Ride The Carousel And Train At The City Park

The Burlington City Park Carousel is a three-row Dentzel Menagerie Carousel built around 1906-1910 at the Dentzel Carousel Company on Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Carousel was purchased by the City of Burlington for $3,500.00 the summer of 1948 from Mr. Carl Utoff the owner of Forest Amusement Park in Genoa, Ohio. Mr. Utoff purchased the machine in or around 1924 from Locust Point Amusement Park in Oak Harbor, Ohio. There are 46 hand-carved wooden animals including 26 horses, four ostriches, rabbits, and pigs; reindeer, giraffes, lions and tigers, and two chariots. These animals are hand-carved out of bass and poplar wood and are a hollow series of boxes and wood pieces glued together with hide glue into the basic shape, and then carved by hand. The Dentzel carvers were noted for their realism with the carving of the veins and muscles of the animals. The eyes are made of glass with true pupils, and the tails are real horse hair.

Burlington City Park, Burlington, NC, Dentzel, 1906-10, 3 row, Park, 16 j, 10 s, 20 m, (1LIO,1TIG,1GIR,1DEE,4CAT,4OST,4PIG,4RAB), 2 ch; NRHP 1985, b/o Stinson- 1985 not operational, Restored 1981-83. Animals may be older - 1912-1914., History: OL unk, unk? to ?, Locust Point, Oak Harbor, OH, unk? to 1924, Forest Park, Genoa, OH, 1924 to 1948 -- Burlington City Park, Burlington, NC, 1948 to present.

The existing train in Burlington City Park has been around since about 1978/1979. The first train, a G-16 was purchased by the Burlington Kiwanis Club in 1951. Each member of the club went to a local bank and signed a promissory note. The original train was installed and opened in 1951. Today's train looks nothing like the original. Repairs for the first train became costly when the manufacturing company went out of business. Parts had to be custom made. City staff members began looking for a replacement, and in 1978/1979 a new train was purchased. When the current train was installed workers left the original rails when new ones were constructed. They are visible today.

CREDITS: Excerpts: City of Burlington, North Carolina