The Ice Mountain Bobsled roller coaster was originally designed in 1983 as a roller coaster that floated along a 24" wide fiberglass track, but was redesigned 2 years later by Ascott Design when the original design proved too difficult to get visitors through fast enough.įollowing Ice Mountain, construction began on the Old Europe Village with the Jolly Roger Water-Light show in 1988. The Comedy Theatre was built for daughter Susan, who writes and directs the outrageous musical comedies based on fairy-tales. The Tofteville western town was built the second year, and the Haunted House opened in 1974. Through the years, Roger and his family have been adding to his dream with new additions to the park. Mavis, though not active in the business anymore, has written several books about the Enchanted Forest and is still a busy writer. Mavis ran the business until diagnosed with cancer and passed the day to day operations of running the business to daughters Susan and Mary when they were young adults. Roger quit his job with the State Highway Department after Enchanted Forest's second season, in 1973, when he was sure it would be able to support himself and his family. Only one bank took the chance on them and loaned them the money. Their own bank would not loan them the money, because, of course, the Tofte family didn't have any cash. Close to opening, Roger and Mavis needed $2,000 to put on the last touches to the park in order to be able to open, but had run out of every last dime. Roger's friends and co-workers used to tease him about his work on "Idiot Hill." That also seemed to be the bank's idea. The Tofte's own backyard became filled with storybook figures and small buildings as Roger also used every spare second at home to work on his dream.Įveryone but Roger thought it was foolish to think that this idea could work. He repaired watches in his spare time to help finance his project and worked on building the park after work and on weekends. He purchased the original 20 acres of land off Interstate 5 for four thousand dollars, in monthly payments of fifty dollars and began construction in 1964, one bag of cement at a time. He formulated the idea for a theme park where he could use his creative talents and though he had very little time or money to make his dream a reality, he persisted anyway. Ten years later, in the 60's, Roger, now the father of four young children, realized there was very little for a family to see and do together in Salem.
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