For kids who grew up in the mid-20th century,
few things in life were as exciting as the local department store at Christmas.
Each year these stores seemed to outdo themselves with the festivities.
There were toys of all kinds as far as the eye could see.
The big man himself was waiting on his throne to meet you.
And if you were lucky enough, Christmas time also meant a ride on the monorail.
Just imagine flying over aisles of toys, wondering
which ones might be under the tree on Christmas morning.
Earlier this year I came across two odd pieces of history.
One was a Christmas monorail ride at a department store in Portland, Oregon.
The other appeared to be the same ride,
but this one was in Atlanta, Georgia.
So now this begged the question:
how many more of these things were out there?
Well, according to a 2002 article in the Portland Tribune,
26 of them had been built across the United States.
After spending way too much time trying to track them all down,
I've managed to identify 22 of them.
So that's what we'll be looking at today.
Where they were located, when they were in operation,
and what ultimately happened to them.
To start things off, we can say definitively
that Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is where the story begins.
In the Christmas season of 1946, Wanamaker's Department store introduced the Rocket Express,
a miniature monorail that would take kids on an aerial tour of the eighth floor toy department.
The ride was an instant hit, and soon became
one of Philadelphia's most iconic Christmas traditions.
As one person later recalled: “The most amazing sight to me
was the huge monorail that hung from the ceiling.”
“I remember tugging my parents along,
hurrying to buy tickets so I could ride that train.”
“Looking down over all those toys and seeing the model trains
in the glass-enclosed display case that seemed to take up half the floor.”
“What a sight for a kid to see!”
Sometime in the 1950s, the ride was updated with a streamlined rocket nose.
After nearly four decades of operation, the ride was retired in 1984.
Today it's preserved at the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia.
Another monorail opened in 1946
at the Sears and Roebuck Department Store in Chicago, Illinois.
In this case there's practically no information on it,
but we do have this photo to prove it was there.
A third monorail debuted at Boston Store in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
This one ran above the toy department on the building's seventh floor.
People online only seem to mention it being there in the 1960s,
but then I came across this vintage ad for the store.
This is made to look like a letter from Santa,
and invites kids to ride the Rocket Express monorail.
This ad is apparently from 1946,
which confirms the Boston Store ride as one of the first to open.
And since we know it was still there in the 1960s,
that means it lasted for at least 20 years.
Speaking of Milwaukee, multiple people have also
recalled a monorail at the nearby Gimbels Department store.
I haven't personally found any evidence to support this, and there seems to be some question
whether they're actually remembering the ride at Boston Store.
Since the stores were only a few blocks from each other,
it's reasonable to assume that those memories could blend together.
So without any firm evidence, I'm going to leave Gimbels off the map.
The next monorail opened in Baltimore, Maryland in the following Christmas season of 1947.
This one was at Stewart's Department Store, and similar to the others,
it was named the Rocket Express and ran above the toy department.
There’s very little information on it, but in this case, we actually know why.
Nearly 20 years later, someone involved with the project said:
“It was attracting too many kids.”
“[Stewart's] paid off our contract and asked us to remove it.”
“Their elevators and escalators
just didn't have the capacity to handle the additional loads.”
So the Baltimore ride was apparently so popular that it was removed almost immediately.
The next ride to open was in Newark, New Jersey in 1948.
This one was at the Kresge-Newark Department Store,
and ran above the second floor toy department.
Similar to the ride in Philadelphia,
this one was given the rocket treatment sometime in the 1950s.
It's unclear how long this ride lasted,
but there's evidence of it at least through 1956.
In 1949, another monorail debuted in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
This one opened on the fourth floor toyland of Donaldson's Department Store,
and lasted at least as late as 1960.
A ride on the monorail only cost 9 cents.
To put that in perspective, you could either let your kid ride it 66 times,
or for the same money you could buy them this life size undressed baby doll.
Which Christmas memory do you think they would want?
Another monorail opened at Herpolsheimer's Department Store in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
This one debuted as Santa’s Rocket Express in 1949.
In 1976, it was re-themed completely as the Caterpillar Express.
Because, let's face it, your kids weren't going to be able to sleep on Christmas Eve anyway.
At some point the ride also had this train-like design, I think in the 1980s?
But in the late 90s, it changed one more time to the Dino Express.
The ride was finally retired in 2000
and donated to the Grand Rapids Public Museum.
The vehicles were restored to their original 1949 appearance
and are now displayed at the museum every year during the holidays.
Another monorail opened in Manhattan, New York in 1949,
and was the second to be operated by the Wanamaker's Department store chain.
The ride operated over the Toyland displays on the second floor
and lasted at least through 1951.
A fourth monorail in 1949
opened in Fort Worth, Texas at Leonard's Department Store.
The ride was very popular with locals,
boasting over 100,000 riders during its first season.
There’s evidence of the ride lasting at least through 1954.
