Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Carson & Barnes Out West! #1


4_29circus1w, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

I received several eMails regarding the recent flying act accident with C&B, all contained these same two pictures.
Elephants look pretty glitzy compared to the last Juliette and Nicole offering.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

All that sparkle on the elephants and girls. You would think the trainer could put on a costume.

Harry Kingston said...

Buckles,
Barbara Byrd told me in March it took 4 months of hard work to make 1 blanket.
And Barbara did most of the sewing on the road.
Harry in Texas

Jeff Swanson said...

Does anyone know approximately how many total elephants Byrd owns. Also I would be interested in knowing the total number of elephants Big Bertha has both on the road and at Feld's Elephant Day Care Camp in Florida.

JIM ELLIOTT said...

Harry; Barbara was making a blanket, last Aug.(2010) when I visited in Ohio.
As for the "trainer", he should live up to the nickname Rex Williams gave him, years ago. That name being " HOLLYWOOD".

Chic Silber said...

I believe the "Hollywood" moniker

was in reference to sunglasses

& not the snazzy attire

Anonymous said...

Jeff - this may help - check out dans site

http://www.elephant.se/location2.php?location_id=289

Anonymous said...

I asked John Walker two weeks ago when Cole Bros. played Harrisonburg, Va., how many elephants carson & Barnes owned, ands he replyed "around 40". Can this be verified.

Sam said...

As anonoymous pointed out the data base lists 18 current. In 1975 C & B had 51.

Buckles said...

D.R. once told me that due to the impending Federal Animal Legislation he was going to stock up on elephants. And he did.
In 1973 Carson & Barnes and the two Ringling Units all carried 18 elephants.
And for the next 21 years and probably longer, Carson & Barnes had the largest herd with one circus in the country (I stopped keeping lists in 1994).
The peak was 1978 and '77 with 33 elephants.

Buckles said...

The above should say 1976-77.
I have heard claims of larger numbers but I went with the names and ages presented at the time.

Sam said...

1976 was the American Bi-Centennial. It was also the 50th anniversary of something significant to Mr. Miller. His goal was to accumulate 50 elephants, and he did it by 1975 with 51. We have a number of pictures taken in Des Moines, Iowa. 51 are easily identified and counted.

Buckles said...

Piffle! Piffle! and several Poohs!

Chic Silber said...

Amazing what can be done with

Photo Shop these days

How many elephants would you like

Some newspaper in Brooklyn just

took Hillary Clinton out of the

photo showing the President & all

of the top security folks looking

at the Bin Laden excursion on TV

They took some heat for it