All it took was one maintenance shift at Cedar Point for David Kaman to fall in love with the amusement park.
In the summer of 1973, Kaman, who grew up in Sandusky, landed a job changing light bulbs on the
Giant Wheel during the overnight shift and was captivated by the calm water, shooting stars, and sunrises over Lake Erie.
“I just fell in love with Cedar Point,” he recalls.
That love inspired a lifelong passion for Cedar Point history. After admiring his father’s collection of park postcards, Kaman began collecting his own memorabilia. Fast forward four summers working at the park and 51 years, and Kaman now has more than 1,000 Cedar Point postcards. And a whole lot more.
“But in there somewhere I saw a cool pennant and bought it, then I just started buying everything Cedar Point,” Kaman says.
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The HelmAuthor and former Cedar Point employee Ken Miller talks with former CEO of Cedar Point Entertainment Co. Dick Kinzel during the VIP Preview.The hobby became a family affair, with Kaman and his three sons scouring estate sales, antique stores, and garage sales for treasures. Over the years, his Bay Village home filled with artifacts, including a room nicknamed “The Boeckling Bedroom,” dedicated to items related to
G.A. Boeckling, a key figure in the park’s history.
“I like to think of myself as the Indiana Jones of Cedar Point memorabilia,” he jokes.
In 2022, Kaman retired and moved back to Sandusky, which meant placing much of his collection into storage. When he learned that Cedar Point’s Town Hall Museum wouldn’t reopen, he saw an opportunity.
“I thought, ‘We really need a place in Sandusky, especially downtown Sandusky, to honor the history of Cedar Point,’” he says.
That’s when Cedar Point’s Michael Young told Kaman about the back room at the Merry-Go-Round Museum.
“I thought it would be a great marriage–Cedar Point and the Merry-Go-Round [Museum],” Kaman says.
And from there, the
Cedar Point Historical Museum went from an idea to a reality.
Kaman started the process of having cabinets built, walls repaired and painted, carpet installed, and soon his tubs of memorabilia filled the room.
That’s when Candy Frankowski enters the chat. Or, more specifically, the museum.
“I brought all my tubs in and started putting things on shelves,” Kaman laughs. “And she came in and said, ‘No, no no. This isn’t museum-worthy.”
And Frankowski would know.
Frankowski, who retired in 2015 after seven summers and 30 years as a full-time employee at the park, managed the
Town Hall Museum and has her own impressive collection of park treasures.
“We argue over who has the bigger collection,” Kaman says as he and Frankowski laugh together.
Beyond Kaman and Frankowski, others have been instrumental in making the museum come to life, including Ken Miller, author of "
Rolling Through the Years: A Cedar Point Atlas & Chronology.” Using Miller’s book as a guide, Kaman and Frankowski organized items in the museum’s 17 cabinets in chronological order.
About 80% of the items on display belong to Kaman, with about 10% from Frankowski’s collection. The other 10% has come from the estate of the late David Francis, who wrote the original book on the park, “
Cedar Point: the queen of American watering places.” Kaman contacted Francis’ daughter, Jenna Griffin, who donated items from her father’s collection.
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Beth WerlingKaman's mother and uncle are pictured in this photo from 1931.Items from Cedar Point's Town Hall Museum were either returned to their original owners or sold via auction.
They’ve also had donations from park enthusiasts, and Kaman’s law office,
Kaman and Cusimano, recently made a donation to fund the museum.
“That’s really our goal,” Kaman says. “That we become a repository for all things Cedar Point and that people will come up to the ticket booth of the Merry-Go-Round Museum and donate items.”
Since the museum is a 501c3 corporation, those items can be viewed as a charitable donation for tax purposes.
And while the downtown museum doesn’t tout the square footage of the Town Hall Museum, it does have a lot more artifacts. About several thousand.
Of those several thousand, it can be hard to pick a favorite, but both Kaman and Frankowski have their niches within the memorabilia.
“I am more into the glassware and the plates and the paper, whereas David, he worked in maintenance, so he loves the Big Wheel, so things I never would’ve thought of collecting,” Frankowski says. “Which is good, because you want all of those different aspects of the whole project here.”
But Frankowski’s favorite piece isn’t made of glass or paper.
“This little turtle,” she says, pointing in a display case. “That’s my favorite because when I was a child I won that. I’ve kept it all these years.”
And Kaman’s? It’s a toss-up between two.
“I tell people my favorite one, I’ve had it forever, is the bucket,” he says, as he slides open the display case to reveal a 1906 engraved bucket and shovel. “There’s a couple of those similar buckets out there but none of them have the original shovel with them. So it’s a sand pail and a shovel that they sold at the Hotel Breakers for the beach.”
His most prized artifact, though, is as personal as Frankowski’s.
“My favorite item here is this,” he says as he slides open another door to a framed sepia-toned picture of a man and a woman on a merry-go-round horse. “This is from 1931 and that’s my mother and my uncle…so to have my mother and my uncle on a merry-go-round horse when the museum ended up to be in the Merry-Go-Round Museum is just awesome.”
One of the more unique items in the collection is a World War I helmet, which was donated by former park general manager John Hildebrandt. The helmet was given as a souvenir to a gathering of World War I veterans at the park in 1936.
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Beth WerlingFrankowski's favorite piece of memorabilia in the museum is a stuffed turtle she won as a child at the park.Other note-worthy pieces include glassware made in Germany and bottles from Cedar Point’s own bottling company that were unearthed during excavation projects at the park.
“There’s just so many little artifacts here,” Kaman says.
And because there are so many artifacts, the duo plan to rotate the items every few months.
“We have 17 display cases, and I guess the biggest challenge is putting in everything we have and limiting and whittling it down to 17,” Kaman says. “But it’s been a whole lot of fun.”
An aspect that has been particularly enjoyable for Kaman and Frankowski has been the number of people they’ve been able to touch and share stories of their joy and love for Cedar Point.
When former park general manager Dan Keller was able to connect Kaman with Safari Jane–wife of Jungle Larry, who together operated the popular
Safari Island at Cedar Point–Kaman says he “was hoping to talk to her for five minutes.”
“It was just delightful,” he recalls. “We ended up talking for more than an hour just reminiscing about all the parts of the jungle areas.”
Jane, in turn, sent the official Jungle Larry and Safari Jane embroidered shirts that are now on display in the museum.
It’s those types of memories that Kaman and Frankowski hope to trigger as people peruse the items on display.
“I think people miss the Town Hall Museum at Cedar Point,” Frankowski says. “We’ve heard that over and over and when they come through the door, they are so excited to see everything and you hear, ‘Oh, I remember that,’ or ‘I used to ride that.’ So it’s nice to see people appreciate and bring back their fond memories of Cedar Point.”
Kaman shares his museum partner’s sentiments.
“To me, Cedar Point is more than just a place; it’s an emotion,” he says. “When I see people come in the door, it’s people that remember that are my age being there with their parents because of the history and it just brings back such an emotion. But it’s a wonderful emotion.”
The Cedar Point Historical Museum opens Dec. 4 and will mirror the hours of the Merry-Go-Round Museum, which are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is included with a ticket to the Merry-Go-Round Museum, although donations are accepted.