Stake Driver
Posted By thecircusblog on February 17, 2010
I don’t know who invented the stake driver or when, but it sure helped the circus set up much faster. The stake driver could drive steel or wooden stakes. Steel was used for hard ground, wooden was use for loose or muddy earth. the wood stake was much thicker, made from oak and had a steel rind at the top to keep it from splitting as it was driven into the ground. If you have ever seen a steam pile driver, the circus stake is in principal the same, only it is operated by a small gas engine. Just about every circus had one and most of them were home-made. Before the stake driver, a team of men would surround a stake with sledge hammers and would drive the stakes into the ground ….swinging in a rhythm…one after the other.
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