1986 saw the carousel being sent out of country for the first and only time, up to Vancouver, British Columbia for the Expo \u201886. Interestingly, this move resulted in the carousel being removed from the National Historic Register, as the move was done without consulting the Register first.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had to Google this one, but Expo \u201886 was another classic World\u2019s Fair, held in fall of 1986 in Vancouver. World\u2019s fairs are designed to be places for nations to showcase their achievements for one another, and may or may not be themed. (These World\u2019s Fairs are still a thing, by the way, if you didn\u2019t know. I didn\u2019t. The 2020 Expo will be held in Dubai, UAE in October of this year, 2020, should gatherings of more than 10 people be allowed by then.) The very first Ferris wheel was invented for the 1893 World\u2019s Fair in Chicago, for instance, as a rival for the previous stunner, 1889\u2019s Eiffel Tower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyhow, back to the Expo \u201886. The theme was \u201cTransportation and Communication: World in Motion, World in Touch\u201d, so you can see how a carousel fit nicely. In a quote from the NY Times writeup: \u201cIts scientific theme should not dissuade vacationers because there is something for everyone, from rival United States and Soviet space stations to a painstakingly restored 1907 carousel with hand-carved and painted wooden horses.\u201d (Again, sidebar: another interesting attraction from this Expo was something called \u201cMcBarge\u201d, a floating McDonalds. It\u2019s the subject of a great Bright Sun Films YouTube documentary \u2013 check it out<\/a>.) The carousel lived at the Expo for several months, and was quite a popular attraction<\/a>, especially for young guests. Here\u2019s a video of the carousel in action at the fair \u2013 fast forward to timestamp 19:26<\/a>.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nAfter the Expo, Carousel #15 spent the next three years traveling on various exhibits up and down the West Coast. While the carousel was not built as a portable model per se, it was clearly able to be assembled and disassembled without much fuss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n