You have likely never seen horse diving outside of a movie screen, but in the early 1900s these shows were all the rage. And it was a big deal that summer tourists could see one performed right in the middle of Island Park in Portsmouth.
Horse diving is pretty much just as it sounds. A horse is ridden up a ramp to a platform and then jumps off with rider still in tow into a large pool of water.

Though to say "jumped" is really being generous. Typically the horses never actually dove toward the water. The platform was collapsible and at the right moment the wood beneath the horses' hooves would drop out, leaving the horses nowhere to go but down into the water.

It really is no wonder these dives are no longer performed.

Though slightly shocking it took until the 1970s for people to truly be outraged by these shows. By that time, however, Island Park was long gone, having succumbed to the Hurricane of '38 like so many of our local amusement parks of the past.

The biggest of these horse diving shows was performed each season in Atlantic City, so having one so close to the SouthCoast was kind of like having a Vegas-style show staged just minutes away now. A big deal during tourist season.

And boy did the tourists love Island Park in its heyday. Started as a trolley park in 1898 because the location could draw guests from both Newport and Fall River, Island Park grew over the years to feature roller coasters, a carousel built by the famous Charles I.D. Looff, a dance hall, shore dining hall, a shooting gallery, and lots of beachfront for soaking up the summer sun.

Right in the middle of all that excitement was the park's horse-diving platform, with two different diving heights. Locals and tourists alike would crowd around the midway attraction to see the daring dives.

Courtesy of Portsmouth Historical Society
Courtesy of Portsmouth Historical Society
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From the looks of this photo from July 1928, some horses dove off platforms higher than the park's roller coaster "The Bullet."

Courtesy of Portsmouth Historical Society
Courtesy of Portsmouth Historical Society
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Luckily for the horses, the park was essentially washed away from storm surge up the Sakonnet River in 1938. Not great news for the town itself, however, which was devastated by the storm and the lives lost on Island Park.

Today the area still boasts lovely beaches, but the park is now homes and businesses with no horses, diving or otherwise. Clearly, the beachfront property became high-demand for homes in the years after the amusement park's demise, leaving massive homes like the one you can explore below in its place.

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