| Sells Floto Circus | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Origin | |
| Country | United States |
| Information | |
| Operator(s) | Frederick Gilmer Bonfils |
| Fate | Incorporated into the American Circus Corporation by 1929 |
| Type of acts | Buffalo Bill Cody |
The Sells Floto Circus was a combination of the Floto Dog & Pony Show and the Sells Brothers Circus that toured with sideshow acts in the United States and Canada during the early 1900s.
Frederick Gilmer Bonfils and Harry Heye Tammen owned the first outfit as well as the Denver Post, and the "Floto" name came from the Post's one-time sportswriter, Otto Floto. [1]
The Sells Floto circus absorbed Buffalo Bill's Wild West shows, and the Sells Brothers Circus, it was also a "combined" show. It later became the concessions department of Ringling Brothers Circus, along with Haggenback Wallace, who made the floats and other equipment.[ citation needed ]
The circus had four elephant births, three born to "Alice" and one to "Mama Mary." The sire of all four was "Snyder." None survived longer than five months. [2]
By 1929, the Sells Floto Circus was part of the American Circus Corporation which consisted of Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus, the John Robinson Circus, the Sparks Circus, and the Al G. Barnes Circus. John Nicholas Ringling then bought American Circus Corporation for $1.7-million creating a monopoly of traveling circus in America. [3]
On April 17, 1908, the Sells-Floto circus appeared in Riverside CA. When the animals were ushered off the train, a vapor flashback explosion occurred at the adjacent oil storage tank. This frightened the animals, and led to an elephant stampede into downtown Riverside, leaving one person dead and six others injured. [4] [5]
Feld Entertainment later used the Sells-Floto name for their supply division, located in Laurel, MD, that provided logistical support for all of the Feld shows for supplies and merchandise, including not only the three units of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, but the numerous On Ice shows (Disney on Ice, Ice Follies, etc.). This unit has since been renamed Feld Consumer Products.[ citation needed ]
A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclists as well as other object manipulation and stunt-oriented artists. The term circus also describes the field of performance, training and community which has followed various formats through its 250-year modern history. Although not the inventor of the medium, Newcastle-under-Lyme born Philip Astley is credited as the father of the modern circus.
The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, also known as the Ringling Bros. Circus, Ringling Bros., the Barnum & Bailey Circus, Barnum & Bailey, or simply Ringling, is an American traveling circus company billed as The Greatest Show on Earth. It and its predecessor have run shows from 1871, with a hiatus from 2017 to 2023. They operate as Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. The circus started in 1919 when the Barnum & Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth, a circus created by P. T. Barnum and James Anthony Bailey, was merged with the Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows. The Ringling brothers purchased Barnum & Bailey Ltd. in 1907 following Bailey's death in 1906, but ran the circuses separately until they were merged in 1919.
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College was an American circus school which trained around 1,400 clowns in the "Ringling style" from its founding in 1968 until its closure in 1997.
Kenneth Jeffrey Feld is the CEO of Feld Entertainment, which operates the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, Disney on Ice, Doodlebops Live, Disney Live, Monster Jam, International Hot Rod Association, and AMA Supercross Championship. He is also the producer of several Broadway plays. The business was started by his father Irvin Feld who also promoted Beatles concerts. Ken became CEO of the company upon his father's death in 1984.
Irvin Feld was a business entrepreneur who built a chain of record stores, promoted rock groups, produced concerts involving some of the biggest names in popular music. Feld was the person responsible for creating the ill-fated 1959 Winter Dance Party Tour throughout the American Midwest that included Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. Richardson, aka The Big Bopper. The tour route was poorly planned, zig-zagging across the Midwest in arctic weather in an old school bus that kept breaking down, eventually prompting Buddy Holly to privately hire a small plane to transport him to his next gig. Feld was also the head of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and founder of Feld Entertainment. He was a music promoter who is credited with discovering Paul Anka.
The Center for Elephant Conservation (CEC) is a 200-acre (0.81 km2) breeding farm and retirement facility for elephants in Polk City, Florida, opened in 1995. The CEC is solely sponsored by Feld Entertainment, the holding company which operated the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus from the 1960s until 2017.
The Hagenbeck–Wallace Circus was a circus that traveled across America in the early part of the 20th century. At its peak, it was the second-largest circus in America next to Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. It was based in Peru, Indiana.
John Nicholas Ringling was an American entrepreneur who is the best known of the seven Ringling brothers, five of whom merged the Barnum & Bailey Circus with their own Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows to create a virtual monopoly of traveling circuses and helped shape the modern circus. In addition to owning and managing many of the largest circuses in the United States, he was also a rancher, a real estate developer and art collector. He was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame in 1987.
Circus World was a theme park built north of Haines City, Florida in Polk County, on the south-east corner of the Interstate 4-US 27 interchange. It was originally a property of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus Combined Shows Inc., and was intended additionally to be the circus's winter headquarters as well as to have the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College and its museum located there.
Tyke was a female African bush elephant from Mozambique who performed with Circus International of Honolulu, Hawaii. On August 20, 1994, during a performance at the Neal Blaisdell Center, she killed her trainer, Allen Campbell, and seriously injured her groomer, Dallas Beckwith. Tyke then ran from the arena and through the streets of the Kakaʻako central business district for more than thirty minutes. Unable to calm the elephant, local police opened fire on the animal, which collapsed from the wounds and died. While the majority of the attack in the arena was recorded on consumer videotape by several spectators, additional professional video footage captured the attack on local publicist Steve Hirano and the shooting of Tyke herself.
Otto Griebling was a German-born circus clown who performed for many years with the Cole Brothers and Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circuses. He was one of four clowns given the title Master Clown by Irvin Feld.
Walter Paul "Woody" English was an American composer, conductor, and tubist.
Charles Edward Duble was an American band musician and composer. He played for 23 years in circus bands.
Frederick Gilmer Bonfils was an American businessman and publisher who, alongside Harry Heye Tammen, owned The Denver Post, the Kansas City Post, and the Sells Floto Circus.
The American Circus Corporation consisted of the Sells-Floto Circus, the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus, the John Robinson Circus, the Sparks Circus, and the Al G. Barnes Circus. It was owned by Jerry Mugivan, Bert Bowers and Ed Ballard. They sold the company in 1929 to John Nicholas Ringling for $1.7 million. With that acquisition, Ringling owned virtually every traveling circus in America.
Feld Entertainment Inc. is an American live show production company which owns a number of traveling shows. The company began with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus then expanded into additional live events, including Disney on Ice, Monster Jam, Monster Energy AMA Supercross, and Sesame Street Live. The company is family owned.
Al G. Barnes Circus was an American circus run by Alpheus George Barnes Stonehouse that operated from 1898 to 1938.
John H. Robinson created the John Robinson Circus, whose winter quarters were in Terrace Park, Ohio.
Heinrich "Harry" Heye Tammen was an American journalist, publisher, and businessman. He worked alongside Frederick Gilmer Bonfils and co-owned The Denver Post, the Kansas City Post, and the Sells Floto Circus.
Otto Clement Floto was an American sports journalist and sports promoter who worked as a sportswriter for the The Denver Post. Floto was the namesake for the Sells Floto Circus, which Floto promoted.
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