By Gray Tuttle
Rockaway, NY - In the summer of 1966, we moved our park train from a shopping center in Winston Salem, NC, to Grand Strand Park in Myrtle Beach, SC. Grand Strand was under construction by William “Bill” Parker. The park was opened that year in time for the July 4th holiday. After three successful seasons and Fred Fried’s “Pictorial History fo the Carousel”, we felt that the park needed a carousel. During June 1969, we located a three row 1930s Spillman machine in storage at Fairyland Park in Kansas City, MO. Judy and our son, Jamie, flew to Kansas City and bought the machine and brought it back. It arrived in time for the July 4th holiday.
The carousel bug had bitten us and we located a four row Nunley-Murphy machine in storage at Nunley’s Kiddieland in Baldwin, Long Island, NY.
Four row Nunley-Murphy carousel at Rockaway Beach in the 1950s. The carousel would later be put into storage, then sold and moved to Myrtle Beach for the 1970 season. Photos courtesy of the Tuttle collection
This was the machine in the Rockaway Beach postcard [seen in the Nov. '09 CN&T]. This carousel was unusual in that it had 20 sections and 74 horses; a mixture of Carmel and Stein & Goldstein jumpers, with a couple of Dentzel standers mixed in. The Lecari Brothers, owners of Nunley’s Kiddieland, were trying to sell the horses for two hundred dollars ($200.00) each and they had sold only two. We bought the entire machine, except the S&G armored stander, and moved it to Myrtle Beach. (The armored horse was later purchased by Judy for my birthday and has been the center piece of the Tuttle Collection since.)
The Spillman was sold to Marianne Stevens to make room for the four row machine which was assembled for the 1970 season.
The outside scenery and lower inside scenery panels were missing on the Nunley-Murphy machine. We made new scenery panels and located a [PTC] drive enclosure at Forest Park in Hanover, PA. (See CN&T July, 2010 for photos). The upper inside panels were original. The original ring machine was also used.
Around 1974, the outside row jumpers were replaced with restored early Carmel jumpers from Shady Grove Park, Uniontown, PA, in order to preserve the paint and condition of the original horses.
Original Carmel armored jumper shown here in Myrtle Beach in 1970.
During the 1980s the wooden horses were replaced with Allan Herschell style aluminum horses and the machine was sold to Grand Strand Park. Around 1990, the park was sold and the machine was moved to a North Myrtle Beach kiddie park by Bill Parker.
Later during the 1990s, Mr. Parker built Fun Mountain Park in Gatlinburg, TN, where the machine operated with replacement scenery panels from Fabricon until the park closed. The machine was sold at auction in February, 2008. This historic carousel is currently in storage in Knoxville, TN, and is looking for a new home. You can contact Dan at Brass Ring Entertainment if interested.
– Gray Tuttle, North Carolina
For the complete story on The Murphy Brothers and their carousels, see the August 2011 issue of CN&T, just out.