More postcard views of “The Isthmus”
The name of this midway or “pleasure street” derived from the Isthmus of Panama, site of the Panama Canal.
Attractions included a China Town, with an underground opium den where effigies in wax showed the horrors of addiction; a replica of a Pala gem mine; a ride called “The Toadstool,” consisting of a whirring disc on which few could keep their balance; another ride called “Climbing the Yelps,” which simulated a descent into an erupting volcano; a Ferris wheel; a roller coaster in Anfalulu Land, nearly 6,000 ft. in length and equipped with a sound apparatus that ground out “We Don’t Know Where We’re Going But We’re On Our Way”; a historic display called “The Story of the Missions”; an ostrich farm in a building modeled after an Egyptian pyramid; a motion picture studio where films of scenes along the Isthmus were made daily; a Hawaiian Village with the entrance in the shape of a volcano like Kilauea; and an aquarium presided over by King Neptune, consisting of tanks of ocean-filled water in one of which a helmeted diver rescued a waxen damsel from a sunken stateroom.
