Sunday, April 23, 2006

The Greatest Show on Earth 1930's #2


You first passed thru this menagerie on the way to the big top in 1936, this photo has the elephant men lined up at left and menagerie hands at right.
The show carried 34 female Asian elephants and the 3 African "Pygmy" elephants, one of which is being held at left by boss Larry Davis while the cage boys are showing off an orang-u-tan.
In the center is the Native American encampment featured by Western Star, Col. Tim McCoy.

Posted by Buckles at 4/23/2006 06:34:00 AM

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is a big herd and a nice menagerie. To bad you still can't see things like this today.

23 April, 2006 22:03
Anonymous said...

Richard Reynolds asks Buckles - -

Interior menagerie shots from the early 1900s often show the bulls down the middle. I have seen this in shots of Forepaugh-Sells and Ringling. Why did they set it up that way?

In my early circus-going days the elephants were always along the sidewall as shown in this 1936 photo. That would seem much better in terms of getting them out of the menagerie, tending to them etc.

27 April, 2006 12:58
Buckles said...

I have wondered about that myself. Seems like an awkward way to do things, not only having to figure out a different route each day to haul out the manure but giving the elephants perfect access to the tent rigging fastened to the center poles to tug and chew on.

27 April, 2006 14:26

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