Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Forepaugh-Sells c1900 #6


Scan000011029, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I believe this a 1906 photo. The Ringlings bought a half interest in F-S around 1905 with Bailey owning the other half. As I recall the set up, the Ringlings agreed to spruce up the show. There was no giraffe on F-S when the Boo brothers got into it. So they bought one and put it on F-S. For the wagon they seem to have used the old open-top one they had used circa 1895. They must have sent it from Boo to F-S WQ in Columbus, OH.

There is a widely circulated photo of the 1895 Ringling giraffe wagon without the canvas cover. It had removable sides so the animal could be shown without need of a portable giraffe pen. Circus World Museum built a replica around 1986 and used it in the annual Milwaukee parade.

This set of F-S pics looks ones in the Tibbals collection. He acquired an album of such from the descendants of a chap who was on the show in 1906. It went to California in September of that year. In San Francisco the chap took some striking pics of the destruction from the famous earthquake which had occurred on April 18th of that year.

Buckles said...

Most of the pictures in this set are about 2 1/2" by 8" and had to be cropped down to be best shown on the Blog.
Stamped on the back of each was:
P.M. McClintock
PO Box 891
Franklin, Pa.

Anonymous said...

the pictue are great.
we thank you very mush.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure there are several of us on the blog who used to send money to old P M.

I have three nice Hagenbeck-Wallace lithos of Clyde Beatty that I got from P M in 1957 for $4.50 each.

But I could never come up with the Fifty Bucks he was getting for Barnum & Bailey lithos in those days.

Anonymous said...

The most unusual aspect of this giraffe wagon are the "sunburst" or "sunset" wheels, as they were also known. Their presence suggests transfer from another parade or cage wagon, or the possible use of the vehicle in street parades, as was accomplished by other shows. Their presence might confirm the transfer suggested by Mr. Reynolds.