Celebrate Like It's 1924.

From P&G picnics to a park built by hand.

In 1924, Henry Stricker started the grove on 55 acres in Mt. Healthy, just outside Cincinnati, and planted three apple orchards. A Procter & Gamble man, he had coworkers asking to weekend in the countryside — picnicking among the groves of trees gave the place its name.

Henry raised chickens as a hobby, so when a dance hall was added he framed it to convert into a chicken coop if the park ever failed. It never came to that. A pony cart and track arrived in the 1940s; the first mechanical rides — boats, rockets, and a ferris wheel — in 1954. After Henry died in 1960, his three sons, Harold, Elmer, and Ralph, kept it running.

In 1972, the Mt. Healthy land was sold and Ralph relocated the whole park to 25 acres of former corn fields in Ross, Ohio, becoming sole owner. Ralph passed away in January 2007. Today his daughter and two long-time employees run the grove. Still family. Still surrounded by corn fields.