Paul Miller Shopping Center Show 1959 #1

In the mid 1950's an Agent named Howard Schultz booked my dad's elephant act on routes appearing at Shopping Center parking lots. These places were popping up everywhere and were anxious to do unique family events for publicity. It was very lucrative for us but the most boring experience of my life. We would simply park the elephant truck at a designated spot, they would run a light cable and water hose out to us, fence off an area and erect a sign "Elephant Shows 12:00, 2:00, 4:00 and 6:00", that was about it. We didn't carry a ring curb and as a rule there was no music. When the audience had gathered around the fence we started, our elephants did a lot of stuff, the dinner table, barber shop and close with the regular act, maybe 15 or 20 minutes in all but invariably several people would come around afterward and say, "Is that all? I thought there would be a complete show!" It was during these days while showing at a Mall at Rochester, Minn. in 1956 that I read in the paper the Ringling Show had folded in Pittsburgh. The perfect setting for this glum piece of news. However it wasn't long before all this changed, the Shopping Centers discovered that they could bring in a complete circus performance, including carnival rides and even get paid for it. Here we see the Paul Miller operation in 1959 and the priemise hadn't changed all that much, but now they moved the public from one venue to another. The truck in this picure had a large stage on the opposie side on which juggling acts, balancing acts. etc. performed and from where they would be directed to the next event.