Merry-Go-Round Museum



This carousel is actually at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco.
My Merry-Go-Round Museum pictures didn't turn out.


There are only so many times that I can spin, whirl, and dive down the breakneck hills of a rollercoaster, so one day at Cedar Point Amusement Park was enough for me. I wasn't sure what else we could do in the quiet, little town of Sandusky, Ohio until I saw a brochure for the Merry-Go-Round Museum. A quirky, one-of-a-kind museum? Calliope music to my ears! I'm a sucker for museums.

We pulled up to a picturesque building across the street from a beautifully maintained town square. The museum is housed in the old Sandusky Post Office building, complete with grand columns, marble floors and rotunda. What better place to find an old-fashioned merry-go-round? I felt like we'd walked into a picture-postcard of small town Americana.

The museum director took us on a tour of the one-room museum. She started in the lobby where she proudly showed us the 1988 U.S. carousel postage stamp collection. One of the Cedar Point carousel horses was included in its design, so the town held an unveiling of the new stamps and were surprised when more than 5,000 people showed up for the event. Spurred by the interest in Sandusky's carousel history, the decision to use the post office space for a Merry-Go-Round Museum was launched.

Once we stepped beyond the lobby we were invited to watch the artists at work carving horses. We learned that there are actually several different types of carousel horses. In the days when carousels were packed up and moved from town to town for county fairs, smaller horses were used. Those horses usually look like they're running, with all four legs bent in motion. This made the horses easier to stack and store in the off-season.

Larger "Philadelphia" horses stand with three or four feet on the ground. They are sometimes decorated as war horses and are exquisitely detailed. We saw one in the making during our tour of the museum.

And then there are horses bedecked with jewels or flowers in their manes. Picture a white horse with a powder blue saddle and a jewel-studded harness. That would be a "Coney Island" horse -- glitzy and showy to attract a crowd. Some of these horses even had real horsehair tails, but that practice became obsolete over the years.

As the tour ended we were invited to ride the antique carousel housed in that beautiful rotunda. I couldn't resist riding a horse named Gwen who sported a real horsehair tail. We whirled and twirled on the surprisingly fast merry-go-round and felt as giddy as the music that played. Of course, anyone who travels to Sandusky is sure to enjoy the thrills and excitement of Cedar Point. But I was thrilled to enjoy a quieter afternoon at the Merry-Go-Round Museum on Day 2.