This photo was in the Bandwagon's Jan. / Feb. 1963 issue. Hagenbeck-Wallace Chair wagon was 18 feet long. It was inventoried at the Peru, IN. winter quarters on January of 1937 bearing the Hagenbeck-Wallace and Forepaugh-Sells title. After the Howard Bary tour of the HW show in 1938 closed, the wagon went out again in 1939 as part of the Great American Circus.
Now closed and looking to disband all equipment, much of the show property ended up at Louis Goebels World Jungle Compound where a lot of the stuff was utilized in movies. All this time the wagon was numbered 89. While the date is not a sure thing, we do know that L.C. Smith of San mateo, CA. bought the Chair wagon # 89 and the Cookhouse water wagon # 54 from Louis Goebel around 1962. He frequently was associated with Horse shows and both of these wagons were re-furbished for these shows. The skyboards were added to accomadate a band on top.
Mr. Smith offered these two wagons for sale in 1973 in the Draft Horse Journal. No one took the offer. He tried to sell them again in 1974-1975 asking $20,000 for the Chair wagon which was now numbered 88. Jerry Booker owned the wagons by 1979 as evidenced by a personal Christmas card.
Chappie Fox got in touch with Jerry Booker and made arrangements for the wagons to come to Circus World where they arrived in Feb. 1981. The #54 wagon was apparently dismantled as no further evidence was found other than a running gear.
( These notes are all taken from the CWM file as documented by Mr. Fred Dahlinger Jr. )
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