As one person later recalled:
“I look back now and it wasn't but a few feet above the shoppers heads,
but back then, it seemed like it was in the clouds.”
“Some of the kids threw popcorn and pennies at the shoppers,
others just hocked a loogie and spit,
so Leonard's put a wire screen on the windows.”
So that wraps up the first batch of rides that were opened in the 1940s.
But before we keep going, let's shift our attention to a question we haven't asked yet:
Who was building these rides in the first place?
There's very little information to go on here,
but most modern sources credit the Louden Machinery Company
as the builder of these rides.
Historically, William Louden invented a hay carrier in 1867
that used the monorail track to efficiently stack hay bales.
With this and many other patents, the Louden company
became a major name in American farm equipment and barn construction.
By World War I, Louden’s industrial monorail system was put to extensive use in factories,
and this soon became the company's main focus.
By the end of World War II, Louden monorails
had become an essential part of American manufacturing.
As the story goes, Louden repurposed
their track system for kiddie rides after the end of the war.
We know the Christmas monorails started appearing in 1946,
so the timing certainly checks out.
But the answer isn't quite that simple.
See, in 1950, the next known kiddie monorail
was built in Fairyland Park in Lyons, Illinois.
I haven't been able to dig up
any photos of the ride itself, or any clues about how long it was there.
But it was announced in an article in the Billboard, which said:
“Clinton Clark, owner of Rocket Express Systems Inc.,
Oak Park, Ill., directed erection of this ride.”
“He said similar models had been used previously
in several department stores during the holidays,
but that the Miller Park was the first to have an outdoor model.”
There's no mistaking this is the right company,
as the Rocket Express name was used on many of the rides themselves.
Historian Jeff Clemmons elaborates on this, writing:
“A former employee of Milwaukee's Boston Store, Clark had gotten the idea
for the ride from the Boston Store's president,
who suggested making a train ride that would be elevated above the store's
display cases in order to conserve and free up floor and wall space.”
It seems Clark took the idea so seriously that he left to start Rocket Express,
and then signed on his former employer as one of their first customers in 1946.
Regarding the Louden theory, the Maasdam Barns Preservation Committee writes:
“Web searches uncovered newspaper reports about this monorail [...]
where it was called the Louden Supertrack Monorail.”
“Other webpages also mention Loudon.”
“However, when questioned, some ex-employees
who had worked at Louden in the 1940s and 1950s said that
they did not remember any passenger- carrying monorails being built by Louden,
raising the question of the accuracy of the newspaper reports.”
So if Louden wasn't the builder,
why did so many sources claim this was the case?
There's actually a little more to this story.
But for now let's put a pin in that, as we still have a lot of rides to get through.
Okay, so the next monorail in our list
opened at Edwards Department Store in Syracuse, New York.
I'm not sure when exactly it started running,
but I found mentions of it as early as 1955.
This ride was called the Toyland Rocketship,
or sometimes Santa’s Rocketship,
and was given the streamlined rocket nose we've seen before.
A former president of the store later recalled:
“A lot of people seem to hit on the monorail as one of the great memories of Christmas.”
“A lot of kids would come in with squirt guns,
and go up on the monorail, and then let shoppers have it.”
The last ads I could find for the ride were in 1969,
but Edwards was demolished just three years later in 1972.
So it's possible that the ride was torn down with the building itself.
The next ride debuted at Rich's Department Store in Atlanta, Georgia.
Most modern sources claim that it opened in 1953,
but historian Jeff Clemmons writes that it debuted on October 13, 1956.
My own research agrees with this,
as I couldn't find any mentions of the ride before that point.
Either way, it debuted as a Snowball Express and ran above the store's toy department.
But a few years later in 1959, it was completely re-themed
to the Pink Pig Flyer, with the pig herself later named Priscilla.
Rich’s sold the ride in 1964,
but after public outcry from locals, it was brought back the following year.
With the store now being remodeled though,
Priscilla was moved to the seventh floor roof.
A second ride vehicle named Percival was added,
so they became known as the Pink Pig Twins.
The ride was eventually donated to the Atlanta History Center in 1996.
The pink pig tradition was carried on by a new kiddie train for many years,
but now even this version has been retired.
Fortunately the original Priscilla and Percival are still preserved today,
and are often put on display during the holidays.
The next known ride opened at Kirven’s Department Store in Columbus, Georgia.
I only found two mentions of it, both in 1958.
But we do have this illustration and the Rocket Express name
to confirm this was indeed part of the same family.
Also in 1958 was a new monorail at Harveys Department Store in Nashville, Tennessee.
This one ran above Toy City on the building's fourth floor
and operated for at least a couple of years through 1960.
Closing out the 1950s was a new monorail in Portland, Oregon,
which opened at the Meier and Frank department store in 1959.
This one was called the Skyliner Monorail for most of its run,
but in the later years it was renamed to the Santaland Monorail.
As one person later recalled:
“I rode the Meier and Frank monorail as a small child in the ‘60s.”
