When we reached Gilroy Gardens we parked kind of near some impossibly tall trees. Beyond it we could hear the lift of a roller coaster chain hill. And even better, could hear the ride operator saying that anyone wanting a second ride could do so as long as no one was waiting for their seat. That's only ever done if there's a small crowd, suggesting that the 4th of July would be a good day for park-going after all. It was, in the main, with a handful of slow-moving exceptions we'll get to.
You walk into the park past the circus trees we didn't see, and over some wood bridges over a gorge with a handful of rides --- including a children's carousel we're too large to ride --- and, in the other direction, the pavilion area and also what looks like the remains of an old train ride's track. Gilroy Gardens is on a hilly, multi-leveled terrain, moreso that we ever see in our familiar parks. Only those in mountain ranges like the Story Land in New Hampshire or Santa's Workshop in Cascade, Colorado, are like it. The park even has a waterfall, a substantial thing twenty or so feet tall, and a defunct elevator that would take you to an observation deck. There were stairs leading from the main bridge down to the kiddie carousel's level, a hint of how many shortcuts and 'secret' paths fill the park. It's a place which feels very hard to navigate systematically. It's a great place to just get lost in the scenery, fitting a botanical gardens that picked up rides as its side hustle.
The centerpiece of the midway is, as you'd expect, a carousel. It appears to be a 1927 M C Illions Supreme carousel, with 96 carved figures --- 48 horses --- and somewhere around 75,286,114 mirrors. I write 'appears' because it is in fact a modern fiberglass replica. It's unusual in that modern fiberglass replica carousels tend to be, as ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger calls them, ``fantasy football'' carousels with replica mounts from many carvers. Not here; this is a replica of a single carousel like the ones that you could just go to Coney Island and buy if you were in 1927. Only three of its model are known to exist. Also unusual is that Gilroy Gardens does its best to obscure the fact it is a replica, going so far as to claim on its web site that the carousel ``dates back to 1927''. It's true in that its design dates to 1927, but otherwise ... It does seem like a needless lie, when I'd think having a replica of a specific classic carousel would be interesting enough.
Gilroy Gardens has several other signature rides, including ones you just could not see anywhere else. This is thanks to theming. They don't just have a teacups ride, for example, though they do. The ``cups'' here are garlic cloves, and the Garlic Twirl was the first thing we rode after the carousel because we knew it was special. If the ride weren't special the queue itself was: it was a twisty, irregular path, too linear to be a maze, underneath a shaded, vine-covered canopy. It was a beautiful ride queue, something lovely and shaded and tranquil and pleasant. Other queues are less impressive, and more your normal metal-bars-on-sidewalks. But it set the tone for the park. It's not just pleasant to be around; it's actively beautiful.
And, as I say, oddly food-themed. The giant swing ride isn't just that; it's the Mushroom Swing, with the swings dangling from a giant mushroom. bunnyhugger wanted to see the look on my face when we discovered this --- she'd read that far ahead enough on what to expect at the park --- and I don't think she was disappointed, especially since we were almost on top of the ride before we could see it. A kiddie flat ride is called the Artichoke Dip; you ride in cars that look like sliced artichoke. Swinging ship ride? No, it's the Banana Split, with a hull that looks like a banana. This by the way means you hear no end of people talking about wanting to ride the banana or having just come off the banana or being afraid of what it's like on the banana.
I hope you're coming to understand: I got really into this park, really fast.
Now for some more photos of the Lansing State Journal from May 1919, a piece sure to make your eyes glaze over and slide off the page, but also to make bunnyhugger start doing research when she should be going to bed early for once. Enjoy!
Lots being offered for sale at 1917 prices, in 1919. This is an area south of the where I-496 now is. I am curious about the building restrictions are that all the J W Bailey Company need say is ``they are sensible''.
Climax Avenue has become Climax Street, I guess reflecting the neighborhood going downhill. Mechanics Street is now just Mechanic Street, which reflects businesses moving out of the area, I guess. bunnyhugger's blog can tell you all about the sidewalks of the area.
As the Allies choose to recognize the White Russian government there's some big explosion downtown: ``Women and children are Victims of Great Can that Goes Up With Bang''. It seems ``There are other things which will explode besides German shells'' and here, a ``number of filled cream cans'' at the railroad station, left standing in the sun for about 15 minutes, exploded. And this made the front page, though admittedly, why not?
``I'm Hencebaugh the tire man! I'm Hencebaugh the tire man! I got off-list tires for youse all to hires, I'm Hencebaugh the tire man!''
The business page lists seven Lansing Stocks, which sounds like few but they don't include the ones listed on the Detroit Stock Exchange here. The stocks traded where Auto Body, Auto Body Co pfd, Atlas Drop Forge, Auto Wheel, [ Illegible ], Duplex Co, and Lansing Co.
And the Greater Sheesley(?) Shows circus brought its six Pullmans full of ``one of the biggest and cleanest exposition companies traveling'' to Lansing, ``due only to a change in the routing of the show''. You see the lions in the picture there. The text also offers Queen Victoria, the elephant, ``considered a marvel for a pachyderm''. The writer, who was certainly not the Sheesley(?) Shows hype man, says the (Something) ``leads me to believe that Darwin was correct in his theory of the evolution of man'', which is good to know. Among the rides promised were the Whip, the Ferris Wheel, and the Carroussel. I may have overachieved on how many letters are in ``carousel'' there but not by far.
Trivia: Samuel Langley joined the exclusive Mount Vernon Ducking Association, on Chopawamsic Island, so that he could use the club as a place to stay when he was conducting test launches of his flying craft (his Great Aerodrome) from its riverboat. He did not hunt ducks. Source: To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight, James Tobin.
Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Sundays Supplement Volume 7: 1945, Bela Zaboly, Tom Sims. Editor Stephanie Noelle.
PS: What's Going On In Gil Thorp? What's this great idea you have for this essay? June - August 2023 Your guide to the newspaper-syndicated serialized sports comic with way more queer representation than you'd imagine!
