Wednesday, May 07, 2014

Extra Beatty Pix #1 (From Buckles)


1949.

Posted by Buckles at 5/07/2014 04:50:00 AM

4 comments:

Ole Whitey said...

Those are the cookhouse wagons coming off first.

07 May, 2014 10:12
Ole Whitey said...

Next behind them is the old Russell big top semi, converted in 1945 to a railshow wagon. It was replaced in 1950.

You can see the pole wagon a couple behind it.

In the old days when crowds showed up to watch the unloading, the pole wagon was the signal to go to the lot as the action would be out there once it arrived.

07 May, 2014 12:01
JIM ELLIOTT said...

I know where the Office Wagon ended up And I believe some wagons ended up on the James E. Strates Shows. Can anyone tell me where most of these wagons ended up? Also, the Run Car is still being used by Strates!

07 May, 2014 14:32
Ole Whitey said...

Jim:

Jim Caldwell counted twenty-six Sparks wagons that were offered for sale including six so-called cross-cages (they didn't load cross-ways), twenty-five of the wagons plus the six cages coming to the 1949 Beatty show.

Over the years several new wagons were built: # 90 Big Top canvas in 1950; # 85 Props in 1952. Four seat wagons and a donniker wagon were added in 1955 using Sparks bases and in one case the body from a Sparks wagon. # 98 was remolded to became the donniker wagon whereas the bases from # 94, #95 # 96 and # 83 apparently went to the new seat wagons with the help of Lewis Diesel.

Several wagons were renumbered and assigned to different departments over the years, adding to the confusion.

After the decision to put the Beatty show on trucks for 1957 a number of wagons were sold but some were kept and converted to truck use.

Strates must have gotten about ten but I don't think they used them all. Years later Strates gave something like eight wagons to the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, I think four of them were former Beatty wagons

Some of these have been restored. Beatty wagon # 31/43 was lettered with the Sparks title and for a time had the # 35 which was not accurate; I believe it is now correctly numbered #32.

No doubt there are mistakes in the above and I'm sure we'll hear about them.

07 May, 2014 16:58

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