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When was the Oldest Known Roller Coaster POV Made?

The oldest known Roller Coaster POV to have ever been recorded was a very old POV of Jack Rabbit. There is one problem with it, though: it has never been discovered when it was made. Today, I wanted to go through some things.


This article will be organized by using some points that can eliminate certain years. Now, let's get into this.


First, we know that this has to have been made between 1920 and 2012. This exact footage was posted in 2012 by a YouTuber called KennywoodMe. That was over 5 years before Kennywood posted the footage.


Elimination Round 1: 1980-2012


This is a very easy time slot to eliminate. There is no massive coaster that we can see from here. From 1980-2012, there was always a massive coaster you could see from here. From 1980-1990, there was Laser Loop. From 1991 to 2000, there was Steel Phantom. Starting in 2001, there is now Phantom's Revenge. We can easily eliminate those 32 Years. This helps eliminate 32 Years of 92, which is more than a third of the time.


Elimination Round 2: 1920-1926


The second round of eliminations is from 1920 to 1926. We can determine this because of Racer being in a few frames of the footage. There was an older version of Racer that operated from 1910-1926, but that was where Kiddieland is now, not where the current Racer is. They also had pretty different layouts. We can tell that this is the 1927 Racer that still operated today, so we can eliminate 6 more years.


Elimination Round 3: 1948 and Beyond


We can determine that this footage was recorded before 1948 because Kennywood removed the original tunnel after the 1947 season. A new version of the tunnel was brought back in 1991, but it is shorter than the original, which let's us narrow this down even more.


At this point, we have limited this to a 20 year time slot, but that is not good enough.


I am trying to narrow this down by a lot.


Elimination Round 4: Before 1937


This helps narrow this down by 10 more years. Let me explain. For a very long time, Steel Production and Coal Mining companies did everything they could to prevent Unions from happening. However, in 1937, US Steel finally allowed for unions. For a long time, Kennywood's main audience were Steel Workers. Most schools and Workplaces in Pittsburgh (other than those in West Mifflin and Homestead) would take trips to West View Park until the 1970s.


In the footage, we see a lot of whole families together. There would be a mother, father, and kids. Considering that, a lot of the time, people only got off work to go to Church, we can imply that this is almost certainly not on a Sunday. If that's the case, then this most likely is after or during 1937.


Elimination Round 5: Final Year


After looking into some of the rides that weren't there, when USS allowed for unions, when some of the rides in the video opened and closed, and things like that, I have found the year that this footage was made in: 1947. This had to have been made in 1947 since it was the only year that had both the original tunnel and the Caterpillar. Caterpillar opened in 1947, so it had to have been in at least 1947. The tunnel was removed after 1947, so this is the only year that this could have been recorded in. This also makes sense when it comes to the type of footage, since color video wasn't popularized until the early 1950s.


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