End of an era in Ocean City

After a decade as a working musician at Ocean City’s Hippodrome variety pier, David Gillian got into the amusement park business. He opened the Fun Deck, in 1930 at Plymouth Place and the boardwalk, three years after a fire that ravaged the Hippodrome, according to Wonderland’s website.

With a Ferris wheel and merry-go-round as its main attractions, the Fun Deck would go on to operate for more than half a century — and serve as the genesis of Gillian’s Wonderland Pier.

After nearly three decades, David Gillian retired, leaving two of his sons — Bob and Roy Gillian — to run the Fun Deck. Roy, who would later strike out on his own with Wonderland Pier, had started working at the Fun Deck as a boy.

“I spent my whole young life in and around the rides,” Roy said in a 2005 oral history of his career for the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions. “It became my lifetime.”

Roy Gillian left to start Wonderland Pier, which he opened just down the street from the Fun Deck, at Sixth Street and the boardwalk, with 10 rides.

As Roy told The Inquirer in June 1993, he opened Wonderland Pier with $1,000 of his own money and a “sizable note” from the bank. Wonderland’s name, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year, was chosen because it had 10 letters, allowing a letter to be installed on each of the park’s 10 support beams.

Like his father, Roy’s entry into his own amusement park came following a fire. Several years before he opened Wonderland, a fire had burned down the site’s former occupant, Stainton’s Playland, leaving the land vacant until Wonderland came along, The Inquirer reported in 1995.

Roy resumed running the Fun Deck following his brother’s retirement in 1977. A decade later, Roy “realized the lot was too small to continue expanding,” and he closed the park, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In the Fun Deck’s stead, Roy’s sons — Jay, Jim, and Steve — established Gillian’s Island Water Park, which opened in 1988, according to a 2014 Atlantic City Press report. With that, a third generation of Gillian’s took over the family business.

The water park, Jay Gillian told the Press of Atlantic City in 2014, was Jim’s idea. Jim would go on to buy out his brothers in the water park in 2006.

Jim sold Gillian’s Island to an investment group in 2014, about a month before he died. It remains a water park today.

After more than 30 years running, an accident at Wonderland Pier resulted in the first two fatalities at the park — Kimberly Bailey, 39, and her daughter, Jessica Bailey, 8, both of Pomona, N.Y., according to an Inquirer report.

The accident happened on the Wild Wonder roller coaster, which had opened in July. Just before 10 p.m. on the day of the accident, an anti-rollback device failed, sending a car containing Kimberly and Jessica “plummeting backward down a 40-foot incline,” The Inquirer reported.

The mother and daughter’s car slammed into another car, throwing them from the ride. Two other people were injured.

Jay Gillian, who had been in charge of Wonderland by that point, announced that Wild Wonder would be dismantled out of respect for the Baileys following the state’s investigation into the accident.

State investigators determined that a faulty replacement brake caused the fatal Wild Wonder accident, and issued more than $50,000 in fines to Wonderland and ride manufacturer Zamperla, according to the Associated Press.

Wonderland, investigators said, did not have authorization from the state to replace an anti-rollback device on the ride, which the park had done more than a week before the accident. The new device, The Inquirer reported, had been made by a nearby machine shop, and was “made of steel that was much weaker” than what should have been used. It was also badly worn and improperly installed, investigators said.

Nearly a year after the deaths of his wife and daughter, John J. Bailey filed a $275 million lawsuit against a host of defendants, including Wonderland. The park’s owners, the lawsuit alleged, “knew that the Wild Wonder was defective but failed to close it down,” according to a July 2000 Associated Press report.

Court records indicate that the lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount and dismissed with prejudice in June 2005.

Wonderland’s iconic Ferris wheel had already long been a staple of the Ocean City boardwalk. But in 2001, Wonderland set about installing a newer, larger model of its so-called Giant Wheel.

The old ride, the Press of Atlantic City reported in April 2001, had been dismantled and shipped to an unnamed amusement park in northern Africa. Before that, the publication reported, it had served as not only as a visitor favorite, but also a beacon to local fishermen, as they could make it out miles away from the shoreline.

With construction on the new Giant Wheel completed in mid-2001, the ride today stands at 141 feet tall — three feet high than its predecessor, the Press of Atlantic City reported.

After more than five decades in business, Wonderland went into foreclosure in 2021. That year, the Inquirer reported, owner Jay Gillian, who had become mayor of Ocean City in 2010, defaulted on three loans totaling about $7.9 million, and had put the pier up as collateral.

Much of Wonderland’s debt was accrued ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a $7.3 million loan having been called in May 2017, the Press of Atlantic City reported.

Despite the foreclosure, Gillian issued a statement indicating that Wonderland would still open for the season in March 2021, as the park had “secured financing.”

“It is important to be to continue the legacy created by my grandfather 92 years ago,” Gillian said.

The park, The Inquirer reported earlier this year, had been set to go to sheriff’s sale, but was saved by developer Eustace Mita, who intervened. Mita, who today owns the Wonderland Pier land, spent $10 million to bail out Gillian, with Gillian leasing the land, and the two splitting ownership of the rides.

While working on a Ferris wheel at Wonderland, welder Robert W. Sanger, 62, died after falling from a lift at the park.

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family,” Jay Gillian said in a statement following the Salem County man’s death.

After an investigation, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued a $10,151 fine to Wonderland, according to the Press of Atlantic City. Investigators found that Sanger’s fall came after the concrete the lift was resting on gave way, and wrote in a citation that he was not wearing a personal fall arrest system.

In a statement posted to social media, Jay Gillian announced the impending closure of Wonderland, bringing an end to the Gillian family’s 94-year run in the amusement park business in Ocean City. Wonderland, he wrote, was “no longer a viable business.”

“It’s been my life, my legacy and family,” Gillian said. “It’s sad to let go.”

He added that “increasingly difficult challenges” made sustaining the park no longer possible, but did not elaborate.

Gillian also did not offer indication of what would happen to the Wonderland property. Mita, who owns hotel developer Icona Resorts, had previously proposed a $150 million, 325-room hotel next to Wonderland.

Mita, meanwhile, told The Inquirer that he and his team would take six months to figure out what is next for the space.

“If they can’t make it work, I don’t know who could,” said Mita of the Gillian family. “We’re going to explore everything.”

Wonderland founder and former Ocean City mayor Roy Gillian died at his home at age 94, Godfrey Funeral Home announced. His death came about a week after the announcement of Wonderland’s upcoming closure.

“A remarkable life!” wrote one woman on the funeral home’s website. “Thank you for giving so many families the most wonderful and cherished childhood memories.”

On Nov. 25, 2019, Roy Gillian’s 90th birthday, the Ocean City Regional Chamber of Commerce declared the day to be “Roy Gillian Day.” Roy, the proclamation read, had taken “the reins of an amusement park dynasty founded by his father in 1929 and turned a vacant lot at Sixth and the Boardwalk into one of Ocean City’s premier attractions.”

“Roy Gillian always remained true to his hometown and gave to the community in many ways,” the proclamation read.

While hinted at in Jay Gillian’s announcement the Wonderland would be closing, the park’s final day will officially be Oct. 13.

Mita confirmed the closing date, and a recording at the park’s phone number announced Wonderland’s final hours: 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, and 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.

After that, it will all be over.

“It’s devastating,” park visitor Rachel Pileggi, of Valley Forge, told The Inquirer following the announcement. “Now I can’t really show my kids what I grew up with.”