Great Detective work # 4

As a finished photo, the entire objective was to celebrate the Ringling's 50th Anniversary in 1933. RBBB didn't have 50 elephants on the show and none of their corporation shows were close to Chicago, so some advertising magic was created by the Press staff headed up by none other than Roland Butler. Using the three photos above, this became the infamous 50 elephant photo.

Ironically, in 1954, RBBB had imported and / or bought enough baby elephants to actually own over 50 elephants. By 1955, they took 52 elephants on the road with two of them, Cass and Adele, being out front doing advance work. 3 of the senior members, Eva, Jenny, and Jewel, remained in winter quarters when they were sold in September to Charles Garvin in Bowling Green, KY.

And so, due to the craftsmanship of Mr. Butler, he took the 1925 lot photo as the background, added the sidewalled elephants on the top and then filled in with the same elephants taken from a different angle to magically create the infamous 50 elephant photo. All of this was done with actual photos and razor blades. There was no such thing as computers and photoshop back then. When it says cut and paste, they actually did it.

Great job Steve. Thanks for allowing me to share this with the rest of the world!