The ease of setting up and taking down the Swooper made it a great ride for the carnival midways as seen in this photo. Location unknown.
part of the graphics advertising the newest ride on the midway...The Swooper
This illustration is from an extremely rare brochure of Seaview, a defunct black amusement park in Norfolk, VA. I really was surprised that Seaview had a Swooper, but why would it appear in this artist rendition? The Swooper was such a bizarre ride to make up unless you had actually seen one.
Rye's Playland at Rye Beach, NY also had a Swooper.
Here is a rare photo of the Swooper at Jefferson Beach Amusement Park in Saint Clair Shores, Michigan.
Swooper model from brochure
The above picture & two pages of text below were taken from a Swooper brochure, from the Sellner Co., manufacturer of this very odd ride. Swoopers were not a run of the mill ride, but their former locations pop up the more research I do.
 
Swooper brochure
Swooper ar Carolina Beach North Carolina
This Swooper (behind the ferris wheel) was located at Carolina Beach, NC.
One of the reasons so few Swoopers were built (19), apparently was the Eli Bridge Company, who provided financing to purchasers, wanted Sellner to stop building them because they had also provided financing of their own Ferris Wheels.                              
Known Swooper locations:        
  • Cuba
  • Chain of Rocks Park, MO
  • Rye's Playland, N.Y. 
  • Coney Island,  N.Y.
  • Carolina Beach, N.C.
  • Seaview, Norfolk,VA.
  • Ocean View Park, VA
  • Williams Grove, PA.
  • Lakeside Park, Dayton, OH
  • Jefferson Beach, MI
  • Eastwood Park, Detroit, MI
  • Sunnyside, Toronto, Canada
  • The PNE in Ontario
  • Japan
  • Doug's Dominion
Over a decade ago while living in Norfolk,VA, I decided it would be fun to build a model amusement park in my bedroom. I named it Dougs' Dominion. What started out as a small project on a shelf soon turned into quite a deal with lights & operating rides complete with a Lego Monorail that took over five minutes to complete its' route. One of the versions was static (non moving) HO scale model kits. I soon learned how to scratch build (using pieces of other kits), rides and buildings that were not available. I started to rebuild rides I was familar with. One of those was the Swooper. Here is the Swooper that was at Dougs' Dominion. This particular ride still exist, though unfortunately, Dougs' Dominion is defunct.
©2010