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Tom Mix spent time working for circuses ... and he also owned his own traveling show which turned out to be a financial letdown and folded in 1938. There's more info and images in the Tom Mix section on the Old Corral.


(Courtesy of Fred D. Pfening, Jr.)
Tom Mix, circa 1935



(Courtesy of Donn & Nancy Moyer and the Jeannie Blair collection)

Above is a 'route card' (postcard) covering stops during a two week period in the Spring of 1937.



(Courtesy of Fred D. Pfening, Jr.)



(Courtesy of Fred D. Pfening, Jr.)

Above - a calendar check reveals that the combination of Thursday and August 1 occurred in 1935.



Tim McCoy was with the Sells-Floto and Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circuses from 1935 to 1937.  Around late 1937, he began assembling his own Wild West Show.

"Colonel Tim McCoy's Real Wild West Show" opened at Soldier Field in Chicago in April, 1938 and folded about a month later after a performance in Washington D.C. In his book Tim McCoy Remembers the West (Doubleday, 1977), McCoy notes that his losses were about $300,000.00. Info from the Circus Historical Society website: "The McCoy show closed on May 4, 1938, in Washington, D. C. A public auction was held on August 1, 1938 at the B & O Freight Depot, in Washington. The show had been parked on a siding in that location since the closing."



(Courtesy of Fred D. Pfening, Jr.)
 
(Courtesy of Fred D. Pfening, Jr.)



(Courtesy of Fred D. Pfening, Jr.)


(Courtesy of Fred D. Pfening, Jr.)

Above - the well costumed Tim McCoy in 1937
with the Ringling Bros., Barnum & Bailey Circus.



(Courtesy of Lad Moore)
In his later years, McCoy toured with the Doc Tommy Scott Wild West Show as well as the Carson & Barnes circus.

On the left is the "route card" for weeks nineteen and twenty of their 1959 tour. Stops are in Michigan, Indiana and Illinos.

Note the:

Featuring
COL. TIM McCOY
'Real Wild West'




(Courtesy of Fred D. Pfening, Jr.)

1937 was a significant year for TOM TYLER. He and actress Jeanne Martel married in September, 1937. And after wrapping up his eight film series for Sam Katzman's Victory Pictures, Tom signed on with the Wallace Brothers circus and tradepapers indicate his first appearance with the show was in Tomahawk, Wisconsin in July, 1937. Below - Tom and his trusty palomino in a publicity still from that 1937 tour with the Wallace Brothers circus.


(Courtesy of Calvin Castine)



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