For more information visit www.arcadiapublishing.com
Not much remains on the site of Fantasy Farm, but the children’s amusement park that operated from 1963 to 1991 lives again in the pages of a new book by a local historian.
Fairfield native Scott Fowler, an expert in local amusement park history, is the author of “Fantasy Farm Amusement Park,” an entry in the Image of America series that uses vintage photographs to tell the story of the venue next to LeSourdsville Lake, also known as Americana. The soft-cover book ($22.99) will be available at local retailers and book stores starting Monday.
Fowler published a similar book on LeSourdsville Lake in 2010. He didn’t have space to write extensively about Fantasy Farm in that volume, so a book about Fantasy Farm made for a natural follow-up, he said. Both parks were founded by the same man, Edgar Streifthau, but they were competitors.
“It kind of left some open-ended questions as far as why Edgar Streifthau would open up a park next to an existing, thriving park like LeSourdsville. So the Fantasy Farm book answers those questions and brings everything back full circle,” Fowler said.
According to the book, Streifthau, who started LeSourdsville Lake in 1922, was forced to sell that park in 1960 after his partner, Don Dazey, died of cancer. However, Streifthau still had 20 acres of land next to LeSourdsville Lake, and he was eager to get back into the business, so he created a park designed for children ages 12 and under. It featured a petting zoo, a picnic area, a playground and rides.
Fantasy Farm did well in the following years, at one point having more than 50 head of deer, cows, horses, goats and sheep. Streifthau sold it to Bill Johnson of Fairfield in 1982, but competition and hard economic times forced its closure after 1991.
Even though Fantasy Farm was smaller than LeSourdsville and didn’t operate for as many years, the Fantasy Farm book is almost as long as Fowler’s LeSourdsville book, at nearly 100 pages.
“That was due in part to a lot of solicitation from the public. With the LeSourdsville book, I had lots of archives … Fantasy Farm had hardly anything. So I solicited on Facebook anyone who had pictures of the park, and I probably had 40 or 50 people submit pictures to me,” Fowler said. “My research on the park was literally from scratch.”
Fowler said that Jerry Couch, who runs an RV dealership on the former LeSourdsville site, bought the Fantasy Farm land in 2006, with the aim of eventually opening a private park.
About the Author