Soon, modern carousels crossed the Atlantic and became very popular in United States until the beginning of the Great Depression. When the Depression passed they slowly returned but never to such glory which they once had. Today there are many variants of carousels and few from the golden era still work after reparations. The earliest known carousel that worked in America was in Salem, Massachusetts. It is designed and constructed in by Charles Dare.
Father of Gustav Dentzel, one of the pioneers of carousel-making in the United States, also made carousels but in Germany. Another American carousel pioneer Charles I. Looff also built California's famous Santa Monica Pier. Not all carousels have animals as seats. Some have swings, some have cars, and some even have sails. The greatest carousel in the world is one located at the House on the Rock.
It has hand carved carousel animals. It usually has a rotating circular platform on which are placed seats for riders. Most carousels have seats shaped like horses although there are those that have other types of mounts like pigs, zebras, tigers, different mythological creatures, airplanes or cars.
The first fair rides that spin their riders appeared in 6th century and they originated in ancient Byzantium where people tied baskets to a center pole and spun people that set in them around. Carousels that we know today evolved from jousting games of 12th century Europe and Asia.
Knights of that time would ride in circle and throw glass balls filled with perfumed water between themselves — which required great skill and horsemanship. Those that would drop the ball and break it would smell of perfume and be ashamed of their lesser skills. Riders now had to spear small rings that were hanging over their heads. There was no more jousting but cavalry spectacles remained and commoners started participating in them.
In , Auchy patented a merry-go-round drive mechanism that is still considered to be the best of its kind ever devised. A big problem with other drives was that they used gears to power the ride. If any of the gears happened to jam, the teeth on the gears would snap off from the forces. That would mean costly repairs. What Auchy did was design slippage into the drive. The motor spun two wide leather belts. The belts wrapped around two flywheels.
One of the belts was twisted into a Moebius strip, so the flywheels would spin in opposite directions. The flywheels powered two leather cones which in turn spun a large iron drive wheel.
All that leather provided for a much smoother operation and less chance of a major mechanical failure. But the belt drive assured that the main mechanical system remained safe. PTC had many carvers working for them over the years. Daniel Muller, considered by many to be the most talented horse carver who ever lived, worked for PTC for many years and produced some of the companies greatest rides.
Because demand for their rides was so high, and there were only so many carvers the company could hire, PTC created a giant jig for carving three horses at a time. The head would be placed on the jig. Three blocks of wood could be mounted on brackets above the head. The three blocks would be mechanically routed out to make an exact copy of the original head. By the late s, PTC had an overstock of merry-go-rounds.
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