Read time: 6 min.

When I was a kid in the nineties and early 2000s, playgrounds were just beginning to trade their rickety old personality-filled contraptions for equipment that was modern, standardized, and lacking in personality. A few relics fortunately remain, and a favorite of mine is the old rocket slide at Muncie’s Prairie Creek Reservoir. It’s been little more than an enormous lawn ornament for fifteen years now, but the old slide represents a fascinating chapter in playground history- one I’m proud to have experienced the final part of.

The Muncie Water Works Company announced plans to dam Prairie Creek southeast of Muncie in 1957¹. The project moved quickly, and by early 1959, the 3,000-foot-long, forty-two-foot-tall dam was about halfway complete. The resulting reservoir was nearly full by 1961², and it’s been a tremendous asset to Muncie ever since. Today, Prairie Creek Reservoir is a popular destination for boating, swimming, camping, and biking. Of course, there’s plenty for kids to enjoy, too.

Whether Prairie Creek Reservoir had a playground when it first opened is beyond me. What I do know is that Muncie officials splashed out $10,000 -about $95,000 today- on new equipment for several city parks. Thomas and Riverside Parks, along with Jack’s Playground, received modest additions like spring-mounted animals³. Prairie Creek and McCulloch, on the other hand, got something much more exciting: rocket slides! Installed near the reservoir’s beach and McCulloch Park’s baseball diamond⁴, the towering structures quickly became landmarks.

Pointy-nosed rockets with angular fins may seem quaint nowadays, but the Space Race of the 1960s transformed the way American children played. As the United States and Soviet Union competed to conquer the heavens, playground manufacturers brought a little of that excitement back to Earth. Jamison Fantasy Equipment of Los Angeles offered a rocket, a nautilus, and a space slide⁵, while Iowa’s Miracle Equipment Company got in on the action, too. Many in Muncie remember one of Miracle and Jamison’s later collaborations, the Mark IV Timberliner! Two examples, installed in 1983 and 1984, became the centerpieces of Muncie’s McCulloch and Westside Parks.

The rocket slides at Prairie Creek and McCulloch were Item 1098 in the catalog of Litchfield, Michigan’s Game Time Playground Equipment⁶. Each three-level “Space Rocket” stood twenty-six feet tall, with climbing platforms connected by manhole-style hatches spaced six feet apart. According to the catalog, a “giant 20-foot-long stainless steel, one-piece bedway” -the slide, in other words- extended from the rocket’s second level, ten feet above the ground. Between the towering nose cone, the stacked platforms, and the long metal slide, the colorful contraption looked like a Cape Canaveral carnival.

My family didn’t spend much time at Prairie Creek Reservoir when I was growing up. Instead, I claimed Westside Park’s Mark IV Timberliner as my own, just like everyone probably did. I didn’t encounter Prairie Creek’s rocket slide until I was eleven or twelve, probably right at the tail end of the age when playground equipment still held much appeal. The rocket slide sure made an impression, though! McCulloch Park’s was probably gone by then, and the simple whimsy of Prairie Creek’s towering contraption astonished me.

I’d never seen anything remotely like a rocket slide before. Naturally, I made a beeline for it, scrambled through the hatches, and climbed all the way to the third level inside the nose cone. From there, I peered out at the reservoir through the openings before descending to the second platform and launching myself down that lengthy metal slide. Then I did it again, and again, and again.

About a decade later, in 2011, Prairie Creek got new playground equipment. Some of it followed the tropes we all know, but other pieces confounded me on a recent walk-through. Fortunately, the rocket slide remains preserved -minus the slide part- for its historic value, and I’m glad. At the time, the superintendent of Prairie Creek Park said that plantings around the neutered slide would turn it into a “decorative piece⁷.” They have, but they’ve also obscured it.

I’m glad Prairie Creek’s old rocket slide survived, even if its days of launching kids back to Earth are long gone. Still, there’s something sad about seeing such an imaginative piece of playground equipment reduced to a decoration, especially one that’s barely visible behind the landscaping. I understand why the old slides have largely disappeared, and Game Time even makes a modern version of its old Space Rocket, but it’s generic and bland.

At least I got to experience the old Space Rocket before its engines were permanently cut off, and I hope somebody eventually trims the bushes so the old thing can at least be seen again. After all, what’s the point of preserving a landmark if nobody can find the awesome relic to wonder or reminisce?

Sources Cited
1 Junk, B. (1957, April 25). Detail Plans for Giant Reservoir. The Muncie Evening Press. p. 1.
2 Loy, B. (1961, August 26). Prairie Creek Reservoir Has Become a Reality. The Muncie Evening Press. p. 91.
3 Parks to Get Rocket Slides (1969, March 14). The Muncie Star. p. 1.
4 (See footnote 3).
5 Historic Preservation Commission Agenda (2013, June 24). City of Fresno. Web. Retrieved October 17, 2026.
6 Our History of Enriching Childhood Through Play (n.d.). GameTime, a PlayCore Company [Fort Payne]. Web. Retrieved October 17, 2026.
7 Roysdon, K. (2011, June 29). Reservoir work should be done before Ironman, officials say. The Muncie Star Press. p. 3.