amusement park opened in Copenhagen, Tivoli, which was designed for the middle class. These new parks featured roller coasters as permanent attractions. The first permanent loop track was probably also built in Paris from an English design in 1846, with a single-person wheeled sled running through a 13-foot (4 m) diameter vertical loop. These early single loop designs were called Centrifugal Railways. In 1887, a French entrepreneur, Joseph Oller, the owner of the Moulin Rouge music hall, built "Les Montagnes Russes à Belleville" ("The Russian Mountains of Belleville") a permanent roller coaster with a length of two hundred meters in the form of a double-eight, later enlarged to four figure-eight-shaped loops.
Scenic railways.
In the 1850s, a mining company in Summit Hill, Pennsylvania, constructed the Mauch Chunk gravity railroad, a brakeman-controlled, 8.7-mile (14 km) downhill track used to deliver coal to Mauch Chunk (now known as Jim Thorpe), Pennsylvania. By 1872, the "Gravity Road" (as it became known) was selling rides to thrill seekers. Railway companies used similar tracks to provide amusement on days when ridership was low.
Using this idea as a basis, LaMarcus Adna Thompson began work on a gravity Switchback Railway that opened at Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York in 1884. Passengers climbed to the top of a platform and rode a bench-like car down the track up to the top of another tower where the vehicle was switched to a return track and the passengers took the return trip. This track design was soon replaced with an oval complete circuit. In 1885, Phillip Hinkle introduced the first complete-circuit coaster with a lift hill, the "Gravity Pleasure Road", which became the most popular attraction at Coney Island. Not to be outdone, in 1886 LaMarcus Adna Thompson patented his design for a roller coaster that included dark tunnels with painted scenery. "Scenic Railways" were soon found in amusement parks across the county, with Frederick Ingersoll's construction company building many of them in the first two decades of the 20th century.
Growing popularity and innovations.
As it grew in popularity, experimentation in coaster dynamics took off. In the 1880s the concept of a vertical loop was again explored by Lina Beecher, and in 1895 the concept came into fruition with the "Flip Flap Railway", located at Sea Lion Park in Brooklyn, and shortly afterward with "Loop the Loop" at Olentangy Park near Columbus, Ohio as well as similar coasters in Atlantic City and Coney Island. The rides were incredibly dangerous, and many passengers suffered whiplash. Both were soon dismantled, and looping coasters had to wait for over a half century before making a reappearance.
By 1919, the first underfriction roller coaster had been developed by John Miller. Soon, roller coasters spread to amusement parks all around the world. Perhaps the best known historical roller coaster, "The Cyclone", was opened at Coney Island in 1927. Like "The Cyclone", all early roller coasters were made of wood. Many old wooden roller coasters are still operational, at parks such as Kennywood near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Pleasure Beach Blackpool, England. The oldest operating roller coaster is "Leap-The-Dips" at Lakemont Park in Pennsylvania, a side friction roller coaster built in 1902. The oldest wooden roller coaster in the United Kingdom is the "Scenic Railway" at Dreamland Amusement Park in Margate, Kent and features a system where the brakeman rides the car with wheels. It was severely damaged by fire on April 7, 2008, but was subsequently restored and reopened to the public in 2015. "Scenic Railway" at Melbourne's Luna Park built in 1912, is the world's oldest continually-operating roller coaster, and it also still features a system where the brakeman rides the car with wheels. One of only 13 remaining examples of John Miller's work worldwide is the wooden roller coaster at Lagoon in Utah. The coaster opened in 1921 and is the 6th oldest coaster in the world.
The Great Depression marked the end of the golden age of roller coasters, as amusement parks generally went into a decline that resulted in less demand for new coasters. This lasted until 1972, when "The Racer" opened at Kings Island amusement park located in what was then a part of Deerfield Township in Warren County, Ohio. Designed by John C. Allen, the instant success of "The Racer" helped to ignite a renaissance for roller coasters, reviving worldwide interest throughout the industry.
The rise of steel.
In 1959, the Disneyland theme park introduced a new design breakthrough in roller coasters with the "Matterhorn Bobsleds". This was the first roller coaster to use a tubular steel track. Unlike conventional wooden rails, which are generally formed using steel strips mounted on laminated wood, tubular steel can be bent in any direction, which allows designers to incorporate loops, corkscrews, and many other maneuvers into their designs. Most modern roller coasters are made of steel, although wooden roller coasters are still being built along with hybrids of steel and wood.
In 1975 the first modern-day roller coaster to perform an inverting element opened: Corkscrew, located at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, California. In 1976 the vertical loop made a permanent comeback with the Great American Revolution at Magic Mountain in Valencia, California.
Timeline of notable roller coasters.
The roller coasters mentioned here are significant for their role in the amusement industry. They were notable for specific reasons, including: