Resource Type
Years
Pegi and Bob Sanders of Scottsdale, carousel collectors, brought the park’s first carousel from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, then restored it and supervised its installation at the park. It was dedicated on September 26, 1987, charging 50 cents a ride. “Under a lease agreement, the city and the Sanders Carousel Company share the proceeds from ticket sales.” The carousel, built in 1929 in Tonawanda, NY by Allen Herschell (or was it Alfred Spellman?), had 30 horses and two ‘chariots’ that were outfitted as stagecoaches. “The ornately decorated and mirrored rounding boards that conceal the gear mechanism above the horses are from a Carlsbad, New Mexico carousel built by another famous carver, Gustav Dentzell, in the early 1900s.
DATE: November 18, 1980
It had spent many years at Benson’s Wild Animal Park in Hudson, New Hampshire, a few years at a New Hampshire race track, and then was trucked across the country and restored for the railroad park by Brass Ring Entertainment/Dan Horenberger principal. According to Horenberger, he had to “pack” the carousel horses with special materials so that they would not be too hot to sit on during Scottsdale’s summer heat. The Scottsdale Charros and the Scottsdale Railroad and Mechanical Society funded the purchase, relocation and restoration of the carousel, which became a park-operated attraction (as opposed to a privately-operated concession as the previous carousel had been).
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