This amusement park sat empty for years. How new management is reviving Fresno’s Playland

Davey Helm walks through Playland, a man in his element.

“I am beaming,” Helm says as he leads a tour to show off improvements being made at the historic Fresno attraction.

“I am so excited.”

It wasn’t long ago that Helm and his wife came up from Southern California to get their first glimpses of the 68-year-old amusement park. The place had been closed since the pandemic and was giving off Scooby-Doo theme park vibes.

“It was really in need of some TLC,” says Helms, a third-generation amusement park operator and CEO of Helm and Sons, which entered into an agreement last summer to take over operations at Playland tucked inside Roeding Park in Fresno.

“A bottle of wine later and we decided we wanted to give it a go.”

A revamped Helm and Sons Playland will open June 16, with a VIP sneak peek June 1.

The park will be open 2-10 p.m Wednesdays to Sundays. It will be closed Mondays and Tuesdays for corporate and private events.

Outside the main entrance are several brightly colored boxes, a small sign of the coming changes. The boxes will house the park’s new digitized ticketing system and dispense wristbands for the park.

Tickets can also be purchased online or through the park’s app. The $25 entrance is good for the full eight hours and all 21 rides and attractions, including the park’s iconic carousel and train ride.

The legacy of Playland and Storyland

Playland originally opened in 1955 and was a precursor to Anaheim’s Disneyland. It sold 14,000 ride tickets on its first day alone, and along with its sister park Storyland (and the Fresno Chaffee Zoo) established Roeding Park as an entertainment destination in Fresno.

But the park fell on hard times as Fresno grew and entertainment options changed and the state began mandatory inspections of amusement rides. By 2000, the park was down to just two rides.

In 2015, both Playland and Storyland were closed temporarily due to a lack of revenue, though the community rallied for financial support (nearly $850,000) and both parks were reopened by the following year.

They were shuttered again in 2020 by the pandemic.

While Storyland was able to to reopen, Playland proved to be more difficult, says Bruce Batti, board chair of the nonprofit Storyland/Playland, which oversees the management of the two parks.

There were rides that broke down and in need of fixing and state certifications that had to be met. So, the board began looking for someone to take over operations and infuse some needed money and expertise into the park.

Enter Helm.

“He wakes up, this is his life,” Batti says.

“This is what he does every day.”

Helm and Sons has been operating since the 1950s and has major contracts to provide carnival rides and attractions for several state and county fairs, including the California Mid State Fair and Tulare County Fair.

The company also provides attractions for events like Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas.

This will be its first permanent amusement park and it will be very much a family operation. While Helm will commute in from Southern California every few weeks, his sister-in-law relocated to Fresno to serve as the park on-site general manager.

The Fresno City Council agreed on a management contract last summer that has the company paying a monthly fee and a percentage of ticket sales, Batti says. Playland will get needed repairs and upgrades to its original rides, plus several new rides and attractions that will be switched out seasonally from a vast selection Helm and Sons has in its portfolio.

The centerpiece of the new Playland will be an 85-foot gondola Ferris wheel. It’s one of five the company owns and rents out to fairs and events around the state.

The company also plans to bring in a 110-foot by 45-foot slide. It’s not on site yet, but a massive inflatable version stands in its place until the real one can be installed.

There’s also a white-walled Ice Maze, an assortment of carnival games and an 18-hole miniature golf course that’s based on Pebble Beach.

Playland’s original carousel is being repaired and updated, Helm says. As is the iconic dragon roller coaster and splash zone, which Helm’s crew recently got running again.

“We’ve been test-running it for the geese,” he says.

Other rides that guests will see at the park’s reopening — a water ride called Raging River, for example — were specifically chosen to fit in with the style and aesthetic of Playland’s original attractions, Helm says.

‘This makes memories’

The park will also serve as a museum of sorts, housing several pieces from Helm’s collection of old-time fair attractions.

There is the Stinson Band Organ, a mechanical self-playing instrument that was built in 1898 and is likely the only of its kind in existence. When it gets going, the organ can be loud, so they’ve faced it toward the parking lot entrance, where it will draw the most attention from visitors.

There’s also Bubba Bear and the Badland Band, an audio-animatronic stage show inspired by Disney’s Country Bear Jamboree. The piece was made specifically for Helm’s family, with a robot Mark Twain narrating a band of animal performers. Helm helped his grandpa write the dialog for the attraction when he was 8 years old and can still recite it from memory, which he does any time the stage is turned on.

The family sold the piece at one point, but Helm found it in Alaska, bought it back and had been touring it around the county before bringing it to Playland.

“This doesn’t make money,” Helm says.

“But this makes memories.”

For now, Playland will keep its original intent to serve children 1-12 years old.

But Helm says he’s open to experimenting with special adult-only nights and teases the possibility of more mature rides someday. He could even envision a special “Thrill Zone” section of Playland with a 100-foot drop tower and a legit roller coaster, something that could be seen from the freeway.

Of course, there is plenty of work to be done before any of that.

The park has been bustling with workers installing green turf walkways and decorative fruit trees and figuring out pathways for the park’s collection of geese. And Helm is still looking for sponsors, people willing to attach their names, money and goodwill to the park.

He would love to let someone name Playland’s famous dragon.

“I want people from the community to be as invested in this as I am,” he says,

“I want to leave this so it never closes again.”