 Scan10096, originally uploaded by bucklesw1. These pictures of Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows parade equipment were very small and didn't blow up very clearly. With my old computer I could adjust the color better but I can't figure out how to tweak this one yet.
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Monday, July 23, 2007
Ringling Bros. animal dens #1
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3 comments:
This 20-footer came out of the 1898 lease of the John Robinson show. It would be hard to find many cages that long except on JR and Great Wallace. It filled one-half of a standard 60-foot flat car of the time. If you do a comparison, you'll find that the Ringling cages in your photos, ranging circa 1897-1916 or so, were the equal of other circuses. They had a set of tableau cages equivalent to Sells and only lacking the corner images of Barnum & London. The upgrading of the cage fleet took place starting in the early 1890s, after a RR wreck, and continued into the early 1900s. At the same time they tripled the size of the circus. Few shows could claim the same success.
I would assume this was a hippo cage.
A hippo cage has a water-filled tank for the "river horse."
If you search past issues of Bandwagon, you'll find two articles about this and the other JR-style cottage cages on Ringling.
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