08/28/2026
There’s been a lot of talk about a carousel coming to town lately, but carousel horses aren't new to Estes Park.
Come by The Taffy Shop and you’ll see an actual carousel horse in our window. We brought him in because there’s a lost story to tell, and not because he is the Dark Horse, but from the same era and gives us a way to share a piece of Estes Park history that has nearly disappeared… and we love an excuse to share a local story.
Our horse is an original cast-aluminum carousel horse, attributed to the Herschell-Spillman tradition, dating to the 1930s. This horse came from a traveling carousel. Today, we've given him a new job: watching the visitors go by and reminding us of an Estes Park that is still here in people's memories, even though much of the physical town has changed.
And that brings us to the Dark Horse.
You may know the name. You may even know the parking lot. But do you know why that parking lot is called the Dark Horse Lot? A surprising number of longtime locals don't. And that's part of what makes this story so much fun.
The Dark Horse wasn't just a bar. In the 1920s, the property near the confluence of the Fall River and Big Thompson River became home to Riverside, an ambitious amusement and entertainment complex started by Ted Jelsema and Frank Howd. Riverside opened in 1923. It had a dance hall, swimming pool, dressing rooms, a sandy beach along Fall River, amusements and eventually, roller skating, miniature golf and other attractions. At one point, the newspaper described its swimming pool as one of the largest in Colorado. It was the kind of place that made Estes Park a summer playground.
Ted Jelsema was a character. One of the best stories comes from a 1969 newspaper article in which Jelsema was asked about the unusual name Dark Horse. Before Prohibition had ended, and around the same year The Taffy Shop opened, Jelsema had purchased a merry-go-round in Greeley. His plan was to install it at Riverside. But when he went to put it together, some of the parts were missing. So, for a couple of years, the horses were simply stacked up. Apparently, that's how Dark Horse came to be. It's a wonderful story because the name that eventually became one of Estes Park's best-known landmarks apparently began with a pile of merry-go-round horses waiting for the rest of their parts.
Our first year (1935), the Dark Horse was already part of the Estes Park landscape. Newspaper advertisements promoted the Dark Horse Inn at Riverside, “near the bridge,” offering Dutch lunches, beer, dancing and swimming. That year the Dark Horse was being enlarged, and Riverside was preparing for another summer season. That coincidence has always seemed important to us. The Taffy Shop and the Dark Horse were born into the same Estes Park: an Estes Park where people came for the summer and stayed for the day. They danced. They swam. They listened to orchestras. They ate. They played games. They went skating. They watched performers. They remembered it, and their stories were shared through generations of families.
And yes, there really were carousel horses at the bar.
This isn't one of those stories that has grown taller with age. There are postcards showing the famous carousel-horse barstools awaiting riders at the Dark Horse bar. A longtime local shared about childhood trips to the Dark Horse parking lot, visiting the Kemple family's arcade and, on special occasions, going inside the bar and sitting on the carousel-horse barstools while having a bowl of soup.
So when longtime visitors tell you they remember sitting on the horses at the Dark Horse, they're remembering something that really happened. And there's a funny local-history test hidden in that story: ask someone if they know the Dark Horse Lot. A few will say yes. Ask them why it's called that, and you may get a very different answer.
Riverside was a big deal. The old newspaper accounts are filled with names that will mean something to some longtime Estes Park families. Ted Jelsema built the place and eventually sold it to Gale H. “Nub” Gillan and associates in 1946. There were orchestras and bandleaders every summer. Dean Bushnell and his orchestra played often, including at the final farewell to Riverside. There were dances featuring musicians including Bill Petrie, Jack Blackburn, Harry Hink, Matt Betton and Joe Koch. There was even a 1946 cowboy dance featuring Pat Henry and Gold Tony, a palomino billed as “The wonder trick horse,” performing his tricks in the ballroom for the dancers. (Did you know Gold Tony’s old corral is in front of Overlook Ranch, at the top of the 43 switchbacks on the way to Glen Haven? It’s very hard to find).
The swimming pool was eventually covered and turned into a roller-skating rink. There were novelty dances, cowboy dances, contests, an amusement arcade, shooting gallery and other attractions. The newspaper wrote about Saturday nights when teenagers from around the Park would converge on Riverside. This was not a little roadside bar. Riverside was one of the places where Estes Park happened.
And then the story begins to disappear. By the 1960s, Riverside and the Dark Horse were still operating, although the character of the place had changed. A 1967 story about the renewal of the Dark Horse's liquor license makes for entertaining reading: There had been several reports of disturbances, including a late-night fight involving the bartender, a patron, a glasses-throwing incident, an ice pick, a punch in the eye and two police officers who apparently ended up being threatened themselves. The Town renewed the Dark Horse's liquor license anyway. The Dark Horse had its rough edges by then, but it was still the Dark Horse.
