WAYBACK MACHINE

Jim Albanese: Hippos, circus acts tickled fancy
from:  thecalifornian.com
Written by, JIM ALBANESE , wayback machine
July 1, 2013
I get inquiries all the time from readers who want to know about “firsts” in Salinas and Monterey County: Jim, when did Salinas get its first telephones?

I dunno. Probably around 1877 or 1878.

Who was the first person in Salinas to own an automobile and when?

Don’t know. Probably someone with a fair amount of money around 1902.

What was the first moving picture shown in Salinas?

Beats me. Probably Edison’s “Great Train Robbery” around 1905.

Jim, what do you know, probably?

Well, I’ve got the real scoop on a significant “first,” something you’ll never read about in a textbook, historical work or any other newspaper. And no “probably” about it:

The first hippopotamuses to ever grace a Monterey County mud hole did so in Salinas on Sept. 25, 1888. “They are big, brilliant and bewildering,” alliterated the publicists for Sells Brothers Circus about the traveling menagerie’s show-stopping act.

And the hippos — after the fashion of Noah’s cargo, a male and female pair — were among the most valuable creatures on Earth. “(We) declined a proffer of $40,000 for them just recently,” the circus flier said.

But a circus cannot live by hippopotami alone. This one had some unique human acts, including the Gelford Brothers. The Gelfords practiced an art that reached its zenith on the vaudeville stage in the late 1910s then quickly declined, as moving pictures became the public’s entertainment genre of choice. They were posers.

Call someone a “poser” today, and you’re not necessarily complimenting them. But in 1888, posing as a statuesque work in marble — and holding the pose for the better part of an hour — was high-class stuff.

For those who preferred their entertainment to be mobile, the circus featured a virtual cavalry unit of fancy horse riders. Adelaide Cordona and Viola Rivers were bareback trick riding specialists.

William M. O’Dell stood astride two horses while driving 21 other steeds around a mile-long hippodrome track, straddling the bare ground as it sped beneath him. Most people of that era interacted with equines on a daily basis, so their appreciation of O’Dell’s control of 23 beasts at one time probably was greater than their curiosity about the hippos.
read more:
http://www.thecalifornian.com/article/20130701/NEWS01/307010013/Jim-Albanese-Hippos-circus-acts-tickled-fancy?nclick_check=1