Saturday, June 25, 2011

1910's Sells-Floto #6

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Posted by Buckles at 6/25/2011 05:36:00 AM

1 comments:

Roger Smith said...

This is the 27 1/2' spool wagon invented by "Cap" William Hanford Curtis, and first used on Sells-Floto in 1911. The show carried a 160 with three 50s. The canvas was folded to fit, and winched on, incredibly enough, by hand power. In 1912, Curtis adapted a gasoline engine to drive the winch, likely by popular demand. The canvas was un-spooled by horse teams pulling it out where the boys could spread it. So exquisitely designed and perfected were the wagons, Curtis won a patent for them in 1916. The Big Top required two of Cap's spools, and a third for the menagerie. Even though Curtis went to Hagenbeck-Wallace in 1917, and built three spool wagons there, his spools were continued by Sells-Floto through 1928.

Credit Fred D. Pfening, Jr. for these and more extensive details in his article "Mechanization of the Circus--Seat Wagons and Canvas Spools", in BANDWAGON's Nov-Dec 1994 issue.

26 June, 2011 04:04

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