George C. Tilyou

George Cornelius Tilyou (1862–1914) was an American entrepreneur and showman who founded New York City's Steeplechase Park. He was born in New York City to parents who had operated businesses in Coney Island from his early childhood. He founded Steeplechase in 1897, and rebuilt it entirely after a 1907 fire. Tilyou died in 1914, leaving the park to his children, who continued to operate it until 1964.

Early life George Cornelius Tilyou was born on February 3, 1862, in New York City. In 1865 when Tilyou was three years old, the family moved to Coney Island in Brooklyn, which then was outside New York City limits. After their relocation, his family started operating a popular Coney Island restaurant called the Surf House. Peter Tilyou offered free clam chowder bowls to guests who purchased a 25-cent ticket to bathe at the Coney Island Beach. By the time he was seventeen, he owned beachfront property on Coney Island. A history of Coney Island from the 1940s noted that "Tilyou's Telephone managed to give a rather well-rounded picture of life at the resort in the late 1880s". By 1887, Tilyou was dealing primarily in real estate; at the time, crime and corruption in Coney Island were prevalent. When Tilyou testified against John Y. McKane, one of the leaders of the corruption, he faced constant harassment until McKane was arrested in 1894.

Tilyou married Mary O'Donnell in 1893, and they went to visit the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago for their honeymoon. Tilyou's Ferris wheel, erroneously dubbed the "World's Largest Ferris Wheel", contained 12 cars each with a capacity of 18 passengers.

Steeplechase Park In the late 1890s, Tilyou bought and improved the Steeplechase Horses ride, an attraction by J.W. Cawdry that featured gravity-pulled mechanical horses racing along metal tracks. The park covered , two-thirds of which Tilyou owned outright, at the western end of Bowery Street. The park's attractions included the Human Niagara, a Venetian gondola-style ride, the Aerial Racing Slide, the Double-Dip Chutes, the Bicycle Railway, a "French Voyage" panorama, and a Wild West sideshow.

In the early morning of July 29, 1907, a fire started within the Cave of the Winds attraction and destroyed much of the park. Firefighters fought to save Tilyou's house at the corner of Steeplechase Park. Even though the fire destroyed nearly everything within Steeplechase Park, Tilyou reportedly remained calm throughout, even promising to host events that had been planned within the park before the fire. Seeking to make the best of the fire's effects, Tilyou offered admission to the burning ruins for ten cents. The remaining attractions opened one week after the fire. The reconstruction of Steeplechase Park was completed in 1909.

Steeplechase Park's icon was a "Funny Face" mascot, depicting a smiling man with several dozen teeth; it was nicknamed "the Tilly" after Tilyou's surname. The mascot, which became a symbol of Coney Island, represented the area's wholesomeness and neoclassical architecture combined with its veneer of hidden sexuality. Tilyou was also involved in the operation of numerous amusement parks in the northeastern United States. Tilyou built parks in Rockaway Beach, New York; Atlantic City, New Jersey; Asbury Park, New Jersey; Revere Beach, Massachusetts; St. Louis, Missouri; and San Francisco, California. Marie H. Tilyou (1898–1977) George Cornelius Tilyou Jr. (1902–1958) Eileen T. McAllister (1904–1967) Frank Sheridan Tilyou (1908–1964)

Tilyou died at his Park Slope mansion on November 30, 1914, the home of his last two years at 37 Prospect Park West. He was 52 years old. Tilyou had suffered from congestive heart failure after contracting the common cold. He is interred at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. After Tilyou's death, his oldest son Edward took over operation, and Steeplechase Park remained within the Tilyou family until it closed a half-century later. The park closed permanently in 1964.