The Broad Ripple Park Carousel, an Amusement Park in Indiana

The Broad Ripple Park Carousel was installed in 1917 in an amusement park on the outskirts of Indianapolis, Indiana. The White City Amusement Park had been established in 1906 in what is now Broad Ripple Village, alongside the White River. In 1908 a fire caused damage throughout the park, and only the swimming pool remained unscathed.[2] The park closed for three years until its purchase by the Union Traction Company, which restored it and operated it for eleven years. The carousel was installed during the Union Traction Company's ownership. The park was sold in May 1922 to the new Broad Ripple Amusement Park Association, and renamed Broad Ripple Park. In 1927 the park was sold again,[2] and changed hands once more in 1938.[3] The Board of Parks Commission of Indianapolis bought the property on May 18, 1945, paying $131,500 (approximately $1.72 million as of 2014) for the 60-acre (24-hectare) tract, and turned the property into a general-use park, destroying all rides it could not sell.[2][4] The board's original plan was to sell the carousel and the narrow-gauge railway rides.[5] Only the carousel remained in Indianapolis after it was unsold;[2] the steam locomotive is now at the Indiana Transportation Museum at Noblesville, Indiana.[6]The carousel was commissioned by William Hubbs,[3] who had it installed in White City Amusement Park in 1917. Built on a Mangel-Illions mechanism,[7] it used animals carved by the Dentzel carousel company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania sometime before 1900.[1] The carousel was assembled by the William F. Mangels carousel company in 1917.[3] It was probably not the first carousel in the park, as there are indications of a previous ride that came from Hartford, Connecticut.[8][a]

Nothing is known of the history of the animals before their installation in the 1917 carousel assembly.[1] During the 1960s newspaper reports stated that it was believed that the animals had arrived in Indianapolis in 1917, imported from Germany by two