Click on any photo to see a larger version.



Looking at them now you can really feel how each of them alive again.



Emerging from the Philadelphia Toboggan Companies workshop in 1915 and hand crafted by artisans like John Zalar and Frank Carretta what was once called the "Enchanted Carousel" began its life at Cleveland's Luna Park before moving to Puritas Springs Park and finally to Indian Lake Park in Ohio before making the move west to what was then Six Flags Over Mid America in 1972.



At that time of its construction there were over a hundred million people living in the United States and only three million automobiles so everyone came into daily contact with horses.  Part of what makes a carousel horse from this era so lifelike is that the designers had so many personal experiences with real horses on a daily basis they poured all of that source material into making their creations as lifelike as possible.



Being able to take a look inside of the space where these horses are being not only restored but reborn you can see process wise how much has gone into them.  For each horse Six Flag's Meghan Rhodes studied old photos of this carousel, took not only detailed photos of how the horse looked pre-restoration, looked for photos of different horses that match the existing horse for inspiration and then created a design to go along with the name.  Putting everything together on a poster as a guide to what the horse was destined to look like is a great way to focus on that horse as it is being worked on.



Looking at each horse the work that has gone into each of them is really stunning.
 


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Paul B. Drabek