Restored carousel a highlight of Oaks Park’s birthday bash

By David F. Ashton

The Bee, Jul 7, 2010

Jack Deason, and his dad Peter, enjoy the very first ride on the newly-refinished Oaks Park Carousel.

David F. Ashton / THE BEE

While the planners at the Portland Electric Power Company — the City’s pioneer trolley line operator a century ago — hoped that an amusement park at Oaks Bottom would attract riders and land development, they probably didn’t guess that their Oaks Amusement Park would still be going strong 105 years later.

Now run by the nonprofit Oaks Park Association, this family attraction celebrated its birthday on June 6th by taking the wraps off its fully-restored 1920’s-era “Spillman Menagerie Carousel”.

After ladies from the Mrs. Oregon Pageant unveiled the colorful carved figures — ranging from ponies to frogs, zebras and giraffes and benches — visitors got to take a spin.

After a brief ceremony, the association’s CEO, Joe Norling, told THE BEE about the carousel, and about the restoration that began last November.

“Oaks replaced its original Herschell—Spillman carousel with a newer model, acquired in about 1924,” Norling explained. “The new one was said to have come from an amusement park in the Tri-Cities area.”

Today’s best estimates are that the figures were carved starting in 1912, by the Italian and German woodworkers at the Herschell—Spillman company’s offshoot, Spillman Engineering Corporation. “Our carousel was one of the last to have had its figures carved completely by hand,” Norling said proudly.

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