Changes

In the late 1940s, with the country recovering from World War II and beginning to contemplate more fun as normal life resumed, the United States began to look for new amusements. Many outdoor pools and lidos had existed already but only a few had diving boards. Even fewer had slides. However, by the late 1940s more pools began to integrate slides and even began to include water being incorporated into the slide to easy ease movement down towards the pool. Although this is often seen as the beginning of water parks, the waterslide appears to have first developed in New Zealand during the 1906 International Exhibition (Figure 1). There could be earlier versions of such slides but the slide in New Zealand was the first to attract major attention. In an exhibition called "Wonderland," a chute was installed that allow swimmers to slide right into the pool. The chute moved people down in a wooden ramp that then allowed them to briefly skim across the surface of the water, as it came in a slight angle. In fact, almost all early waterslides mostly skimmed riders rather than directly inserting them into water. Already in 1906, even government officials, such as the speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives, was impressed and gave the slide a try. In the 1910s and 1920s, similar slides were created, with most being features at fairs and special summer events.<ref>For more on the earliest slides used for water amusement, see: Patrick, B. K., & Thompson, J. M. (2009). <i>An uncommon history of common things</i>. Washington, D.C: National Geographic, pg. 164.</ref>

Perhaps the first document waterslide in the United States was in Faribault, Minnesota, created by furniture maker Herbert Sellner in 1923. He created what was a water toboggan slide that would have riders going on a wooden sled and then slide into the water, skimming the surfacein a similar manner as the New Zealand slide. It was given a patent, number 1,737,032, later influencing waterslide design. Similar In fact, similar slides were being built through throughout the late 1920s and a few parks in the United States began to have slidesbuilt in them. In all these cases, water slides were not the main feature but just one feature among other, mostly land-based amusements. Most of the slides were based on Sellner's original designbut soon some began to do away with the sled. Most slides simply allowed one to go to the top, get on a sled or simple down without a sled, and then go off in a slight angle towards the water.<ref>For more on the slide developed by Sellner, see: Anderson, N. D. (1992). <i>Ferris wheels: an illustrated history</i>. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, pg. 230.</ref>