The Totem Tower must have been an expensive addition. There’s one of those at the Minnesota State Fair as well, although I think this one’s taller. Not for the agoraphobics; once you’re seated and heading up, there’s nothing you can do, and no amount of screaming, pounding on the glass, or yanking on the handle while shouting DIE DIE WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE will help.

It’s gone now, along with the rest of the complex - a typically short-sighted decision, if you ask me. Even if they didn’t have to run the ride, they could have kept the pole standing. Heap the top with white-hued spun glass, call it Paul Bunyan’s Q-tip. Paint the tip silver and call it Paul Bunyan’s Rectal Thermometer. Just don’t tear it down. Imagine if some catastrophe befell civilization, and this was all that was left between Milwaukee and Minneapolis: one enormous blank pole, a mystery for the ages. Future archeologists might see the grooves where the car rode, and figure this was a device used in religious rituals; sacrificial victims were carried to the top, and then their hearts would be cut out and held aloft still beating,

Or, they got cotton candy. Records from the era are sketchy at best.