United States Tableau Band Wagon (From Henry Penndorf)

United States Tableau Band Wagon, originally uploaded by bucklesw1. SAT., NOV 17, 2007 - 12:12 AM CIRCUS WAGON WILL ROLL AGAIN IN MACY'S THANKSGIVING NEW YORK PARADE. State Journal staff One of the Circus World Museum 's most spectacular circus wagons will play a featured role in the Macy 's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, sponsored, appropriately, by a circus. The wagon is one of the museum 's prize possessions, part of a colorful collection of antique restored circus parade wagons. Known as the Ringling Bros. United States Band Tableau, it was built by Bode Wagon Co. of Cincinnati in 1903. For the Thanksgiving Day parade, the 5-ton-plus wagon will need the locomotion of eight Percheron horses driven by Myron Layton, of Standfordville, N.Y. Layton 's hitch has pulled the heavy wagons in several Great Circus Parades in the past, according to a news release from the Circus World Museum in Baraboo. The wagon, which will be loaded Tuesday for the trip to New York, will be sponsored by the Big Apple Circus, a 30-year tradition and "a soiree of scintillation " in New York City. A troupe of circus musicians led by Charles Schlarbaum will occupy the wagon. The parade, which is set to begin at 10 a.m. Thursday, will be broadcast on NBC television, WMTV (Ch.15) in Madison. For those hoping to see this wagon, it should be on the broadcast at 10:29 a.m., said Big Apple spokesman Joel Dein. The wagon will trail behind the Pillsbury Doughboy float, Dein said. The wagon was designed as one of several with world power commemoration, this one representing the United States. According to a museum description, the "rolling masterpiece " features hand-carved decorations focused on the allegorical "Goddess of Liberty, " flanked by Native American figures. The 22-foot wagon was used by Ringling Bros. in street parades through 1918. According to a museum catalog, the last time it appeared in a circus parade was in New York on April 21, 1923: "The circus staged a street procession in support of the Mayor 's Committee of Women, which was generating monetary support for the Milk Fund." It was restored by museum craftsmen in 1991. The 200 circus wagons and vehicles at the museum in Baraboo account for two-thirds of the circus wagons in existence.