There’s a place somewhere in the hills of Pennsylvania’s Columbia County that smells like funnel cake, old wood, and something more difficult to describe. Perhaps it’s nostalgia, or perhaps it’s just the constant humidity of a summer afternoon. It doesn’t appear that Knoebels Amusement Resort is attempting to compete with anyone. That could be the reason it defeated Disney.
Knoebels turns 100 this July 4. It opened in 1926, a time when trolley parks were widespread and people didn’t hesitate to enter a fairground without paying a fee. The majority of those parks have long since disappeared. The same family that founded it is still in charge of Knoebels, which is still open to the public. That fact has a subtle stubbornness to it. The rest of the amusement park industry may have looked at this model for decades, believing it would eventually fail. It hasn’t.
For more than 60 years, Ed and Mary Loomis have visited Knoebels. This is where they first met. They brought their children. They now return more than fifty times a season with their teenage grandchildren. It wasn’t the food or the rides that kept them coming back, a reporter asked. The sensation of being somewhere that hasn’t deceived you was more akin to muscle memory. It’s not as common as most parks would have you think.
It makes sense that people would first inquire about the free-admission model. Enter, park for free, and, if you’d like, bring your own food. A ride on the Phoenix, a wooden coaster that has been voted the best in the world, costs between fifty cents and five dollars. Brian Knoebel, a 52-year-old park owner who represents the fourth generation of family ownership, claims he made a pinky-swear pledge to never alter it. Before you realize that he most likely means it, that seems like a charming detail.
Travelers’ Choice on TripAdvisor This year, Knoebels was named the nation’s best amusement park by the Best of the Best Awards. The regional park isn’t the best. America’s best. surpassing parks with $25 parking costs, virtual queues, licensed characters, and nine-figure marketing budgets. There’s a feeling that even the judges were taken aback.
Walking around a place like this makes it difficult to ignore how the physical surroundings convey the story more effectively than any press release could. The rides feel just like rides: they are operated by actual people rather than unseen machines, and they are tactile and slightly rickety in the best possible way. The wooden coaster doesn’t try to be anything but what it is. This also applies to the park itself.
With today’s land costs, labor markets, and insurance requirements, it’s still unclear if a free-admission park like this could be constructed from the ground up in 2026. Most likely not. Knoebels has a model that functions because it was never disassembled, and an atmosphere that endures because it was never updated into something more sophisticated. Something truly challenging to produce was passed down to the fourth generation.
For any business, a century is a long time. It’s a different kind of accomplishment for an amusement park to accomplish that while still being family-run, free of admission, and seemingly more popular than ever. When asked why she keeps returning, Jess Loomis, who was visiting with her two teenagers, put it simply: “Sharing things that I did when I was a kid.”” Certain parks are designed to be spectacular. Apparently, Knoebels was designed for that purpose.
