Irondequoit, N.Y. (WHAM) — Independent filmmaker Peter Daulton said nearly every major city in America had a trolley line in the 19th Century.

“And the trolley companies tried to figure out, ‘How do we get more business on the weekends?'” he said. “And usually the trolley end of the lines might be by a lake or out in the woods somewhere.”

That led to trolley parks. Daulton said there were more than 1,000 at one point, but now there’s just a handful remaining.

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Eventually, he said, the destinations added carousels and other rides, giving rise to modern amusement parks.

“(Seabreeze) was founded in 1879, so we’re in our 146th season,” said Rob Norris, president and CEO of Seabreeze.

Norris said the park is the fourth oldest in the nation, and has been run by his family for generations. The park, he said, is proud of its trolley routes and roots.

“It was a trolley park,” Norris said. “The trolleys came from downtown Rochester and came here, and this was a terminus.”

Daulton is there capturing the park’s past and present. For Daulton, a special effects wizard from films like “Return of the Jedi” and “Back to the Future,” the films on trolley parks are a nostalgic passion project, going back to his childhood at Midway State Park in Chautauqua County. He wants to tell all of their stories.

“I thought, ‘Well, I’m retired, and there’s like 12 trolley parks. If I do one a year, it won’t be too much work,'” he said. “So I’m trying to do one trolley park a year. We’re filming this year at Seabreeze.”

With just his wife and a few others alongside him, making this film — set to debut May 1 on PBS — gets to the core of what these parks were all about: building on the bonds that mean the most.

“We’ve had my niece, my nephew and my niece’s husband out here,” Daulton said. “And Seabreeze is family run, and it takes a family to run Seabreeze. And in our case, it took a family to make this film.”

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