The Circus "NO SPIN ZONE": 01/04/13

Ghost Zoo--Benson's Wild Animal Farm Revisted

Ghost Zoo--McKee Jungle Gardens Vero Beach, Fla.

1939

2010

In 1922, the McKee-Sexton Land Company was established in Vero Beach, Florida. This partnership purchased an 80-acre tropical hammock along the Indian River in 1929 and McKee Jungle Gardens was born.
With the help of landscape architect William Lyman Phillips, now known as the pioneer of tropical landscape architecture, the basic infrastructure of streams, ponds and trails was designed. Native vegetation was augmented with ornamental plants and seeds from around the world as Arthur G. McKee and Waldo E. Sexton set about assembling one of the most outstanding collections of water lilies and orchids.
By the 1940's more than 100,000 tourists were visiting McKee Jungle Gardens each year, making it one of Florida's most popular attractions. In the early 1970's, attendance dwindled due to competition from new large-scale attractions and the garden was forced to close its doors in 1976.
The land was sold and all but 18 acres were developed. The remaining acreage, zoned for additional development, sat vacant for twenty years. In 1994, the Indian River Land Trust launched a fund-raising campaign and successfully purchased the property on December 1, 1995 for $1.7 million.
Close to $9.1 million was raised to purchase, stabilize and restore the Garden. The Garden held its formal Dedication November, 2001.

White Horse Troupe Naper, Nebraska

Serrano

The Huntington Beach Independant
Chris Epting
June 6, 2011

A horse is a horse, of course, of course/ and no one can talk to a horse, of course/ that is, of course, unless the horse is the famous … Serrano.
For decades, he mystified and thrilled audiences, displaying psychic feats of unparalleled ability. Billed variously as "The World's Best Educated Horse" and "The Psychic Horse with the College Education," the equine known as Serrano was a worldwide legend through the 1940s and '50s, guessing ages, unscrambling words, finding objects under boxes and picking objects by color.
Born along the banks of the Santa Ana River in the 1940s, Serrano was quite the celebrity back then. He appeared on the TV show "You Asked for It" and continuously toured county and state fairs all over the country, making as much as $1,000 a day from people who thought they could stump him. A popular contest was to ask an audience member to step forward and concentrate hard on his own age. Then, using numbered blocks, the great Serrano would choose the two that matched the participant's age.

Owned by local farmer and horseman Clint Brush, Serrano wound up becoming a popular feature act at Knott's Berry Farm, performing there throughout the 1950s and '60s, back when Knott's featured other charming attractions such as the organ grinder, the seal pool, the bee exhibit, glow-in-the-dark rocks and the glow-in-the-dark Jesus from the Church of Reflections.
But some of you might remember that Serrano lived right here in Huntington Beach, at the Brush barn at Beach Boulevard and Heil Avenue.
Craig Hoxie, a Huntington Beach crime scene investigator who grew up in the area, remembers meeting Serrano at Knott's.
"When I was about 7, in the late 1960s, they picked me out of the crowd for Serrano to guess my age," he said. "And he did it! He counted off my age correctly by scratching his hoof into the dirt. I didn't see my dad signal my age. It was a great show and I'm still not sure how he did it.
"My brother used to deliver papers to the Brush home in the early '70s and he remembers seeing Serrano there all the time."
Rudy Gartner, an HB traffic parking control officer, also remembers stopping by to see Serrano.
"They had a big sign on the barn that advertised 'Serrano — The World's Most Educated Horse,'" he said. "As I remember, the property stretched over about to where Norms Restaurant is today."