Kennywood Entertainment Company


The Kennywood Entertainment Company was the operator of five United States amusement parks in Western Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and New Hampshire.

History

Kennywood Entertainment Co. was effectively created when F. W. Henninger and Andrew McSwigan purchased Kennywood from the Mellon family's Monongahela Railway Company in 1906. The park was controlled by the two families, until being sold in 2007. In 1983, they acquired Idlewild Park from the MacDonald family who had owned it since 1952. Before the MacDonalds took over Idlewild, it had also been owned by the Mellon family. Sandcastle Waterpark opened just a few miles from Kennywood in 1989. They later acquired Lake Compounce in Bristol, Connecticut in 1996, and Story Land in Glen, New Hampshire in 2007.
On December 11, 2007, Kennywood Entertainment announced that it would be selling all five of its amusement parks to Parques Reunidos, a Madrid, Spain-based company. Since 2009, Palace Entertainment, the American subsidiary of Parques Reunidos, has taken over the role formerly filled by Kennywood Entertainment.

Amusement parks