It All Started with a Carousel

Sometimes the actual catalyst for an action or an idea is never truly given the credit it so deserves. Do we really have a clear idea as to what inspired Walt Disney to begin thinking about an amusement park for the entire family?

Let’s go back in time and see if we can come up with an answer.

The Griffith Park Merry-Go-Round

One day some 70+ years ago Walt Disney spent a Saturday afternoon with his two daughters Sharon and Diane. They would visit an amusement park in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los angeles.

Los Feliz is a relaxed hillside enclave that draws both established and up-and-coming creative types. There are plenty of old-school watering holes, hip shops and cafes, plus the Vista Theatre, a 1923 movie palace, and a pair of exemplary Frank Lloyd Wright homes. The neighborhood borders sprawling Griffith Park, a place that was favored by Walt Disney and his daughters.

From a nearby bench Walt would watch his children ride the park’s merry-go-round. He thought about the possibility of building a space that could be fun for both children and adults alike. As he thought more and more of what that space could be, you could say it became the spark for how Disneyland would differ from any regular amusement park.

By the way, a bit of trivia for you. That same bench that Walt sat on at Griffith Park is on display at the Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln attraction on Main Street USA in Disneyland.

That merry-go-round at Griffith Park is still doing its thing and is now a tourist attraction in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles.

It was obvious that Walt associated carousels with amusement parks and his amusement park would definitely have its own merry-go-round.

The Mickey Mouse Park

The Mickey Mouse Park was the originally planned name for Disneyland. When Walt was tossing around the idea of an amusement park those around him did not share in his enthusiasm. Actually, that might have been a good thing because their argument was basically why build another amusement park when there are so many others? When I think of that it struck me that perhaps that may have just launched in Walt the notion that he would not build a run of the mill amusement park but something quite different. However, there was no doubt in his mind that his park would have a carousel.

Disneyland’s King Arthur Carrousel

The King Arthur Carrousel (yes we are now using the letter “r” twice when referring to a Disney merry-go-round) in Disneyland was purchased for $22,000 from the Sunnyside Beach Park in Ontario, Canada. The carousel was built way back in 1875 by William Dentzel, who was a craftsman specializing in carousel-making through his company, Dentzel Carousel Company. William’s passion and specialty was inherited from his father, Gustav Dentzel. William had a hand in building carousels for other notable locations, such as Knott’s Berry Farm, San Francisco Zoo, and Six Flags Over Texas.

The Dentzel Carousel Company is headquartered in Port Townsend, Washington on the North Olympic Peninsula of the USA. The company’s tradition began in an early 1800's southern German wagon-maker’s shop. Dentzel carousels became larger over time. In the mid-19th century the second-generation Dentzel carousel-making brothers sailed cross the Atlantic in several waves with carousel parts to assemble and test the American market. Carousels became larger, more elaborate, and widespread during the turn-of-the-century era.

Third generation Dentzel carousel-makers saw the collapse of the industry during the great depression at which time more practical home building became the family trade. Fourth generation carousel-maker, William H. Dentzel II, revived the family business in the 1960's and made small children's carousels. Fifth generation carousel-maker, William H. Dentzel III, continues making 20' diameter, 15 rider traditional wooden "flying horses" carousels for communities, they carry children as well as adults. He also makes other animated rides and furniture.

When the Disney Company purchased the carousel, they modified it and made it bigger so it could accommodate more guests and fit to the theming of the land. Disney contracted Arrow Development to fully refurbish and enlarge the ride. An expense authorization dated May 5, 1955 detailed about $20,000 spent on those modifications. They fitted the carousel to the theming of the land by adding motifs from Sleeping Beauty to it. Since Disneyland’s opening the carousel has had but two major refurbishments. One refurbishment, in 1975, per John Hench’s insistence, included the painting of all of the horses to be white.

Why? Well it seemed that the white horses were the popular horses so the decision was made to make all the horses that popular color. The most popular horse today is the lead horse, Jingles, who was dedicated to Julie Andrews in 2008.

Walt Disney World’s Prince Charming Regal Carrousel

If there was one person who knew all about the history of Walt Disney World’s Prince Charming Regal Carrousel it was my late dear friend Jim Korkis. I spend time with Jim talking about this carrousel and in a tribute to him I give you, in his own words, the history of the Prince Charming Regal Carrousel:

The Fantasyland carousel in Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom was first built in 1917 by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company, which created some of the most beautiful horses of the era.

It was carved by German and Italian carvers to express the patriotism that was prevalent in the United States after the First World War. The carousel was named “Liberty”, and was one of the largest carousels ever built, being some sixty feet in diameter.

The first home of the Liberty Carousel was at the Detroit Palace Gardens Park, where it stayed until it was rehabilitated in Philadelphia in 1928 and set up in Olympic Park in Maplewood, N.J., for the next 39 years.

The Liberty Carousel originally had 72 horses and also two chariots (not four, as is reported in some articles). The distinctly American horses were black, brown, gray, and white.

Their saddles included items that celebrated the American frontier. Carved figures of Lady Liberty holding shields that featured a red, white and blue flag emblem decorated the interior top circle.

The carousel included eighteen landscape paintings of American scenery. Just below them was a running board decorated with golden American eagles. Sadly, over the years, less skilled craftsmen would slop paint and lacquer over the horses, eventually obscuring the intricate and uniquely engraved features underneath.

The Philadelphia Toboggan Company built 89 carousels before 1929 and the Great Depression. The Liberty Carousel was No. 46, and is one of only a dozen or so of those classic originals from the company that still exist and operate today.