In 1969 (the year The Taffy Shop owner was born!) the Town began making plans to acquire the Riverside property and turn the site into a municipal parking lot. The newspaper described the property as containing 15 buildings, including the Riverside Dance Hall and Dark Horse Bar. There was an inventory of what was being sold and removed: pitchers, mugs, glasses, booths, benches, a cash register, a walk-in beer cooler—and, wonderfully, pieces of merry-go-round horses. Think about that for a moment. The place whose name had apparently come from a merry-go-round was being dismantled, and the newspaper was still listing merry-go-round horse pieces among the things left behind.
One last dance. The end wasn't entirely quiet. The Estes Park Jaycees organized a farewell dance at the old Riverside Dance Hall. Dean Bushnell and his orchestra played, and the final dance was scheduled for January 31, 1970, with proceeds going to the Estes Park High School instrumental music program. It was, in its own way, a very Estes Park ending: people came together for one more dance before the buildings disappeared. The old Riverside complex was then removed and the property became the parking area we know today. The building was gone, but the name stayed. Searching town records decades later still identify the Dark Horse Lot, alongside the Post Office Lot.
But something else survived. The Dark Horse bar itself didn't simply disappear. When the new Dunraven Inn was being remodeled in 1970, a newspaper article reported that its new Ship's Tavern would be built around the old Dark Horse bar, which had been purchased when the Dark Horse was torn down. So a piece of the Dark Horse found another home. That seems fitting, because that's what happens in a town like Estes Park. (We’re not sure what happened to the bar when the Dunraven left their original location on Spur 66 near the Y…) Buildings disappear, businesses change hands, parking lots replace dance halls, but pieces of the past keep turning up in unexpected places. A bar gets moved. A photograph survives in someone's attic. A postcard winds up in a collector's box. A name remains attached to a parking lot long after people have forgotten the reason for it. And every once in a while, an old carousel horse finds a new life.
Which brings us back to The Taffy Shop. Our ‘tribute’ horse isn't from the Dark Horse bar. But he is a carousel horse from the same era… the era when Riverside was busy, the Dark Horse was famous, and The Taffy Shop was just getting started. That is why we wanted him, and thanks to a local collector he’s in our window today.
The Taffy Shop has now been here for 91 years. We've watched an awful lot of Estes Park change in that time. Buildings have come and gone. Businesses have come and gone. Roads and parking lots have changed. The way people vacation has changed. The things people buy have changed. And yet, every summer, somebody walks through our door and tells us about coming here with their parents. Someone remembers buying taffy here as a child. Someone remembers the little shop that used to be somewhere else. Someone brings their children, or grandchildren, or great-grandchildren and says, “We always came here.”
That is the part of history that doesn't show up very well in newspapers. It's the continuity of memory.
The Dark Horse is a wonderful example of the opposite: something that was once central to the life of Estes Park, and is now almost gone, even from memory. The name survives with some as a location of a parking lot. The photographs survive. Some stories survive. And now an old carousel horse shines brightly in our window, as a reminder.
And that's really why we put him in the window. Not because we think everything was better back then. Not because we want to recreate the past, but because places matter, and memories matter, and sometimes the little things are what keep a place from forgetting itself. Today, you can park where the Dark Horse once stood, and you might walk past the spot without knowing what was there. You can call it the Dark Horse Lot without knowing why. But somewhere in an old photograph, people are still sitting on carousel horses at the bar. Somebody is still dancing at Riverside. Ted Jelsema is still trying to assemble that merry-go-round. A band is still playing. And somewhere, a kid is still having a summer in Estes Park that will become a story decades later.
That's the history we're trying to keep alive at The Taffy Shop. Not by putting everything behind glass, but by letting a few pieces of the past continue to live where people can see them, talk about them, and remember them. The Dark Horse is gone. Riverside is gone. But now? Our old carousel horse is watching Elkhorn Avenue from the window of a candy shop, both new to the world in those days gone by.
It's harder to stay the same. But some things are worth it.
For those who want to see a little more of this history: the Dark Horse showcard and menus on display with the horse are from the collection at Cabintique, on Highway 7. Carey owns the shop, and has spent decades collecting Estes Park photographs, postcards, books, memorabilia and other pieces of local history, and thankfully, believes those things should be enjoyed and passed along rather than locked away in storage.
That's exactly the kind of place where you can walk in looking for a little cabin décor and walk out carrying a piece of old Estes Park home with you. Careful though, she knows the stories that go along with the things. Plan some time.
Now, if you remember the Dark Horse, please share your story below. Especially if you remember the carousel horses at the bar. Those firsthand memories are part of the story, too.
