Lake George Community to celebrate Charles R. Wood Day

It has been 65 years since Charles R. Wood opened Gaslight Village theme park in Lake George Village. To honor the visionary entrepreneur and philanthropist’s contributions to the community, the Village is celebrating Charles R. Wood Day on July 12, 11 a.m. at the Charles R. Wood Festival Commons. The public is invited.

Special guests at the event will include Village of Lake George Mayor Ray Perry, Wood’s daughters, Bobbie Wages and Charlene Wood and Gaslight Village fans who decades after the park’s closing fill social media pages with their memories of working at and visiting Gaslight Village.

The Charles R. Wood Day celebration will feature the unveiling of a plaque with Charles R. Wood’s facial likeness. Attendees will each receive a keepsake commemorative magnet featuring the Gaslight Village logo.

Gaslight Village officially opened on July 12, 1959, with approximately 2,000 attending opening ceremonies. Described at the time in The Glens Falls Times as “a new and elaborate entertainment area,” the park’s design replicated a Gay Nineties-era town with a streetcar and Model T to carry visitors around the grounds and Keystone Cops to usher guests to the parking area. The Opera House hosted vaudeville shows, barbershop quartets and “meller-dramas.” Admission that first year was $1.25 for adults and .25¢ for children.

Gaslight Village closed Thirty years later. It briefly reopened as Ride and Fun Park, and then Action Park, before closing in 1999. The property was eventually purchased by Warren County and Lake George Village and was developed into Charles R. Wood Park.

For more information about Charles R. Wood Day, contact the Village of Lake George at (518)668-5771 or the Lake George Regional Chamber of Commerce at (518)668-5755.