Saturday, September 16, 2006

Murray Hill and the "Mighty Mites"


Jimmy Cole tells me that Murray filled in for the Herriotts in 1969 while they were away at the Milwaukee Parade.

Posted by Buckles at 9/16/2006 06:10:00 AM

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now thats an elephant EMPRESS!! How very adorable!! I wonder why this combo was not used more often. A real wild animal act. "BEENIE" must have brought the house "tent" down. That wardrobe is something else. Wonderful.

16 September, 2006 08:10
Anonymous said...

They were adorable. All 3 of the mites and the chimp. 2 females and a male, the females, Tori and Dutchess now belong to George Carden and I belive the male, Onyx(?) is at Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield, Mo. I may be mistaken.
Very cute, if only there were the punks in America to recreate an act like this.

16 September, 2006 18:08
Anonymous said...

Man, the stuff Murray went thru for those elephants! "Onyx" died a couple of years ago. While he was at Dickerson Park Zoo he sired about 12 calves at the zoo and other parks (artificial insemenation). I think Carden was sending a few of his girls to "Onyx" from time to time.
Buckles, this place is great!

16 September, 2006 20:23
Anonymous said...

One more thing. Good book about Murray Hill by Gary Ross: "At Large, The Fugitive Odyssey of Murray Hill and His Elephants".

16 September, 2006 20:28
Anonymous said...

Onyx Was at the Dickerson Park Zoo but died a few years ago.

16 September, 2006 21:18
Murray Hill said...

I just came across this photo of the Mitie-Mites and myself.

Sorry to disapoint you Jimmy I filled in for Johnny Cline. He had a previous contract that cut into the opening at Baraboo and when he asked me to fill in I felt privlidged.

On one show I stuck my neck out and let the bulls go into the ring and do the act themselves with me standing about 20 feet in back of the ring. We had practiced that in the barn but this was in public and they did great. Took their bow and left the ring like a bunch of pros.

My daughter Nada presented the liberty ponies that Johnny Cline trained and sold to me.

It seemed that the highlite of that show was my twin boys, Allan & Adam showed the little dog act made up of toy manchesters and one big dog. When one little manchester peeded on Allan's foot and he smiled, shrugged his shoulders and went on with the act. As it was opening day and opening show at Baraboo the audience was loaded with Circus Fans and Allan got a standing ovation.

Onyx passed away at the Dickerson Park Zoo in Spfld., MO in Aug. of 2003 of a twisted gut. I understand that his sperm is still being used for AI.

Just a quick note. If you people interested in elephants don't support the ligitiment elephant facilities operated by knowedgeable elephant people it won't be too long before the species become extinct.

20 September, 2006 14:22

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