From Buckles Blog--Sells Floto Stampede 1926
The Sells-Floto Circus had an incredible number of elephant stampedes throughout the history of the show. There is a description of this incident in Cranbrook, British Columbia, detailed in the Bandwagon Magazine.
In a nut shell, a number of elephants ran off the lot and by the time the show left town, two of them "Charlie Ed" and "Myrtle" remained out in the Canadian Rockies.
Boss elephant man James Dooley remained with the show but left several of his assistants behind to continue the chase with the aid of Indian guides.
Is that "Tommy" above doing the cross mount on the left? Note the martingale around his shoulders. Is that a younger male on the right, who looks like he has only one tusk? Did "Snyder" have both tusks?
From Buckles Blog--Bill Emery #4
TOMMY
1922-28 Sells-Floto Circus
1929-34 Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus
1935 Al G. Barnes Circus
(After the death of his keeper, he was returned to Peru and shot by Police Chief Edward Hobbs 8/22/35.)
- Bob Cline said...
What was the girth belt for?
- Buckles said...
It's a martingale.
You can connect a short chain from the ring on his tusks to a spot on the girth belt between his legs which prevents him from raising his head to attack people or other elephants.
I wonder who's cage string that is in the back ground? Was "Ted Nelson" any relation to the great horse trainer, Paul Nelson?
The cage string in the background was the winter cages. That was a permanent fixture. You can see where the existing structure had been torn down so the cages weren't there originally.
ReplyDeleteBob
Bob,
ReplyDeleteDo you have a different email? I tried to send a file to you at the 5 tiger one and it bounced back.
Wade