The Circus Blog

Posted By thecircusblog on May 24, 2012

Miller Bros air calliope 1926. I think these three are the Miller brothers. The Miller Bros 101 Ranch photos that I am posting along with many if not most of the old circus photos. This is a first time visual event for me. The wonderment and the surprise that I receive when I take an old negative that is falling apart and get something wonderful like this photo. More over to be able to share it with others is truly gratifying.

The famous cowboy actor and show owner Tom Mix may have gotten his start in show business with the Miller Bros 101 in 1910. It is said he was a bronc buster for the show? He was a stock tender at first, then later he broke horses, also rode in the wild horse event. For this he was paid $5 dollars a week food and found. I do know that he was a fine horseman that he learned from his military experience. It later proved to be a great asset in his movie career.

Being a bronc buster is a tough job for a young man from Mix Run, Pa. In 1910 he went to work for Selig handling their horses also some training. Selig was known for it’s zoo and a small silent movie company located in Los Angeles, California.Though out the years Selig grew to be a large motion picture company and Tim Mix grew with it too. Acting parts and also getting involved behind the camera in writing and some directing was found to be a great education for him. Later in 1917 Tom went to work for Fox Studios. The rest is history.

Getting back to the Miller Bros. It is a well known fact that the Miller brothers had a ranch in Oklahoma, consisting of 101 thousand acres hence the name of their show…… Here is the story as told to me by a friend that is a retied Rodeo performer and he happens to be a Cherokee Indian. My friend Ron’s grandfather worked for the Miller brothers for several years and was there when this story came about. It seems that on the 101 Ranch was so large and had so much livestock that the cattle and horses overflowed and mingled with Indian cattle and their horses. In order to separate who owned what,  the Indian nation came up with a brand for their livestock. IO letters not numbers which meant I for Indian O for owned, in short Indian Owned……..It worked for awhile.  The 101 was the ranch brand, IO belonged to the Indians. The 101 ranch cowboys out on the range branded anything that had four legs.  When the brand IO showed up, the cowboys would brand with a straight iron to form a 1, now the brand would read 101 instead of IO.   It did not take too long before the Indian nation in Oklahoma changed their brand to………. I. O. U. Just an inside Indian joke friends………Aho Mitakyuasen

Categories: JACKPOTS, Miller Bros 101 Ranch
Tags: 101Brand, Cattle Ranch, Cherokee Nation, Circus Tickets, Indian Owned, Miller Brother 101 ranch, Ticket sales