Sunday, January 24, 2010

Odds and Ends! #9


Scan12573, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Clyde Beatty Jungle Zoo and Circus
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida 1941

"Mary", "Sidney" and "Anna May"
Presented by Jean Evans (Harriett Beatty's sister) and Eugene "Arky" Scott.

"I have always been intrigued by this picture. Why would these three great elephants be wearing hobbles?
Maybe they were spooked by this particular jungle location. They must have taken off on the Capt. and he is playing it safe."
Buckles

Posted by Buckles at 1/24/2010 05:50:00 AM

3 comments:

Chic Silber said...

I'm sure that you must have run

them in the past (before my time)

but I'd be most appreciative if

you ran timelines for both Syd &

Miss Anna May (my 2 favorites)

24 January, 2010 11:02
GaryHill said...

Capt, I enlarged the photo and the chains are around each front foot but they are not connected together as a hobble? They do have large rings maybe for securing? Still don't know why both fronts would wear ankle chains?

24 January, 2010 11:43
Roger Smith said...

I have a glamour shot of Jean Evans bearing a stunning comparison to the beauty of Hedy Lamarr. Miss Evans was truly a striking brunette in her day, and by all accounts turned in a nifty single trap act. Skilled equally with her sister, Jean further excelled with duties shown here. Her sad decline and tragic death remain among the more moving sorrows of the Beatty family saga.

Following his full 1939 season on Hamid's Steel Pier, in
Atlantic City, Clyde Beatty's Jungle Zoo opened in Ft. Lauderdale, on December 2, 1939. The home he and Harriett bought there still stands and is occupied. In February, 1945, encroaching neighbors and land speculators compelled local authorities to enact an ordinace forbidding wild animals in the city limits. The operation closed later that year. Although Beatty's Jungle Zoo put Ft. Lauderdale on the map, today's college kids annually flooding the town for Spring Break have no knowledge of its history.

Blessings to Charles Sprague for his well-detailed article on the Jungle Zoo in the September-October, 1973, BANDWAGON, which see.

24 January, 2010 17:03

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