Tuesday, November 17, 2009

From Mark Rosenthal


Good Morning,
I don't know if any of you were aware of this hippo or not but I found this in the Lancaster ( Missouri ) Excelsior yesterday while reading the microfilm from 1931. I enlarged it and enhanced it the best I could but the right half microfilm is not nearly as good as the left side. I hope you can read it anyway.
Best to you all,
Bob Cline

Posted by Buckles at 11/17/2009 05:50:00 AM

1 comments:

Bob Cline said...

Everyone should be able to double click this to enlarge it. Following is the question I asked and the most informative answer from Richard reynolds III.

Would this hippo have been out on the Fred Buchanan Robbins Bros. Circus in 1930? I was just thinking since the show came into the Hall quarters in Nov. of 1930, that might be where this hippo came from. Just asking!
Bob

Bob - - -

Yes, indeed this was the hippo Fred Buchanan had on his Robbins Bros. circus headquartered in Granger, Iowa, located on the electric railroad line just NW of Des Moines.

Buchanan got her from the Memphis zoo where she was one of the many offspring of America's most prolific hippos, Venus and Adonis. They arrived in the Memphis zoo in 1914. Their offspring went everywhere - -Brookfield zoo, Kelly -Miller circus, and King Bros. circus to name but a few.

Buchanan's animal (for his Robbins show) was dubbed "Miss Iowa" because that is where she was based. I have in my notes the exact year he got her. It was around 1925 or so, as I recall off the top of my head.

As you know, Buchanan, was very close to Wm. P. Hall, the famous trader in horses, exotic animals, and circus properties. He operated from his farm in Lancaster, Schuyler County MO, right on the Iowa border.

Interestingly, Schuyler and other Missouri counties in northern Missouri were bastions of support for the Confederacy. Its people remained unreconstructed Rebels, as it were, long after the end of the War Between the States. Verily, that part of Missouri was the northernmost outpost of the Old South. This is gone into in some detail by Thomas Duncan in his memorable historic novel, Gus the Great, (1947) based on the personalities of both Fred Buchanan and W. P. Hall.

Dave Price, himself a one time school teacher, considers "Gus" the Great American Novel, and he's onto something. Though I've had it on my shelf for many years I just finished reading it - terrific and beautifully written. - - -But back to the hippo.

As you well know, Buchanan's Robbins circus fell on hard times with the onslaught on the Great Depression, and his show properties wound up at Hall's farm. The last year of Robbins' operation was 1931 but, as I recall from my notes, the hippo had already left it before that tour started. I have research notes providing the nexus between Robbins and the hippo's going to the Swope Park zoo. The name Cleopatra would have been a 1931 moniker I believe.

Thanks for the clipping.

Richard

17 November, 2009 06:09

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