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ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER
Abelman, Frayne, &Schwab
This Week in Intellectual Property History for the Week of January 17, 2011
On January 20, 1885, the U.S. Patent Office issued Patent No. 332,762 to La Marcus Thompson of Coney Island, NY. Coney Island, was already a popular amusement park in 1884, when Thompson opened a new attraction - the Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway - which was the name given to the first roller coasting structure ever used for amusement.
Legend has it that Thompson based his design, at least in part, on the Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway which was a coal-mining train that had started carrying passengers as a thrill ride way back in 1827.
For a five-cent ticket, passengers sat sideways in bench-like cars that were pushed off from their starting point at the top of a tower and, by gravity, descended the gentle waves of a wooden mini-railway, reaching a top speed of a whopping six miles per hour and coming to rest at a second tower 600 feet away. At the top of the other tower the vehicle was switched to a return track or "switched back" (hence the name).
The enormously popular ride earned back Thompson's original $1,600 investment within three weeks. Within four years, he had built about 50 more across the nation and in Europe. The original Switchback Railway at Coney Island
The original Switchback Railway at Coney Island
