Thursday, June 15, 2017

#10 Showmen

I was told this picture was taken in 1935 at Lancaster, Mo. about the time I was born.
Execs going over equipment to frame the new Cole Bros. Circus at the Wm. P. Hall Farm where my folks were employed.
Hall himself at right.

Posted by Buckles at 6/15/2017 05:38:00 AM

2 comments:

Roger Smith said...

Those guys, L to R, are Zack Terrell and Jess Adkins. They put the Cole show together over the winter of 1934, to come out for '35 described in the circus press as The Miracle Show. There is one particular reason they could do so. Even during the depths of the Depression, bankers forked over the money, for a circus of all things, when they saw the name Clyde Beatty in ink on the contract. He had washed his hands of the Ringling holdings, and Adkins and Terrell signed him the minute he closed in '34, with Ringling's Hagenbeck-Wallace. Beatty moved overnight from Peru to Rochester, and had an all-new arena and cat act equipment built double-time. He was given the best menagerie men, and assembled his second Big Act, as witnessed by Bill Johnson, of 43 cats. He had them working for the early pre-season dates Cole had contracted, and the act was in mid-season form when the Miracle Show premiered as "Cole Bros. Circus with Clyde Beatty & Allen King".

15 June, 2017 21:10
Fred Pfening said...

This photo was taken in the spring of 1921 when the Howes Great London Circus was loading out in Lancaster, Missouri. That's Howes manager Danny Odom on left, Jerry Mugivan in center, and William P. Hall on right.

21 June, 2017 22:42

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)