{"id":2553,"slug":"paragon-park-hull-massachusetts","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Paragon Park was the beach resort — the 1905 'miniature world's fair' on Nantasket Beach that ran for eighty years. The Giant Coaster was the tallest wooden coaster in the world when it opened in 1917; the PTC carousel, the Kooky Kastle dark ride, and the lagoon with the 110-foot electric tower made it New England's Coney Island.","The park survived everything until the real estate — the fires that rebuilt the coaster, the Depression, the wars, the decades when the Giant was the roughest ride in New England. What killed it in 1984 was the land value — the ten acres between the ocean and the bay worth more as condos than as a park.","The coaster outlived the park — the Giant went to Maryland and ran as the Wild One for thirty-nine more years, the oldest operating coaster in the country until Six Flags America closed in 2025. The file keeps the park's diaspora: the carousel that stayed in Hull, the coaster that kept running until last year, and the beach where the park used to be.","Paragon Park is the archive's coaster file — the 1905 world's-fair park, the 1917 Giant that was the world's tallest, and the ride that outlived its park by forty years."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Paragon is the archive's diaspora file — the park that closed for condos, the carousel that stayed, and the coaster that kept running in another state until 2025.","A park whose coaster outlived it keeps the ride — the file's suggestion being that Paragon's hold is the Giant: the 1917 coaster that was the world's tallest, ran until the park died, and kept running until its second park died too."]}],"name":"Paragon Park","aliases":[],"type":"AMUSEMENT_PARK","type_label":"Amusement Park","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","ABANDONED_PLACE","LOCAL_FOLKLORE","HAUNTED_PLACE"],"groups":["dark-history","ghost-towns","hauntings","legends"],"desc":"The 1905 park on Nantasket Beach—its carousel survives.","full_desc":"An amusement park in Hull, Massachusetts, Paragon Park is filed here for what the record attaches to it. The 1905 park on Nantasket Beach—its carousel survives. The archive files it under abandoned places, dark history and local folklore. The dossier holds 1 reported claim, 1 legend and 1 documented fact, with the verified spine filed separately from the lore. It stands abandoned — what remains is the shell and the record.","address":null,"city":"Hull","county":null,"state":"Massachusetts","postal":null,"region":"Northeast","lat":42.340233,"lon":-70.883301,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ABANDONED","access":"RESTRICTED","access_notes":"Private property; do not trespass.","ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Abandoned parks batch; VERIFY task auto-queued.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":59.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":2032,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Reported figures near the carousel. Paragon Park's file is thin on proof and long on persistence — the standard profile of American place-lore. Local lore carries the account; no documentation has ever caught up with it. 'Paragon Park' carries the account. The figure remains the site's most-repeated sighting.","evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","evidence_label":"Local folklore","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Paragon Park","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paragon_Park","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"Operated 1905-1984; the carousel survives. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. 'Paragon Park' documents the entry. It's the sort of fact that gives the haunting reports their context.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":"1905","date_end":"1984","confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Paragon Park","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paragon_Park","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Reported figures near the carousel. The reports at Paragon Park are the site's second history — unofficial, unverified, and stubbornly retold. The claim is neighborhood knowledge — retold locally, verified nowhere. Sources including 'Paragon Park' keep the claim in circulation. It's the version the place will be remembered by, whether or not it's the true one.","earliest":null,"evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","source":{"name":"Paragon Park","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paragon_Park","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access is restricted; check with the managing agency or landowner before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Paragon Park","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paragon_Park","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Paragon Park","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paragon_Park","desc":"Amusement park in Hull, Massachusetts (1905–84)","extract":"Paragon Park was an amusement park located on Nantasket Beach in Hull, Massachusetts.  It opened in 1905 and closed in 1984.","img":"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/View_of_Paragon_Park.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled","score":104,"lat":42.26845,"lon":-70.85471389},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":1,"legends":1,"entities":0,"sources":1}}