Bob Cline, is this wagon considered a "cottage wagon." They sure were pretty. Bob did an excellent spread on cottage wagons in April on his excellent blog Bob Cline's Sawdust and Spangles Type cottage wagons in the search bar at the top left of the site for some great pictures and historical documentation.
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Wade,
Yes, this is one of the cottage cages. It isn't an "original" John Robinson cage however. This particular cage came on the scene around 1906, leading us to possibly think that this was built as a replacement to one very similiar in constrution and design. There was a bad train wreck in late 1905 where several cages suffered terribly. The full extent has never really been determined.
( Incidentally, this photo was taken April 28, 1922 in Richmond, Indiana and comes from the Albert Conover collection. Someone on eBay has been wrongly selling this as being taken in Sarnia, Canada. )
While this cage came on the scene around 1906 on the original John Robinson's 10 Big Shows, this was one of only a handful that survived after the show was sold to Mugivan and Bowers in 1916.
I realize this might get confusing as this photo is from the John Robinson Circus. Jerry Mugivan and Bert Bowers wanted the John Robinson title so bad, that they bought the John Robinson's 10 Big Shows equipment and use of title although they couldn't use the John Robinson's 10 Big Shows title ( but did anyway )for $15,000.00 then immediately sold all the equipment to John Warren for $5,000.00 thus making a $10,000.00 investment to procur the John Robinson name.
Ben Wallace somehow met up with this John Warren and bought the equipment and had it taken to Peru. There most of it either rotted away or was burnt in 1921 as Ben Wallace had died by then.
So, this cage and two others made it to the new John Robinson Circus. They all eventually were destroyed in the 1941 burnings at Peru.
I'll send you a few photos.
Bob
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