“It was only a fuzzy memory when I was an adult living in another state, so imagine my joy
at rediscovering it on a visit to Portland in the late ‘80s when my own children were small!”
“I was beginning to wonder if I had imagined it.”
With the impending closure of Meier and Frank,
the monorail’s final season was in 2005,
ending a local Christmas tradition that had lasted for over 40 years.
The monorail’s middle car is preserved by the Oregon Historical Society and remains in storage.
The front car is preserved by the Portland Business Alliance
and is often put on display at Pioneer Place Mall during the holidays.
Five years after the Portland ride opened,
the next one appeared in St. Louis, Missouri in 1964.
This was installed at Stix, Baer & Fuller's Department Store,
where it ran above the toy department on the fifth floor.
I find it interesting that they advertised the ride as the first of its kind
in the Midwest, which by this point I think we can safely say is incorrect.
Apparently the ride was popular though, because in the following year,
Stix, Baer & Fuller added a second one to their nearby store in Jennings.
By 1968, both rides were re-themed as the Gumdrop Express,
but I saw no mention of them after this point.
Next up is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which actually had two monorails.
The first was at Gimbels Department Store,
which debuted the ride as the Lilac Special on May 1, 1965.
Throughout the year it operated on Saturdays,
until the arrival of the Christmas season, when it was renamed as Rudolph.
The Rudolph version returned for the 1966 holiday season,
but I didn't find any traces of it after that.
A couple years later in 1968,
the second Pittsburgh ride was installed at Northway Mall.
It was supposed to have its opening ceremony on November 12,
but the equipment actually got lost in transit.
The Berwick Enterprise wrote:
“The monorail cars and tracks, being shipped from Fairfield, Iowa
to Pittsburgh by train were lost in transit.”
“Officials at the shopping center said the ribbon-cutting ceremony
will be held November 22 — if they find the train.”
Fortunately the shipment was found,
and the delayed ceremony took place on November 22 as planned.
It seems the ride was only at Northway Mall for about a month or so.
If that seems short, it's because the Rocket Express company
had started leasing the monorails as seasonal installations.
This was following the new trend of shopping malls,
which seemed to want more flexibility in how they used their interior spaces throughout the year.
The next known ride opened at the Winter Park Mall in Winter Park, Florida.
This one debuted in August of 1968 as the Back-to-School Monorail.
A few months later in November,
the ride was re-themed as the somewhat unsettling reindeer monorail.
Again, this one only seems to have been there through a single Christmas season.
Only a few months later on Easter Sunday of 1969,
the mall sustained a major fire.
It's possible the ride was still there when this happened,
but I'm guessing it was already gone by that point.
The third monorail in 1968 opened in Rochester, New York at the Midtown Plaza Mall.
This one was supposed to be a temporary setup like the ones in Pittsburgh and Winter Park.
But locals loved it so much that it became a permanent fixture of the mall,
and a staple of Christmas traditions in Rochester.
In 2007, it was announced that Midtown Plaza
would soon be closed permanently and demolished.
The monorail was part of the mall's final holiday season,
with its last run on Christmas Eve, 2007.
The ride vehicles were preserved, and are now on permanent display
at the New York Museum of Transportation.
Finally we have the last known monorail,
which debuted at the Moorestown Mall in Moorestown, New Jersey in 1971.
There's not much I know about this one, but it was called the Santaland Monorail Express
and remained in operation at least through 1973.
And with that, we’ve finally covered all 22 rides I could find across the US.
Now that we have the full picture,
let's try to clear up the confusion about Louden Machinery and Rocket Express.
The Maasdam Barns Preservation Committee offers a simple explanation, writing:
“Probably [Rocket Express] purchased the monorail structure and propulsion system
from Louden, then built the passenger cars for the department stores.”
This makes perfect sense, and easily explains why both companies seem to be responsible.
The writer doesn't have a firsthand source to back this up,
but here's something interesting.
If we look back at that monorail that got lost on the way to Pittsburgh,
the article said it had been shipped from Fairfield, Iowa.
But Rocket Express wasn't based on Fairfield...
Louden Machinery was.
So in a weird twist of fate, this shipping fiasco may be
one of our only tangible links between the two companies.
To help confirm this, I asked all of the preservation groups
around the country whether they had anything on file about the manufacturer.
The New York Museum of Transportation came back
with the most detailed answer, and it also confirmed our theory.
The rides were built and sold by Rocket Express,
and the track system itself was built by Louden.
So I think it's safe to say we've got our answer.
I'm also pretty satisfied having found 22 of these rides.
We don't actually know if the Portland Tribune's claim of 26 is even correct.
But either way, I'd honestly be surprised
if there weren't more of these rides in other cities, too.
Collectively they spanned over 60 years,
delighting millions of children across multiple generations.
It's no wonder that the Christmas monorails are still fondly remembered.
They gave the gift of childhood nostalgia,
which is perhaps one of the greatest gifts of all.