Thursday, January 26, 2006

Sells-Floto in the mud #1


This is the Sells-Floto Circus in the early 1930's when my dad with it and shows the horses struggling in the Opelousas, Louisiana gumbo.
To make matters even worse, the table tops and seat planks tied onto the side of the wagon tell us that this is the cook house and usually one of the first things on the lot. So they have a long day ahead of them.
Traditionally, circuses that moved each day were quite resourceful at getting the job done somehow, even resorting to carrying in rigging and seats from the street by hand and showing outdoors. Only as a last resort would the date be lost.

Posted by Buckles at 1/26/2006 07:06:00 AM

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Only another circus person could understand why and how much we all miss these wonderful days on the MUDD shows. They must think we are crazy. We were and are. You have not lived till you have mudd in your mouth while doing WEB. Even Slop shoes did no good. I would give ten sunny days to live just one day on a Mudd show today.

26 January, 2006 14:31
Anonymous said...

Mr. Woodcock,
I wanted to comment here on your post over a the circus history discussion board.
The Barnum &London elephant herd of 34 had a elephant by the name of"Jess" who was one of four elephants killed in the fire at the animal building at the Barnum&London's winter quaters at Bridgeport,Conn during the night of December 20.1887.
The other three were
"Big Sampson"
who no one could get close to unchain.
"Alice",a female African elephant who had been Jumbo's mate at the London zoo and brought over in 1886,
and the Royal sacred white elephant of Burma
"Toung Taloung",who intially escaped but ran back into the fire for some unexplainable reason.
A fith elephant died as a result of the fire was"Gracie",who ran into the sea at Seaside park
and died the next day from exhaustion and exposure.
All of the menagerie animals in the building were killed other then the 29 elephants that escaped and a lion by the name of"Nimrod".

26 January, 2006 15:20
Anonymous said...

I made a typo in my previous comment.
The fire at the Barnum&London winter quarters was on
November 20 1887.
It started around 10 o'clock at night.
I know this Jess was killed a few years before the one Mr. Parkhurst said that he delievered it.

26 January, 2006 15:23
Anonymous said...

So well put Rebecca.
These photos sure document a hardship " showfolk " tollerated that counter ballance the proud fulfillment & gratification rewarded them in " the Show ". The Enchantement; doesn't come without tenacious energy put out collaboratively by a tallented well syncronized team on there mutual mission " To Entertain - Like Nothing Else "

27 January, 2006 15:22
Anonymous said...

Bud, You scare me sometimes. I can understand what you write and agree with you for agreeing with me most of the time. When half the time I do not know what I am writing about.

31 January, 2006 19:24

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