Toledo’s White City Amusement Park, about 1900 to 1914, was on the south side of the Ottawa River just west of Auburn Ave. White City was the common name of dozens of amusement parks in the United States and overseas. Inspired by the White City and Midway Plaisance sections of the World's Columbian Exhibition of 1893, they gained in popularity near the end of the 19th century.

A typical White City park featured a shoot-the-chutes and lagoon, a roller coaster, a midway, a Ferris wheel, games, and a pavilion. Toledo’s also included casinos (dubbed “penny catchers”), a miniature railroad, dancing and a children’s golf course that was designed by S. P. Jermain.

 

 

The land was purchased by the city through a parks bond issue, and was named Jermain Park on Oct. 18, 1915 in honor of S. P. Jermain.

Little work was done in the park until the WPA put in tennis courts, two bridges, retaining walls, an artificial lake for ice skating and fly casting, and graded ten acres. The lake was shaped triangularly and was built, in part, for mosquito control, but because there were no dams to retain the water, this and the lake in Ottawa Park never were really completed.