Eagle River, Wisconsin: Pleasure Island (Gone)

Eagle Pass Park was an Old West town with good guys and bad guys -- I played the town marshal "get out of town by sundown" Brown in the summers of 1976, 77, and 78 (Erik Phelps was the outlaw and has a previous post). Best summers of my life were spent at Pleasure Island. Sure was a different time period -- stage coach rides, antique cars, and our great shoot-outs. Oh, How I wish I could go back to those days.

My sister ran the Saloon and they served "Swamp Water" in mason jars -- kept the parents busy!!

We used to spend summers at the family cottage in Presque Isle, and at night we would watch whatever was on the one channel that came in, and it never failed, you could always count on a commercial advertising Pleasure Island. The Train hold-up, the town shoot-outs with the sheriff, the different fairy tale structures you could visit. We would beg my dad and grandma to take us there. Those were such fun years growing up, visiting a place like that. I remember always climbing up to the top of Ole Mother Hubbard's Shoe and looking out through the top window. Anybody remember "Aqualand?" What a blast. Thanks, Pleasure Island, for such wonderful memories.

Oh My, what memories. My parents use to take us to Eagle River every summer. We would stay at cottages located across from the Wisconsin River on Hwy 70.

Pleasure Island was so much fun. I remember the mannequin of a lady they had sitting on a bench. My father would sit next to her and put his arm around her for a picture. We called her my dad's girlfriend. That was a big laugh for us kids. I also remember that for a time they had the mechanical gunslinger who would challenge you to a quick draw. And of course the big train robbery.

Oh my, the memories! Our family went every year, all through the '60s until the mid '70s. We always stayed at Snip Lake Resort on -- you guessed it! -- Snipe Lake near Eagle River, and we'd head "to town" for fun once each week. Adjacent to Pleasure Island were the Rocking W stables -- still there, by the way -- and I rode a pinto pony name Barney, who was blind in one eye, until I graduated to the big horses.

Pleasure Island was GREAT fun and I too, was SO sad to see it go. My own kids would have loved it! There also were the great green Barn Shops right there to hunt for really tacky souvenirs!

Wow, I just happened to look up my Grandfather's amusement park, Pleasure Island...and read the amazing memories everyone wrote! It totally made me remember the wonderful times I spent up there with my grandparents and uncles. I read the "memory" of the mom who enjoyed Pleasure Island as a child and went to take her child there years later -- only to find that it was closed. That was a very rough time for the family. One of my uncles died and Grandfather just couldn't keep it open after that. Then my grandmother got sick and they moved to Florida.

The really sad part of that move is that my Grandfather had sent us a Christmas card saying that they had just moved and were at their new address and wrote us this nice letter -- but he was apparently beginning to have memory problems because he never finished the letter -- just enclosed the 1st page and it left off in the middle of a sentence and there was no return address on the envelope! We were never able to find where he was or where my other uncles had moved to and we are sure that they felt since we didn't write back we weren't interested in keeping close to them. That was sooo not the case. We would love to know where any of the Morley boys are or where Grandpa John was living when, we imagine by now, he died. I would so love my kids and grandkids to know that side of my family-- so if ever any of you Morley's read this--- this is Dianne, Barbara (Morely-Langohr) Doherty's daughter. email is diannern44@att.net