From Old Barn to Old Threshers for 1894 Norman & Evans Steam Carousel
Rescued from an abandoned milk barn, the rare 1894 carousel now calls the Midwest Old Thresher’s Reunion in Iowa home
After its rescue and restoration in the late 1980s, the historic and rare 189os carousel operated at Cowtown in Wichita, KS, then outdoors at the Midwest Old Threshers for four years. The merry-go-round now enjoys the safety of its own building.
By Dan Horenberger
Brass Ring Carousel Co.
In 1986, I was in Kansas City restoring the theater organ at the Granada Theater. It was part of a revitalization project that didn’t work out as planned. Just another example of why politicians shouldn’t be in charge of a historic project, but that’s another story. While I was there I ran ads in the local papers looking for everything from carousels, antique bicycles, jukeboxes and toy trains. Just about anything I collect I had an ad in the local papers asking for leads.
When I was done, I returned home with a huge truck full of stuff. Without a doubt, the greatest thing I found before I came home was a carousel.
I was given a lead one night that there was a carousel about 50 miles out of town in Missouri, give or take 50 miles, in an old milk barn owned by a lady named Johnson. I was told it was a steam carousel that worked the Midwest for years.
Everyone in the carousel business knew about the machine but assumed it was in Iowa or Illinois as that is where it had most recently been known to operate. Still, it was worth chasing the lead and off I went every weekend for weeks. Driving up and down endless corn field-lined roads, asking over and over, “do you know of Mrs. Johnson with a carousel?”
Every weekend I had hope. A lead here, a lead there, but every time ending up at a dead end with fields of corn as a background. Finally, one day I saw a mail box that said “Johnson.” I was sure I had found the elusive carousel. There was an old milk barn in the back and everything else I was told to look for. I knocked on the door and a nice lady came to answer it I was certain I had completed my quest.
I asked, “Do you have a carousel?”
She answered, “No.” Another dead end. Then she said, “You want the other Mrs. Johnson.” She gave me her best directions, which weren’t that good, and I went off again, traveling from corn field road to corn field road. Can’t they put names on these roads, I thought.
I went from farm to farm and knocked on door after door looking for Mrs. Johnson. Still no luck, but somehow (by process of elimination), I felt I was getting closer, though still traveling unnamed road after unnamed road.
Finally, a neighbor of the mythical Mrs. Johnson told me I was told I was only three farms away. But, they added, the farm house had burned down and she now lived in a trailer.
My new directions were to “look for some dead motorcycle frames in the front yard, the house trailer is way in the back.” I drove down the road and saw some old Harley hardtail frames buried in the weeds. Looking farther back from the road I saw a trailer. I had finally found Mrs. Johnson.
I knocked on the trailer door and sure enough, it was her. I asked, “Are you Mrs. Johnson with a carousel.” She said, “Yes, are you the guy from Illinois?”
Huh? Well, I lived in California then but since I grew up in Illinois, I said “yes.” Then she said, “I thought your dad was coming.” Having no idea what that meant at the time I just said, “Well, I’m here now.”
I looked at the carousel. It was hard to tell what it was. I knew it was a steam machine but all of the horses were covered with mud wasp nests from being stored for so many years in the barn. There was no way to see much other than the nests. The whole carousel was stuffed into the old milk barn, which had not seen a cow for 50 years.
After much negotiating we came up with a price. Now came my next problem: I didn’t have any money. I called my friends John and Cathy Daniel. They said, give us a day. During that day they they called my other friends Buck and Dawn Brasington. Together they ponied up the necessary cash to save the carousel.
Buck flew out to pay for the machine. Mrs. Johnson was quite happy to see “my dad” (who she assumed was Buck), show up with the money. We loaded the truck in the middle of the frozen field, just Buck and me. While chopping the mud wasp nests off of the horses in the icy cold, we were undecided if being winter was good for the lack of the wasps or if it would have been better to have the wasps and some heat. There we were, two California guys freezing to death, loading a carousel into a truck. Having both grown up in the Midwest, it wasn’t that bad.
With the carousel loaded, heading off of Mrs. Johnson’s farm, the “dad from Illinois” mystery became clear.
As we were driving off with the carousel we saw another truck coming down the road — a road you wouldn’t be on unless you had a real good reason to be there. Mrs. Johnson had made a deal with some people from Illinois whom she assumed we were. We stepped on the gas and never looked back.
Now we had our carousel, but we were still in the middle of nowhere. The local motel had only one phone and that was in the office. The motel’s policy was: only collect calls, which the owners dialed and listened to your conversation the whole time. So be it. Buck called Don and Ruth Snider collect. Their story follows:
And the Story Continues…
PAGE 1 – PAGE 2 NEXT PAGE >> CLICK HERE FOR THE STORY GALLERY >>
