Medina Homes Guide Medina Homes Guide
Gloria Glens Park Village Town Hall on Lake Road, a small wood-sided municipal building.
Gloria Glens Park Village Town Hall on Lake Road, the civic center of a 0.11-square-mile village founded in 1924 as overnight lodging for Chippewa Lake Park guests. Photo by Roseohioresident, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Local History · From Gloria Glens Park Village

The village built to house an amusement park's weekend guests

Gloria Glens Park was founded in 1924 as overflow lodging for Chippewa Lake Park. The park closed in 1978. The village kept going, turning bungalows into year-round homes.

Published 2026-08-05 · 2 min read

Gloria Glens Park is a very small village. It's 0.11 square miles of land on the southeast shore of Chippewa Lake. In the 2020 census it had 369 residents.1

It was not founded by farmers, or by railroad speculators, or by industrialists. It was founded in 1924 by the Chippewa Lake Park amusement park to house their weekend guests. The park was already 46 years old by then. The ballroom drew crowds. Ride operators needed somewhere for the overflow to sleep. Bungalows were built. Roads were laid. One of the streets in the village is still named Playland Parkway.2

The 1940 census counted six year-round residents. That figure jumped to 98 by 1950. The bungalows built for weekenders were being winterized and lived in year-round.3 The village population peaked in 2000 at 538.

The amusement park closed after its centennial season in 1978. The rides sat in the woods for the next thirty years. The village outlived the park by almost half a century.

What you can still see today: original 1920s bungalow-style homes, updated but recognizable, throughout the village. A members-only beach and four privately-owned docks operated by the Gloria Glens Association, which is separate from the village government. Being a village resident makes you eligible to join the Association; you still have to actually join to use the beach.4 Public boat launching inside the village is not permitted.

The lake that gave the amusement park its reason to exist gave this village its reason to exist too. The park is gone. The lake is still here, and so is the village.

Footnotes

  1. 0.11 sq mi land area; 2020 population 369. U.S. Census; village details on Wikipedia and Medina County EDC.
  2. 1924 founding as overflow lodging. Documented on the village's own site (gloriaglens.org/faqs), citing the Chippewa Lake Ohio Historical Society. Playland Parkway remains a street name in the village.
  3. Population trajectory (6 in 1940 to 98 in 1950 to peak 538 in 2000). U.S. Census data via Wikipedia's Gloria Glens Park entry. The 1940-to-1950 jump reflects the postwar conversion of summer bungalows to year-round housing.
  4. Village government vs. Gloria Glens Association. The two are separate entities. The village is the municipal government; the Association is the non-profit that owns the beach, breakwater, playground, and boat ramp. Every village resident is eligible to join the Association, but must actually join to use the beach. Documented on gloriaglens.org/the-association and /the-lake.

Sources

Every date and figure comes from the census or from the Association's own materials. The distinction between the Village and the Association is important on the ground: your address gives you the right to lake access, not the access itself.

Medina Homes Guide · Verified 2026-08-05