Mount Clemens was once home to one of the coolest roller coasters Michigan ever had. When it opened on the Fourth of July in 1909, business was booming…people swarmed to the ride that sat on the east side of the Clinton River between the streets of Crocker and Dickinson.
The coaster was named “Leap the Dips” and was so popular, that the neighborhood bars and saloons complained that customers were staying away and going to the roller coaster.
But only one year later, the customer count was already dropping at the coaster. Why? In the summer of 1910, the Bijou Theatre opened, which took the crowds away from the coaster. The local newspaper didn’t help much, either; in one edition they said that “one ride on the Dips is just like another” while the theater showed a ‘variety’ of films week after week. If the paper had kept its mouth shut, maybe the customers would have started to come back…