A Carousel for Missoula facts for kids
Quick facts for kids A Carousel for Missoula |
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Cold weather forces the carousel to shut its roll-down metal doors on April 13, 2010. Typically these doors remain open to reveal the carousel during warmer months.
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| Attraction type | Carousel |
A Carousel for Missoula is a super special carousel in Missoula, Montana. It was built by volunteers and each animal was carved by hand! You can find it in Missoula's downtown Caras Park, right by the Clark Fork River. It's close to cool places like the historic Wilma Theatre and the Osprey baseball stadium. Next to the carousel is a fun park called Dragon Hollow, also built by volunteers.
Contents
How the Carousel Dream Began
The idea for A Carousel for Missoula started in 1988. A cabinet maker from Missoula named Chuck Kaparich visited a carousel in Spokane, Washington. He learned about Charles I. D. Looff, who made Spokane's old carousel as a wedding gift.
Chuck was amazed by the beautiful, hand-carved animals. He wanted to buy a carousel horse for himself. In 1990, he talked to Frederick Fried, a famous carousel expert.
When Chuck said he wanted to buy a horse, Mr. Fried told him, "If you want a carousel horse, don't take it off a carousel; carve your own."
So, Chuck decided to do just that!
By August 1991, Chuck had carved four ponies. He went to the Missoula City Council with an exciting offer. He would provide the carousel's parts, frame, horses, and chariots. In return, the city would give the carousel a permanent home. The city council agreed! A special group was formed to help with the project.
Three years later, in 1993, Mr. Fried saw pictures of the finished ponies. He wrote a letter to Chuck and the main carver, John Thompson. He said their carving was amazing. He called Missoula "a shining example" for other towns to build their own carousels.
The Carousel's History
The main frame of A Carousel for Missoula has a long history. In 1918, the Allan Herschell Company in New York built a carousel with 38 animals. It had horses, dogs, frogs, zebras, and even roosters!
In 1959, this carousel was set up at an amusement park in Nevada. This park was part of the Ponderosa Ranch, where the TV show Bonanza was filmed. By then, the carousel was quite old. Many of its original animals had been replaced.
The carousel kept running until 1983. Then, it was taken apart, and the animals were sold. The main frame was sold to a dealer, then to a museum in Polson, Montana. The museum bought the frame because it came with a small children's train.
In 1991, Chuck Kaparich bought the frame for $3,000.
The frame is very heavy, weighing about 10 and a half tons when full. It has over 16,000 parts! Before it was put together in Missoula, volunteers cleaned and repainted all the pieces. They also replaced all the old bolts.
Originally, the carousel ran on a steam engine. But A Carousel for Missoula uses a modern 10-horsepower motor instead.
How It Was Built and Funded
Building A Carousel for Missoula took a lot of money and hard work. Funds for carving materials came from auctions and "pony adoptions." Families, businesses, and people could pay $2,500 to name and design a carousel pony.
Four horses were adopted by Missoula school children! They collected 1 million pennies, which is $10,000, for the cause. The Missoula Building Industry Association adopted a chariot. They designed it so that people in wheelchairs could easily use it.
By July 1992, all 38 horses and both chariots were adopted by donors in Missoula. This raised $100,000 in total!
In March 1992, the carousel was planned for Missoula's Caras Park. Architects competed to design the carousel building. J. Kirby and Associates won with their beautiful "jewel box" design.
In 1994, over $200,000 was raised for the building. This money came from auctions, donations, and even "adopting" band organ songs. Another $58,000 came from donated materials and labor.
A Carousel for Missoula officially opened on May 27, 1995.
About five years later, volunteers built an outdoor park next to the carousel. It was named Dragon Hollow. Many people and businesses in Missoula donated time, materials, and money for the park.
In December 2000, Rosemary Gallagher donated $25,000 to Dragon Hollow. Home Depot of Missoula also helped a lot. They sponsored the park's birthday pavilion. Every Home Depot employee in Missoula volunteered to help build it. In spring 2001, over 4,000 volunteers built Dragon Hollow in just nine days!
Since it opened, the carousel has given about 225,000 rides every year.
Carving the Animals and Art
Chuck Kaparich worked with Cherry Gillespie (design coordinator) and John Thompson (head carver). Together, they designed and created the ponies, chariots, and other art. A team of volunteers did all the carving, sanding, and painting.
Special carving classes taught over 50 volunteers. They learned how to create gargoyles, mirror frames, and all parts of the horses. Another team fixed up the old carousel frame that Chuck bought.
The ponies weigh between 120 and 200 pounds when finished. They were carved from basswood, a soft but strong wood. Each pony was made from seven separate pieces: head, neck, body, and four legs. Volunteers and the families who adopted the ponies put special items inside their hollow bodies before they were put together and painted.
Carousel ponies usually come in three styles:
- Coney Island ponies are fancy and covered in jewels.
- Philadelphia ponies look more realistic.
- Country ponies are simpler.
Bette Largent, who painted ponies for Spokane's carousel, trained the Missoula painters. She said A Carousel for Missoula created its own special style, called "Garden City steeds."
In the book A Carousel for Missoula, Bette Largent said the Missoula ponies are "accurate, but always with a good measure of whimsy and humor." Chuck Kaparich believes the ponies are so different because donors could design them.
Each pony took about 800 hours of work to complete!
The top of the carousel has 966 light bulbs. It also has 14 carved gargoyles and 14 carved frames with etched mirrors.
A special hand-carved wooden dragon was made for the carousel. His name is Lucky Red Ringer. He helps riders play the old-fashioned brass ring game. Plastic rings are loaded into a tube inside the dragon. Riders can grab the rings from his mouth as the carousel spins. One brass ring is mixed in with the plastic ones. If you grab the brass ring, you win a free ride!
If you look closely at Lucky Red Ringer, you'll see a wedding ring carved on his finger. Head carver John Thompson added it after his wife joked that he spent more time with the dragon than with her!
The Amazing Band Organ
Scott Olson, a volunteer, really wanted to find a band organ for the carousel. He knew it would make the carousel feel complete. In April 1992, a company in Ohio started building an organ just for Missoula. Scott traveled to Ohio three times to check on its progress. One and a half years and $65,000 later, the organ arrived in Missoula!
The organ has over 400 hand-made wooden pipes. It can sound like 23 different instruments! It works like a player piano, using special paper rolls. Holes in the paper rolls tell the pipes what music to play. Each roll has ten songs and plays for about 40 minutes. Some music rolls were made just for the carousel, with songs adopted by local donors, like the fight song of the University of Montana.
The organ is hidden behind a huge, beautiful wooden facade. It's 8 feet tall and 17 feet wide! It shows a medieval scene with cliffs, castles, knights, and dragons. Glenn Watters of Missoula carved it all by hand in less than two years.
The band organ at A Carousel for Missoula is the largest carousel band organ that is still used all the time in America!
Visiting the Carousel
When the carousel is not open to the public, you can rent it for private parties. It can hold 100 people sitting down or 200 standing. You can also book birthday parties during regular hours.
A Carousel for Missoula is open every day. The hours change depending on the season:
- 11 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. from September through May
- 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. from June through August
