Daily Archives: August 5, 2010
You can go home again…kind of…
We left for Logansport IN about 10 am, first stopping by McDonald’s for a chicken biscuit breakfast for Jan.
We made the 90 mile trip in about two hours and started driving around town. Our quest was to find the house where Jan lived in 1956 when she was 8. Her father was stationed at Bunker Hill AFB for about two years, after about a year in Logansport they moved to Peru, IN to be closer to the base.
Jan remembered her house was a block or so from the Eel River, and several blocks from Riverside Park, and its carousel. After 15 minutes or so we found her house, still at 75 18th St. The only real change beside the new siding was that when Jan lived there the front porch was screened in.
It still had the same barn-shaped garage in the backyard opening on the alley behind the house.
And across the street, what was just a vacant field when she lived there, is now a city park.
Next we headed about 3 blocks away to Riverside Park, where Jan, her sister Debbie, and their friends, would walk to ride the carousel there in the park.
And the carousel was still there too. But now it’s inside.
This carousel had a long and rich history. It was built around 1885 by Gustav Dentzel. Dentzel’s family had been building carousels in Germany since the early 1800’s. Gustav came to America with a carousel and set it up in Pennsylvania, PA in 1861, possibly the first carousel in the Western Hemisphere. And the Dentzel family still builds carousels today, with more than 30 carousels in places like Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, San Francisco Zoo, and Dollywood.
This carousel is one of the most complete Dentzel carousels in the world.
This ride still allows you try and grab the brass ring from this arm. If you grab a ring, you get a free ride.
In 1919 the carousel was moved from Fort Wayne, IN and placed in Spencer Park in Logansport. Then in 1949 it was moved to Riverside Park and placed in this building, where it was when Jan was riding it in 1956.
In 1987 the carousel was declared a National Historical Landmark and was moved inside a beautiful new building in 1995, where it resides today.
Jan also used to ride a train around the park, and it still runs today on this same track. The locomotive and two cars is stored in the small green building in right rear of this photo. When the train is running the buildings doubles as a ‘tunnel’.
We also found that Logansport has its own set of city mascots, and, of course, theirs is a carousel horse.
After a so-so lunch at Broadway Cafe in downtown Logansport, we headed back to Elkhart about 2 pm. We got back about 4, but stopped off at the new Martin’s Supermarket near the park. Very nice store.
Tomorrow we’ll do some more chores around the rig, and just enjoy the nice cool weather. Tomorrow the high is supposed to be 80 and the low tomorrow night 57. Just great!
More later…
Quote of the day:
“If Thomas Jefferson thought taxation without representation was bad, he should see how it is with representation.”: Rush Limbaugh
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