Sells Floto Circus
Origin
CountryUnited States
Information
Operator(s)Frederick Gilmer Bonfils
FateIncorporated into the American Circus Corporation by 1929
Type of actsBuffalo 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.

History

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]

Advertising publication for the circus performance in Denver. At head of caption title: "Denver. Tents at 'Union Park' on Broadway Loop. 2 days, Tuesday and Wednesday, June 16 and 17."

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.

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.

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.[2]

On April 17, 1908 the Sells-Floto circus appeared in Riverside CA and while the animals were ushered off of the train a vapor flashback explosion occurred at the adjacent oil storage tank which frightened the animals. There was an elephant stampede into downtown Riverside with 1 dead and 6 injured.[3][4]

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.

Alternate names

  • Sells-Floto Circus, Harry Tammen and Fred Bonfils, proprietors
  • Sells-Floto Circus & Buffalo Bill's Wild West
  • Sells-Floto Circus, John Ringling, proprietor
  • Sells-Floto Circus & Buffalo Bill's Wild West
  • Sells-Floto Circus, American Circus Corp., proprietor

Members

  • During the 1914–1915 seasons, the circus featured Buffalo Bill Cody.
  • Novelist and cookbook author Isabel Moore's "first career" was as a trapeze artist with Sells Floto ca. 1928. She took the job because she had "courage, but no brains."[5]
  • Pasqual Piñón, (1889–1929), known as "The Two-Headed Mexican", was a performer with the Sells-Floto Circus in the early 1900s.
  • In 1919, professional boxer Georges Carpentier exhibited his boxing skills with the Sells Floto Circus for ten weeks at the rate of $2,000 a week.[6]

References

  1. ↑ Johnston, Winifred (1935). "PASSING OF THE 'WILD WEST': A Chapter in the History of American Entertainment". Southwest Review. 21 (1): 33–51. ISSN 0038-4712.
  2. ↑ "Bailey and the Ringlings". Feld Entertainment. Archived from the original on 2008-06-11. Retrieved 2008-07-21.
  3. ↑ "Los Angeles Herald 17 April 1908 — California Digital Newspaper Collection". cdnc.ucr.edu. Retrieved 2023-11-04.
  4. ↑ Aaron Maggs; Allison Maggs (2022). Fire, Wind, and the Sells-Floto Circus. Riverside, CA: Mission Inn Foundation History Research Committee. pp. 4–24. ISBN 9798846310100.
  5. ↑ " 'Other Woman' Inspires Book," Brookfield Courier (New York), July 21, 1949.
  6. ↑ White Hopes and Other Tigers, John Lardner, J. B. Lippincott Company, 1951
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