Menlo Park

Perkasie, Pa.
1891 -
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Menlo Park is a park in Perkasie, Bucks Co., Pa. It is located at 3rd St. and Park Ave. Perkasie also has two other parks, Lenape Park and Perkasie Park.

Menlo Park Carousel

Lenape Park Covered Bridge

Menlo Park now contains swimming pools, a children's playground, and a carousel. The carousel is operated by the Perkasie Historical Society and is open for rides only a few times each year. The schedule for the year can be found at the Perkasie Carousel link.

Lenape Park has a historic covered bridge. The bridge was built in 1832 and spanned the nearby Perkiomen Creek. It was the second covered bridge in Bucks County. In 1958, when the covered bridge was to be replaced with a modern one, it was moved a few hundred feet into Lenape Park.

Lenape Park also has a beautiful white pedestrian bridge spanning the Perkiomen Creek in two spans meeting on an island in the middle of the stream.

But, Menlo Park was once an amusement park consisting of the whip, dodgem, fun house, and kiddie rides. It also had a roller rink, bowling alleys, casinos, and a bath house. It had a water slide, a figure-eight coaster, and a toboggan ride.

And it had the carousel.

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In 1891, Menlo Park was created on 5 acres of land at Fifth St. and Park Ave.

In the Spring of 1892, the carousel was purchased for a price of $5,500 and opened to the public. It was steam-powered and had hand-carved wooden horses.

For the first 4 years, the carousel was operated under a tent in the summer, then dismantled and stored away for the winter. In 1895, a building was built to house it.

The swimming pools consisted of a 10-foot deep pool for swimming and diving, and a 3-foot deep kiddie pool. There was also a larger pool for "water coasting".

The water slide was about 25 feet tall. One or two people would sit on a "sled" to go down the slide into a pool where they would skip across the water.

Model of the Toboggan

The toboggan was built in 1897. It was a wooden framework coaster that took riders for a near half-mile trip along the hillside behind Menlo Park. Passengers would board cars at the top of the hill. The car would then coast down an undulating track for almost a quarter-mile, where it made a U-turn, then continued for another quarter-mile back to the bottom of the hill, where it would be hauled by steam-power straight up the hill to the starting position. Riders would have an exciting ride and a spectacular view of the Perkiomen Creek.

In 1926, Henry Wilson became the owner of Menlo Park.

In 1951, the original carousel was sold to Lakeview Amusement Park in Royersford, Pa., and a cast aluminum one was purchased from the Allen Herschell Company to replace it. The new carousel was a "portable" model that consisted of 36 cast aluminum horses and 2 chariots.

In 1955, the Borough of Perkasie purchased the park from Mr. Wilson for the price of $115,000. Mr. Maurice Neinkin, a clothing manufacturer in town, donated $25,000 of this for the "children of Perkasie".

In 1968, the carousel was leased by the Perkasie Historical Society.

Today, the carousel and the original building housing it still stand. The Perkasie Historical Society opens the carousel to the public several times each year.