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Rousch Brothers - Aviation Pioneers IL545
Usher -- October 13, 1891 -- April 4, 1941, built his first airplane in 1909. From 1913-1927 he learned to fly, barnstormed, and did stunt flying. Pilot and instructor for Interstate Airline and American Airways 1928-1930 and American Airlines 1930-1939. In 1931 he helped organize Air Line Pilots Association and was secretary from 1934-1939. He was Captain on American Airlines 1930-1931. From 1939-1941 he was a pilot with Taga in Central America. Charles -- March 4, 1896 -- January 21, 1932. Learned to fly WWI. In 1922 he owned his own plane. During 1922-1924 Charles and Berl built 2 Jennys. They barnstormed, operated their own flying circus, performed parachute jumps, and gave exhibition flights. In 1929 Charles became an instructor and a Captain for Universal Airlines also established new routes for this airline. In 1931 he was a pilot for Northwest Airlines. Berl -- October 2, 1900 -- December 12, 1939. Learned to fly in 1922. Helped Charles build two planes in 1923-1924. Active with the Flying circus and barnstorming. From this field the three brothers pioneered in aviation. Original hanger still stands at the north end of this field.
Site of Galloway Farmstead TX11731
Confederate veteran Benjamin Franklin Galloway (1833-1912) And his wife Eliza (Fletcher) (1852-1883) came to Texas from Tennessee in 1872. Their son Bedford Forest is said to have been born in a covered wagon at Duck Creek (Garland) in 1873. They purchased 101 acres in 1874 and Benjamin Galloway erected a cabin where they lived while a two-room house was built. A farmer, he also raised horses, mules and cattle. A second son, Nathan Lemmon, was born in 1876. Twin sons were born in 1883, but they lived only a day, and Eliza Galloway died soon after. Her niece, Clara Gentry, came to live with the family that year. At that time Benjamin had a Blackland Prairie Hay Company. Dallas clients included Tennessee Dairy, Caruth Farm and Ringling Brothers Circus. Benjamin Galloway married Amanda Jane Miller (1848-1938) of Tennessee in 1887 and built a 1½ story addition onto the home place. The structure eventually featured an entrance hall, bedroom, parlor, and a kitchen on the first level, with children's rooms upstairs. A son was born in 1888, but died at birth. Bedford returned home after attending college in Waco and New Orleans and made his living farming, baling hay and ginning cotton. He and his first wife, Nannie Lawrence, had four children. After her death in 1915, he married Bertha Dakan in 1917 and they had two daughters. Bedford was a city alderman, a member of the school board, and served as Mayor of Mesquite from 1927 to 1940. A Galloway descendant restored the house between 1949 and 1950 and built another addition in 1955. Designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1973, the Galloway Home Place was moved from this site to a more rural location in Sunnyvale in an effort to protect it from encroaching urban development.
New Richmond Cyclone WI357
The New Richmond Cyclone of 1899 remains the most disastrous tornado recorded in Wisconsin history. On the hot summer evening of June 12, with little warning and amazing force, a tornado swept through the thriving agricultural community of New Richmond, a city of about 2,000 people. In the tornado's path lay the entire business district, several Victorian neighborhoods and a visiting circus. The destruction was swift and brutal. Within minutes structures collapsed and fires ignited, leaving 117 people dead, another 150 injured, 230 buildings destroyed and over 400 animals lifeless. The next day volunteers began arriving on relief trains followed by medical teams and the state militia. Many tourists thronged to see the destruction; a few came to loot. Despite the grief and loss, most of the surviving New Richmond residents remained in the city and rebuilt their homes, churches and businesses. Five months later the community had over one hundred new buildings.
Harding Circle FL509
In 1923 circus magnate John N. Ringling (1866-1936) purchased St. Armands Key, an uninhabited, 150-acre, oval-shaped island. He planned a community of fine residences with a central circle park surrounded by shops. The park was named in memory of his friend, President Warren Harding (1865-1923). The landscape plan for the island consisting of the central park, boulevards and medians, was designed by a prominent landscape architect, John J. Watson (1876-1950). The development work was done by Ringling's partner, Owen Burns (1869-1937). The grand opening of St. Armands occurred in 1928 when the bridge to the mainland was completed. Lots were sold and subsequently a few homes of Mediterranean and Spanish architecture were built. Although the Depression (1929-1941) halted the progress of his plan, John Ringling's vision was realized with the development of the residential area, beaches and shopping district since 1945. On January 16, 2001, Harding Circle, with its associated medians and boulevards, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places for its unique early community planning and development.
Texas County MO142
Largest of Missouri's 114 counties, Texas comprises 1,183 sq. miles of Ozark Highland. With the same name as the largest of the 48 states, it exceeds the smallest, Rhode Island, by 125 sq. land miles. When formed in 1843, it was named for the explorer, fur trader, and first Lt. Gov. of Mo. William H. Ashley, but when formally organized, 1845, it was renamed for the Republic of Texas. A seat of justice for the county was laid out in 1846 near the center of the county on Brushy Creek and named Houston for the first president of the Texas Republic. In the Civil War, the county was ravished by guerrilla warfare and the town was destroyed. Houston's modern development has been as trading center for a dairying, poultry, and livestock farming and lumbering area. The courthouse, built 1932, is the county's sixth. Rugged hills, springs, and caves abound in Texas County. In the early 1800's William H. Ashley leached saltpeter from bat guano in a cave to the northeast for use in making gunpowder in his factory at Potosi. In 1818, explorer H.R. Schoolcraft visited the cave and named the area Wall-cave Valley. Pioneers came to the Texas County area in the 1820's from Va., Ky., and Tenn., and set up saw mills along Big Piney River. Part of the county is now Mark Twain National Forest. Roamed by Indians into the 1830's, the area was part of the 1808 Osage Indian land cession. Indian paintings remain upon White Rock Bluffs over an ancient campsite. In north Texas County is Licking, platted in 1857, and named for a deer and buffalo lick. There was Licking Academy, a noted early school, founded in 1880's. Congressman J.R. Lamar was academy principal in 1889. South is Cabool, laid out 1882, on the route of the Springfield & Memphis (Frisco) R.R., only town in the county on a railroad. Pioneer educator of the Ozarks, William H. Lynch (1839-1924) was born near Houston. Davis H. Waite later governor of Colorado, taught school in Houston, 1859-60, and John T. White, Mo. Supreme Court Justice in the 1920's, taught here in 1878-79. Confederate Gen. James H. McBride made his home in the county, and on a farm near Houston, Emmett Kelly, creator of the famed circus clown, "Weary Willie," spent his boyhood.
