In 1986, Art Ritchie and Dan Jones recognized a growing need to help restore and preserve one of America’s valuable treasures which was a tribute to craftsmanship and mass production: the art of making wooden carousels. Carousels became a symbol of prosperity for many parks and communities during the early 1900’s and many still remain today in various states of disrepair. With a resurging interest in providing America with a piece of the past, Art and Dan formed The Carousel Works. Backed by more than a decade each of carving and restoration experience, it provided them the recourses in the areas of structure and design needed to manufacture carousels.
Carousel Works was formed with one goal – to build new wooden carousels. To accomplish this, restoration of existing antique carousels was needed to provide a base for establishing a good relationship with the carousel community while learning engineering theories which the original carousel manufactures had perfected. With expertise in carving, woodworking, pattern making, casting, engineering, machine shop techniques, artistic painting and management under one roof, we have developed into the type of manufacturing facility that hasn’t existed for over 50 years.
Carousel Works accomplished their goal of building new wooden carousels in 1991 with the carousel at the Richland Carrousel Park in Mansfield, OH. Since then we have created over 30 innovation wooden carousels that can be found in locations all over America
At present, Carousel Works is the only company in the world with the in-house capability to manufacture wooden carousels from design to installation. With current trends escalating prices of antique carousels over 1,000,000 the Carousel Works, Inc. wants to offer every community national and international, the chance to have a quality, rich, hand carved wooden carousel at an affordable price.
According to carouselworks