Updates

A few pics we found in the archives of Tracy’s Boot Hill at West View Park. We don’t own these pics, but if you’re the owner, please be in touch with us!

Happy Halloween! I was lucky and honored to contribute some of our work here at The Bill Tracy Project for a YouTube show called “Just a Quick Detour” which features roadside attractions and oddities all across America. The most recent episode focuses on Pretzel Rides, and in particular, Tracy’s Haunted House ad Camden Park which opened in 1961 and is still in operation! It’s a job well done by Cassie and Ryan! Check it out!

We know Tracy’s Scary House at Chapultepec Park in Mexico City opened in 1964 and supposedly closed in 1994. It was a two-story package dark ride and Allan Herschell Company Inc. supplied the ride system which contained 10 ride cars. The uphill section of track used a chain and drive assembly that assisted the cars to the second floor, and the downhill section of track also used a similar chain and drive assembly that assisted the cars back down to the first floor. In the Allan Herschell service bulletin and packing list below, they referred to the ride as “TRACY DARK RIDE #3 – MEXICO.” It’s clear that the ride cars are the same units used at West View Park’s Haunted House and Whacky Shack at Hunt’s Pier. Check out the original Allan Herschell Company documents below, both sets of which were critical pieces in the installation of one of Tracy’s earlier dark rides.

Service Bulletin

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Packing List

Just found! A rare photo of Tracy presenting one of his façade drawings to his helper and mentee, Mr. Herman Jones, in September of 1966. Tracy taught Jones many tricks of the trade, including simple clay modeling, theatrical painting, and fabricating wooden features for his ride fronts. Although the photo caption states that the drawing is a ride front for Wildwood, I believe it’s actually a façade concept for his Haunted House at LeSourdsville Lake Park in Ohio, which opened in 1968.

Today’s rainy day calls for gloomy recollections. Many years ago, I discovered these amazing photos of some young ladies spending the night in Bill Tracy’s Haunted House at West View Park in Pittsburgh, PA. Unfortunately, I can’t recall the source of these photos or the identity of the people in these photos. Either way, they are so cool! Please be in touch if you happen to have more information about the origin of these photos or the people in them so I can attribute them appropriately. To be clear, these photos are not mine, but I’d love to learn more about these young ladies and their creepy experience! — B

Behold Bill Tracy’s original depiction of a damsel in distress, trapped in a damp environment with no hope for escape. Tracy’s cabinet for this stunt was built to precise specs of 8 feet long, 5 feet deep, and 6 feet high and included a recirculating pump that provided a waterfall to a rocky back wall spilling on to the damsel, surrounded by snakes, rats, and doom. A single light brought the effect to life. Two notable locations of the stunt were at Trimper’s Haunted House in Ocean City, Maryland and Westview Park’s Haunted House in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, later relocated to Erieview Park’s Fright Zone.

Trimper’s version was retired in 1998. No information is known regarding Tracy’s other iterations of this stunt.

Bill Tracy was a true artist in so many ways, not only in the realm of facades and stunts for dark rides and fun house attractions, but also as an avid painter and illustrator. Check out a painting Tracy completed in the early 1970s of a dark and snowy scene with a carnival visible in the background. A child can be seen standing on a hill holding a bright candle. His signature, “W Tracy,” is visible near the bottom right corner. He had a knack for capturing feeling and emotion in nearly everything he created, and this painting was no exception. Often, he’d gift his works to clients after he completed projects for them. Look forward to a repost from me some time this winter!

The famous Revolving Barrel, located in the third room of Trimper’s Haunted House in Ocean City, Maryland, as well as many other Tracy attractions of the time, is original to the ride’s installation in 1964 and has been a core staple of the attraction ever since. At 16 feet long and a diameter of 7.5 feet, the Barrel and all equipment to make it move were manufactured by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company but commissioned and installed by Bill Tracy. The interior of his barrel installations were often covered with fiberglass dimensional rock panels coated with UV paint, and a floor ramp under the left tire made riders feel like they are spiraling out of control. Cleverly, Bill Tracy accompanied his Barrel experience with the revolving back end of a car with two dimensional figures at the tunnel’s end, making it seem like the car in front of the rider was the same predicament.

Interestingly, under the Barrel assembly you can still see the antique hardwood floors which date back to well before 1964 when the Windsor Theater occupied the Trimper building. Also cool to note is that Bill Tracy used mannequin heads from Macy’s department stores to build the faux car back. The busts were often used as hat displays in Macy’s stored, and were commonly manufactured by a company called Greneker. To recap, before Tracy got in to the dark ride business, Macy’s department stores contracted him to design and build window displays and floats for use in their famous Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. Therefore, he was closely affiliated with them and had access to all types of mannequins which he used in many of his early dark rides.

Check out a few pics and the original assembly details from PTC. The cost of the Revolving Barrel and all lighting back in 1964 from Tracy’s company was $4,000, equivalent to about $33,000 today.

Enjoy some cool photos taken in 2009 of Tracy’s Head Slinger stunt a few years after it was retired from Trimper’s Haunted House in Ocean City, Maryland. Some history …

When Trimper’s Haunted House was expanded in 1988 to add a second story, the new space was inhabited by stunts from Ghost Ship, a defunct Bill Tracy dark ride located at Ocean Playland at 65th street in Ocean City, Maryland. The addition of the nautical-themed Tracy stunts made for quite an exciting ride experience and as a result made Trimper’s Haunted House arguably the largest Tracy ride in existence with a five minute ride time and nearly 30 original Tracy effects.

