The Kit Carson County Carousel

Burlington sits on the high plains of eastern Colorado, and its carousel is the oldest working one in the state. The Philadelphia Toboggan Company built it in nineteen oh five for Elitch Gardens in Denver. It ran there every summer until nineteen twenty-eight, when Elitch's bought a newer model and sold this one to Kit Carson County for twelve hundred dollars, freight included.

The county commissioners paid the price and promptly got voted out of office for it. The carousel sat in storage through the Depression, reopened in nineteen thirty-seven, and never stopped turning. Its Wurlitzer band organ, built in nineteen oh nine, is one of only three of its kind still playing anywhere.

The animals carry their original hand-painted surfaces, making this the only antique carousel in the country with paint intact on both the animals and the central core. Congress designated it a National Historic Landmark in nineteen eighty-seven.