Story City Antique Carousel

Abby Brown:

One of the greatest amusement park rides of all time is obviously the carousel. Listening to the fun music, choosing the perfect spot, and feeling the breeze in your face. Ah, it all just makes me smile. Here in Iowa we have an antique carousel. It's over a hundred years old and it still works! I cannot wait to take a ride.

In Story City, which is in Story County, twenty horses, two chickens, two pigs, and two dogs all share the stage on this wooden carousel. This antique carousel was built in 1913, and they just don't make them like this anymore. All of the horses and other characters were carved from wood. Modern carousels usually have plastic parts. In the summer months visitors can come and take a ride it's like stepping back in time. The organ music is even the same as it was a hundred years ago. There aren't very many wooden carousels left. This one traveled around to county and state fairs in the Midwest before finding its permanent home here. Every year the horses, dogs, pigs, chickens, and other parts of this carousel are lovingly packed up for the winter and stored until warmer weather comes back around. But when it does, this carousel is assembled once again, and ready to fulfill more family traditions. A lot has changed in a hundred years, but this carousel is still here! A great reminder of a time when video games, and phones, and everything digital didn't consume us; activities like this were what families did for fun. I'm ready to take a ride! Well the activities that we enjoy now may have changed from a long long time ago, but riding the carousel is still at the tippy top of my list.

Every county in Iowa has an entertaining story to tell. Thanks for riding along with me in Story County.