MINDEN — Waylon Petersen wore a wary look as his family entered the white red-trimmed pavilion. Then the 2-year-old started dancing when the calliope music began playing. And when his grandpa hoisted him on a race horse, Waylon’s lingering suspicion turned to joy.

Over decades, similar scenes had unfolded countless times on the more than century-old carousel at the Harold Warp Pioneer Village, a 20-acre attraction packed with historical items in the heart of Nebraska. Then they stopped.

Time and Mother Nature made the carousel — once a source of unforgettable moments — little more than a crumbling memory.

Until Aug. 1, when Waylon and three other generations of his family embarked on the carousel’s first public ride since falling into ruin 20 years earlier.

They had a small but dedicated team of volunteers to thank. The group, a mix of locals and service-minded summer travelers, spent more than four years bringing the carousel back to life. Some felt called to the project by their own memories.

Brad Roberts, who grew up in nearby Axtell, remembers riding the original 1880s steam-powered version of the carousel during field trips and family visits to Pioneer Village.

“It was pretty exciting,” he said. “When I first rode it, I thought, ‘They actually have toys this size!'”

Carousel Rescues

Harold Warp detailed his discovery in an Aug. 27, 1956, letter to his sister Clara, who helped find and buy most of Pioneer Village’s 50,000-plus historical artifacts.

“I bought the 1880 steam-powered Merry-Go-Round from Dan Zehr at Pontiac, Ill., for $1,325.00 and 7 Merry-Go-Round Horses from Mrs. John Redshaw in Granville, Ill., today for $400.00.

“The Merry-Go-Round is supposedly (the) oldest steam-operated in existence and the Horses came from White City Amusement Park in Chicago.”

The purchase was just the start. Warp went on to collect animals from wherever he could find them, Roberts said, eventually amassing 33 basswood figures. “If he found them, he bought them just to finish out the carousel.”

In the late 1800s, carousel manufacturers introduced different animals in a bid to stimulate business. That plan didn’t quite work out, according to an old Pioneer Village exhibit sign titled “Carousel Animals 1895.”

“It was soon discovered that children preferred Ponies, fearing to ride on such animals as Giraffes and Tigers,” the sign said. “Thus, through trial, error and evolution, the carousel eventually came with only ponies and chariots.”

Volunteers aren’t sure what animals made up the original carousel configuration, but Warp’s stable of figures eventually grew to include a zebra, goat, elk, pig, camel, reindeer, giraffe and lion, along with horses and chariots.

Over the years, the carousel became a popular part of Pioneer Village.

“It wasn’t unusual for people to come from coast to coast or other countries, just to see this rare old carousel,” said Roberts, the last operator before the shutdown.

But time, weather and modern safety requirements eventually forced the carousel — still powered by a steam engine at the time — to close in 2005.

Help On The Way

Alan Farlin spent several years in his 20s operating the steam engine-powered carousel. He carried memories from those days halfway across the world and throughout a 34-year career supporting mission work in the Philippines.

When he saw the carousel for the first time after returning to Minden in 2016, he cried.

The roof had collapsed. Dirt and leaves covered the rotted wooden deck. “It had the same animals, but they were in a lot worse shape,” he said.

Farlin was far from the only person dismayed by the carousel’s sorry state. Eventually, a group of locals banded together to restore the figures. The restoration effort, coordinated by Farlin, was aided by two different volunteer groups made up of RV’ers from across the country.

One group, Y2V, repaired the carousel roof in 2022.

Some of the same volunteers returned to Pioneer Village four more times as RV Volunteer Friends. They repaired the carousel deck and underlying mechanical systems  in 2023. In 2024, 21 volunteers from eight states built the pavilion’s outside walls and window casings, which weren’t part of the original carousel but necessary to preserve the restored figures and other upgrades.

This summer, they installed insulation, hung drywall, painted the building inside and out, constructed a handicap accessibility ramp and completed an insulated ceiling that resembles a large tent. The carousel now has heat for the winter and air conditioning for the summer, as well as humidity control.

