Luna Park, Melbourne

For other amusement parks of the same name, see Luna Park; for other uses of the phrase, see Luna Park Melbourne's Luna Park is a historic amusement park located on the foreshore of Port Phillip Bay in St Kilda, Victoria, an inner suburb of Melbourne, Australia. It opened on 13 December 1912 and has been operating almost continuously ever since.

History

This was the first of the four Luna Parks that were built in Australia, of which only Melbourne and Luna Park Sydney are still operating. The other two, now defunct, Luna Parks were at Glenelg in South Australia (1930–1934) and at Redcliffe in Queensland (1944–1966).

The St Kilda park was developed by American showman J D Williams,Frederick Ingersoll is most closely associated with Luna Parks around the world, and though is said to have worked on plans for a park in Australia, did not in fact build the Melbourne example.Luna Park - Just for Fun, Sam Marshall, Luna Park Sydney P / L, 2005, in company with the three Phillips brothers (reputedly from Seattle), who had all had experience in the amusement and cinema industry in the US. Their Chief Engineer and main designer was Englishman T H Eslick, who, according to the opening day brochure, had worked on numerous parks around the world. Williams returned to the US in 1913 to help found First National Films which subsequently became Warner Brothers. The Phillips brothers stayed on and ran the park until their deaths in the 1950s.

In the years before...
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