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Portion of Riverside Drive renamed for carousel

Last Updated on August 24, 2016 by cassnetwork

The significance of the only National Historic Landmark in Cass County will be reflected on street signs near it.

The Logansport Board of Public Works and Safety approved a resolution Wednesday changing the name of the north side of Riverside Drive to Dentzel Drive. The change will affect the drive from the intersection of 15th and Miles north on the drive to Race Street. Gustav Dentzel, the carousel maker who built the carousel in the late 19th or early 20th centuries, was known for his wood-carved animals.

“One of the top two concerns Logansport residents expressed to me last year when I went door to door and campaigned for mayor is that they wanted the carousel to remain in Riverside Park,” Logansport Mayor Dave Kitchell said Wednesday. “Two of the main reasons why are that the park is the kind of place a National Historic Landmark should be and the McHale Community Complex and the all-weather carousel pavilion were built at Riverside with substantial private support. It only stands to reason that the place where the carousel has been for roughly 70 years should reflect its significance not only in our community, but in the country and the world, with a street name.”

Descendants of Dentzel will be in Logansport this weekend for a two-day carousel festival that will raise money for the nonprofit Cass County Carousel Corporation which operates the carousel.

Since 1995, the carousel has been housed in its all-weather home. Its former quarters west of the existing building housed it after it was moved from Spencer Park in the 1940s. Logansport Jaycees raised money to purchase the carousel from an estate in the early 1970s.

SOURCE: News release from Logansport Mayor Dave Kitchell

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