On November 24, 2024, I walked through Stricker’s Grove while it was closed. Caroline and I were in Cincinnati for a wedding, and on our way back to Indianapolis we decided to drive past the small park to try and see their two wooden coasters. Little did I know we’d see much more than that.
Stricker’s Grove is a tiny amusement park in Hamilton, Ohio, about 20 minutes from downtown Cincinnati. The park is actually only open for four days a year. Those dates are the Fourth of July, Family Day (the second Sunday in August), Labor Day and Customer Appreciation Day (which is in October). It’s also open a handful of other days in July for the Hamilton County Community Fair, which is hosted at the park.
Since we were driving past in November, I knew the park wouldn’t be running any rides. I didn’t know if there was a gate blocking out cars or something, but I figured we’d at least be capable of driving past and seeing the rides from the street.
But, we were actually capable of pulling onto the property. There weren’t any gates stopping us from driving in. After parking on the side and taking some pictures from behind the fence, we noticed a few other cars parked in front of the park’s main entrance. We didn’t know what they were here for, but I decided we could park too and try and walk in. There wasn’t a gate in front of the entrance, so I figured if someone said we couldn’t be here we’d just apologize and leave.
As we walked into the park, we only saw one person despite there being about 20 cars in front. The actual amusement park is to the right of the entrance, so we walked there. The rest of the park is filled with food venues and picnic tables. Stricker’s Grove also functions as a corporate retreat location that can be rented out for all sorts of different events. There might’ve been a private event going on indoors somewhere, but we couldn’t tell.
After turning right, we took a straight shot into the amusement park section. Once again, I was expecting some sort of gate blocking us from going further, but it never appeared. Instead, we kept walking down an alley of old-school flat rides until we were face to face with Tornado, the park’s main wooden coaster. This ride opened in 1993 and was actually built by Ralph Stricker, one of the former owners of the park.
The park has a great selection of flat rides. Perhaps the most intense of these rides is Electric Rainbow, which is a Gravitron ride that uses gravity to pin riders to the sides of the ride as it spins. It’s one of those attractions you couldn’t pay me to ride. It looks way too intense and dizzying.
Almost all the flat rides were missing their cars. Case in point, the Tilt-A-Whirl was missing it’s classic shell-like cabs. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these without their classic spinning vehicles, so it was neat to see it like this.
Experiencing the park this empty means it looks abandoned in almost every picture. The pirate ship looks relatively well-kept, but could probably use a new paint job. That said, it’s a pretty big ride and it’s awesome they have one at all.
Just when I thought I couldn’t get any closer to the rides, I realized that the Tornado’s queue was open. It’s not much of a queue, with just a couple switchbacks before the station. Regardless, I was able to walk all the way up to the station and see the coaster train. There was finally a gate blocking my way from actually walking up to the train, which makes total sense. I don’t think anyone should be able to just randomly walk up and get on the actual track. It was just amazing to get this close while the park wasn’t open.
There was one other part of the park where I could get extremely close to the rides: the flying scooter footprint. Unlike most parks, there wasn’t any sort of fence around this attraction blocking it off from the grass. That meant we were able to walk out past the platform and all the way up to the fence in the picture. You might technically be able to do this while the park is operating, but I bet you would be rushing on and off the scooters and unable to stand there for long.
The other wooden coaster at Stricker’s Grove is The Teddy Bear. This ride is a lot smaller, but as you can see from the previous two pictures, it still has some decently sized hills that might give off some good airtime. It also gets pretty close to the Tornado’s layout, which is very cool.
Just like Tornado, I was able to walk up to the Teddy Bear’s station. It didn’t have the coaster train sitting in it, but it was still cool to see the platform up close. There seemed to be a lot more signage, including multiple reminders to keep hands and feet inside the ride. Safety is definitely a priority, but the sheer amount of signs makes me wonder if they have a problem with people trying to get out of the ride. A small wooden coaster at a small park like this seems primed for issues like that.
Those are all of the best pictures from our impromptu trip to Stricker’s Grove. Even though the park wasn’t open, it was still amazing to get all of these unobstructed views of the rides. It was like we had an entire amusement park all to ourselves, and while there was definitely an eerie feeling of abandonment at times, it was still cool to see it so empty. I’d love to come back here when it’s actually open. Perhaps the Customer Appreciation day in October next year. It’s only about 1.5 hours away from where I live, so maybe it’s worth tacking on to a trip to Kings Island. If I go, I’ll be sure to write another trip report covering what I actually thought of the rides. In the meantime, if you’ve been to Stricker’s Grove while it’s operating, feel free to write a comment letting me know what’s worth riding there!
Limitless Park is a free website dedicated to bringing you the latest in the themed entertainment industry. If you enjoy reading consider becoming a subscriber
MORE FROM LIMITLESS PARK
HAVE A QUESTION FOR LIMITLESS PARK? Leave a comment below or visit our Contact Info page to get in touch!
CHECK US OUT ON SOCIAL:
YouTube – Facebook – Twitter – Instagram
Limitless Park 