The thrill and terror of vintage roller coasters, in pictures

There is some dispute over the origin of the modern roller coaster. Some say they derived from 17th century “Russian Mountains”—80 foot ice slides built for winter-time thrills in a nascent Saint Petersburg. Others cite the Parisian Promenades Aériennes of 1817, which featured rail cars zipping around a secured track at high speed, or the coal mine gravity railroads of Pennsylvania, which began taking pleasure passengers in lieu of anthracite on slow days in the 1850s.

It would take a leap of American ingenuity—and business savvy—to devise the first modern roller coasters, and to spread their adrenaline-inducing magic around the world.

That Coney Island, Brooklyn, would prove fertile ground for coaster development in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries is largely due to the vision of inventor LaMarcus Adna Thompson. Thompson designed the first switchback railway, a slow-moving proto-coaster which glided over a series of shallow humps between two beachside towers. He quickly followed with the first full-circuit coaster (dubbed the “Gravity Pleasure Road”) and a genre called “scenic railways,” which featured darkened tunnels decorated with scenery.

The 1919 advent of underfriction tracks, which kept a fast moving car from plummeting off the rails, would catapult roller coasters into the 20th century.

Wooden coasters popped up as amusement park centerpieces around the globe. After that, the biggest modern development came in 1959 when Disneyland engineered the first steel track coaster with “Space Mountain.” Steel allowed designers to bend and twist the tracks any way they chose, eventually enabling the high flying, looping rides we know today.

Not that we care all that much. When we entrust our lives to these thunderous beasts the potential for disaster is all part of the thrill.