History Daily - America’s Most Dangerous Amusement Park

Episode Date: May 26, 2026

May 26, 1978. “Action Park” opens in New Jersey and quickly earns a reputation as an amusement park like no other.  Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more. History Daily is a co-production of Airship and Noiser.Go to HistoryDaily.com for more history, daily.

It's spring 1980 in the grounds of an amusement park in Vernon, New Jersey. Standing at the top of a steep hill, 44-year-old Gene Mulba Hill pulls a crisp $100 bill from his wallet and hands it to a nervous-looking young man named Frank. Gene is the owner of Action Park, one of the most popular attractions in the state. Frank is his employee, and today he's earning a bonus by acting as a guinea pig for Gene's latest attraction. Pocketing the money from Gene, Frank climbs through a hatch and into a giant orb 10 feet in diameter. Behind it, a rudimentary track zigzags down the mountain.

Gene helps Frank get secured into his seat at the center of the orb. Then he closes Frank inside. As Frank is rolled to his starting position, Gene heads down the hill to where his son and a local safety inspector are waiting. Gene calls this new ride, the ball within a ball. The orb will roll down the track at speed, but the rider inside will remain upright as the world flies by. And if all goes well, Frank will safely come to a stop at the end of the track.

But at action park, things don't always go according to plan. Gene gives a shout and the orb is released. But within moments of Frank beginning his journey downhill, the ball stops rolling and starts bouncing before breaking free of its track entirely. The ball gathers speed, careening down the hill toward Gene, his son, and the safety inspector. They leap out of the way just in time. Then the orb bounces past them and heads across a road that runs through the middle of the park. Finally, it comes to a stop in a boating lane.

As park employees dive into the water to rescue poor Frank, Jean turns toward the safety inspector, who is stunned by what he's just witnessed. Gene tries to put on a brave face, but he's pretty sure the inspector will not be signing off on this ride. The ball within a ball will never open to the general public. But Gene Mulvahill has many other wild rides for the people. people of New Jersey to enjoy. And many of them are unsafe and undersupervised. But that's all part of the dark appeal of Action Park, which built a reputation as the most dangerous amusement park in America ever since it opened on May 26, 1978. I was a bit curious, so I went looking for an

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I'm Lindsay Graham, and this is History Daily. History is made every day. On this podcast, every day, we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world. Today is May 26, 1978, America's most dangerous amusement park. It's the afternoon of May 26, 1978, in Vernon, New Jersey, two years before the test of the ball within a ball. 42-year-old Gene Mulvahill presses his stopwatch and yells, go at two teenagers in racing carts. Alongside a few dozen other young guests, Gene cheers as the two riders fly down the Alpine Slide. It's one of four attractions at the new Vernon Valley Summer Park, which has its

soft launch today. The Alpine Slide is a 2,700-foot-long toboggin ride. Riders sit on a plastic cart with a handbrake between their legs. It's meant to replicate the excitement of sledding down the mountain in winter, but if the riders flip these carts, they won't land on a pillow of fresh snow. Instead, they'll hit a track made of concrete and fiberglass. Gene knows all about the danger, but that hasn't stopped him from allowing his teenage son Jimmy to take one of the first trips downhill. And as Jimmy whizzes by,

Gene even yells at him to be braver and let go over the break. But Gene is used to risk. He's a former Wall Street investor, and a few years ago, an article in Time magazine about the billion-dollar resort business inspired Gene to shift careers. He traded Manhattan for the mountains of Northwest New Jersey and there he acquired a ski resort under foreclosure.

But he quickly became frustrated by the lack of customers during the skiing off-season. He wanted to find a way to make money all year-round, so Gene decided he would add rides to his resort. Today, the first attractions are ready, and he's opening for the summer season. As well as the alpine slide, there's a go-car track and two water slides. He has ambitions of adding more, but today he just wants to have some fun. As Jimmy hurdles down the alpine slide, Gene urges him to go faster and faster until Jimmy takes one corner a little too fast.

He flips his cart and screeches to a halt on the skin-shredding track. Gene doesn't even consider running over to check if his boy is okay. He simply laughs, resets his stopwatch, and shouts for the next rider to go. Perhaps he can do better than Jimmy. Throughout the day, there's a long line of teenagers all eager to have their turn on the alpine slide. The time trial proves so popular that many competitive teenagers could, come back again and again. And for the next month and a half, after the successful soft launch, a steady stream of visitors flocked through the gates of Gene's new theme park. By July 4th, he's

ready for the official grand opening, which not only features the rides, but a Dolly Parton look-alike contest and a tobacco-spitting competition. He also invites the local press along to watch, telling reporters of his big plans for the park and how he wants to buy up more land in the area and install more attractions. Over the months that follow, Gene is true to his word. He expands the site until there are three separate areas, Alpine Center, Motor World, and Waterworld. To reinforce the appeal to Daredevil's, Gene then changes the name of his attraction

from the Vernon Valley Summer Park to Action Park. He claims that of all the theme parks in America, this one is unique. There are no roller coasters where someone else decides how fast the ride goes at Action Park. The customer is in charge. Local teenagers love it, and not just because of the wild rides.

There are few adults, and it's not hard to get alcohol with a fake ID. The result is a special kind of chaos. But this freedom isn't without consequences. Local ambulances report having to attend the park multiple times a day, and many guests come away with cuts and bruises to explain to their parents. But in July 1980, one young man doesn't get that chance. While riding on the alpine slide, 19-year-old George Larson Jr. veers off the track and hits his head on a rock.