Olympic Park closed in 1965. By that point, the Liberty Carousel had fallen into a state of disrepair and was slated for almost-certain demolition. Antique carousel horses are in such demand that it was planned to sell them and the decorations off individually.

By 1967, Disney had located and acquired the antique masterpiece for the Magic Kingdom.

All of the horses were shipped to Disney shops, where craftsmen were surprised by the detail and artistic grace uncovered when all the years of paint and grime was removed down to the gleaming maple of the horses. Months of Disney artistry went into the rehabilitation.

The chariots were removed, and the carousel was filled out to 90 horses when Disney purchased some antique horses that were made by two other well-known producers of carousels: the Dentzel Company and the Parker Company.

The horses were sanded down carefully to the original wood so that no detail was lost. Sanding down to the actual wood could have resulted in damage and loss of detail, so, today, they are only sanded down to roughly the level of primer and no further. Then the horses were primed and painted white.

The horses are white for two reasons. First, since it was Cinderella’s carousel, the white horses allude to the white horses that pulled Cinderella’s pumpkin coach. Second, one of the things Disney discovered with the King Arthur’s Carrousel at Disneyland (the two “r”s in the title of the ride is correct) was that when people rode a carousel, they first tried to get on a white horse because it was considered the “hero” horse.

For its first decade or so of operation, the Disneyland carousel featured horses of different colors until Imagineer John Hench made the decision to make them all Arctic white. Every guest no matter what their size gets a chance to ride a “hero” horse.

In 1997, one of the original Liberty Carousel chariots was located in a Disney warehouse, and was rehabbed and reinstalled on the ride. For decades, the attraction was named Cinderella’s Golden Carrousel, but was renamed Prince Charming Regal Carrousel in 2010.

That was basically Jim’s elevator talk on the Prince Charming Regal Carrousel. What he doesn’t mention is the value of this attraction. You see, when you look at the horses you will notice the vivid colors; especially the Cinderella Horse which has a gold ribbon tied around its tale.

I remember talking with Jim about the horses on the carousel and he mentioned to me that the horses towards the center of the attraction are more valuable than those on the outer edges. He was very much into the carousel because he actually had been a cast member at one time and was assigned the workshop which was in charge of the refurbishment of the attraction.

In fact, many people are not aware of this but there are more horses than there are slots for them on the carrousel. Why is this? Well, every so often there is a need to refreshen the horses; that is, to clean them up and perhaps repaint them. Thus there are replacement horses ready to take their place which prevents the park from having to shut down the carrousel. Rarely, if ever, have I known this attraction to be down for refurbishment.

Now, let’s get back to the the value of this carrousel.

The owner of Palace Gardens paid $30,000 for Liberty when it was ordered and built in 1917. In today’s dollars, each horse is said to be worth $20,000-$100,000, depending on the size, age, and amount of embellishments (the gold on each horse is actually 23-karat gold leaf).

So using a bit of AI and trying to get a realistic idea of what the Prince Charming Regal Carrousel is worth today I was pretty stunned to see that the worth range for this attraction falls somewhere between a low of $914,000 and a high of $1,634,000. Those two figures are based on what it would cost to build the carousel today and the worth of each of the horses. The midway point is about $1,274,000 which sounds about right.

Think about this, when the then named Liberty Carousel debuted as a new attraction at Detroit’s Palace Gardens in April 1919, at the same time, Walter Elias Disney was just a teenager driving an ambulance for the Red Cross in France.

From Detroit to Disney

Here are a few more details to supplement Jim’s telling of the Prince Charming Regal Carrousel. I apologize for any redundancy but my goal is to fill in some gaps with some extra information I discovered.

The Palace Gardens Park was an amusement park that lived in Electric Park, located on the mainland side of the Detroit River. Today it is known as Gabriel Richard Park.

To remind everyone, in 1917, the Liberty Carousel was ordered from the Philadelphia Toboggan Company.

Ten years later, the owners of Electric Park and the city of Detroit entered into a long legal battle over the park’s existence. Fires had destroyed sections of the park, and the area was considered an eyesore. The city condemned Electric Park in 1927, and the Liberty was returned to the Philadelphia Toboggan Company.

Because Liberty was such a masterwork, it wasn’t long before it found a new home. Around 1929, Olympic Park in New Jersey acquired the carousel.

In 1965, Olympic Park was forced to close and the Liberty Carousel was most likely looking at a fate whereby the individual horses would be sold to collectors.

Step in The Walt Disney Company which was looking for a very large carousel for a new Florida theme park. The Liberty Carousel was saved.

Besides the aforementioned care to make all the horses white in color, there were other modifications made to this carrousel.

Changes included making sure all the horses were jumpers rather than standers (a horse that didn’t go up and down).

Remember that the original Liberty Carrousel had a patriotic theme to it so the American landscape paintings at the top of the canopy were replaced by scenes from the Cinderella movie, but the Liberty Maidens themselves still adorn the exterior, and the old Western-influenced carvings on the horses also remain.

Finding a photo of the original Liberty Carrousel that is now Prince Charming’s Regal Carrousel was quite a challenge. Here it is in all it’s fuzzy black and white imagery.

Trivia Questions

So you can now stump your friends when you ask them to name the oldest “things” in Disneyland and in Walt Disney World.

For Disneyland it’s the King Arthur Carrousel built in 1875 and for Walt Disney World its the Prince Charming Regal Carrousel built in 1917.

So you see for my own thinking it didn’t all start with a mouse…it all started with a carousel.

See you next time.