Herschell Carrousel Factory and Museum - Authentic 1915 Carousel Factory - North Tonawanda, NY

hey you all carpetbagger here coming to you live from the north more specifically North Tonawanda New York and even more specifically than that we're in front of the Herschel company Carousel Factory Museum now I've learned here in the at the time I spent here in Western New York over the past year or so is that uh New York is kind of a a mecca for carousels a lot of Carousel factories based out of here in New York I believe they actually said that their one point was four different Carousel factories in this area and uh of course I've come I've come across a lot of carousels merry-go-rounds in my travels going to amusement parks fairs you know the the absolutely quintessential ride is the carousel it's a ride that families can ride together you know it's always the the fun of finding finding the right animal finding an animal that speaks to you that's always what I when I ride a carousel you go look for that the right animal that speaks to you whether it be a cool looking horse or some random animal and I remember you know I always like looking for Unique Carousel animals like I remember a gorilla you know zoos sometimes have the interesting animals the there's uh what is it the uh Carillon Park in Daytona Ohio has a carousel with different local items you can ride a bag of dog food as a carousel animal which I think maybe that may win as for the most unique uh Carousel uh animal but anyways the Herschel company here started in 1910 manufactured carousels as well as other rides and even built roller coasters and more extreme rides in their later days so I'm really excited to check out the carousel Factory what is actually housed in the original Carousel Factory they have converted it in to a museum so please follow me [Music] love the exterior of this building here and I kept the old timey look to it see they make carousels and merry-go-rounds and this is still something that I have a little bit of trouble with is uh differentiating between carousels and merry-go-rounds I think I've heard before some some people have said that carousels have horses merry-go-rounds have other animals you know if you know the difference between a Carousel and a merry-go-round leave a comment in the comment section see on the side here it says Park amusements with some of the different rides they make of course best known for carousels but also Ferris wheels and striking machines I don't know what a striking machine is I may have may need to figure that out once we get inside of course Ferris wheels another Mainstay of the amusement park and Carnival scene Park swings I imagine that's those big those big spinning swings that uh terrify me and dowel racks I don't know if that's just a rack to put dolls on or or something or something else so heading in you can see this Carousel shaped building right here so we are welcome to the Herschel Carousel Factory Museum and look at this being greeted by Mr Uncle Sam himself how's it going Uncle Sam as we enter here there is a ticket booth much like there'd be a ticket booth at a carnival or in a music Park but does say we pay admission in the gift shop [Music] all right included with admission admission was ten dollars and it came with two tokens for the carousel so this is good for one Carousel Ride so I guess we'll get two Carousel rides while we're here to hang on to these until we get to the carousel talks here about kitty lands which are smaller amusement parks built for younger children and of course you know you still see this and in modern theme parks the the children's section with the traditional children's rides but it says that this concept for making these smaller rides actually started here at the uh Herschel uh Carousel company they started designing these smaller rides that were more Kent to kid friendly and here we actually have a collection of these smaller rides right here you can see uh these bumper cars here and yeah these are really cool these old uh old bomber cars it says Dodge them there on the front Dodge them actually was the original name of bumper cars they were called dodgeums and then eventually became to be known as bumper cars this here is a really interesting uh bumper car I don't know if I've seen this style in operation anywhere you can see it has the high seat the long steering wheel and then the bumping is actually at the bottom there you have like a inner tube surrounding it to protect you on the other bumpers but you actually set up kind of high there on the bench in the middle and here is a Kitty roller coaster known as The Little Dipper have the cars here as well as some of the track says this was in uh this was in Fort Erie Canada at a park called Crystal Beach of course Fort Erie just right across uh right over the Border I think it's like the first town over the Border you can see people riding the Little Dipper there in that picture [Music] some of these smaller cars here it would be a you know part of a little kitty ride probably going around in a circle there is a tractor ride as well since these were popular in very rural areas the kids wanted to kids wanted to ride a tractor kids watch tractors you know adults Drive the tractors on the farm and they wanted a chance to get on the tractor themselves and then here is a sky fighter you can see it actually has the the guns on it this will probably be raised up in the air as it spun in a