Downie Bros. Circus 1926 (From Richard Flint)

Downie 1926 ele car001, originally uploaded by bucklesw1. The recent comments about how elephants were loaded in the bull car brought to mind these contrasting pictures from my collection showing elephant transport in the late 1920s. The Downie photo was taken on June 28, 1926, its first season out and three weeks after the baby elephant Tena joined the male tusker Teddy to give the show two elephants. Though still young, Teddy might not have fit in this truck unless it was an open top but that is not probable given the small vent on the side of the truck. The equipment on the show that first season was a rag-tag assemblage of second-hand equipment gathered by Downie in the short 90 days he organized the show in Havre de Grace, Maryland. Most of it was replaced after the successful 1926 season, the first by an all-motorized show (framed and staffed in all departments, incidentally, by men with rail show background). Dick Flint