The Franklin County Fair and many other fairs and carnivals across the region will be looking for a new carnival company this year. A staple at county fairs for nearly 50 years, Ottaway Amusement Company, is closing. Owner, Danny Ottaway, is dismantling his company. His niece and her husband purchased some of the rides and have formed Ottaway Legacy Shows, and will partner with Dodge City based Weee Entertainment on carnivals.
Ottaway says he had hoped to sell the company intact to someone who would keep the name, but things didn’t go that way. Ottaway’s great grandfather, L. A. Ottaway, started the company in 1944 and his three sons built Joyland Amusement Park, but says he didn’t see an opportunity for growth with the park and went out on his own. For the next five-plus decades, has put smiles on millions of faces touring the fair circuit in Kansas and Oklahoma.
Ottaway expects to still spend a lot of time on the carnival circuit this year, helping WEEE and the new Ottaway company on an as-needed basis. Ottaway calls himself a “Carny”, a term some might find offensive, but he says a Carny is a carnival worker and that’s exactly what he has been for more than 50 years.
