This ride is well this year, 60 years old.
There have been wedding
proposals made in this ride.
There have been older folks
renewing their love of the.
This is a Von Roll.
It was a Swiss company originally and Von Roll
was known for making just the best gondolas.
I'm Kent Hojem,
I'm the CEO of the Washington State Fair and we are standing
at the south end terminal of the Sky Ride here on the fairgrounds.
This ride is approximately 1600 feet.
The north terminal is
just past the north end of the wooden roller coaster,
so it's almost diagonally going across
the entire fairgrounds.
In 1962, this Von Roll gondola
was set up at the World's Fair at the Seattle Center.
It operated there for the next basically 18 years.
The center was looking at doing some renovations
and decided that they wanted to remove this ride
as far as the quality of the ride and how long it would last.
That was a given.
It was going to be a ride that was going to be around for a long time.
So they did purchase it.
There were three partners originally the carnival, Corky Erickson,
who was the man who had set it up in Seattle, who helped to set it up here
and the fair.
And so those three partners went about setting this ride
back up here on the fairgrounds where it would live till this day.
Fairs are
by their very nature, this combination of though everything
new and wonderful tradition.
What it could be more traditional than a ride from this
from the Seattle World's Fair 60 years ago.
Still here.
There's so many memories.
You know, people want to ride it because they remember
going on it with their parents or their grandparents.
I am living proof that this ride was at the 1962 World's Fair
because I was at the 1962 World's Fair.
My memories of it are a little bit fuzzy
because in 1962 I was five years old.
I am living proof the ride did exist in Seattle
and it was thrilling, of course, as a kid to be able to sit here and go
just flying above the rest of the crowd to see the fairgrounds from above.
It did go over the top of people and the people that wave up on you way down.
It is truly a generation spanning experience
to ride this thing.