1 – Here for Mike Rice are some photos I took of the 1962 Cristiani-Wallace show, the first show he worked for. I managed to catch the show twice that year. Though I was still too young to have a driver’s license, I convinced my parents to drive me to Wahconah Park in Pittsfield, Mass., on August 13 and to the LaFleur Airport lot in Northampton on August 16 and leave me on those lots for the day. In this first photo one can see the side show canvas laid out near the bannerline/cage trucks still carrying the 1961 Wallace Bros. title. Both of these cages were built new for Cristiani Bros. in 1959 to house a hippo and a rhino. |
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Cristiani-Wallace, 13 Aug 1962 #1 (From Dick Flint)
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7 comments:
A great set of photos! I got to see the Cristiani - Wallace Circus about two weeks later in Bristol and Newport, RI. I had my dad's Kodak Brownie camera with me and took a few pictures as well. I remember that they had a very good performance.
Looking forward to seeing part 2 of this series!
Great photos, Dick. I'll try to get IDs from Pete and Norma. As you know, I'm in the middle of writing a series on Pete Cristiani for Bandwagon, based on interviews I've done with him since 2001. I'd appreciate any jackpots from readers of Buckles log that I might include in the series. Mike Rice was good enough to spend a few minutes with me while he was on Cole Bros in Middlebury, CT, last year. He described some of his experiences on the Cristiani-Wallace show. If you're interested in contributing jackpots, you may e-mail them to me at Talburtcom1@sbcglobal.net
Thanks, Lane Talburt
The earliest circus I can remember by name as a boy was the Cristiani-Wallace Bros Circus. That was the name written on the trucks on what seemed like a farm to me with elephants roaming the pasture somewhere outside of Tampa.
David: Pete sez he leased some acreage from a dairy farmer on the site of the present-day Florida State Fair grounds in Tampa (before he and Norma purchased about 33 acres in Riverview for their winter quarters). Pete recalls that the dairyman came up to him one day (during the off season) and remarked that Pete must be getting a lot of money renting space to the owners of the trailers parked on his lease. Pete guffawed and told the dairyman that not only was he NOT getting rental off the trailers, but that he was virtually feeding the whole bunch of performers and workers who were laying off there for the winter. Pete said the land owner later offered to sell him part of the acreage for a thousand dollars an acre, but Cristiani replied that he could not come up with that kind of money. "I've been kicking myself ever since," Pete told me. Lane
Barbara and I drove down from Hugo to Ruskin in 1962 to visit her mother who had just purchased 25 acres of jungle and palmettos and had cleared off enough to build a house.
In those days it was $500 an acre as far as the eye could see in any direction.
Barbara insisted that we buy five acres so we could settle next to her mother when we retired and even suggested that at that price maybe we should buy more.
My reaction was, "Who the Hell wants to move down here and get gobbled down by a crocodile at any price?"
Buckles,
That's one time that you should have listened to your wife and taken her advice.
Bob Kitto
Thanks for the great pictures! A brief circus history note. The Cristiani Bros. "family" show toured again in 1960 after the ill-fated '59 tour. Pete took out Wallace Bros. in 1961 and added Cristiani to the title the following year.
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