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The Circus Blog by Ivan M. Henry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.thecircusblog.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.thecircusblog.com.
Bill and Trudy Strong
Posted By thecircusblog on July 16, 2010
I just got this photo from the late Gil Grays daughter, Mary Gray Fraser. It saddens me to say that we also lost Bill Strong Oct 18,2009. I never met Bill personally but though our show blogs and our exchanging comments, we became good friends. I miss his humble honesty.
J.E. Henry Big Show
Posted By thecircusblog on July 11, 2010
Back in the late 1800’s grandfather would lead his parade with Gyp and circus band seen here. At that time he had no vehicles, they moved the show by horse and wagon. Much of the livestock was herded from town to town. It was not until the early 1900’s when he started to use Model T’s and converted wagons into fifth wheel trailers. J.E. Henry and his father Robert Henry started a small ” Mud Show” circus around 1875. There is an update, as of 9/2/11 as new information has surfaced. This photo was taken somewhere around I902, not 1913 as many believe. Info thanks to Donald Richmond.
J. E. Henry’s Big Show
Posted By thecircusblog on July 11, 2010
J.E. was no longer a “Wagon Mud Show.”A circus parade that was some what different. Grandfather wanted to look modern so he pulled all of the circus wagons with autos instead of horses. He was in his “hay-day” at this time. Most of the horses were trained and used in the show. Trained liberty horse acts were not used for pulling wagon or work. Those days were over.
It was confirmed by Judy Kay Jacobs that my grandfather had the first motorized circus. All the larger circuses traveled by train.
The Big Show Posters
Posted By thecircusblog on July 11, 2010
Look out farmers….. here comes granddad. Any barn, fence or anything that stood still would get papered. The side of this barn must be seventy feet long. It must have cost grandfather at least twenty circus tickets to paper this barn. Here again J.E. was staying ahead of the curve in his advertising by using the verbage “Big Show” as it kind of set him apart from other circuses. The competition was fierce in those days and you needed an edge. In the left of this photo one can see J. E. Henry and his fixer who was also his front end man.
Mary Henry
Posted By thecircusblog on July 11, 2010
This photo is of my mother and was taken on the Badley Bros Circus, a railroad show in Canada. Dad and Mon left grandfather’s circus for one season and took their rolling globe and trained dog acts. She also sang in the production numbers. My mother was born in Canada and this gave her the chance to visit with her family once again. Photo 1938.
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