Source information provided by Barbara Fahs Charles.
A postcard of Monarch Park’s first carousel. It was postmarked July 1908.
Barbara Fahs Charles Collection.
This close-up of the postcard shows the carousel as a Herschell-Spillman track machine.
Barbara Fahs Charles Collection.
A close look at the postcard above reveals a track machine with elaborate center scenery. This can also be seen in a photo of Monarch Park’s first carousel, below. These match an illustration and description in Herschell-Spillman Company’s Catalog B for a track machine “where a customer desires a very fine center, and expects to remain located in one place.”
Monarch Park’s first carousel, present from about 1901 to 1915.
Oil City Heritage Society
Monarch Park’s first carousel was similar to this image from the Herschell-Spillman Co. Catalogue B.
Barbara Fahs Charles Collection.
Images from the Armitage & Herschell patent of 1894 showing the carousel’s horse rocker system.
U.S. Patent Office.
The Herschell-Spillman Company made carousels in North Tonawanda, New York from the early 1900’s to the late 1910s. The company manufactured portable machines that could be used by traveling carnival operators and more elaborate park sized machines. We believe the Monarch Park carousel was a two-row Herschell-Spillman “Improved Two-Horse Gallery,” 40 feet in diameter, with 24 horses and 4 chariots mounted on 16 sweeps. Important to Monarch is that the park ownership bought enhancements consisting of an elaborate center and organ, as described in the undated, but known to be early 1900s, Catalog B: