Monday, March 26, 2007

Kelly-Miller Circus, Hugo, Okla. 1955


"Miss Oklahoma" and Shirley (Linderman) Logan.
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Posted by Buckles at 3/26/2007 05:44:00 AM

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Richard Reynolds says - -

Miss Oklahoma was the first hippo OWNED by a truck show. There had been only one earlier “motorized” hippo. That was the pygmy Jimmy, owned by the Amer. Circus Corp., and leased by its Hagenbeck Wallace to the Honest Bill show for a short time during the summer of 1924.

Miss Oklahoma was acquired from the Memphis zoo by Kelly-Miller for its 1949 season. She was one of the many offspring of the prolific Memphis pair, Venus and Adonis.

Miss Oklahoma also did the hippodrome walk-around for which Lotus was famous. Miss “O” seems to have been trained by John “Camel Dutch” Narfski. If I have the facts right, he was an ex-Hagenbeck (Hamburg) animal man. As best I can tell, he spoke very broken English.

Kelly Miller sold Miss “O” in early 1965 to the Bells Bros. Circus in Mexico. They also got the K-M rhino. [Manuel H. de la Rosa, in litt, 5-23-68.] She was still there as of May 1968.

Why would K-M sell these marquee animals? The only explanation would seem to be that neither D. R. Miller nor K-M were doing well at the time. There was substantial downsizing in the 1960s. I think this was when Dorey had all those tax problems. In the end the K-M title was abandoned and Dorey switched his show ownership and efforst to Carson & Barnes. The real story of all that is yet to be written.

27 March, 2007 14:57
Buckles said...

I was shocked when D.R. sold "Tena" to Circus Orrin in Mexico in 1964.
When I asked him about it he said " I always told people that no amount of money could cause me to part with that elephant, but it didn't work out thar way."

27 March, 2007 15:19

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