circle and since this was inspired by uh inspired by the Cold War and Space Race led to the creation of this according to the sign so yeah I guess you know some of that like sci-fi Cold Air Cold War era sci-fi inspired this ride okay so this is a striking machine I couldn't figure out what they were talking about but but now now I understand you can see the machine there that you would hit with the hammer the big Mallet there Smash down uh that part right there and then of course you try to get it to get the the piece to shoot up to see how strong you are see how high that goes so yeah these are the Striking machine it's more of like a strong man uh testing thing you know you try to impress uh try to impress your your significant other show them how strong you are and take the hammer smash the machine and show everyone just how strong you are or how strong you are it can also be very embarrassing when you uh can't make it go up very high now here's a miniature steam train created an 1895 so it's an actual train It actually runs like a real train it's just smaller you can see uh engineer would sit right there that'd be the engineer's seat you can see there from the painting people sitting in the trains of the train cars right here and it looks like we can actually step inside this particular train car [Music] [Music] back here we have the train conductor getting ready to go on a mighty Journey on a very tiny train some old cars from a kitty Auto ride and yeah it says that these would move in a circle see some more of these striking machines here I guess you start out you start out with a smaller one there and then once you've graduated that one you move on to the bigger one and truly test your strengths if you can get see if you can get it all the way up to a 12 there they have some different uh Carousel items in this case there's some stirrups there that you'd put your feet in while riding the horse and have some carousel horse eyeballs right there look at these tiny ones right here that's like it's not like the world's tiniest carousel horse there all the different sizes of eyes there oh look at that carousel horses actually wear horseshoes that's interesting the little little carousel horse shoe there you have a piece of a carousel horse's leg there and then behind is a carousel horse's tail says that 100 years ago there actually would make the horse's Tails out of real horse hair so they would take a real horse's tail and put it on a carousel horse and there is the legendary brass ring back in the day they would have a ring dispenser hanging from a Carousel and you try to grab the Rings as you went by and if you got the brass ring you got to have a free ride on the carousel it says here that these are very rare these days because of safety issues I'm guessing uh if you try to grab the ring you know you could you could be pulled off the horse or hurt your arm or something uh there is at least two carousels I know that still have this there is one at Knoebels it has the brass ring and there is one of the Santa Cruz boardwalk that has the brass rings as you guys know of any other carousels that still have the brass Rings please uh leave a comment in the comment section was really really fascinating and love seeing the brass Rings still in action enter here to the Carousel room where we have the actual carousel you can see the horses there these horses don't have the horse hair Tails they have the regular wooden Tails there see the carousel here all these are different different horses [Music] says that this Carousel here was built in 1916 and one was one of the first three carousels produced here at uh at the building it has 36 jumping horses one stationary chair Chariot and one spinning chariot this says if you're as tall as we are you can ride alone all right I think I can ride alone I'm I'm much taller than these two old-timey children here is the brass ring dispenser so this arm here it's pinned back right now and I'm not sure if they use this but you can if you unpin this and swing it out then people that ride by on the carousel horses would reach their arm out and try to take this brass ring out of this uh of this dispenser here and actually most of the Rings will be steel but there'd be one Brass Ring that would Grant the uh Grant the person that catches that would get a free ride on the carousel so it's a major a major accomplishment oh here is the uh this is the spinning Chariot operates like a teacup as you're going around the carousel you can spin the middle and cause your your chariot to go in a circle there while uh while you travel around the actual carousel all right it's time to redeem all right it's time to redeem our token and take a ride on the carousel [Music] in there all right we got our pick of course is here but I think I'm gonna have to go for the spinning Chariot I've never rode one of these before so let's get the spinning Chariot a try one two three [Music] [Applause] here we go see the warlitzer playing the Carousel music oh there the horse is going up and down kind of see the workings of the Opera carousel there or it says I'll Trail these horses do have the Corsair Tails right here as we travel around the carousel there we are going on a nice relaxing ride along the carousel but we're not sitting in a horse we're sitting in these spinning the spinning Chariot so let's see if we can get this thing spinning all right let's go here on the there we go [Music] okay so again