Blackpool Pleasure Beach by Mack Rides in Germany. Icon is the first coaster in the UK to feature a double launch and is the largest ever single investment at the park costing £16.25 million. Pleasure Beach was founded in 1896 by Alderman William George Bean after he failed in his attempt to become an advertising man on New York's Madison Avenue. He returned to the United Kingdom in 1897 and opened two separate amusement parks; one adjacent to Euston Road in Great Yarmouth and another in Blackpool, opposite the tram terminus. The Great Yarmouth amusement park failed to generate much interest and so
Blackpool Pleasure Beach the Pleasure Beach which began to garner the attention of holidaymakers. Beans' aim was to establish a fun park of relative size that would "make adults feel like children again and inspire gaiety of a primarily innocent character". The first notable attraction of interest to open at Pleasure Beach was "Sir Hiram Maxim's Captive Flying Machine", a rotary swing ride designed by the British inventor of the same name in 1904. A Mill Chute water ride followed in 1905, which opened under the name "The River Caves of the World", both of which are still operational today. In 1907 the