Lost Amusement Park - Luna Park San Jose - Tribute Design

Frontier Village gets all of the San Jose, CA nostalgia and attention because people of a certain age are still around to remember it. But well before the existence of Frontier Village there was Luna Park of San Jose, CA which was the first amusement park in the area.

Located in what is now the Luna Park neighborhood in San Jose, Luna Park was built by Audley Ingersoll who operated the world's first chain of amusement parks throughout the world, sort of a turn-of-the-century Six Flags I guess. The thing that made Luna Park in San Jose so cool was not just the amusement park, but the fact that there was a baseball stadium next to it which was the home of the minor league San Jose Prune Pickers.

Luna Park opened in 1910 and stayed in operation until 1921. There is virtually nothing on file anywhere about the old park other than the fact that it existed. This shirt is a tribute to the park and to the city which was cool enough to have something like this in it. Imagine the concept of a baseball field and an amusement park existing next to each other where the primary means of getting there was public transportation.

I have no idea if Luna Park had a Ferris wheel, more than likely it did not, however, I like the image of the moon and the ride in a silhouette together. This is in no means meant to be an accurate representation what the park was and more of a tribute to the entire notion of it.