Thursday, November 15, 2007

From Hal Guyon


132061-R1-47-47_048, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Buckles,
Here is a photo of one of the animal wagons from RBBB on thr Strates Shows in the late 50`s. The flat that it`s on looks a little ragged. Strates had a nice menagerie back then it`s a real shame that these thiings are now gone. Great set of shots for RBBB in 1954.

Hal Guyon

Posted by Buckles at 11/15/2007 04:17:00 PM

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know where #322 is.

15 November, 2007 17:51
Bob Cline said...

Notice the flatcar heigth difference between the two flats.

15 November, 2007 21:03
Anonymous said...

Tell me more about RBBB managerie animals on Strates Shows.

16 November, 2007 12:33
Anonymous said...

When my dad was growing up with the Strates in the '30's the menagerie and some of the animal acts were show owned. I seem to remember a story of a guy getting killed by a bear one winter in Horseheads in the years before the show moved south to South Carolina. By the 50's the show still owned some animals, but I believe all of the animal acts were booked in. When I was a kid in the '60's we showed Strates dates like the New York State Fair or the North Carolina State fair with our pit shows and any animals that I remember were booked in by fair boards.

16 November, 2007 14:34
Anonymous said...

strates acquired a number of animals, including a hippo and elephants, possibly a giraffe and rhino, when the king show closed in 1956.

16 November, 2007 16:18
Anonymous said...

This is very interesting as I've known that Strates carried a menagerie but never learned just how it was exhibited. Would appreciate if Ben or someone could fill us in.

Was it a sideshow? A single O? Were the animal acts free acts?

16 November, 2007 20:19
Anonymous said...

#1 Where is #322?
#2 none of the wagons came from RBBB. Hippo wagon was from King Bros. Lion Cage (#25) was built in-house for the motordrome lions. An old Navy searchlight wagon was rebuilt to hold 4 small cage wagons loaded crosswise. At some spots the menagerie was a free attraction. At others it was placed behind a bannerline front. They had 6 bulls, George the hippo, and Charlie the Brahma Bull among others. Bert Pettus handeled the menagerie in the 50's and early 60's. Steve Fanning came in when Bert left. The animals were sold off in the late 60's and were gone by the 70's.

16 November, 2007 23:05
Anonymous said...

The picture was taken around 1965 as the wagons were repainted by Duke Ash at that time. His unfinished Art Dept. wagon is behind the lion cages

16 November, 2007 23:08
Anonymous said...

Paul. As I understand it, at least in the 30's and 40's and early 50's on the railroad carnivals like Strates, or Cetlin & Wilson where the show owned a lot of the back end attractions the menagerie animals were exhibited under canvas for a small admission, but the performing animal acts were usually free. Acts booked in independently by a fair board were a different story. I'm sure somebody lese knows a lot more about how things changed than I do, but I believe in the mid-50's the big shows dropped show owned animals as more and more pit shows came along with high end exotics like gorillas. (I remember a really good gorilla show when I was a kid around 1960 -- but I'm pretty sure it wasn't owned by Strates, just booked on big dates.) By the 60's it was so much cheaper to book single-o animal attractions onto the midway, or so much more profitable for fair boards to sell space for single-o and pit show attractions on the indy midway -- animals were one of the first things to go when the carnivals cut back on back end attractions to make more room for more front end. There was a lot more money in another Himalaya than there was in a couple cages of cats.

17 November, 2007 01:36
Buckles said...

Strates bought "Alice", "Mona" and "Margie" when the King Show folded in 1956.
They added the MGM elephants "Happy", "Sally" and "Queen" in 1958, purchased from Louis Stern.
The winter of 1971-72 D.R. Miller had me run up to the Strates Quarters and check out the MGM bulls (the last remaining elephants)which he eventually purchased for $10,000.
A long complicated story.

17 November, 2007 05:54
Anonymous said...

In the 40's and early 50's there were a lot of free acts, including flying trapese. high wire, elephants and canon acts.
As I recall that there is a picture of the human canonball flying over the ferris wheels.

17 November, 2007 19:42
Anonymous said...

#322
Where was it prior to the King show?
After the Strates show #322 headed to Ralph Emerson's zoo in Conn.then was shipped to the Brownsville Tex.zoo. Somehow it ended up at a scrap yard in Dallas Tex. where it was being cut up for scrap. The wagon, less the bars is in my "What the F Collection"
in Tex.
P.S.This beast has a cement floor.Also Buckles "Happy,Sally and Queenie,are with Circo Bell south of the border and were doing well the last time I saw them.

18 November, 2007 18:16
Anonymous said...

Doesn't anybody out there have a photo of the Strates menagerie front?

As I recall it was a canvas bannerline- a very well-painted one.

Do I remember this correctly?

19 November, 2007 23:00

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