Delavan's Circus Colony WI128
In 1847 two New York brothers, Edmund and Jeremiah Mabie, toured Wisconsin with their United States Olympic Circus. The circus stopped over in Delavan and the brothers took time off to hunt prairie chicken near Delavan Lake. They liked the area so well that they purchased 400 acres of land and established winter quarters for the circus here. Because this circus was the largest and most profitable in existence, circus performers and other show personnel flocked to Delavan. Twenty-six circuses winter-quartered here between 1847 and 1894, including Harry Buckley's National Circus and Roman Hippodrome, W. C. Cour-Dan Castello's Egyptian Caravan, Holland and McMahon World's Circus. The colorful days of the circus era in Delavan ended with the E. G. Holland and Co. Railroad shows. In 1871 the idea for forming the P.T. Barnum Circus was developed in Delavan by W. C. Coup, who also was first to put a large circus on rails and introduced the second and third ring to the performance. Delavan reached its peak as a "circus town" during the 1870's. About seventy members of the "circus colony" are buried in Spring Grove and St. Andrew's cemeteries.
Covered Bridges in Missouri MO57
Covered bridges have existed for nearly all of man's recorded history. Ancient Babylonians are credited with having erected the first such structure over the Euphrates River about 783 B.C.. It continued to be a popular bridging method with similar bridges becoming common throughout Medieval Europe. Yet, it was not until 19th century America that the covered bridge idea reached it highest degree of use and design variation. At the turn of the century, the steel and iron industry began to boom in the United States. It greatly influenced bridge design. Engineers began to rely less on wooden bridge structures and more on modern metals. Combined with heavier rail and truck shipments and higher levels of traffic, wooden bridges became obsolete. The few wooden bridges that remained were often bypassed with new roads and metal bridges. In Missouri, the covered bridge was first used in the 1850s when roads, railroads and overland transportation in general became a practical and important mode of travel. The first covered bridge in the state was built in 1851 in Boone County over Perche Creek on the Boone's Lick Trail. Eventually, 30 covered bridges were built in Missouri. Most of these were constructed in northern Missouri in the years just after the Civil War. The ravages of time and progress took their toll on Missouri's covered bridge population. Fire, flood, abandonment or re-routing of once heavily used roadways and simple neglect left only eight covered bridges in the state in 1958; today only four are still standing. In the 1800s and the early 1900s, posters were an important means of advertising that lined the roadways much like billboards do today. The covered bridge, because of the protection it offered, became a prime spot for these richly colored advertisements. Posters advertised everything from the latest miracle cure to the newest sewing machine, from the big circus coming to town and the best turnip seeds.
Ringling Brothers Circus WI42
"The Greatest Show on Earth" was born and grew to maturity in Baraboo, just north of here. When the five Ringling brothers gave the first performance of their "Great Double Shows, Circus and Caravan," May 19, 1884, the main tent was 45 by 90 feet. There was no band wagon, no menagerie. The menagerie was started in 1886, wit a hyena advertised as the "Hideous Hyena Striata Gigantium, the Mammoth, Midnight Marauding, Man-Eating Monstrosity." After traveling in horse-drawn wagons for six seasons, the circus became the "Ringling Bros. United Monster Railroad Shows." Until 1918 the circus wintered in Baraboo, where many of the winter-quarters still stand. From humble beginnings, a little hallroom show became the mightiest and most spectacular organization in the entertainment world.
The Circus WI178
Wisconsin has a unique heritage as the birthplace of circuses. More than a hundred had their beginnings in Wisconsin, with Delavan providing winter-quarters for twenty-six between 1847 and 1894. New York brothers Edmund and Jeremiah Mabie brought their United States Olympic Circus to Delavan in 1847, and the idea for P.T. Barnum's Asiatic Caravan was developed in Delavan by William Cameron Coup in 1871. In Baraboo the Ringling Brothers' World Greatest Shows began in 1884, followed by the five Gollmar Brothers' Circus in 1891. Each of the communities on the map was the home of at least one circus. Today, thousands of items recalling the exciting and colorful history of the circus are preserved in a vast complex 15 miles from here, at Baraboo's Circus World Museum, opened by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin in 1959.
Seils-Sterling Circus WI243
Near this site the Lindemann Brothers Circus gave its first performance in 1918. Well established by 1925, the Lindemanns adopted the name Seils-Sterling, and their circus became one of the country's greatest motorized shows. In 1937 its 29- week itinerary included stops in 10 states, but the depression of the 1930s led to the end of Seils-Sterling's travels. The final performance was in Iron Mountain, Michigan, July 4, 1938. In 1965 the Lindemann brothers-Bill, Al and Pete-were enshrined in the Circus Hall of Fame at Sarasota, Florida. Display # 1 - 10 of 30 |