At Cascade Park there were rustic bridges over Big Run, huge flower beds, rustic summer houses, a dance pavilion, numerous fireworks displays, a Zoological Garden, a fifteen-acre lake, a baseball diamond, multiple picnic grounds, a funhouse, an electric carousel (formerly powered by steam), a roller coaster, bumper cars, the Tumble Bug, the Old Mill, a swimming pool complete with bathhouse, plus multiple food vendors.  On opening day 29 May 1897, the local New Castle paper observed that "the sites that meet the eye can only be compared to the beauties of the Yellowstone or the sublimity of the Sierra Nevadas."  The dance pavilion, which was built in 1898 at a cost of approximately $10,000, upon completion was billed as the "finest pavilion in all of Western Pennsylvania."  Also, a park brochure from 1911 called Cascade Park, "a picture of grandeur unsurpassed."