Carousel Found, Carousel Lost

Where do I get my ideas? From my life.

Previously in this blog, I described how my novelette CAROUSEL MAGIC came into being from my experience and a sprinkle of magic. Rocky Rapids Amusement Park, the setting for both CAROUSEL MAGIC and my novella RESTORE MY HEART, is based on the amusement park that gave me so much joy as a child: Cascade Park in New Castle, PA. As I wrote both books, I often wondered what happened to the park's carousel, and if it had been created by one of the masters, like Gustav Dentzel. The librarian in me took firm charge, and off I went on the hunt.

My mother often shared stories about the glory days of Cascade Park.The park had opened in 1897 and boasted a merry-go-round as well as several other rides, set among the forested hills outside the city and along the gorge formed by the waters of Big Run. In 1908, the Harmony Short Line, a new interurban streetcar running from Pittsburgh to New Castle, opened a station just east of the park. Streetcars brought people from all over western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio to the site, another of the so-called “Trolley Parks,” the turn-of-the-century precursor to the modern amusement park.

In 1922, history sources document that Cascade Park replaced its original carousel (origins unknown) with a "new" one, one it purchased from Idora Park in nearby Youngstown, OH. I then found this intriguing quote in a roller coaster fan's blog:

This [the carousel pavilion at Cascade Park] once housed a Philadelphia Toboggan Company carousel, PTC #61, that previously resided at another lost Rust Belt park, Youngstown, Ohio's Idora Park. It currently operates at Brooklyn Bridge Park in Brooklyn, New York. (Coaster Talk No BS Zone)

I was ecstatic. The carousel that I remember, that I rode, was a vintage carousel, and not only that, the carousel had been given new life when it had been purchased in 1984, restored and re-assembled in New York with its new name "Jane's Carousel". 

My carousel was found!

Last month I met with Todd Goings of Carousels and Carvings for dinner in Burlington, NC where he had been working on the vintage Dentzel machine. Todd has been my go-to research source for all things related to carousel restoration. It just so happened that he knew the family who had purchased PTC #61, and he shared that the carousel now in New York was purchased from Idora Park, not from Cascade Park. So PTC #61 could not be my carousel.

No! Say it isn't so! 


I wanted to cry out, but we were at dinner, so I kept my dismay to a lower "No, really?"  

Yes, really.

Back to the hunt.

More internet searching, more comparison of records, more reading. What I've learned is the following:

• The origin of Cascade Park's first carousel is unknown to me so far, but it operated in the park from 1897 to 1922.
• I do know that in 1898, in the first season of Idora Park's operation "An electric merry‑go‑round with wooden animals carved by Gustav Dentzel of Philadelphia was a major attraction."
• In 1922, Idora Park purchased a new, magnificent carousel, PTC #61. Idora sold the Dentzel carousel to Cascade Park. 
• 1923 Season at Cascade Park. "A large, circular pavilion, built by James B. McLendon of the New Castle Lumber Company, was also erected to house a new carousel [the Dentzel] acquired from Idora Park."
• The Dentzel carousel ran in Cascade Park from 1922 to 1953 when "The carousel was rebuilt as the old wooden horses were replaced with aluminum ones." 

By the 1980's, vandalism, storm and flood damage, and lack of resources persuaded civic leaders to change the focus of the park from amusement rides to more nature-focused activities. The photo below shows the soon-to-be-abandoned aluminum carousel (c1983). It is likely, notes a Lawrence County historian, that the metal horses were scrapped.

My carousel was lost.
  

My carousel, it seems, was the one with aluminum horses, without a doubt created by skilled metal workers and engineers, but not carved by the master craftsmen of a former era. And it did not regain new life in another park to continue to give joy, but was discarded, scrapped. I'm sad. It brings tears to my eyes. 

But then I look at the picture of the child holding on, ready to choose a horse, ready to travel into fantasy.

I was that child. I made that journey into fantasy. I found joy in the journey. 

My carousel had fulfilled its purpose.

***

For more reading:

Cascade Park of Years Past - New Castle PA Lawrence County Memoirs. Accessed June 27, 2018 

The photo above is taken from this excellent history of the park.

Jane's Carousel, An Old Ride, Gets New Life by the Brooklyn Bridge. by Meghan Barr. The Huffington Post. 2011  Accessed June 25, 2018

The Carousel News and Trader, v. 23, No. 1, January 2007.
This magazine issue carries several articles about Jane's Carousel, its restoration and the history of Idora Park. Accessed June 24, 2018