I am the former webmaster of Defunct New England (2004-2006) as well as the former webmaster of the old Angelfire pages "Lost Amusements: Rhode Island," and "Lost Amusements: Lincoln Park" (1997-2004). After a hefty hiatus from sharing my archival images, I have a renewed interest as my daughter develops her own interest in the sites I've spoken about for many years.

As I worked on building my collection of digital artifacts, I was shocked to see how many amusement parks have come and gone, especially in Rhode Island and Massachusetts where I lived, worked, and played. These images collectively speak of a simpler time and show how things change with progress, the "bigger is better" paradigm, and the "big boxing" of American culture. Could little parks like Lincoln Park survive today? This is a question for the ages.

My website went offline due to the rising cost of web hoisting and has been gone for nearly three years. I am using Flickr to host the old photo collection from these sites due to an overwhelming number of emails asking where the webpage went. This archive represents my early efforts at sorting and cataloging, and it is still a work in progress! I will be updating these archives as I receive new items and will write clearer descriptions and short histories of the parks as time permits.

Since many of these are either scans from collections, photos from myself and donations from others, and old artifacts of lost amusement parks, I am not claiming any exclusive copyrights. Many of these have lapsed into the public domain and I have not posted anything that I did not have permission to share. If I am missing a photographer credit, I ask for it on the content item itself.

I hope these images bring back some memories!