get a different perspective here you can see the horses coming uh coming towards us see if we can get a little more of a spin going here on the oh this actually takes a little bit of a little bit of muscle chair here oh there we go all right let's watch this Chariot spin here there we go so you can get a complete complete circle there we go oh yeah this is the most this is the most intense Carousel experience I've ever been a part of oh this is really dizzying spinning like this and going in a circle makes the carousel experience surprisingly intense oh my goodness sorry if that's making anyone nauseous oh oh there we go slowing down the end of our ride you can see there the artificial eye on the carousel or see almost like a Taxidermy eye there on the horses over here we have a map shows different carousels you see the pins in the map denoting different locations of antique carousels and here is a a color-coded key where you can look at the pins and see where uh what company made each one of these antique carousels I'm honestly looking at this there's a lot of carousels out there and uh look down in this book here this is the carousels in operation in the USA and Canada and just look at this all these carousels maybe I should make it my goal to ride every single carousel in uh in this book honestly I had I don't think I had any idea how many carousels there truly were out there I really I recognize some of some of these Parks here of course Lake Compounce one of the oldest theme parks in existence but uh yeah maybe there's a lot of theme parks here I've never even heard of there's Six Flags Magic Mountain out in California but yeah there's there's definitely a lot of these you know probably smaller theme parks that uh I could definitely go out to and uh seek out the carousels and seek out what other old rides or attractions are at these carousels I don't know should I make it my uh my goal here to uh ride every carousel oh here's the other here's another merry ground there's a Merry-Go-Round Museum again not clear on the difference between merry-go-rounds and carousels that's in Sandusky Ohio that's near um Cedar Point and here we have the actual Carousel Factory where all the different components of the carousel are made here's the carving section where they actually would carve the carousel horses out of wood you can see some of those 2D figures back there working on the old cutting and carving machines here you can see the different carved pieces of uh the carousel horses being put together partially constructed horse there again we see those 2D figures back there putting the horses together there's a partially finished horse torso here so I'm putting the finishing touches on that horse back there you can see this horse here some of the finer detail is put into place let's see if the detail carving that goes on there and the saddle and the patterns there really each horse really is like a beautiful handmade piece of art I do love these frogs here and it kind of fits a frog you know while horse gallops frog takes little little jumps and uh I always love I always love when there's like different variety of animals like strange animals you wouldn't necessarily think would be on a carousel horses are horses are a lot of fun you know everyone loves to ride a horse but sometimes you know you gotta ride a frog or a gorilla or a panda or a bag of dog food says these figures are from the ga Denzel Steam and horsepower carousel company of Philadelphia Pennsylvania maybe between 1867 and 1928 says these are these are called sweet faced standards I guess standards because they don't go up and down they're they're a more static version of the carousel animals that says that I guess they're called sweet face because of their their realism here and yeah you can see this very realistic it's carved out of wood but looks very much like a real horse you can see like the veins and its face there the tongue sticking out and then this lion too that is really cool line there you can see his vicious mouth his teeth and yeah there's those glass eyes do add a bit of realism to the different Carousel animals here you can see how a crankshaft works on a carousel see the horses there they're mounted on this beam above them and then we turn the crank there and you can see how it turns and causes the horses to gallop here's the music department where they would have their organs they would play that traditional Carousel music see the paper there music could actually run on sheets of paper now this one here is actually operational where they can actually create new spools of Music here at the Museum these are empty pages feeding into there and then you spool the music up on those uh those rolls there it talks about here how the Wurlitzer company was actually also based out of North Tonawanda here so that's pretty serendipitous I guess uh maybe that explains all the carousel factories here because they also made the organs that played the Carousel music here in North Tonawanda as well says Wurlitzer military band there and then you see this organ this is a this is not an automatic one this is a manually played organ here where you play it yourself it says North Tonawanda Barrel organ Factory New York USA now this here was the painting room of the carousel company does say however though this over here is the only bit of equipment left in the painting room these paint can closers that would smash a lid back on a can of paint