Flying Horses Carousel

Flying Horses Carousel. . , "It turned out that a traveling carnival had set up there several years earlier and then didn't make enough money to pay the rent for the pasture. So they just left their 24-horse Carousel there. We got those hobby horses for a very reasonable amount, somewhere around $30, which is good because it cost a lot of money to restore them.", - F.C. Winklemann, , 1930 is the year our Carousel was discovered by Mr. Hugh Durden in Clay, Texas. It was left in a pasture years earlier, during the Depression, by a carnival that couldn't afford to pay the rent on the land they used for their carnival. Mr. Durden saw the potential of the old Carousel and told members of the Washington County Fair Association about how it could serve our community. F.C. Winklemann, Hans Schleider and O.H. Fischer returned and braved swarming hornets to rescue the Carousel from the pasture and moved it to Brenham for repair. O.H. Fischer, owner of Brenham Furniture Repair and Clarence Fischer refurbished the 24 horses, to the delight of the community., Mrs. Alvin Suter, Fischer's daughter said, "I can remember assisting my father in making tails for the horses. We took hemp rope and unbraided it for new tails.", In the Fall of 1932 the newly repaired Carousel made its debut at the Washington County Fair on October 12, 1932. Tickets were 25¢ for 6 rides. In 1935, a 16-sided building built by the Works Progress Administration, WPA, was constructed to house the horses. The rest is history..., Sidebar , Frederick and Mary Fried Archive, , American History Museum, Smithsonian, Charles W.F. Dare. Charles W.F. Dare (1834-1896) began a toy and carriage manufacturing and retail business in Brooklyn, New York in 1859. He began building carousels possibly as early as the late 1860's and is credited with establishing the "country fair" style of Carousel animal carvings that are seen on the Brenham Carousel. This style was later used by the Armitage Herschell and descendant companies in North Tonawanda, NY and by Charles W. Parker, Abilene and Leavenworth, KS. By 1884, when Dare established The C.W.F. Dare Company, he was already exporting carousels around the world., In 1890 he established the New York Carousel Manufacturing Company which continued to produce carousels for domestic and international sale. Early catalogs from these companies show that his carousels typically cost in the range of $425-$2200 depending on the model, size and finish of the figures., Captions , 1. The National Carousel Association assisted in identifying the horses as being manufactured by Charles W.F. Dare. Dare's horses can be identified by the running martingale, which is a leather thong that links the bridle to the chest strap., 2. Dare did not manufacture the frame of our Carousel. During a recent restoration, an imprint of C.W. Parker, Leavenworth, Kansas, 48 2H, was found on the carousel's turning mechanism. This confirms that the structure dates to the Leavenworth years, which started in 1911.