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After unloading the equipment, livestock, and
buffalo all the band wagons, pony wagons, covered wagons, cowboys, cowgirls, and Indians
are lined up by the train in preparation for the Grand Parade into town. (1903) |
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#1 Band wagon, Seasons 1903-09 The only known wagon from Pawnee Bill's Wild West show directly traceable to the present is the twenty one feet long by ten feet high red and gold Bandwagon #80. It can still be seen in the annual Great Circus Parade in Milwaukee and at the Circus World Museum in all its restored splendor ! |
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The midway crowds at Benton, Illinois in front
of Pawnee Bill's Indian Museum with the display of colorful hand painted sideshow banners. (October 26, 1903) |
These large color lithograph posters
advertising the show's arrival in town were pasted on fences, barns, billboards, and
businesses.......In 1908 Pawnee Bill bought the financially troubled Buffalo Bill Wild
West show and for the next five years it became known as the "Two Bill's Show"
until finally disbanding in Denver in 1913. An era had ended !
(Posters courtesy of the Circus World Museum, owned by the
State Historical Society of Wisconsin)
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