From Harry Kingston

Hi Buckles, What a wonderful way to start off the New Year with more of your great circus photos. That is like a shot in the arm to us fans. On Richard Reynold's photo number 1 of Floto on Sells Floto Circus. I have a story related to that elephant. All of you have read the wonderful story in Fred Pfenings great Bandwagon about the incident that occurred in Orange, Texas when the elephant was in must and tore up the circus and part of the town. I can take the story a bit further as the man that shot the elephant retired to Jasper, Texas and was a relative of my mother-in-law, Mary Alice Debney. She set up an appointment to meet him as she knew I loved the circus. The man's name was Dewey Godfrey that worked at Orange Supply. Floto escaped the circus and ran amuck in the town for several days. The locals were shooting at Floto with 22 rifles and just making him mad. Dewey was the only one in town that had a 30-30 rifle and knew what to do. Dewey went out with the sheriff and found a real mad Floto and shot him behind the ear. That was all it took and Floto was down. Dewey got a saw and cut off Floto's tusks and put them in the First National Bank of Orange. Zack Terrell came and wanted the tusk but no deal, as he left without them probably mad as hell about that. I got to see the left end piece of Foto's tusk and what a prize that would be for some fan, well I did not get it, shucks. But Dewey gave me another piece for my circus collection with a letter signed by him saying it belonged to Floto. A lot of the tusk was cut up to make gun handles as later on Dewey worked for Remington Arms, in Bridgeport, Conn. I thought your bloggers would like to hear a little more about some circus history as this came from the man that was there. (This incident occurred Nov. 19, 1921, the first year the Sells-Floto Circus was under American Circus Corporation ownership.) Buckles