The Rise and Fall of the Tunnel of Love

The tunnel of Love is an amusement park ride that you might only know from movies and cartoons, or maybe that Bruce Springsteen song. Oh, it was real enough at one time, but you don't see them anymore, at least as they were in their heyday. A Tunnel of Love was a boat ride, somewhat like Disney's It's a Small World without all the music, the lights, and the kids. So really nothing like that at all, except it was an indoor boat ride. The first such rides at the turn of the 20th century carried people into a darkened cave-like course where amazing scenes were lit up along the way, and were not called a Tunnel of Love. They were for entertainment. However, they way people used those rides to sneak a kiss or much more in the dark led them to evolve into a romantic-themed ride. The entertainment shifted into scary displays in the dark, all the better to give one half of a couple an excuse to grab the other and get closer.

The Tunnel of Love was naturally limited to permanent amusement parks, and it died out pretty suddenly. Read the history of the Tunnel of Love and what brought it to an end at Mental Floss.