This is the bally on Mabel Mack’s Wild West Show playing at the Toronto, Ontario Exposition with the great Johnny J. Jones Show in 1923.
The Johnny J Jones Show is my all-time favorite historical show because old Johnny always carried the newest, most advanced rides that no one else had and insisted that his shows were a caliber above all the rest when it came to presentation and content.
I think this Wild West Show fits that bill nicely, don’t you?
Mabel Mack’s Wild West Show’s massive 2 story front and all the actors and animals, as well as the seats, top, and all the accessories that had to do with this particular show, had to be moved every Saturday night to meet the Sunday morning train that waited for no one. No lightweight aluminum or fiberglass here; this front was all steel, oak, lath, and plaster. And consider that this was just one show among the fifteen or more that Jones always carried in the big spots. Oh, to be a witness to that long-gone spectacle!
I wonder who could move a show like this today, or even where the labor would come from to do so if anybody even had the ambition?
Incidentally, this photo was on a postcard donated to the museum by Joe Pearl and his wife Anna, who were over on the Royal American Shows for decades, and is numbered # 26.
