history - art - memories
Tilden Park Merry Go Round
"You don't really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around--and why his parents will always wave back."
--William D. Tammeus, Pulitzer Prize Journalis.
•Manufactured by the Herschell Spillman Company, North Tonawanda, New York
•Built in 1911, 3 row machine with menagerie animals
•2nd permanent machine built by Herschell Spillman for Oliver Davis, Redlands CA.
•First installed in Urbita Springs, an amusement park built by the Pacific Electric Railway along its trolley line between San Bernardino and Corona, Ca
•1916 Merry Go Round moved to Wonderland Park, Ocean Beach, San Diego
•Sold in 1928 and moved to somewhere near Long Beach, CA
•1935 Oliver Davis reacquires the machine and runs it in Griffith Park, Los Angeles
•1937 Merry Go Round was dismantled and placed in storage
•1939 used in the Universal Studios film "So Ends Our Night"
•1948 Ross Davis and his son John moved it to TILDEN REGIONAL PARK