Working part-time as a ballroom dance instructor, Looff met and married Anna Dolle, also from Germany, in 1874.

After working in the furniture factory all day, he took scraps of wood home to his apartment and began carving them into carousel animals.

In 1876, he installed his ride at Lucy Vandeveer's Bathing Pavilion at West Sixth Street and Surf Avenue.

He installed a merry-go-round at a restaurant and beer garden on Surf Avenue, Coney Island owned by Charles Feltman, one of several people credited with inventing the American hot dog.

[1] Looff installed another machine at Coney Island and then created a large ride for Asbury Park in New Jersey.

Boyden commissioned Charles I. D. Looff to build a large carousel at the head of a 400-foot (120 m) pier that received throngs of people from the steamboats that cruised up and down the bay.

In 1985, the Rhode Island General Assembly proclaimed the carousel as the "State Jewel of American Folk Art".

Charles Jr. built an excursion boat, which he named the Miss Looff in honor of his sister, Anna, which cruised the waters of Narragansett Bay, bringing customers from Providence and Newport, Rhode Island, to Crescent Park.

He purchased property at The Pike, an amusement area on Long Beach's waterfront, and built a magnificent merry-go-round there.

It also houses a small but very detailed and vivid museum in honor of his carvings and ride technology but most specifically Looff's Long Beach Pike enterprise.

The Looffs also erected the Blue Streak Racer wooden roller coaster on their new pleasure pier, along with The Whip and the Aeroscope thrill ride.

There has also been a Looff carousel horse added to the exhibit at the entrance to the "Moments with Lincoln" attraction at Disneyland in Anaheim.

After his death, his son Arthur continued to manage the family's West Coast operation, including building the Giant Dipper roller coaster at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.