Cedar Point is removing one of its signature roller coasters.
The park announced Monday morning that its Mean Streak roller coaster will give its final ride on Sept. 16.
When the coaster opened on May 11, 1991, it broke the world record for the tallest lift and the longest drop on a wooden roller coaster.
The coaster boasts about 1.7 million board feet of southern yellow pine.
Over the years some 26 million riders have boarded the Mean Streak.
Jason McClure, vice president and general manager for Cedar Point, tweeted that it is “always a difficult decision to remove a ride, but I’m excited about the future of FrontierTown.”
The Mean Streak is situated in the park’s Old West-themed FrontierTown behind the station for the Cedar Point & Lake Erie Railroad.
“Mean Streak has, and always will be a significant part of our roller coaster legacy at Cedar Point,” McClure said in a statement. “But we have our sights set on the future of FrontierTown, and unfortunately, that means Mean Streak has to leave our lineup of world-class attractions.”
The wooden roller coaster has a top speed of 65 mph and takes riders on a 2-minute, 45-second trip along the park’s northern edge.
The coaster’s popularity waned over the years as some guests complained that it lived up to its name and jostled its passengers as it rumbled down the track.
The ride was often a walk-on with few, if any, passengers waiting for the next train.
This will likely change in the coming weeks as guests will line up for one last ride.
When the park announced that its Mantis stand-up roller coaster was being converted to a sit-down coaster called the Rougarou, ridership increased with long waits particularly in its final days.
Like the Mean Streak, the Mantis was another ride where guests complained of an uncomfortable experience.
Cedar Point has not said what will become of the area once the coaster closes.
In a 1-minute, 4-second video released Monday morning, a bearded wizard is seen laughing maniacally and wielding an ax chopping away at one of the ride’s support beams.
The park has released the funeral arrangements for the coaster.
It will be given its “last rites” on Sept. 16 — the opening night of the park’s 20th HalloWeekends Halloween celebration.
The final rides will take place between 6 and 7 p.m. then a memorial service will be held at the coaster with a procession to the park’s Dead Rides Cemetery on the midway where former attractions are memorialized with tombstones.
The ceremony at the cemetery will take place at 7:30 p.m.
Built at a cost of $7.5 million, it was one of just 11 coasters built by Ohio-based Dinn Corp.
Of those, four are already closed, including the Raging Wolf Bobs that debuted at Geauga Lake in Aurora in 1988.
The last run on the Raging Wolf Bobs came in June 2007 — the same year Cedar Fair shuttered the park’s gates — when one of its trains derailed after rolling back on one of the ride’s hills. No one was injured in the mishap.
The design team behind the Mean Streak was comprised of some former Kings Island employees who dreamed up the famed Beast roller coaster. The company dissolved the same year the coaster opened at Cedar Point.
The Mean Streak’s track extends some 5,427 feet and reaches a peak of 161 feet.
The coaster has found itself listed among the Top 50 wooden roller coasters in the world nine times since the trade publication Amusement Today introduced the Golden Ticket Awards in 1998. Its highest ranking at No. 16 came in 2000, and the last time it made the list was in 2012 when it was ranked No. 45.
Cedar Point currently boasts 71 rides, including 18 roller coasters.
This year it debuted the Valravn — the world’s tallest, fastest and longest dive coaster.
Craig Webb can be reached at cwebb@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3547. Visit his Airtime blog on Ohio.com and Facebook.