Thousands of Mid-Southerners grew up riding the Memphis Grand Carousel at Libertyland. Now, that bit of history is coming back to life!
The Memphis Grand Carousel was a family tradition for decades. “My parents took me to ride the carousel, I took my kids to ride the carousel, and once they get it, I’m going to bring my grandkids up here to ride the carousel,” says Robert Thomas, who helped unload the carousel with FedEx.
“This carousel is a part of Memphis, like the heartbeat. It’s a part of our history,” adds Thomas.
The city of Memphis agreed to lease the carousel to the Children’s Museum, which then raised money to ship it off to Ohio, where experts spent two years restoring it.
“They actually went down and peeled each one of the layers of paint off, so they could get down to the base wood and used the color scheme that was used originally,” says Art Davis, Chief Operating Officer Memphis Grand Carousel.
FedEx agreed to ship the restored carousel back to Memphis for free. It arrived this week and is being unpacked.
‘We’re very excited to have this historic piece as part of the Children’s Museum and to allow the people of Memphis and the Mid-South area and all the tourists that come here to be a part of this and a part of history,” says Thomas.
Davis says he can’t wait to see the faces of parents and children when the carousel is unveiled December 2nd. “I just got chill bumps with you talking about it and me thinking. We want it to have the wow factor to start generating the new memories and to remember the old ones,” says Davis.
An interesting fact about the carousel; while it has been restored so it is historically accurate, it includes a new feature – a special horse which is handicap accessible.
