Updates

We are excited to announce that the DAFE organization (Darkride and Funhouse Enthusiasts) has published our updated Bill Tracy biography as a nine-page spread in their quarterly magazine entitled Barrel O’ Fun. Surprisingly, the front of the publication showcases a rare photo of Tracy from a 1961 advertisement!

Those who are interested in receiving Barrel O’ Fun, attending dark ride events, and receiving other club benefits can join DAFE by visiting their website. If you are a dark ride lover, it is truly a wise investment! A special thanks goes out to Rick Davis for assisting with this project.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from The Bill Tracy Project! Stay tuned for some incredible updates and additions in 2010!

We are pleased to announce that we have solved one of our Bill Tracy curiosities. We discovered that the actual location of the unknown Haunted House attraction in our curiosities section was Pavilion Amusement Park in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. For many years, this photo was thought to be Tracy’s Haunted House from Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, but thanks to the curiosity and correspondence from a fellow enthusiast, we have obtained several other photos of the same attraction that confirm its location. Enjoy browsing through our new Pavilion Amusement Park project gallery!

The wait is over! Our one-year anniversary special presents a new and improved Bill Tracy biography that will take you on a complete journey through Tracy’s life with never-before-released information and photos. Enjoy, and Happy Halloween from The Bill Tracy Project.

We are pleased to announce the upcoming release of a brand new biography containing information about Bill Tracy that no other organization has ever released for our one-year anniversary! The new biography, consisting of 12 chapters, will also include numerous photos from Tracy’s early years including his involvement in parade float building. Be sure to stop by on Halloween to read about Tracy’s complete journey in the amusement and dark ride industry!

We are pleased to release a photo of Bill Tracy as a young man.

We are pleased to release our first photo of Bill Tracy as a boy.

We are pleased to release photos of Bill Tracy’s sister, Laurabelle Tracy. Laurabelle was born in 1915 and died in 2006. The baby in the right photo is Laurabelle’s daughter.

We are pleased to release photos of Bill Tracy’s mother, Juanita Tracy. Juanita was born in 1889 and died in 1970.

We are pleased to release photos of Bill Tracy’s father, Newton A. Tracy. Newton was born in 1888 and died in 1939.

The Bill Tracy Project will be releasing never-before-seen photos of Bill Tracy, his father Newton, his mother Juanita, and his sister Laurabelle over the next four weeks.

Each week we will focus all of our attention on one of these individuals. We will begin with photos of his father and conclude this exciting journey into Bill Tracy’s personal life with photos of Bill as a boy and as a young man. This breakthrough in The Bill Tracy Project would not have been possible without the very generous contributions of Larry. Larry is the great nephew of Bill Tracy! Larry’s mother is first cousins with Willow, Bill Tracy’s daughter. While Larry was researching his grandmother Laurabelle Tracy, he stumbled across our website. He shortly thereafter contacted us and the rest is history! Besides his photo contributions, he was also generous enough to share with us many personal documents from Laurabelle, who they knew as Lolly. Some of these recollections from her handwritten/typewritten autobiography, which she unfortunately never finished, will be included in our upcoming revision to Bill Tracy’s biography.

A very special thanks again to Larry for sharing these personal photos. Stay tuned!!!

We are pleased to announce the recent acquisition of additional images depicting Tracy’s Hour 13 dark ride, built at Miracle Strip Amusement Park in 1965. Although the original façade was built to mimic a castle complete with a two-dimensional whimsical dragon adorning the top, a 1970’s overhaul by Val Valentine, a dark ride designer and builder of the era, would totally change the look and feel of the ride, offering an angry tree and several turrets and towers instead of the original fortress look. The interior of the ride was not modified during the initial overhaul by Valentine, who also designed and built the park’s Old House dark ride in 1967. The name of the attraction changed from Hour 13 to Haunted Castle after only a few years in operation.

When the park closed on September 5, 2004, a group of savvy enthusiasts purchased the elements of the dark ride and moved them to a location where they were able to recreate the ride and run it for Halloween events. The same group is currently in the process of selling it to a party in Oxford, Alabama, where it will have a more permanent setup. Images of the ride setup can be viewed in their interesting Flickr photo gallery. A special thanks goes out to David from King Power Cinema for contributing this new information.

