Susanna McLeod Special to Ontario Construction News
Settled into seats with lap bars, riders’ hearts pounded like drums, anticipating the coming adventure—click, click, click—to the top. Reaching the pinnacle of the steel and wooden roller coaster, the cars whooshed the screaming riders down the steep drop, swooping through curves and hills to end at the station. Built in 1927, the Crystal Beach Cyclone roller coaster delighted park visitors at the shore of Lake Erie for nearly 20 years.
Constructing a roller coaster is an engineering feat, requiring the skills and knowledge of a groundbreaking expert. Roller coaster engineer Harry Guy Traver (b. 1877) of Davenport, Nebraska designed a coaster installed at Crystal Beach. The new ride was a replacement for the Backety-Back in operation from 1909 to 1926.
Changing from a teaching career, Traver apprenticed in mechanical engineering at General Electric Company in 1899. Working at a tramway firm, he next was superintendent at a fire truck firm, Harris Safety Company. The business “was the first to design and build a mechanically drawn fire engine in the United States, which was purchased by the New York Fire Department,” said Sandy Adam at “Roller Coaster History” (Ultimate Roller Coaster).
Founding an engineering firm in 1903, Traver began his expanded plans with a patent application in September 1906 for a Circle Swing. Towering above fairgrounds at over 24 metres, the ride’s “tall mast had several arms from which cars hung and swung out.” The cars evolved from fancy seats to airplane shapes and rocket designs. Building several family-friendly flat ride designs (some called “Bumping Autos”), Traver’s sales provided a wealth of funds for his later complex rides, the roller coasters.
In 1919, Traver Engineering Company was established in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania and continued the manufacture of smaller fair rides. Wooden roller coasters were attracting fans for many decades when Traver launched into roller coaster design. An innovator, he was the first to utilize steel for the main structure. Traver also enhanced passenger safety.
Early roller coasters were risky for riders, with hazardous derailments, whiplash injuries, and lack of adequate passenger restraints. Travers engineered a set of “Giant Cyclone Safety Coasters” known as ‘“the terrible trio,’ all built in 1927,” stated Encyclopedia MDPI. “Lightning” was built at Revere Beach, Massachusetts, “Cyclone” was constructed at Portland, Oregon, and another “Cyclone” was built at Crystal Beach Park, Ontario.
Opened in 1888, Crystal Beach was an exciting amusement park, entertaining visitors with rides of all sizes. The park’s first roller coaster was built in a “figure eight” shape in 1905, and operated for ten years. The second was the wooden Backety-Back Scenic Railway Roller Coaster, constructed in 1909, delighting riders until 1926. The next version of thrilling park entertainment was a side friction machine erected in 1916 called The Giant Coaster. “A side friction roller coaster has normal wheels and a set of side wheels to prevent the cars from coming off the track,” according to “Library Exhibits: Crystal Beach: Roller Coasters” at Brock University. Operating for more than 70 years, “the Giant was distinct because of its yellow colour.”
Planning the complicated structural steel and wood Cyclone roller coaster, Traver applied for a patent in 1927. Constructed at Crystal Beach that same year, the ride’s costs totalled $176,000 to build, with “250 tons of steel and 20,000 boards of lumber,” Brock University noted. “At night, 1,000 electric lights illuminated the roller coaster.”
The park visitors were elated, with “over 75,000 people crowded around this new breed of terror, wanting to get a first-hand look at the legend which had spread throughout the area by word of mouth,” Adam described. Enhancing the ride’s fearsome reputation, a nurse was always on duty to tend to any injuries. (There was only one death, in 1938.) U.S. Patent No. 1,805,266 was awarded to Traver on May 12, 1931 for “Amusement Coaster Railway.”
Compared with other roller coasters, the Cyclone was terrifyingly powerful. Making a sharp turn for the ascent to the top, the cars flew down to the right, climbed and soared through a double helix. Swooping along the track in a series of hills and drops, the train made another abrupt turn onto what the engineer called the jazz track, “which rose and fell like small, one foot bunny hops” said Adam, taking the train back to the station. Traver made the jazz track a feature in all of his designs.
The formidable Cyclone closed in 1946 due to prohibitive maintenance, insurance costs, and declining rider numbers. Using a portion of Cyclone’s materials—300 tons of steel—the Comet coaster was constructed at Crystal Beach Park in 1948, with a lower price of about $125,000.
Celebrated roller coaster engineer Harry Traver died in 1961, leaving an engineering legacy of over 3,000 rides. The era ended when Crystal Beach Park closed in September 1989
© 2025 Susanna McLeod is a writer specializing in Canadian History.
Editor Sources:
“Library Exhibits: Crystal Beach: Roller Coasters,” Brock University. Retrieved from https://exhibits.library.brocku.ca/s/Crystal/page/rollercoasters
“Harry Traver,” Encyclopedia MDPI. Retrieved from https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/38868
Sandy, Adam, “Roller Coaster History: Ride Designers: Harry Traver,” Ultimate Roller Coaster, 2006. Retrieved from https://www.ultimaterollercoaster.com/coasters/history/designer/traver.shtml
US Patent No. 1,805,266, Amusement Coaster Railway, May 12, 1931. United States Patent Office/Google Patents. Retrieved from https://patents.google.com/patent/US1805266A/en?oq=US+patent+1805266