History
The first Columbia opened in the Santa Clara park in 1976 and the Gurnee Columbia opened later that year. They opened as the world's biggest carousel and continues to hold that title to this day. Each horse on the carousels was a replica of one of the world's most famous carousel horses. In front of the carousels was a large reflecting pond with historic replicas of American flags flying along the sides. Today the flags still fly. The Columbia is often associated with the Carousel Song, produced especially for the Marriott's Great America theme parks by Gene Patrick. A clip of the Carousel Song can be heard here. The Carousel Song still plays at the Gurnee park every evening when the park closes.
In 1994, Santa Clara's Columbia received some minor renovations for its appearance in the movie Beverly Hills Cop III.
In the early 2000s both carousels received touches of red and blue paint. The original paint scheme was white with gold trim, however some of the gold trim still remains.
In the 2011/2012 off-season, Carousel Columbia at California's Great America was re-painted.
The carousel is known as Carousel Columbia at California's Great America and Columbia Carousel at Six Flags Great America.
Read more about this topic: Columbia Carousel
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“We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it.”
—Lytton Strachey (1880–1932)
“The greatest horrors in the history of mankind are not due to the ambition of the Napoleons or the vengeance of the Agamemnons, but to the doctrinaire philosophers. The theories of the sentimentalist Rousseau inspired the integrity of the passionless Robespierre. The cold-blooded calculations of Karl Marx led to the judicial and business-like operations of the Cheka.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)