Wednesday, September 27, 2006

King Bros. Cirus 1965


"King Bros. elephants and "Cowboy" the elephant handler, crash after pulling trucks out of the mud for 3 days straight. Tommy Armstrong was in charge of the Elephant Dept."

(These two elepnants are "Hattie" and "Mary". The first is one of the Coca Cola elephants from the Atlanta Zoo, later with Downie Bros. and Clyde Beatty Circus. "Mary" was among the elephants imported by Louis Reed for the Dailey Show, afterward she was the leader in the Pete & Norma 5 act before going to Beatty-Cole.)

Posted by Buckles at 9/27/2006 06:54:00 AM

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thought for a minute this was a shot from TENN

27 September, 2006 10:51
Anonymous said...

Richard Reynolds says - -

It was at Coca Cola magnate Asa Candler's private zoo here in Atlanta where Hattie lived before going to Downie. At one time Candler had six Asians there - - Rosie, Coca, Cola, Delicious, Refreshing, and Fragrant.

Rosie had come from Miami real estate developer Carl Fisher who kept her in Miami for promotioanl purposes. She left Candler for the Bill Newton show in 1935 and after several stops wound up with Dailey where she died.

The 1889 Atlanta city zoo was on the other(south) side of town. Its old female Maude (arr. 1903)croaked in 1933 and Candler gave Coca to the city to replace Maude. She walked all the way across town.

The Cander zoo lasted only from 1932 to 1935. When it broke up, Candler offered his four remaing Asians to Atlanta but it had no place to put them and was too poor to build a new and adequate facility. So CAndler sold them to Downie where they got new names. I have never been able to pin down which elephat got which new name. One of the new names was Addie, subsequently changed to Hattie when on the Beatty show around 1947. I last have her on Beatty-Cole in 1961 and now I learn that she was on the 1965 King opera.

I wonder when she died?

28 September, 2006 18:02
Anonymous said...

Kelly Miller had an elephant named "HATTIE"

28 September, 2006 21:03
Ryan Easley said...

Buckles,
Did Hattie replace Norma ? Did Norma die or was she sold ? I read that Norma was there in 1962 with Mary.

13 May, 2014 17:35
Buckles said...

I think she died up at that Retirement Center in Valdosta not too long ago.
I stopped keeping records in 1996.

13 May, 2014 19:45

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