 Canvas superintendent William H. “Cap” Curtis built the first spool wagon for Sells-Floto in 1911. It was hand-cranked the first year but in 1912 a gasoline engine was added which can be seen in this photo taken about 1915. Curtis filed for a patent on August 25, 1913, that was later granted. Among else, Curtis noted that it would “cause any water which may be in the canvas to be pressed out … thus greatly lessening the weight of the canvas for purposes of transportation.” Curtis also claimed that his new method made unnecessary “the necessity of folding and dragging the canvas upon the ground to be loaded or unloaded from the wagon, thus greatly prolonging the life of the canvas.” Since the spool is positioned at right angles to the wheels, it would seem to me that more dragging might take place then when baled. In 1946 Kelly Miller himself built the first spool for a truck show and since it could move in line with the folded canvas, spooled canvas would seem to be a far more practical concept for a truck show. Soon thereafter, trucks shows steadily adopted the concept but it seems to have gone the way of the canvas tent and the dodo bird. Dick Flint Baltimore  |
Thursday, August 18, 2011
From Richard Flint
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8 comments:
Wayne Sanguin.
Chester Cleary(sp) was also involved with Wayne Sanguin, I stopped by his machine shop in Hugo during the mid-seventies.
Erik Jaeger
Who is this Wayne Sanguin????? Hows he connected to Mr. Curtis???
Wayne had a machine shop in down town Hugo, Oklahoma not far from the Webb Hotel.
Aside from building circus equipment, he and D.R. were close personal friends.
Stands to reason that D.R. brought up the subject of the Curtis canvas spool and how the canvas was damaged from being drug back and forth from the vehicle.I was told that Wayne suggested something like the spool used by
Companies to dispense telephone cable whereby the vehicle would move back and forth to and from the canvas.
I was also told that Wayne had the finished version patented. He built canvas spools for about every show that came out of Hugo as wall as a few shows in Florida.
My dad asked D.R. to have a metal globe made for an elephant to roll since a wooden globe didn't last long. Wayne contacted the County Surveyor who outlined diagrams on sheet metal that when cut and bent made a perfect ball like reusing the peelings from an orange.
D.R. had his own air plane that he parked in a field behind his house, he managed to talk a reluctant Wayne Sanguin into flying down to Miami for the Orange Bowl.
Jimmy Rossi and me thought it odd that D.R. returned alone.
Later we saw Wayne and asked how he enjoyed his flight and he said that while crossing the Gulf of Mexico they became enveloped in a thick fog. Never one to hold confidence in instruments, D.R. decided to descend beneath the fog for a look-see. Wayne said he suddenly felt this tremendous shock and quickly realized thay had actually bounced off the water.
Jimmy asked him about the OU football game and he replied, "What game! I caught the next bus home!"
You may have noticed I only have about four or five stories but I change the names and manage to get by. I mean if Buckles can rehash the Concello story, why not me?
This has nothing to do with Cap Curtis and only remotely relates to canvas spools but every time I hear Wayne Sanguin's name I think of this. And tell it.
Many years ago I was sitting in the cafe across the street from Wayne's place with a character called Arizona Jack Gagne. While we were enjoying the eggs another young Barnum came in really dressed to the nines. He sat down next to me facing Jack across the table and proudly announced, "Now this is how real showmen dress."
What this newcomer didn't know was that Jack could see Dorey Miller across the street in Wayne's lot and he responded, "No, that's not what real showmen wear; they wear rubber boots and an old torn raincoat and a beat-up hat." Of course Jack was describing what Dorey had on at the time.
This sort of caught our friend off guard but he didn't say much. In a few minutes Dorey came over to get out of the weather with a cup of coffee and Jack was able to say, "See? I told you that's how real showmen dress!"
Now doesn't this story get better every time you hear it?
Thanks Richard maybe that 1st
wagon was draaaaaged across the
lot sideways by 4 or 6 elephants
I'm sure the premise of the long
spool was to have fewer folds
I remember Johnny telling me
when he goty his 1st vinyl top
that it was like packing a wet
tent every night
Wayne Sanguin and Kelly Miller were co-patentees of the spool truck. Rationally it would seem that Sanguin brought the requisite mechanical and fabrication talent to the effort. His name is given first, if that means anything. The patents referenced by the examiners relate to electrical cable spools and such. Sanguin and Miller earned patent 2,536,571 on January 2, 1951 [applied for on December 13, 1949]. See: http://www.google.com/patents?id=OHxeAAAAEBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=patent:2536571&hl=en&ei=YNdOTpyzDISCsgKv1JnFBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA
Their first spool truck apparatus, on a later chassis, is in Baraboo.
The Curtis spools were also used to erect all of the big top center poles on Sells-Floto simultaneously. That must have been judged to be too risky a maneuver, but it was done. Photographs exist documenting the task.
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