Lincoln Park, North Dartmouth, Massachusetts

Opened in 1894, Lincoln Park's skating rink, carousel, and game arcades entertained summer merrymakers for most of a century. But the park also had a dark side. The Comet roller-coaster, its most beloved attraction, was plagued by tragedy. In the mid-1960s, a man died after trying to stand up while his coaster car descended a hill. Just a few years later, passengers were tossed from the Comet when the last car detached, rolled backward, and derailed. Another man died in 1986 trying to climb between cars. And finally in 1987, faulty brakes made the last car derail again, hanging precariously off the track with the passengers inside. This was the Comet's last ride, and the damaged car remained in that position until vandals bore it away, the final chapter in a decade of financial decline for the park. A series of fires destroyed nearly all that remained on the property, but the Comet still lingers; battered and half collapsed under the weight of heavy snowfalls, it's now a fractured mess of splintered wood, rusted chains, and twisted track.

Lincoln Park
Route 6
North Dartmouth, Massachusetts

Picture courtesy of Nathan Byrnes, Flickr

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