Shallow-focus close-up of a carved wooden tiger with glass eyes on an antique menagerie carousel

Act One · Glen Echo, Montgomery County

Act One: The Glen Echo Dentzel

A century-old menagerie that still circles under a wooden roof by the Potomac.

The curtain rises in 1921

Walk toward the carousel pavilion at Glen Echo Park on a summer afternoon and you hear it before you see it: the snare rolls and brass-bright pipes of a band organ, then the low wooden creak of a platform taking on weight. Step closer and the menagerie comes into focus. There are horses, of course, but also rabbits with laid-back ears, long-necked ostriches, a giraffe, a deer, a lion and a tiger, all carved in wood and painted with the confidence of craftsmen who expected their work to last.

The machine was built by the Dentzel Carousel Company of Philadelphia and installed at Glen Echo in 1921, when the park was a trolley-line amusement destination for Washington families. Dentzel was the American firm that more or less invented the carousel trade on this side of the Atlantic. Gustav Dentzel, a German immigrant, had begun building carousels in Philadelphia in the 1860s, and by the time this one was shipped south his son William was running the business.

A menagerie, not just a herd

Most carousels are horse-only. The "menagerie" machines, with their mix of animals, are rarer and much loved by collectors. Dentzel figures are known for realism: horses with tensed muscles and flared nostrils, rabbits poised mid-hop, cats with crouched shoulders. Look at the outer row and you will notice the figures facing the public are more elaborately carved on one side. That is the "romance side," and because American carousels turn counterclockwise, it is the right-hand side of each animal.

The outer animals are usually "standers," fixed to the platform with feet planted. Inner-row horses are often "jumpers" that rise and fall on cranks above. The effect, standing still and watching, is a slow wave moving through the herd.

Saved by its neighbours

Glen Echo's amusement park closed at the end of the 1968 season. Rides were sold off, and the carousel faced the same fate. Local residents organised, raised money and kept it in place, and in the early 1970s the park came under the care of the National Park Service. Today the Glen Echo Park Partnership for Arts and Culture runs programs on the grounds, and the carousel is one of its stars.

Pull quote

When the park's rides were sold, the neighbours refused to let the menagerie go. The carousel stayed; the community became its keeper.

Glen Echo, early 1970s

Restoration, one coat at a time

A wooden carousel never really finishes being restored. Figures crack along glue lines, paint wears where hands and heels rub, and the platform takes a beating every season. Glen Echo's figures have been through decades of careful conservation work, with restorers stripping later overpaint to find original colour schemes underneath and matching them by hand. The goal is not showroom gloss but faithfulness to how the carving looked when it left Philadelphia.

The pavilion and the music

The carousel sits in an open-sided pavilion, so on breezy evenings the music drifts out over the park's Art Deco buildings and the old Spanish Ballroom. That music comes from a Wurlitzer Style 165 band organ, a pipe-and-drum instrument fed by perforated paper rolls. We give it the full spotlight in Act Three.

A harder history

Glen Echo is also part of Maryland's civil rights story. In the summer of 1960, Howard University students and local activists began picketing the park, which then barred Black visitors. Protesters were arrested, the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, and the park integrated for the 1961 season. Some of the earliest protests took place right beside this carousel. It is worth remembering when you watch children of every background climb aboard today.

Seeing it for yourself

The carousel runs seasonally, generally in the warmer months, with hours set by the park's operators. Schedules and ticket prices change, so check the official Glen Echo Park website before you plan an evening. Arrive a little early, stand at the rail, and let one full rotation pass before you choose your animal. Regulars say the giraffe has the best view.

See the Full Bill Next: Act Two