Ritchie began carving in 1973, making anything from furniture to signs. Back then, he recalls, he would carve anything that had a payday. One day, a customer came by and asked him for a quote for a carousel horse. He estimated that it would cost about $1,800. “He couldn’t get his pocketbook out fast enough,” Ritchie remembers.

He didn’t know it then, but Ritchie was then at the leading edge of a revival of interest in carousels in America. Whether it’s nostalgia for childhood or a general interest in all things from the turn of the century, carousel fever has been growing steadily since the 1980s. This wasn't always the case, as American carousel history has really had its ups and downs.

Steam-powered carousels date back to the turn of the century, the period that carousel enthusiasts now refer to as the “golden age” of American carousel-making. The big names from that era: Charles Looff and Charles Carmel of Coney Island, Gustav Dentzel in Philadelphia, and a handful of other master carvers—immigrants from France, Russia, and Germany but whose work defined the classic American carousel style. All in all, there are nine notable workshops from that time whose carousels are today considered collectables.

But then came a bleak period for the American carousel, when carousels were burned down or dismantled. “The Depression pretty much killed [the carousel],” said Goings. “The carousels really kind of died off. In the 1960s and 1970s, they had been ridden hard and put away. They ceased to make money, it cost more money to keep them running than they were making. That led to the demise of the carousel. A small group of people, who turned into the National Carousel Association, started collecting these things.”

Arlan Ettinger, president of Guernsey’s—an auction house in New York City—estimates that the number of carousels in America dropped from 5,000 to just 150. Before the revival, holding an auction for carousel horses and menagerie animals was so novel that the first Guernsey’s carousel auction, for a man in Philadelphia, brought in TV crews and a million dollars. “It sent a clear signal out that these things are valuable and worthy of preservation,” says Ettinger. At Guernsey’s last auction, carousel figures averaged $40,000. The record for one carousel figure is reportedly a Dentzel St. Bernard for $250,000, but antique carousels have been bringing in six figures for decades.

“The supply has gotten less,” says Ettinger. “But there’s a hard-core group out there.”

Niche collectors obsessed with all things carousel have driven the prices up. As carousel collecting became popular, supply inevitably began to dwindle. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Goings remembers that many carousels were broken up simply because the parts were much more valuable than their sum. Vintage carousel horses were wanted in living rooms, not playgrounds.

That’s when towns, parks, and zoos looking for a carousel of their own started to look beyond replications, and to the shops in Ohio who could produce a new—and often unique—carousels with excellent craftsmanship. The price tag wasn’t too bad either.