Demon

Opening on April 16, 1977, as the park’s first-ever looping roller coaster, the Screamin’ Demon (later shortened to just The Demon) was a groundbreaking steel shuttle coaster located in the area now occupied by Congo Falls. Manufactured by Arrow Dynamics, it was the first “Launched Loop” model to open to the public, featuring a unique “point-to-point” layout rather than a continuous circuit. Riders would climb five stories of stairs to a loading platform, where the train was launched forward down a steep drop, through a 56-foot vertical loop, and up onto a second elevated platform. After a brief pause, the train was launched in reverse, navigating the loop and drop backward before returning to the station. Though it was a major innovation in the late 70s, its popularity waned as larger coasters like The Beast and Vortex debuted; it was eventually removed at the end of the 1987 season and relocated to Camden Park in West Virginia, where it operated as Thunderbolt Express until 1999.