Thursday, February 03, 2011

Unidentified #5


Scan00000010237, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Posted by Buckles at 2/03/2011 12:22:00 AM

6 comments:

Ole Whitey said...

This was on the Beatty show in 1954, the year it mounted a daily parade. There is some question about its origin but maybe some blogger knows.

03 February, 2011 00:24
john h said...

I was surprised at Whiteys remark about Beatty doing a dailey street parade in 54. News to me. Never heard a thing about it until just now and I was quite active in those years and would been aware of it.Did it go all season?johnny

03 February, 2011 08:13
Dick Flint said...

This was a supposed Norris & Rowe bandwagon that disappeared for 30 years before resurfacing in 1935 to then be acquired by Houston circus fan Frank Walters. After his death, his close friend Clyde Beatty acquired the bandwagon but it was thought lost in a winterquarters fire at Deming, NM, about 1955. Tom Parkinson, however, reported it being seen at Beatty’s new Jungleland in North Miami Beach shortly after the place opened in Feb 1960.
Dick Flint
Baltimore

03 February, 2011 10:05
Ole Whitey said...

Johnny- Bob Taber took a set of photos of this parade. I sent in one of this wagon and if Buckles wants the rest I will be glad to scan and send.

I doubt if they paraded in every town but I think whenever it could be squared they did. Beatty had a big flatbed- possibly an auto-transport semi- to take several of the parade units overland.

It certainly wasn't a grand parade like James A Bailey staged but it was nearly as good as the ones Floyd King was having about the same time.

03 February, 2011 11:18
Dick Flint said...

After spotty business in the west, the Beatty show cut wages 15% and eliminated the parade in late June of 1954 at Portland, Oregon. The bandwagon, calliope, and other parade equipment had been carried overland on a lowboy trailer. It was felt the parade didn’t meet expectations and, with some long Canadian and western jumps ahead, the overland vehicles might not keep up. Parades had been given in only one of every three stands, generally in towns where the show had auspices and a short jump or when schools were let out. The parade equipment remained stored in Portland until the fall when plans were being made to truck it back to the Deming winterquarters. For the 1955 opening Los Angeles, the Walter bandwagon was used in the opening spec.

Beatty had been given his choice of the Walter wagons in late 1953 after Walter’s death the previous February following a year-long illness. Incidentally, Walter briefly owned some elephants when he bought the Downie herd auctioned in Texas in 1939 which he then sold to Wallace Bros.
Dick Flint
Baltimore

03 February, 2011 12:16
Ole Whitey said...

The Deming winter quarters fire was January 4, 1958, after the show had moved to Deland.

03 February, 2011 15:22

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