1896 Gustav Dentzel Co. Menagerie – Lost Carousel Gallery
Brookside Park – Dover Township – York County, PA
CA 1970s PHOTOS COURTESY OF SHARON LYNN
Lost Carousels – 1896 Gustav Dentzel Co. menagerie – Brookside Park – Dover Township – York County, PA. Circa 1970s photos courtesy of Sharon Lynn.
Brookside Park, Dover Dentzel Carousel and Building Info:
- Carousel horses wearing crudely carved wooden tails where their real horse hair tails were originally.
- The carousel figures in original body paint. The 1896 Gustav Dentzel carousel became known in collector circles as simply the “Dover Dentzel” for the well preserved original paint on the 1890s carousel horses and menagerie figures from the Gustav Dentzel Co. carousel factory at the time a young Daniel Muller was carving there.
- Lourinda Bray, Running Horse Studio in Irwindale, CA, has the Brookside Park Dentzel carousel frame. The platform is signed underneath by Harry Dentzel, (Gustav’s brother) and dated 1896.
- The Brookside Park carousel building was used for storage and party rentals for 3 decades after it was vacated before it succumbed to powder post beetle infestation. The vacant carousel building became such a popular landmark/event venue, that Dover Township, PA, built a replica to replace the condemned and demolished structure in 2010.
The new (vacant) carousel building can be rented by clicking here:
A lot more Brookside Park and PA trolley park history, book
(and picture of the carousel lion) here:
Ah, and thus the “York” free weight plate I grew up lifting.
