From Chris Berry

PT%20Barnum%20&%20Great%20London%20SANTA%20CLAUS%20(c_1883), a photo by bucklesw1 on Flickr. MERRY CHRISTMAS! The "Santa Claus" pony float, along with "The Old Woman in the Shoe" were built for Barnum & London about 1882 and were a featured part of the parade for decades. Later additional floats featuring "Mother Goose", "Bluebeard", "Sinbad the Sailor", "Cinderella", and "Red Riding Hood" were all featured in circus parades and specs and were a part of the Barnum & Bailey tour of Europe (1898-1902) According to historian Richard Conover after 1903 all traces of "Sinbad", "Bluebeard" and "Red Riding Hood" vanished. The remaining four floats were stored in Bridgeport until 1927 when they were purchased by Fred Buchanan, along with several other wagons, including the Twin Hemisphere Bandwagon. The wagons were used on Buchanan's Robbins Brothers Circus in the early 1930s. Although the "Shoe", "Cinderella" and "Goose" were purchased by Jess Adkins in 1935 for Cole Bros,, what was left of Santa Claus was abandoned at Buchanan's Grainger, Iowa winter quarters where it rotted away. The other three pony floats are now part of the collection at the Circus World Museum.