Posted: May Mon 16, 2005 10:18 am
That is true, but it needs clarification:FootballGuy101 wrote:Okay, another fact about the park. The oldest ride in the park still running today is the disneyland railroad.
What FootballGuy is referring to is actually the "Fred Gurley," one of the Locomotives on the Disneyland Railroad. Built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1894, it went into service at Disneyland March 28, 1958. The Fred Gurley is the oldest single piece of rolling stock in use in any Disney theme park.
However, this from the San Diego Union-Tribune on May 5, 2005: "King Arthur's Carrousel is an 1875 Dentzel merry-go-round from Sunnyside Park, Toronto. Its varied animals were gradually replaced by 17 rows of four horses each from Coney Island Pier and Whitney's Playland in San Mateo. Another 17 are in storage and all are interchanged four at a time throughout the year. The horses were all painted white in 1975." That makes the carrcousel almost twenty years older than the Fred Gurley.
For all you trivia nuts, there is actually a much older attraction at Disneyland than the railroad or the carrousel (from Disneylandtoday.com):
"Aptly named the Oldest Attraction Ever, to the tune of 75 million years... the section of tree that exists next to the Rivers of America was originally presented by Walt Disney to Lillian Disney on their 31st Wedding Anniversary (July 13, 1956).
The section of petrified tree, which was relocated from the Pike Petrified Forest in Colorado, weighs five tons and mesures 7 1/2 feet in diameter.
Since the tree was a little too big for the Disney mantle, Mrs. Lillian Disney presented the gift to Disneyland. On July 13, 1957 the tree was actually installed in its current location."