Belmont Park (Montreal)

Belmont Park (French: Parc Belmont), billed as 'Beautiful Belmont Park,' was a riverside amusement park in the Cartierville district of northern Montreal, on the banks of the Riviere des Prairies. Founded by Ernest Gaudreau and three partners as the Belmont Park Company, it opened on 9 June 1923 on former farmland reached from Rivoli Street, charging ten-cent admission. Its signature attraction was the Cyclone wooden coaster, which ran beside the river from 1924 to the end, alongside a 1924 Philadelphia Toboggan Company carousel, a dance hall and ballroom, a swimming pool, a roller rink, funhouses, a Kiddieland and - over the decades - dozens of flat rides run in part by the Conklin (Bazaars Limited) and Knapp concession companies. The park kept its own sworn police force. It weathered the Depression, when its rival Dominion Park did not, and stayed popular even after the city-owned La Ronde opened at Expo 67. In 1983 two riders set a world coaster-riding record of some 500 hours aboard the Cyclone. The park closed abruptly on 13 October 1983 after a police raid, a shutdown many blamed on official resentment that this private park was drawing crowds away from La Ronde. The Cyclone was torn down that autumn, the rest cleared by spring 1984, and the riverfront land was redeveloped into housing.