Two Hemispheres Bandwagon

This 1910 poster shows the wonders of the coming circus and its great street parade rarities. This poster is from the Tibbals collection at the John and Mabel Ringling Museum of Art.

Two Hemispheres Bandwagon

Here it is in the Granger, Iowa Winter Quarters of Fred Buchanan. This was taken in 1933 and is part of the M.D. McCarter collection.

Two Hemispheres Bandwagon

Here it is in the Granger, Iowa Winter Quarters of Fred Buchanan. This was taken in 1933 and is part of the M.D. McCarter collection.

Two Hemispheres Bandwagon

Here it is in the Granger, Iowa Winter Quarters of Fred Buchanan. This was taken in 1933 and is part of the M.D. McCarter collection.

Two Hemispheres Bandwagon.

The Cole Bros. Circus featured a magnificient Street Parade in the mid 1930s and took full advantage of the grand Bandwagon in their press corps. ( This poster is in the Tibbals collection at the John and Mabel Ringling Museum of Art. )

Two Hemispheres Bandwagon

After its circus days, it became privately owned. Here it is on display at the Iowa State Fair.

Two Hemispheres Bandwagon

A featured mainstay at the Circus hall of Fame in Sarasota, Florida for years, it became the property of John Zweifel when he bought the entire Museum. He still owns it today.

Two Hemispheres Bandwagon

Now on display at the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin inside the Deppe wagon building.

Fred Buchanan winter quarters

Fred Buchanan had been a circus owner for many years. He had the Yankee Robinson show out from 1906 till 1920. He got out of the ownership end for a couple years only to come back out with his World Bros. Circus in 1923. He then changed the title to Robbins Bros. in 1924 and remained out through 1931. As in most cases, the show was broke. Wm. P.. Hall had a lien against most of the show and the Robbins Bros. train rolled into Lancaster, MO to the Hall farm.

Several of the grand parade wagons from years past however were not on the road in 1931 and as a result, they weren't on the train that went to Lancaster. Manny Gunn was fortunate enough to have visited the Granger, Iowa winter quarters in November of 1936 when he took a boat load of photos from the abandoned quarters. Here are a few from over the years. All of the photos from 1936 are some of the Manny Gunn photos.

Fred Buchanan winter quarters

This was taken in 1936.

Fred Buchanan winter quarters

This was taken in 1936.

Fred Buchanan winter quarters

Here is what was left of the Santa Claus float from the Barnum & Bailey series. This was taken in 1936.

Fred Buchanan winter quarters

This was taken in 1936.

Fred Buchanan winter quarters

Joe Rettinger found this old wagon still on the Buchanan property in 1969.

Fred Buchanan winter quarters

Joe Rettinger found this wagon still sitting at the old Buchanan property in 1969 when he took this picture. 

Fred Buchanan winter quarters

There wasn't much left to work with.

Bandwagon 1991 Special

The Circus Historical Society will be offering a huge special on some past editions of the Bandwagon. Each and every special will only be good for two months. The 1990 special has now ended.

We are making the second offering for the entire six issues of 1991. These issues are covered in detail on our website under the Bandwagon Magazine tab, indexes of Bandwagon Articles, then to 1957 to 1999.

These issues are filled with great circus history as authored by Bill Johnston, Joseph Bradbury, Gordon Carver, Orin C. King, John Polacsek, Fred D. Pfening Jr. Mark St. Leon, Stuart Thayer, Ward Hall and more.

Maybe you haven’t been in the CHS for 20 years and would love to read lots more about the circus or maybe you’re looking for that perfect gift already, but you can’t pass up a deal like this.

$25.00

Includes the shipping in the US!

Make your check payable to the C.H.S. and mail it to: Bandwagon Special - 1991, 1075 W. Fifth Ave., Columbus, Ohio 43212 or you can use PayPal on our website at www.circushistory.org

1890

1890 was only the third year the title of Barnum & Bailey was in use. They created a performance that was pure pagentry at it's finest that they called NERO. Their 20 page program consisted of the beautiful foldout shown below, a couple pages of the deigners and dept. heads, then the rest of the program tells all about NERO. Quite an unusual display by today's standards but was grand enough to be packing folks into a 10,000 seat arena.

Having held it in my hands and actually seen it, all I can say is WOW!

1890

This is the Back cover.

1890

This is the beautiful foldout inside the front cover of the Program. It amounts to 4 1/2 pages.