When my grade school home room friend bought a carnival, and I had just retired, we reunited and revived our friendship. We both had moved four hours from our home town of Port Huron, Michigan. I had finished my third mural and sold it within my house, so he asked me to paint his horses! I just started the first one of twenty. What an adventure this will be! Thank you for letting me share my joy.

I hope I do him and Native Amusement CO. Proud. The carousel was made in Texas. Here we are in Northern Michigan.

 

-Lisa

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We had our wedding reception at the Santa Monica Pier Carousel on November 5, 1988! It was a beautiful, festive, whimsical and very fun venue. Food carts featured different international cuisines. Small round tables and a dance area filled the space. Several times during the evening the carousel took a spin. Carnival games lined the wall; one of the pictures shows the bride squeezing the handle to see where on the “good kisser” spectrum the light was going to stop on.

 

The wedding cake was rimmed with carousel horses. The bride found carousel horse Christmas ornaments, spray painted them white, then hand painted the details. Thirty four years later we use them on our Christmas tree.

 

Located in the Hippodrome on the world famous Santa Monica Pier, the carousel is home to a wooden family of animals consisting of 44 horses, 1 rabbit, 2 sleighs, and 1 goat. The carousel was built sometime in the 1920's by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company and has been housed in the Hippodrome since 1947. The Hippodrome was built in 1916 and is the oldest building on the pier.

 

We moved to Austin in 2018; the address marker for our house features a hand painted carousel horse. The theme continues.

 

Such fun memories.

 

-Ada
 

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My parents had their wedding reception at the Santa Monica pier carousel! My mother hand painted carousel horse figurines which they used to decorate their wedding cake. Those figurines were made into Christmas ornaments and we hung them on our tree each year. Carousels and carousel horses are a symbol of love and tradition for my family! 

 

-Joanna

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My best memories come from the carousel in the french town of Royan, France. It is actually a two-story carousel that is still standing up there. It looked like a fantasy castle to my kid's eyes. The carousel is forever attached to the memory of hard candy and cotton candy smell coming from the street sellers all around.

 

-Cyril

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When I was young, I had the great privilege of riding The Carousel For Missoula in Missoula, Montana. It is beautiful. It also had a dragon extending to the edge that held a sleeve of rings in his mouth, among which was a golden ring that won the rider a free ride! This place also had a huge themed playscape and swings. My family spent many happy excursions there including my 16th birthday.

 

-Emily

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I grew up in coastal Virginia where there was a carousel, which we called “the hobby horses,” in an amusement park at the nearby beach. My siblings and I loved to ride it as children. In my teens, the amusement park was also a favorite place for dates in the summer. I was not a fan of the scary or twirling rides as I became ill riding them, but continued to ride “the hobby horses” into my teens. 

 

My family moved to Texas when I was 17, and the amusement park is long gone. But on one trip back to Virginia to visit friends and family, I got to ride the carousel again in my older years. It has been preserved and relocated to the downtown area in Hampton where I grew up. My childhood friends and a high school boyfriend and my younger sister were there to ride it, too. What fun and what memories it brought back for all of us!!

                                                                             

-Dianne

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