Roller Coasters began in the 1700’s in Russia. Since it gets very cold in Russia, some carnivals had the idea of making a wooden track, pouring water onto it, waiting until it froze, pouring sand on the end to slow it down, and selling sled rides on it. Gravity pulls it to the ground, so the higher it goes, the the faster you would go. An American engineer saw this, went back to America, and created the Mauch Chuck  Switchback Railway. The Mauch Chuck Switchback Railway was a mine-train that hauled passengers up a mountain, let go of the pulley and let passengers coast down the mountain at 6 mph. Passengers paid 5 cents a ride. Coaster inventor Lina Beecher took the next step in coaster pioneering of making the long anticipated looping coaster. The Roller Coaster “Flip Flap” was at Coney Island (See famous parks). Because Flip-Flap had to attain so much speed to compete the loop many riders got whiplash and they had to shut Flip-Flap down. Looping Roller Coasters were not attempted again until the 1960’s when steel roller coasters were invented.