Building Histories | 15 Lake | The Flying Horses
15 LAKE avenue: the flying horses
The Flying Horses in the 1910s. The twin towers of the Tivoli dance hall (L) and the steeple of Trinity Episcopal Church (R) are visible behind it. The Soldiers’ Memorial statue was moved to its current location in 1932.
“Summer people” came to Oak Bluffs to relax and enjoy themselves, and local entrepreneurs gave them every possible opportunity. In the late 1800s bathhouses lined the waterfront, bands played in the gazebo Ocean Park, and an observation tower loomed over the corner of Seaview and Ocean Avenues. Across from today’s police station, visitors rode on a short-lived toboggan slide and flocked to a giant roller-skating rink.
The greatest attraction of all, however, was the Flying Horses.
Built by master wood-carver and carousel-maker Charles Dare, it opened at Coney Island in 1876 and was moved to the Vineyard by a New York businessman for the summer of 1884. It was originally located at North Bluff, where the Lookout Tavern is today. Cottage City house painter William H. Davis, who bought it in 1889, relocated it to its current site at the foot of Circuit Avenue.
The Flying Horses passed through a series of owners, including the Turnell family of Providence, who ran it for 54 years. It was acquired in 1971 by the Lucas family of Sandwich, MA, who undertook much-needed repairs that revealed the carousel’s history and original appearance. These discoveries led to its addition to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, and its purchase by the Martha’s Vineyard Historic Preservation Society (now the Vineyard Preservation Trust) in 1980.
The Society raised the money for a full-scale restoration of the horses and machinery, and the reinstallation of a traditional player-piano-style organ to provide music. The Flying Horses—the oldest operating carousel in the country—was named a National Historic Landmark in 1990. Artist Margo Datz restored the carousel’s decorative panels in 2016.
The observation tower and the toboggan slide vanished from Oak Bluffs long ago. The roller-skating rink burned in 1892, and the bathhouses were smashed by a hurricane in 1944. The Flying Horses, meanwhile, still gallop in their endless circle, delighting children and adults alike as they have for more than 150 summers.
The Flying Horses in the 1910s. The twin towers of the Tivoli dance hall (L) and the steeple of Trinity Episcopal Church (R) are visible behind it. The Soldiers’ Memorial statue was moved to its current location in 1932.
The Flying Horses in the late 1890s, during the “bicycle craze” that brought thousands of riders to Oak Bluffs each summer.
The Flying Horses in the 1970s, the four-seat “chariots” between groups of horses are rare in American carousels.