DP News

By REBECCA BRIA  rbia@timesleader.com

Wooden animals from a carousel that once operated at Hanson’s Amusement Park in Harveys Lake have been returned to the area. • Dallas resident Liz Martin, of the Brass Ring Foundation, confirmed that the animals are being stored in a secret location in the area. The Brass Ring Foundation is a local non-profit group whose mission is to bring the 100-year-old amusement ride home to the Back Mountain.

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Animals from a carousel that once operated at Hanson’s Amusement Park in Harveys Lake have been returned to the area. The 1909 Coney-Island-style Looff-Mangels carousel was purchased by one-time park owner Alfred Wintersteen in 1914 and taken to the Lehigh Valley Railroad Picnic Grounds, later renamed Hanson’s Amusement Park, in Harveys Lake where it remained in operation until Hanson’s closed in 1984.

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The words “Harvey’s Lake, Pa.” are visible on a giraffe on the Wintersteen carousel that operated at the Lehigh Valley Railroad Picnic Grounds, later renamed Hanson’s Amusement Park, in Harveys Lake until 1984. The carousel animals were returned to the Back Mountain late last summer after spending 21 years in Florida.

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In addition, at least one and up to three of the carousel horses will be on display at the Mason’s Lodge on Main Street in Dallas during the Seventh Annual Dallas Harvest Festival on Sunday, Sept. 20.

“I grew up with that carousel,” Martin said. “Every summer I was out there and the first ride I wanted to go on was the carousel.”

The 1909 Coney-Island-style Looff-Mangels carousel has 44 wooden animals, including horses, giraffes, zebras, camels and goats that were hand-carved by Harry Goldstein, Charles Looff, Solomon Stein and Charles Carmel. The 45-foot long carousel was purchased by one-time park owner Alfred and Nettie Wintersteen in 1915 and taken to the Lehigh Valley Railroad Picnic Grounds, later renamed Hanson’s Amusement Park, in Harveys Lake where it remained in operation until Hanson’s closed in 1984.

Ownership of the carousel was transferred to several different Wintersteen family members over the years, including Alfred Wintersteen’s sister, Genevieve Wintersteen Fisk, in 1935; Alfred Wintersteen’s grandson, Robert D. Wintersteen and his wife, Mary Ann, in 1963.

In 1987, the Wintersteen family leased the carousel to Old Town in Kissimmee, Fla. and then to International Market World in Auburndale, Fla. in 1996. It remained there until put up for auction in Florida by owner Mary Ann Wintersteen in April 2008 through Norton Auctioneers.

Brass Ring members Duane and Annette Updyke, along with Martin, flew to Florida for the auction and got to see the carousel on display and intact. It was Duane Updyke’s idea to save the carousel after he recognized it in a trade magazine. The Rev. Roger Griffith of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Dallas is also active with the group but could not make it to the auction.

Wintersteen rejected both of the two bids she received for the ride because they were much lower than she expected. Her primary focus became getting the horses back, which she did after settling with the auction company late last summer.

“It was a very difficult decision for her to make to pull it off the auction block because she would then have to pay the auction company for all the advertising, which was substantial,” Martin said.

The carousel’s 1923 Wurlitzer band organ and brass ring machine are still in Wintersteen’s possession. The deck and mechanism to the carousel, however, are in Florida and Wintersteen is trying to get them back.

The Brass Ring Foundation hopes to purchase the entire carousel from Wintersteen if it can raise enough money to do so. It is the intention of the organization to set up the carousel somewhere in the Back Mountain for everyone to enjoy.

So far, several thousand dollars have been collected in donations.

Martin remembers visiting her grandparents, the late Patrick and Mary Musto, at their cottage in Harveys Lake every summer. She would often go to Hanson’s Amusement Park and ride the carousel. It is her wish that her 11-year-old son, Robert Martin Jr., will get to ride the carousel as she once did.

Martin has become good friends with Wintersteen, who gave her a brass ring from the carousel. Riders on the carousel tried to collect the rings from a dispenser for a free ride.

“As we get older, we look back at our childhoods and mine was a great childhood,” Martin said. “Both my parents and a brother are gone and it (the carousel) takes me back to a time when they were still here.”

Martin, who is a member of the 2009 Dallas Harvest Festival Steering Committee, is working with local artists Missy Eneboe and Diane Grant Czajkowski and the Cultural Council of Luzerne County to provide paintings of the carousel for display at the event. Martin envisions a 100-year birthday party with balloons, a big birthday cake with a photo of the carousel on it and carousel music playing. She also would like to put hoof print decals on the sidewalk from the festival leading up to the lodge.

“This is the jewel of the Back Mountain and it needs to remain here,” Martin said.