With the recent acquisition of an original copy of the promotional brochure that Bill Tracy released in 1968, The Bill Tracy Project is proud to add two additional projects to the ever-growing list of Tracy’s work. For the first recently-discovered project, the type is unknown. All we know is that it was listed as Haunted House Lenpage Corp. in Coney Island, N.Y. The second project is a package walk-thru, located at Clementon Lake Park in Clementon, N.J. This information can be found on the last page of the 1968 promotional brochure and is the only information we currently have regarding these two projects. If anyone has any additional information regarding these two projects, please contact us.

One of the unanswered quickfacts has finally been answered and validated by an article and an advertisement. Bill Tracy did design and install dark rides under another company’s name. Universal Design Limited, located in Wildwood, NJ, was known for their monorails and sky towers. UDL, as strange is it may seem, also had a Dark Ride & Display Division. Tracy was the head of this division and built rides under their name from approximately 1964 to 1967. Here is a full-page ad for UDL that appeared on the back cover of the May 6, 1967 issue of Amusement Business. Note: Dark Rides is listed at the bottom as one of the rides and attractions that they design and manufacture. Hour 13, a two-story dark ride at Miracle Strip Amusement Park, opened in 1965 and was one of the dark rides that Tracy built under UDL. Enjoy viewing an article about Hour 13 that appeared in the April 17, 1965 issue of Amusement Business. Note: Bill Tracy is directly associated with Universal Design Limited in this article. Special thanks again to Rick Davis with dafe.org for sharing the article about Hour 13 with us.

During the weekend of July 18th, the founders of The Bill Tracy Project ventured to Ocean City, Maryland for a weekend of analysis, discussion, and to map out the next phase of the project.

During our visit, we were able to spend time observing Bill Tracy’s stunts inside of Trimper’s Haunted House thanks to the hospitality of Scott Hudson, Haunted House manager, and Chris Trimper, Quality Control Coordinator of Trimper’s Amusements. We also spent a lot of time in Pirates Cove drooling over all of Tracy’s drunken pirates and other nautical creatures. Needless to say, we came back with a plethora of discussion points, photos, and new facts. Any new information will be released on this website, as well as Trimper’s Haunted House, in the coming months.

We now have information regarding one of the three unknown Bill Tracy projects. Wonderland Pier, located in Ocean City, New Jersey, had a dark ride by the name of Ghost Creek Caverns. This ride closed in the late 1980s. It was a western/ghost themed dark ride and had a very unique twist. At the very end of the ride, the car actually went though the park’s shooting gallery! A very special thanks to David Promisloff for sharing this information with us. The Bill Tracy Project now has only two unknown projects including the one he executed at Euclid Beach Park, located in Cleveland, Ohio, and the one he executed at Gaslight Village, located in Lake George, New York. Anyone with any information regarding either of these two unknown projects, or additional information/photos of Ghost Creek Caverns, please contact us.

Enjoy viewing a photo of The Castle at Lake Winnie Amusement Park which shows what it looked like when it was first built for the 1970 operating season. One of Bill’s standard facade themes, the “Kooky Castle,” was originally used for the design of this ride. If this photo is examined closely, the standard bat used in many of his interior displays can be seen affixed to the ride sign itself. This is the only photo we have ever seen of the original facade. Even though the facade has changed over the years, The Castle is still in operation today!

Bill Tracy, even in his own time, was being recognized as a significant contributor to the amusement park industry. Outdoor Dimensional Display Co., Inc. was honored with the Fred W. Pearce Sweepstakes Trophy at the NAAPPB Convention in 1961 and 1962. The NAAPPB (National Association of Amusement Parks, Pools, and Beaches) is known today as the IAAPA (International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions). Tracy highlighted his accomplishment on the second page of the Haunted House catalog, which advertised his two-story dark ride in 1963.

Bill Tracy graduated from Scott High School in 1936. Enjoy viewing the cover of The Scottonian for 1936 as well as the page in the yearbook that includes a listing for William Tracy as a senior. Unfortunately, the yearbook does not include any photos of Bill as he did not participate in any high school sports, clubs, or activities. Scott High School is located in Toledo, Ohio, and is a beautiful and historic school building that still stands today as part of Toledo Public Schools. The school was designed in the modified English Gothic style and was dedicated on June 6, 1913. Today it is an architectural landmark. ‘Save Our Scott’ is a community campaign to save and renovate Scott High School. For additional information and photos of Scott High School, visit their website at www.saveourscott.com.

Check out an original price list from Bill Tracy’s Outdoor Dimensional Display Company that was sent to clients along with initial correspondence and their 1963 product brochure. This price list includes over 50 of the company’s most popular stunts along with prices and case dimensions. It is important to note that this price list was not a part of any original O.D.D. catalog.