George is taken to the hospital, but he dies there after eight days in a coma. Tragically, this will not be the last fatality at Action Park, but such accidents won't deter Gene Moldehill. He'll keep coming up with more and more outlandish thrills for the teenagers of New Jersey to enjoy, regardless of the cost. It's the spring of 1983 in Vernon, New Jersey, three years after the first fatality at Action Park. The amusement park's owner, Gene Molde Hill, passes a cup of hospital. holy water to the priest standing at his side. In full religious garb, the priest takes the cup, turns, and then flicks the holy water over the base of a large blue water slide. He declares Gene's latest attraction is now blessed by God. Gene pats the priest on the back and turns to the

assembled crowd of teenagers. He then announces that the water slide known as the cannonball loop is open for anyone brave enough to try it. No one volunteers at first, but when Gene pulls out some $100 bills, a few tentative hands rise into the air. Originally constructed in 1980, the cannonball loop has stood at the entrance to Action Park for the past three years. It's a standard enclosed water slide, except for one remarkable feature. Just before the end, there is a full 360-degree loop. Like many of the attractions at Action Park, the Cannonball Loop was not designed by engineers. Gene Mulvahill sketched his idea for it on the back of a napkin and had some local well start building it soon after. No one calculated the forces needed to get someone around the loop

or what affects those forces might have on a young body. And when it was built, the first riders were hurt so badly that even Gene decided he couldn't open the cannibal loop to the public. But now he believes he's tweaked the slide enough to make it safe, and it's time to test it with some brave and cash-hungry volunteers. Gene's first teenage guinea pig successfully completes the 360-degree loop. He emerges looking like that. a little dazed, but otherwise unharmed, and the crowd cheers him loudly as he claims his $100 reward. But in the weeks ahead, other guests don't fare so well. Some stagger off the new ride with broken noses. Others are left clutching their badly bruised backs. There are even reports of

missing teeth, getting wedged in the slide, and cutting the skin of riders who follow. Cannonball Loop is never open for more than a month at a time before repairs and further adjustments have to be made. This lax approach to safety is commonplace in a theme park that has so far seen thousands of injuries and at least three deaths. Two years after George Larson Jr. became the first person to die at the park, another teenager drowned in the wave pool. A week after that, a 27-year-old man was electrocuted. Following these accidents, the individual attractions were shut down while investigations took place. But many of Jean's rides fall into a gray area in New Jersey law, an Action Park has so far been able to escape liability. Gene insists he's not responsible.

He says that with the sheer number of visitors, some accidents are sadly inevitable. Still, the steady drumbeat of incidents at the park can't help but attract the attention of authorities. Gene leases his resort from the state of New Jersey, and it launches an investigation into the park. There are soon suggestions that Gene has underpaid rent and he's accused of adding a dam and building a lake on the land without proper permits. But even worse, allegations are to come because Gene has been committing insurance fraud. As part of his lease agreement with the state, Action Park should have $2 million in liability insurance to protect New Jersey from claims relating to accidents on its land. But Gene has set up a fake company in the Cayman Islands that only pretends to insure him.

This scam has saved him hundreds of thousands of dollars in insurance costs, but when it's discovered by investigators from the state, he's charged with fraud. But Gene doesn't let this tussle with the law distract him. He presses on with his latest addition to Action Park, a freshwater lagoon surrounded by man-made cliff tops that guests can jump from. He calls it Roaring Springs. But this new attraction will suffer from some familiar problems. Even as Gene Mulvahill awaits his day in court

and the families of those killed in earlier accidents pursue him for compensation, he won't change his ways. Action Park will remain the same chaotic free-for-all it's always been. Thousands of local young people will continue to stream through its gates, but some of them won't survive. It's August 27, 1984 at Action Park a few weeks after the opening of Roaring Springs. Andy Mulvahill bikes along one of the mountain trails that winds through the trees. 20-year-old Andy is an employee at his father's theme park, and he steers to one side as a pack of excited teenagers and swimming suits race past. But as their laughter fades away down the track, the walkie-talkie strapped to Andy's belt,

squeaks to life. Andy breaks in time to hear a strained voice announcing Code Red at Roaring Springs. Andy immediately turns his bike around, pedals fast downhill. There's already been one fatality at that new attraction, a man who had a cardiac arrest when he jumped into the cold water of the pool, and now it sounds like there's been another accident. And when he reaches the pool, Andy sees that the lifeguards on duty have already cleared the water of other guests and are searching for someone beneath the surface. Andy immediately pulls off his shirt, and dives into help. The water's murky, though, and Andy can't see much farther than three feet in front of him.

He feels along the edge of the pool, and that's where he finds the young man they're looking for, and he's not moving. With the help of the other lifeguards, Andy pulls him from the water, but there's nothing that can be done. A fifth person has died at Action Park. A few months later, Andy's father, Gene Mulvill, arrives for his day in court on charges of fraud. He pleads guilty to establishing a fake insurance company and submitting false documents, documents to the state. He's given three years probation and a $240,000 fine, but he gets to keep Action Park, and despite the five fatalities so far and countless unrecorded injuries,

it remains in his hands for the rest of the decade. During that time, Gene Mulvahill will add more attractions, including bungee jumps and a German beard tent, but eventually the trail of bruised and bloodied bodies will catch up with him. In the late 1990s, two successful lawsuits from injured guests will force Gene to file for bankruptcy and sell the park. The new owners will remove many of the most dangerous activities, and the newest version of Action Park will be safer, quieter, better organized, and far less popular than the wild original that Jean Molde Hill opened for the first time on May 26, 1978. Next, on History Daily, May 27, 1943, an American B-24 bomber crashes in the Pacific Ocean, beginning a two-year ordeal for the surviving crew.

From Noisor and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham, audio editing by Mohamed Shazzo. Sound design by Molly Bach. Music by Throne. This episode is written and research by Owen Paul Nicholson, edited by William Simpson, managing producer Emily Burr. Executive producers are William Simpson for airship and Pascal Hughes for Noisor.