If you plan to take a ride on Glen Echo Park’s historic Dentzel carousel in Montgomery County, you better get a move on. The carousel, which has been a fixture of Glen Echo Park since 1921, will close Monday for repairs.
Riding the carousel is a yearly tradition for generations of Washington area families. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places for its hand woodcarvings popular during the early 1900s.
Between 1983 and 2003, each hand carved animal on the carousel was fully restored.
The local community stepped in to save the carousel when threatened with a sale to
another park community in the early 1970s.
It was also the site of civil rights protests that took place in the 1960s during the era of the privately owned amusement park.
The carousel is scheduled to reopen in the spring of 2020 with a new roof, an updated fire suppression system and a new band organ room.
The cost of the repair work has been priced at more than $1 million