The Nebraska State Fire Marshal cleared the carousel to officially open for rides at the end of July.

Skilled Hands

While the structure required extensive repairs, the real painstaking work involved restoring the collection of hand-carved wooden figures, all from the 1800s and early 1900s.

Sam Ridge of Minden spent many hours stripping paint and sanding each figure, at which point volunteers could diagnose underlying problems.

“We’ve found cracks, nails, screws and bird nests. Some have been repaired before, fixed and painted,” Ridge said.

Because 1970s-era restorers often used lead paint, some figures required three rounds of sanding and two coats of enamel paint to return them to their original condition, said volunteer Jo Ann Weisman of Holdrege.

Weisman studied art in Italy, California and Colorado, and had two studios in Arizona before moving in 2020 to Holdrege to be closer to her daughter. She volunteered after visiting Pioneer Village and seeing the carousel’s collapsed roof. When she asked about the horses, Weisman was told they were “out for restoration.”

Actually, pieces and parts of horses and other figures were laid out on beds in the temporarily closed Pioneer Village Motel.

“Brad and I decided we’d take the best of the worst to start because they would be easier … We were wrong, of course, because we really don’t know what we had until they are stripped,” Weisman said.

They named each figure  — Willa the horse was first — during the restoration as their “souls” began to be revealed.

“It’s more personal than calling them by numbers,” said Roberts, who specializes in carving and repairing cracks. He learned to restore carousel horses from an Ohio-based expert who visited Pioneer Village in 2005 and offered to teach him.

Along with Willa the horse, there’s Zeke the zebra, who will be in the museum’s Nebraska State Fair booth in Grand Island this year, and Elsa the lion, who had to have layers of black paint stripped.

“Truthfully, I don’t know how we pulled this off,” Weisman said. “Except that we worked on it every day.” Restoration volunteers have worked from 8 a.m.-1 p.m. most weekdays since 2021.

The restored version now has 10 smaller horses side by side, four single derby horses, a camel, goat, reindeer, giraffe and two chariots. Zeke and another horse will eventually round out the full carousel.

Even then, the work still won’t be done. There are other horses to finish, plus an elk, pig and the lion.

Farlin hopes the other restored figures will be displayed in Pioneer Village. Some might be changed out for ones currently on the carousel.

Weisman said she and other volunteers are “a little bit shy of crazy.”

“It’s just a kind of passion,” she said. “What else can I say?”

That passion likely saved some serious money. Bette Largent, owner of Carousel Consultants and author of “Paint the Ponies,” the main reference book used by the Pioneer Village restoration team, said such work could cost up to $10,000 per figure.

“We have an outstanding set of volunteers,” Farlin said. “They’re really following high standards of restoration, but it takes a while.”

Largent knows of only three other similar operating carousels in North America — Iowa, South Dakota and Minnesota.

The steam engine that once powered the Pioneer Village carousel could be from 1879, but the carousel itself probably dates back to the early 1900s, Largent said.

All of the figures were made by two of the most prominent carousel companies in the country, making the Pioneer Village carousel “a museum going around in circles,” Largent said.

New, Old Carousel

An RV volunteer painted a new carousel pavilion sign that was unveiled at the official Aug. 9 grand reopening. It includes the original ride cost.

“A nickel a ride,” Farlin said. “That won’t change now.”

He hopes the old steam engine also will be restored, so it can be fired up for demonstrations, even though it won’t power the carousel again.

Tears of joy welled in Farlin’s eyes on Aug. 1, when he pressed the carousel’s start button for the first public ride since 2005. Young Waylon and three other generations of the Runions family got to experience that first ride — and the joy that volunteers hope many others will feel for years to come.

“Your emotions take over, even just talking about it,” he said. “… I realize we’re going to be able to give the joy back to kids again.”

This story was originally published by Flatwater Free Press, an independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories in Nebraska that matter. Read the article at: https://flatwaterfreepress.org/lions-camels-and-goats-a-century-old-caro...