Though the idea of a ride that simulates traveling along a broad, usually steep gradient of track dates back many hundreds of years, it was not until the 18th century that an early form of the longest roller coaster came into being when British inventor and parish priest John Blunt designed an inclined plane to transport coal from a mine in Harecastle, Stockport (pictured), England.
Switch Back Railway
The world's first roller coaster was built in the United States in 1884. It was called the Switch Back Railway, and it ran from the top of a hill to the bottom, where people could get off and ride back up again. The Switch Back Railway was made of wood, and it had no rails or tracks. Instead, it had a series of grooves cut into its surface. The carriages were attached to steel cables that ran over pulleys on either side of the track. When the carriages reached the top of their journey, workers would pull on these cables to make them go down again!
The earliest version of a roller coaster was actually nothing more than a gravity-powered slide — something like a water park ride today. It was designed by a German engineer named John Miller in 1784 and featured riders who sat on sleds and were sent flying down an incline into a pit of water.
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