The Head Slinger stunt scared riders for about 15 years in Trimper’s Haunted House before being removed around 2003 (20 years ago already!) and replaced with a modern air-operated prop. The Head Slinger became a maintenance headache as riders would stand up in the car and reach for the head, damaging the mechanism that made it work. When Head Slinger was removed, it was placed behind a storage facility on Trimper property out in the elements. Today, the status of the stunt’s remains are unknown.

The video below depicts how the stunt originally looked and operated in Trimper’s Haunted House, circa 1996.

Tracy’s business folder under Outdoor Dimensional Displays in the early to mid 60s. Those who were lucky enough to receive this folder meant that they were lucky enough to receive Tracy’s talent. Lots of Epic attractions came out of folders like this one!

Enjoy a fascinating look back in time to an article we released over a decade ago that questions and contemplates Bill Tracy’s use of real skeletons in his attractions after being inspired by Disney. Check it out!

Unknown to many, Bill Tracy was likely inspired by major motion pictures of the era when designing concepts for his stunts. Tracy’s “Knit Wit” stunt, for example, bares an uncanny resemblance to Ms. Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Psycho, which premiered in 1960. Tracy’s Knit Wit resembles a little old lady knitting quietly, only to swing around presenting a grotesque maternal corpse holding a large spider in its web when triggered. The concept of his Knit Wit and its physical appearance is nearly identical, but it is unknown whether this was coincidence or on purpose. What do you think?

“No! I will not hide in the fruit cellar! Ha! You think I’m fruity, huh?” – Mother.

Bill Tracy and his companies competed with several major rivals in the dark ride and amusement display industry during the ‘60s and early ‘70s. One of the largest was Messmore & Damon, Inc. out of New York. M&D was established in 1914 and manufactured many dark ride and fun house effects through the decades, and although they tend to be best-known for their spooky stunts, some of their more popular works were animatronic animals and themed figures. M&D would close in 1998. Tracy would eventually partner with M&D and develop a business relationship with them to help expand his resources and get financial backing. Read more about that relationship here. Enjoy some vintage M&D ads and price lists from my personal collection below.

Fun Fact!

Back in 1971, only seven years after Trimper’s Haunted House first opened on the Ocean City boardwalk in Maryland, Granville Trimper, the ride’s owner and visionary, made a deal with M&D at a Convention in Chicago to buy their ‘Springing Frankenstein’ for his ride. Trimper’s Frankenstein offered decades of frights before it was finally retired in 2006.

Granville Trimper built The Haunted House in Ocean City, Maryland alongside the dark ride master of the era, Bill Tracy, in early 1964. Records show Tracy was on location in Ocean City with his crew for two weeks back then to install the ride and get it running. One of the original stunts in the attraction can be seen in the first room, titled “Spider Staircase” by Tracy, and is comprised of some animated skull spiders spooking out on a dilapidated banister facer wall. A cool fun fact about the 59 year old stunt, measuring 12 feet long and 8 feet high, is that Tracy used store-bought plastic skulls to make the spook work. Back in the 60’s, Halloween decorations were much less sophisticated than they are today, but the “Skull on a Spike” was popular back then and families loved to display them in their yards. It’s clear Mr. Tracy used a few of those for the stunt based on the molded form underneath. Little did Tracy know that those store-bought plastic skulls would still be dancing in 2023. –Brandon

Some parks marketed Tracy’s attractions heavily while others did nothing at all. Check out some cool newspaper ads from yesteryear promoting Tracy’s Phantasmagoria dark ride at Bell’s Amusement Park in Tulsa, which closed in 2006. Many of the stunts from this defunct attraction made their way to Trimper’s Haunted House back in 2012 and still exist there today. You can read more about that stunt “migration” project here.

One of Bill Tracy’s final projects — Whacky Shack at Joyland. He would pass away only four months later at the age of 58 from heart disease nearly 49 years ago on August 22, 1974. This newspaper snippet from the April 25, 1974 issue of The Wichita Beacon is the last known photo we have of him. Would have been cool to just chit chat with him over a beer.

Back during the earlier years of Tracy’s dark ride work, he wasn’t only known as being a pioneer in the industry, but also as a mentor to those wanting to learn and work at his companies. He was proud to be able to offer training and coaching to those willing to master the tools of the trade, from sculpting, building ride fronts, painting techniques, and everything in between. Check out a newly-found snippet from the September 24, 1966 issue of the Press of Atlantic City that depicts Tracy’s mentorship to a talented trainee in support of his up-and-coming attractions.

We’ve added a new section for Bill Tracy videos that features a collection of some of his rarest and most popular attractions from all over the country. Special thanks to Adam Lee of The Dark Ride Archive for his help in collecting and curating our new video archive of Bill Tracy’s finest attractions!

Check out the original concept drawing for Whacky Shack at Dorney Park, likely produced in early 1964. It was created by Manfred Bass, Tracy’s head artist and sculptor in the early-mid 1960s who eventually became head designer and senior director of the Macy’s Parade Studio from 1963 to 2000. Stay tuned for more on Manfred Bass at a later date.

We’ve gone many years without a photo of Tracy’s Whacky Shack at Clementon Lake Park, but that void has now been filled! Check out an awesome photo from when the ride was at its most popular. We still are without an exact closing date for this attraction, so if anyone has information please be in touch with us.