Buckles Blog: Sells Bros. Circus #7 (From Buckles)

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Scan10282, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

I don't have much on Sells Bros. these are my earliest pictures and all I have to go by is my dad's comment on the back, "Probably Sells Bros."

Anonymous said...: Bob Parkinson discovered this pair of photos. They were taken in Kewanee, Illinois in the early 1880s. An old timer apparently told Bob that a building with a date of 1884 on it was later erected on the spot where the large tree can be seen. They might be Sells or S. H. Barrett, as both troupe made dates in the city during the 1880s. The tab and calliope were both later on Forepaugh-Sells.; 19 June, 2008 10:59
Anonymous said...: Let me make a correction. The tab didn't make it to Forepaugh-Sells. The pair were likely sold to Walter L. Main when the Sells brothers went from two to single railroad circus operation in the late 1880s.; 19 June, 2008 11:01
Anonymous said...: Anonymous is not clear: he first writes that both parade wagons went to Forepaugh-Sells, then asks to make "a correction. The tab didn't make it..." suggesting the calliope did. Richard Conover's steam calliope catalog in Bandwagon (Nov.-Dec. 1969) agrees, stating the calliope was "Definitely on Forepaugh Sells as late as 1906." Then anonymous writes "The pair were likely sold to Walter L. Main when the Sells brothers went from two to single railroad circus operation in the late 1880s [1888]."; 20 June, 2008 07:30

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