Sunday, July 01, 2007

From Richard Flint


RBBB_ele_dept_1940, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Just goes to show you that the elephant department was ahead of the
game way back in 1940 when they donned their Bello hats for a formal
group pose in the basement of the old Garden!
Dick Flint
Baltimore

"Other than Walter McClain, the only person I recognize is Slivers Madison, standing 4th from left with the star on his fez.
There were 36 elephants here in the Garden in 1940 however one of the "African Pygmies" "Sudan" was returned to Sarasota due to a brief illness and remained there for the season.
Ten additional harness elephants were excluded from the NYC and Boston dates and remained in Sarasota to load and unload the trains as well as set up the show for it's under canvas opening in Baltimore.
Gordon Potter counted 45 elephants on the lot in Chicago." Buckles

Posted by Buckles at 7/01/2007 06:50:00 AM

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've seen this photo before but not recently. Nearly fifty years ago we parked the Famous Cole billcar behind a filling station in Commerce, Texas.

One of the guys who worked there commented that he used to work elephants. Of course you hear guys all the time who say they knew Barnum so nobody was very impressed by the guy's statement.

However the next morning he brought in a nice framed photo like this and pointed himself out to us. I wish now I'd paid closer attention as he probably named some more of the guys.

He probably quit show biz because of the hats.

02 July, 2007 14:25

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