but here's the old time clock they would punch in and out of the carousel Factory I guess they stick their time card in there and uh and punch it letting them know that they're in or out yeah you can see morning and noon out noon in noon out extra in around I guess that's for overtime and here in the painting room they have on display some of the wonderful carousel horses and other animals here see the beautiful hand carved horses here as well as the more unusual animals such as a giant rooster there this would be the side of a chariot of a Viking there riding a fire-breathing dragon see I always love the the detail in the carousels the Chariots often have really a cool detail to them I mean what's what's more awesome than riding a dragon with a Viking it's that picture here of the factory you can see it's still painted looks almost exactly the same and then all those employees out front all the people there to help make carousels and amusement park rides see some more these uh non-horse animals you see the wild boar there with the saddle and it's like this it's the big big old dog big old dog that you could uh ride on kazoo you know as a little kid I think we all had like these uh these ideas that wouldn't it be fun if we could ride on our dog I mean obviously you don't ride on the dog the dog the dog can't hold you up please don't go ride your dog it might hurt the dog's back but I remember as a kid it was always like I thought of them I wouldn't be fun if me and the dog could just go I could just sit on the dog's back and the dog could run and we could go on adventures together these two horses here are from 1890 and they're you know they look quite different than some of the carousel horses that we're used to seeing and they they functioned differently it says that uh you know originally they didn't make the uh carousel horses that went up and down on uh on the uh crankshaft like we saw earlier instead they had these mounted they're on a wooden pole and inside there it's mounted on a spring so when you got on the horse and started going in circles the horse would rock on the spring so kind of a different uh Carousel experience there this horse very different as well you can see it almost it's almost like on a glider there as the carousel went around a circle the horse would Glide back and forth so it's hanging there very interesting you know I guess they tried a lot of different things before uh the carousels that we have now became the standard and this is very interesting here it points out this uh Trojan War Horse here see how ornate it is on the on this side it has jewels and it's sad and it's saddle a lot of detail but we go to the other side and we see there's there's no jewels completely plain and the reason for this is is that the jeweled side would be the side that points outward out of the carousel that's what it entice people with its jewels and its design but because this side pointed inward there was no reason to make it all all pretty so to save money on Jewels and extra detail they would just decorate the outward side of the horse pretty pretty interesting and this is a interesting detail over here we have a zebra and uh you can see that there is a saddle painted on the zebra but not a physical saddle made and it said that the Herschel company didn't want to put saddles on the zebras because zebras were wild you couldn't ride a zebra with a saddle which is actually true you cannot there's no such thing as like a domesticated zebra you can't you cannot domesticate a zebra like a horse they're much more wild they will not allow themselves to be rode like a horse well so uh the Herschel company said okay no saddles on on zebras because they're a wild animal you you can't tame a zebra but they said that local parks once the the once the carousels were delivered it would paint saddles on the zebras because they felt like that no one wanted to ride an animal without a saddle they felt that the only way to ride an animal was with a saddle so it did say that there was kind of an odd uh an odd contradiction because while they refused to put a saddle on a zebra they would put a saddle on anything else such as you know this ostrich had a saddle I don't know if an ostrich saddle is something that exists in the in the world so they were fine putting saddles on everything except zebras because it just didn't seem right so from now on when I go to amusement parks I'm gonna find the zebras and see if they're wearing saddles or not and as we look at all these beautiful carousel horses we see these two bowls here and it says these bowls were not Carousel animals these are actually striking machines so you would take the mallet there and you would hit the balls in the forehead you can see the little piece right there that's where you would strike bowler which is kind of a kind of oh my it's kind of a kind of questionable activity you know I guess that's how they would they would uh they would they would put down bowls or cows back in the day for for slaughtering but they turned it into a fun amusement game where you uh instead of striking the Striking machine on the ground it would strike it between a bull's eyes and here it shows the modern carousel horses compared to the old-time carousel horses see this one here hand carved out of wood and this one created in a fiberglass mold that asks us to uh to compare the two see the mold up there I don't know I mean I would definitely have to say that I