If you grew up in Northeastern Pennsylvania anywhere between the late fifties and the late eighties, the name Angela Park Hazleton PA isn't just a geographical marker. It’s a smell—specifically, the scent of suntan lotion mixed with chlorine and frying waffles. It is the sound of a vacuum motor whirring inside a giant pig's head. For most people outside the Coal Region, it was just a small, family-run amusement park on Route 309 in Drums. But for locals, it was the definitive summer ritual.
Honestly, the park was never trying to be Disney. It didn't need to be. It was roughly 70 acres of Butler Valley land that felt more like a giant backyard party than a corporate theme park.
The Dream of Angeline Barletta
The story behind the park is actually pretty touching. It wasn't started by a boardroom of investors; it was the brainchild of a woman named Angeline Barletta. She was the matriarch of a massive Italian family that had moved to Hazleton in 1911. The Barlettas were successful in construction and other local businesses, and in the 1940s, they bought a big stretch of land along the Nescopeck Creek.
Angeline used to talk about building a park there—a place for the community. She died unexpectedly in 1952, never seeing a single ride on that property.
Her husband and seven sons decided they weren't going to let that dream die. They spent the next few years clearing land and hauling in cinder blocks. When the gates finally swung open on Mother’s Day, May 12, 1957, they named it Angela Park in her honor. It was a family tribute that somehow turned into a regional landmark.
What It Was Actually Like to Visit
Walking into Angela Park was a specific kind of sensory experience. You’ve probably seen the old photos: the mid-century signage, the simple wooden ticket booths, and the massive Olympic-size swimming pool. That pool was basically the social headquarters for every teenager in Luzerne County. It was the largest in NEPA at the time, and if you weren't there on a Saturday afternoon, you basically didn't exist.
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The Rides That Defined a Generation
The ride lineup was a mix of classic thrills and "kinda sketchy but we loved them anyway" attractions.
- The Roller Coaster: It wasn't a world-beater, but for a kid from West Hazleton or Berwick, it was plenty high enough.
- The Panther Cars: These were basically miniature cars you could drive on a track. Simple? Yes. But they felt like freedom when you were eight years old.
- The Giant Slide: You'd grab a burlap sack, climb what felt like a hundred stairs, and hope you didn't get a friction burn on the way down.
- The Sky Ride: This gave you a perfect view of the entire park, dangling your feet over the crowds as you moved slowly toward the eastern end of the grounds.
And then, there was Porky the Paper Eater.
You cannot talk about Angela Park Hazleton PA without mentioning Porky. It was a fiberglass pig’s head with a vacuum tube in its mouth. You’d hold a piece of trash up to it, and whoosh—the pig "ate" your garbage. It was so effective that the park was famously spotless. Kids would literally go looking for trash just to feed the pig. Some kids reportedly even took fresh napkins from the snack stands just to have something to give him. Porky eventually moved to Knoebels after the park closed, though he’s retired from his vacuuming duties now.
The Entertainment: From Polka to Pinky Lee
The Barlettas were smart about how they used the stage at the back of the park. They didn't just have rides; they had shows. We're talking big names for the time. Buffalo Bob Smith brought the Howdy Doody Show there in 1959, drawing a record-breaking crowd.
They had "The Saturday Night Swingout," which was a live dance party broadcast on WAZL radio. If you were a local band like The Night People or The Amazing Rhythm Aces, playing the Angela Park stage was the peak of the local circuit. On Sundays, the vibe shifted entirely. The park would fill up with the sound of accordions as polka legends like Stanky and the Coal Miners took over for the older crowd. It was one of the few places where you’d see a teenager in a leather jacket and a grandmother in a floral dress both having a genuinely good time.
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Why Did It Close?
People often ask what happened. Why isn't it still there?
The decline was gradual but inevitable. By the mid-eighties, the Barletta family members were getting older, and the younger generation had other careers. They sold the park in 1985 to the Mirth Master Corporation. Things changed. The "family feel" started to evaporate, and the maintenance costs for an aging park are no joke.
The Mirth Master Corporation filed for bankruptcy after the 1988 season. The gates didn't open in 1989. For a couple of years, there was talk of someone buying it and reviving it—Hazleton doctor Robert Childs even tried to turn it into a nonprofit—but the money wasn't there. In 1990, the rides were auctioned off. The carousel, the bumper cars, the trains—they all got packed onto trucks and shipped to other parks across the country.
The Current State of the Site
If you drive past the site today on Route 309, you won't see much. Most of the buildings were razed in the late 90s. For a while, Lackawanna College used the property to train police officers.
Today, it’s mostly just nature reclaiming the valley. The pool is filled with dirt. The concrete pads where the rides once stood are cracked and overgrown with weeds. It’s a quiet place now, which is a weird contrast to the decades of screaming kids and loudspeaker music that used to define that corner of Drums.
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Legacy and Actionable Insights
So, why does a closed amusement park still get searched for so often? It's because Angela Park represented a specific era of local Pennsylvania life that doesn't really exist anymore—the "picnic grove" era. It was affordable, it was local, and it was safe.
If you are looking to reconnect with the history of Angela Park Hazleton PA, here is what you can actually do:
- Visit the Luzerne County Historical Society: They hold several original brochures and photographs that aren't available online.
- Check the Knoebels "Museum": While Porky is the most famous transplant, Knoebels in Elysburg often pays homage to the defunct parks of the region.
- Watch the Documentary: There is a fantastic documentary titled Angela Park (produced by Sam-Son Productions) that features home movies and interviews with the Barletta family. It’s the closest you’ll get to walking through the gates again.
- Search Digital Archives: The "Remembering Angela Park" groups on social media are surprisingly active, with people daily posting photos of their 1970s family reunions or old "Picnic Is Fun" stickers.
The physical park might be gone, but in a town like Hazleton, memories have a way of sticking around as long as the coal dirt on the windowsills.
To preserve the history yourself, consider digitizing any old family slides or 8mm film you might have from those summer trips. Local historians are always looking for "unseen" footage of the park in its heyday to help map out exactly where every ride sat before the forest took it back.