New York State Museum's Carousel Restoration 2001

Albany Carousel History Update

By John Scherer from the staff of the New York State Museum

NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM CAROUSEL

The carousel that is being restored at the New York State Museum has forty horses, two deer, and two donkeys. It also has a Neptune Chariot, a Love Tub, and a Rocking Chariot. The animals are attributed to Charles Dare of Brooklyn, New York, and were carved between 1895 and 1900. The remainder of the carousel was made by The Herschell-Spillman Carousel Factory in North Tonawanda, Niagara County, New York between 1912 and 1916. The animals are all jumpers (they go up and down).

The carousel was made to travel, and as such was perhaps one of the largest traveling or carnival carousels made. Most traveling carousels are 40 feet in diameter, whereas this one is forty-eight feet in diameter and has a ten-inch rather than the smaller eight-inch diameter center pole, usually found in traveling carousels. It was thus built as a traveling carousel using stationary carousel components. Perhaps Herschell-Spillman constructed it in this manner to accommodate the animals from the earlier Charles Dare steam driven track carousel (animals did not go up and down).

The known history of the carousel begins in 1916 when Albert C. (1866-1948) and Fred H. (1864-1933) Stadel of Wellsville, Allegany County, New York are known to be operating this very carousel. From as early as 1916, and perhaps even earlier, through the 1929 season, the Stadel Brothers would set the carousel up every Spring, around Memorial Day, in Wellsville. After its debut in Wellsville every year the Stadel Brothers would travel the carousel by train throughout New York’s Southern Tier, and bordering northern Pennsylvania. The Stadel Brothers Amusement Co. also operated several other rides including a "wave machine," and a chair plane ride.

It appears that during the seasons of 1930 and 1931, the carousel was set up at Olcott Beach, Niagara County, New York, on the shore of Lake Ontario. A wonderful 1931 photograph of the carousel at Olcott Beach is in the State Museum Collection. Albert and Fred were certainly of retirement age at this time, and Fred became ill, and died in 1933. Perhaps they leased their carousel to Olcott Beach during this time.

By 1933, the Stadel Brothers had sold their carousel to Bog Olive at Olivecrest Park on Cuba Lake, near Cuba, Allegany County, New York. It replaced an earlier carousel. The chair plane ride, also acquired from the Stadel Brothers, was already operating at Olivecrest Park in 1931, and perhaps the previous year. Besides the carousel and chair plane ride, Olivecrest Park featured a fine beach and a dance pavilion. The carousel continued to be the main attraction at Olivecrest Park until the park closed in about 1972. The State Museum purchased the carousel in 1975.

In September of 2000 the State Museum reunited the carousel with its original model 125 Wurlitzer Band Organ. It had been removed from the carousel in about 1956 for repairs, and the Museum located it in a garage in Cuba, New York.