Beechwood Park, which lay to the west of the P&W tracks and was bounded by Mill and Earlington Roads, was built by P&W to complement the suburban trolley line that had opened eight days before the park's debut. It was constructed to entice P&W riders to travel the railways.
"The only way people could get there was to ride the trolley," said Ronald DeGraw, assistant general manager of planning and development at SEPTA, and author of several books on the history of the suburban trolley lines. ''They made money not only because people paid to ride the amusements, but they also paid to ride the trolley."
It took about five minutes for passengers to travel from the 69th Street Terminal to the Beechwood stop.
The park, which was open from Memorial Day until Labor Day, could accommodate 15,000 to 20,000 people. Ten of the park's 20 acres were devoted to amusements and music - the rest of the land was reserved for picnic grounds. To the east of the trolley tracks was a man-made lake created by two dams, where picnickers paid a quarter to rent rowboats.
Elizabeth Hoffman moved into her home on Beechwood Road in Havertown in 1958. In the early 1960s two men knocked on her door and asked permission to tour her back yard. The men, who were brothers, told her that her home had been the lake's clubhouse.
"One of the men said he 'sparked' his wife here," she said. "He would give his younger brother a quarter to go out on the lake, so he could spend time alone with his wife."
The tiny window where clubhouse employees collected quarters remains a part of Hoffman's home and the original hooks that held the oars still exist, embedded in the walls.
