In 1884, Coney Island debuted the first rollercoaster, the "Switchback Gravity Pleasure Railway". Other resort areas across the nation soon built their own versions of this new development. By 1900, there were over 2,000 rollercoasters in America.
On December 13, 1910, Alexander Aitken filed a patent for a "Pleasure-Railroad". He was granted this same patent on April 11th of the following year.
Aitken was granted a patent after proving the "novelty" of his invention, and there is something quite novel about a Psychotic Log Flume archetype.