The carousel was manufactured in 1905 for Elitch Gardens, an amusement park in Denver.
Purchase of the Carousel
The Philadelphia Toboggan Company built its sixth carousel in 1905 for Elitch Gardens, an amusement park in Denver.
At the time of the original purchase, the animals intended for PTC#6 were finished and in the shop, along with animals destined for placement on machines PTC#7 and PTC#8. It is speculated that the Elitch Gardens agent, rather than accept the order as it stood, hand-picked the animals that pleased him from all those on the factory shelves, even though several were not originally intended to be on Elitch's machine. PTC carvers traditionally stamped the underside of each animal with the number of its machine and row, and several of the animals on PTC#6 bear machine numbers 7 and 8.
Shipping order and affidavit for the acquisition of the carousel.
By 1927 Elitch Gardens decided its park needed a larger and more modern carousel...one with four rows, all horses that would go up and down. PTC#6 was a stationary carousel; its animals did not "jump", and though it went very fast (more than 10 miles an hour), Elitch's old carousel was now passé. In 1928, Elitch's purchased PTC#51 and sold No. 6 and a Wurlitzer Monster Military Band Organ to Kit Carson County for $1,200 (including delivery to Burlington).
The county commissioners who approved the carousel's purchase, C.J. Buchanan, G.W. Huntley, and I.D. Messenger, were widely criticized for this "extravagant expenditure" during hard times. As a result, Huntley did not seek re-election in 1928. Buchanan lost in the primary that year, just three weeks before the recently purchased carousel opened in Burlington for the first time. I.D. Messenger was not up for re-election in 1928, but was defeated when he ran again two years later.
