Sun Valley Beach Park is an oasis between two cities

When teenagers in Roswell and Alpharetta needed a place to hang out in the 1950s and 1960s, they would often congregate at the Sun Valley Beach Park on Highway 9 halfway between Roswell and Alpharetta. Today the remaining land is overgrown with weeds and beaver dams where traces of its existence are barely visible on Sun Valley Road, but in its day, it was an amazing family recreational and entertainment park popular throughout north Fulton County. Here is the story.

Bob Meyers

The park was founded in 1950 by Joe C. Mansell (1906-1997) as a fishing lake only. Joe was the principal investor and manager of the operation. The park grew and a Board of Directors was established consisting of friends and relatives of Joe including architect Jim Barker who designed the park’s bathhouse; his brotherin-law Chuck Cunningham, also an architect; Jasper Dolvin, Principal of the Roswell Elementary School; Joe’s cousin, Clarence Westbrook; Bob Patten, a builder and Terry Martin among others.

Sun Valley Park offered a wide assortment of attractions including a 14-acre swimming lake with an imported white sand beach, two boating and fishing lakes one of which had a skating rink around it. The park had a stable operated by Joe’s

FAMILY/PROVIDED

A postcard of Sun Valley Park shows some of its features: lake, beach, walking trails and miniature pumpkin church. CIRCA MID -1950s cousin, Harry Kaye Mansell and cousin Howard Rucker. The stable offered horseback riding and pony rides for children.

Nephew Willie Mansell ran the bait shop. There were row boats for rent, train rides around the property, a pony-pulled covered wagon, picnic grounds with tables, area for Boy Scout overnighters and a snack bar. A bowling alley was added in the early 1960s. Admission for adults was 50 cents and 25 cents for children when it first opened.

Joe’s daughter, Linda Mansell Martin, has many memories of the park. She worked every summer as a teenager “behind the basket counter (for holding swimmers’ clothes) or flipping burgers at the snack bar or eventually becoming a lifeguard at the swim lake when I was a little older.” She recalls “sock hops, picnics, swimming, diving and sunning, train rides, fishing and horseback riding through the woods, egg hunts, and even a few folks who were caught ‘skinny dipping’ when they broke in at night.”

Joe Mansell, searching for Civil War relics with a mine detector at the site of the New Hope Church battle during the Atlanta campaign. He collected a bucket full of minie balls, a Civil War bullet.

In the 1950s the rivalry between Roswell and Alpharetta teenagers was strong. The park was neutral ground where teens from all over the area would gather to enjoy the fun and sun. “I don’t know what teenagers in Alpharetta and Roswell would have done without the park. It healed some of the rivalry between the two cities,” says Linda. Up to 500 to a 1,000 people would visit the park on weekends.

See MEYERS, Page 18