What Burlington is known for

Burlington is a Colorado county seat of 3,172 people at the 2020 census, and it is known for the Kit Carson County Carousel. The Philadelphia Toboggan Company built it in 1905 for Denver’s Elitch Gardens, and in 1928 Kit Carson County bought it for $1,200. The National Park Service credits it as the only surviving Philadelphia Toboggan Company menagerie carousel.

Cheyenne and Arapaho land

The Cheyenne occupied eastern Colorado, and neighboring Cheyenne County is named for them. On February 18, 1861, six chiefs of the Southern Cheyenne and four Arapaho chiefs signed the Treaty of Fort Wise, ceding most of the territory granted to both nations under the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie and keeping a much smaller reserve along the Arkansas River. Kit Carson County, established in 1889, is named for the frontiersman Kit Carson, whom Wikipedia calls an ‘Indian fighter.’

A carousel Denver let go

By 1927, The Fence Post reports, the Elitch ride was considered ‘old news’, and in 1928 Elitch Gardens sold it and its band organ to Kit Carson County for $1,200, delivery by train included. The purchase was criticized as extravagant and is blamed for three county commissioners losing their re-election bids. The Great Depression closed the county fair in 1931, and the carousel went without regular upkeep; when the fair resumed in 1937, it showed extensive damage.

Put back together, 1976 to 2001

A restoration committee organized in 1975, and the carousel’s Wurlitzer band organ was restored in 1976. Its 45 oil paintings were restored in 1977. In 1981 three horses and a donkey were stolen; they were recovered in Salina, Kansas, and returned. In 1987 restorer Will Morton VIII was contracted to restore the animals’ paint, the chariots and the outer rim, and in 1997 grants from Colorado’s State Historic Fund and the Boettcher Foundation paid to reconstruct the original valances and cresting. Structural and stabilization work on the building was completed in 2001.

The carousel today

The carousel turns in its original 1928 building at the Kit Carson County Fairgrounds, from Memorial Day through Labor Day, with 46 hand-carved animals and four chariots by the town’s count. It became a National Historic Landmark on February 27, 1987, and the National Park Service credits it as the only antique carousel in America that keeps its original paint on both its scenery panels and its animals. The Fence Post reports visitors from almost all 50 states and several foreign countries.

Kit Carson County kept what Denver let go. The county is named for Kit Carson; the county beside it is named for the Cheyenne, six of whose chiefs signed away most of their granted land in 1861.