Thursday, April 03, 2008

To Joey Ratliff


Scan000011049, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Floto Trilby died in the 1942 Ringling menagerie fire in Cleveland.
Your Trilby is shown at right in the picture above.

WALLACE TRILBY
1915- Imported by Wm. P. Hall
1916-24 Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus
1925-30 John Robinson Circus
1931-35 Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus
1937-66 Ringling-Barnum Circus
(Retired to the New Orleans Zoo at the close of the 1966 season)

"I remember her well from my time with RBBB in 1957. A nice, gentle elephant and very distinctive looking with that lantern jaw."
Buckles

Posted by Buckles at 4/03/2008 10:57:00 PM

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for correcting this for me. I just sent you an email with pictures of Ruth and Trilby. The problem I seem to have is that the Asian studbook combined the two Trilby histories into one animal, kind of like helfer in Modoc. Anyway hope you enjoy the photos.

03 April, 2008 23:15
Marcos Mateu said...

This is such an interesting reference blog. The pictures you show here are completely new to me, and I'll say I have really seen and purchased a lot of reference in my life on many different fields.
Congratulations.

04 April, 2008 02:58
Anonymous said...

That's an Interesting Discription ;
" Lantern Jaw "
& yes unique looking

04 April, 2008 07:39
Anonymous said...

Buckles, I think I have all my Trilby photos properly labeled now, using the show list you provided and one that I already had, except one. I have a Trilby in Eddie Allen's Clyde Beatty herd of '37.

04 April, 2008 08:08
Anonymous said...

The flags on the cage corners and the guys in costume make me say this is the 1943 spec, “Hold Your Horses” a replica of an old time street parade that wound around the big top. But why are the sideboards on the cage? Maybe it was being moved to a place where the sideboards were removed before the parade. All the cages in “Hold-Horses” were open.

The show did not carry a menagerie as such that year. The cages for this “parade” were in the backyard. At some stands, early in the season, there was a backyard tent where the cages were kept before and after the parade. However, when I saw the show in Atlanta in October 1943 they were just spotted out in the open. The elephant picket line was out in the open too in the backyard.

Because there was no menagerie display, there were no giraffes. That was the only time since 1915 they were not carried. In ’15 they were kept in quarters because of the hoof and mouth quarantine - -that was true for all shows for all cloven hoofed animals, giraffes, camels, deer, antelopes etc.

Also because it was so large and heavy to try moving around the hippodrome track the big hippo cage, no 88, did not go in 1943. Instead they carried the pygmy hip whose weight could be accommodated in a smaller cage. Imagine what a problem would arise if that big hip den had bogged down on a muddy track.

Now, in 1943 there was an elongated main entrance tent in which Gargantua and Toto were shown (in one cage) while the ape cage no. 67 (chimps) was also there.

All of this was very disappointing to a menagerie buff like me.

04 April, 2008 13:35
Anonymous said...

Joey: Beatty's name was sometimes added to the title but it was actually the Cole show.

That Trilby I believe must be the one that belonged to Hall, was with Fred Buchanan for several years under both World Bros and Robbins titles, then with the Hall herd to Cole.

Sold about 1952 to Bill Morris, Sr for Kelly-Morris and died there that year.

04 April, 2008 15:04

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