think the old carved ones have a have a have a very special look to them and this uh this this shiny new one here of course it's still you know still like still a wonderful piece of art but uh interesting to compare the two and here we are in the kitty land room where they actually have another Carousel this is their Kitty Carousel you can see they have some very very tiny horses these almost remind me of like the little prehistoric horses that uh you would see back in during the Ice Age oh but we have the look at the mermaid the mermaid uh Chariot there so yeah very cool always see the wheels there how this is actually like a traveling uh traveling Carousel that you would probably bring to different uh carnivals over here behind the carousel fence yeah that's a more modern bumper car right there I see a couple puppets there in that box I guess those are for uh for puppet shows if you look back there in the corner there's a little wagon that says Rusty All-American bandwagon it's got covered in covered in Little Monkeys and other figures you see the monkeys dangling there from the umbrella that's interesting over here in the gift shop they have little dioramas of the factory see them loading the wood or unloading wood there for use in carousels and here we see the um men carving the wood in to carousel horses and then finally the painting room you can see uh that finished horse being sprayed down in wonderful colors and out here back of the factory they actually do have some kitty rides see they're closed up for the winter but during the summer months they'll be operating some of the smaller rides designed for the kitty Land amusement parks their motto is Once Around is never enough and talking to one of the uh volunteers here she was telling me that they used to before they would ship off carousels on the train they would set them up here at the factory and allow the local school children to come and ride the carousels which that sounds pretty fun it's like hey kids we got a brand new Carousel for you to test out I think you know there's a lot you know a lot of people grow up around factories you know you could grow up around you know a factory that makes the hoses you could grow up around a factory that makes dog food but I think it's pretty fun being a kid who grows up near the carousel Factory and you get to try out try out the new carousels you know you wouldn't get excited about trying out the new hoses at the hose Factory and certainly you don't want to want to try out the dog food at the dog food factory kids kids are not interested in any dog food nor should they try eating dog food because it's not you know it's not run through the the the FDA as human consumable foods you wouldn't want to test out dog food you could test out hoses but it's not as exciting as testing out carousels at the carousel Factory so definitely a wonderful attraction out here I was really interested looking at the book there of all the different carousels out there so many out there some of them at parks that I've been to some of them at parks I've never heard of which almost makes me think maybe there's more amusement parks out there than I realize so I need to do some research and see uh see some amusement parks that uh that I need to check out and actually you guys can help me with that because the summer seasons coming up um once summer kicked into gear all the amusement parks will be open and I'll have a chance to start doing theme parks amusement parks uh that are seasonal um and I'm interested in like small small theme parks you know whatever little theme parks may be local theme parks that have like some of the old rides and things like that I'm really interested in checking them out checking out some of the smaller theme parks that maybe don't get as much attention here on YouTube so leave in the comment section let me know which small amusement parks you'd like to like me to visit there may be some that I'm not even aware of so fill up fill up the comment section with those suggestions uh if you like these videos go ahead and subscribe if you'd like I travel around the country I film roadside attractions I'm using Hearts museums haunted houses and other fun random things if you'd like to support the channel consider donating to patreon three dollars or more we'll get you a postcard once a month from me to you also uh selling enamel pin some new pins should be coming relatively soon in to the pin shop and uh also uh doing cameos now doing some personalized messages some birthdays anniversaries and just other fun messages if you're interested in receiving a message from me or giving a message from me to someone else uh all that information is in the description of this video and of course all that stuff helps keep this train on the track this boat in the water the stretchable in the air in this Carousel going around in a delightful Circle until next time my friends this once in the bag you know we never did find out what uh what exactly doll racks were

Channel: The Carpetbagger

Views: 28,694

Keywords: the, carpetbagger, jacob, roadtrip, road trip, road-trip, fun, weird, unusual, roadside attraction, roadside america, museum, carrousel, carousel, horses, animals, menagerie, north tonawanda, ny, new york, museums, rides, amusement park, kiddieland, theme park, boardwalk, merry go round, striking machine

Id: _UJ-0w_9aA0

Length: 35min 33sec (2133 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 20 2023