Russell Bros. Circus #2

RussellBros.2, originally uploaded by bucklesw1. Here's the story of the first elephant truck manufactured by the Eli Bridge Company for the Webbs' Russell Bros. Circus in 1933. The page is from the September-October 1933 issue of the Big Eli News. Circus vehicles were always a specialty and the bull truck was amongst the toughest to design to survive the weight and activities of the "live load" that they housed and hauled around the country. Big Eli started making semi-trailers to haul carnival rides the year before but William E. and son Lee Sullivan quickly realized that they could also outfit motorized circuses with high quality and economical vehicles to move their outfits on a daily basis. An entire series of early elephant trucks were built in Jacksonville, Illinois. This ought to make resident circus man Charlie Bellati proud.