Midsummer Issue 2023

very specific.
“I was 18. My girlfriend, now my wife, brought
me here and we went on the Lost Cavern boat
ride. The next day I shipped out to Vietnam.”
The popularity of Bertrand Island began to
rise around 1910. Starting as a swimming area, the
park was spurred to growth by the extension
of the Morris County Traction Company trolley
line.
It was one of 1,000 such U.S. trolley parks,
wrote historian Marty Kane in the spring 2023
newsletter of the Morris County Heritage
Commission.
Over in Nolan’s Point in Jefferson, the passenger
rail service drew hundreds of people to the area,
giving way to an assortment of amusements,
said Kane. In 1928, Nolan’s Point Amusement Park
opened and operated until 1933.
In 1919, most of Bertrand Island was purchased
by Louis Kraus and a partner. In 1921, the year
recognized as the opening of Bertrand Island
Park, the beach was acquired. Kraus’ vision
propelled the park’s success and while his
marketing skills helped fuel the popularity of the
park, he chose to rent out space for others to
operate the rides and games.
Soon the park added a boardwalk, dance
hall, outdoor dining pavilion, games and other
attractions. In 1925, the Wildcat, a wooden roller
coaster, was added, transforming the business
into a true amusement park.
Additions and improvements to the site
were made continually. One of the favorite
attractions was the Illions Monarch II Supreme
carousel, a hand-carved marvel. Among the
most memorable days were Nickel Nights, where
cheap rides were meant to keep the park busy
on weeknights.
Both Donofrio and Maresca said the rides at
times were death-defying.
“The Wildcat was a wooden roller coaster,”
Donofrio said. “It slammed and rattled, but that
was part of the fun.”
Maresca said The Whip, a spinning chair ride,
was operated by a brake system that, when
depressed, would suddenly change the direction
of the ride, slamming the riders side to side.
The concessionaires running the games and
rides returned year after year. A group of those
vendors, headed by the D’Agostino and Donofrio
families from Dover, purchased the park in 1948,
keeping Kraus on to help manage.
The last member of these families, Ray
D’Agostino, sold the park in 1978 to an owner/
developer who closed it in 1983. Starting in 2001,
condominiums replaced the park.
The life of Bertrand Island Park reflected the
changes at Lake Hopatcong. Begun during the
end of the lake’s iron mining days, the once
industrial lake became a resort. Among its guests
were the builders of the fancy cottages that
dotted the bluffs and coves.
After World War II, suburbanization crept
across the region. By the time the park closed
in 1983, the kids who ate handfuls of French fries
and cotton candy and screamed at the top of
the Wildcat had become lake residents.
Their kids were heading to the shore, Florida
or Mexico for amusement.
The developers won in the end—the land,
anyway.
But buried under the stone and wood of the
condos are the aroma of fresh popcorn, the
screams of the divers off the oversized swim
platform and the yells of game winners.
Dancers in dreams still glide or jitterbug across
the smooth dance floor, the Wildcat still rattles,
the bumper cars still slam and bounce and the
deep elegance of the handcarved carousel
horses are still smooth to the touch, their power
everlasting.
For all the excitement, all the business, the
park community was family, said Al Cuda, Louis
Kraus’ grandson. When Cuda was 7, he, along with
Evelyn (Craney) Constantine, were the faces of
Bertrand Island Park in a series of advertisements.
Both were celebrated at the July event.
“It was a place parents could drop off their kids
in the morning and know they would be safe,”
he said.
Both Lohmeyer and her cousin, Gay Ann Bucci,
each the daughters and granddaughters of the
Dover families who were vendors and eventually
owners, said they had free rein of the park.
“It was a community who watched out for us
and the visitors,” Lohmeyer said. “It was when I
was a little older that I realized that no matter
where I went in the park, someone was keeping
an eye on me.”
For a few moments at the end of that July
night, many in the crowd were dragged back to
a moment—that thing—that they never forgot.
During the playing of a video of the park’s
life, guests were treated to another ride on the
Wildcat, the view from a filmmaker’s camera as
it crept up the first rise, then dipped down the
slope with a quick rush, then up the steeper,
taller grade, a pause and then a rapid plunge.
Some in the audience raised their hands and
took the fall; they cried out, arms waving, joining
for a moment those coaster riders from years
ago.
When the video ended with the slow sliding
stop of the coaster cars, the crowd smiled and
cheered and laughed, young again.
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