On eBay Now...🔥 RARE Original Vintage CAMPA BROS Circus Monkeys Lithograph Poster, 1950s For Sale
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🔥 RARE Original Vintage CAMPA BROS Circus Monkeys Lithograph Poster, 1950s:
$975.00
This is a seldomly seen andRARE Original Vintage CAMPA BROS Circus Monkeys Lithograph Poster on Paper, promoting the infamous jinxed circus family of performers, the Campa Brothers of Texas. This poster likely dates to the 1950\'s and reads: \"Campa Bros. Circus\" at the top of the poster, in bold red font. Below, several acrobatic and musical uniformed monkeys can be seen, walking tightropes, playing drums, and banging cymbals. Approximately 23 7/8 x 31 1/2 inches (including frame.) Actual visible artwork is approximately 19 1/4 x 26 3/4 inches. Very good condition for age, with some light creasing, folding marks, speckles of light soiling, and faint material loss, which is visible at the lower left edge (please see photos.) The Campa Brothers Circus, a Mexican American family of performers (seen in photo 24) is notorious in circus history for their ill-fated performances and bad luck. On October 30th, 1951, Maria de la Campa, a young performer from the family, was fatally mauled by a lion during one of their acts. If that wasn\'t bad enough, the rest of the circus departed for Montgomery County, and on the night of October 31st, 1951, during heavy rains, one of their transport vehicles was wrecked and subsequently flipped over, releasing several exotic beasts, including a polar bear, black bear, and two leopards. A desperate hunting campaign ensued, which resulted in nearly all of the expensive circus animals being slaughtered. After the 1950\'s, very little was heard of the Campa Brothers Circus. To this day, the tombstone of Maria de la Campa in the city of Mena is the only tombstone in North America to bear the epitaph, \"killed by circus lion.\" Acquired in Los Angeles County, California. If you like what you see, I encourage you to make an Offer. Please check out my other listings for more wonderful and unique artworks!About this Item:
Circus disasters
March 20, 2016 at 2:19 a.m.
Newspapers throughout the country reported the grim news. TheMena Startold a chilling story: \"Sheriff Hobart Hensley, who was attending the night showing . . . heard the girl scream outside the main tent and investigated and found the lion had dragged the little girl under a truck and had the back of her neck in his mouth. Circus attendants beat the animal with clubs and poles, but the girl was not released until the lion trainer forced the brute\'s mouth open with a stick.\"
The girl, Maria de la Campa, was rushed to the Polk County Memorial Hospital where she died 30 minutes later. The child was the daughter of two tightrope performers who had a total of 13 children. The girl\'s funeral was held the next morning at St. Agnes Catholic Church in Mena. According to the Mena newspaper, \"Although the family was not acquainted in Mena, much interest was shown by local residents who sent flowers and attended the funeral service.\"
Even before the funeral, most of the circus departed Mena, bound for Mount Ida, the county seat of neighboring Montgomery County, where it was scheduled to perform that evening. The circus owner and business manager stayed behind because they had been charged with negligent homicide. Those charges were dropped a few hours after the funeral when it was established that the lion had not been running loose as first reported, but was chained to a truck. Alas, this was not the end of problems facing the circus owners.
A cold rain was falling when the circus departed Mena before sunrise on Wednesday, Oct. 31, in a convoy of trucks. The downpour worsened as the convoy wound its way southward on Highway 270, and at about 7:30 a.m. one of the vehicles turned over, freeing a number of exotic animals.
Initial reports said the escaped animals included the lion which killed the Campa girl; however, that was an error. But the truth was scary enough since the escapees included a huge polar bear, two black bears, and two leopards, as well as a few monkeys. A passing bus driver reported that the polar bear had been injured.
Unfortunately for the animals, Montgomery County was then, as it is today, home to a multitude of heavily armed hunters. Sheriff Wilburn Tidwell of Mount Ida organized a large posse to track down the beasts. It seems that no effort was made to capture the animals alive, although one of the black bears was quickly retrieved by his handler. Later in the day the circus owners did offer a $200 reward for the capture of the polar bear, which was valued at $800.
The first animal killed, a leopard, was shot within 150 yards of the accident site when it appeared on the roadway around 3 p.m. the day of the wreck. State Trooper Clarence Montgomery and posse members John Dunaway of Pencil Bluff and Lem Chambers of Oden \"loosed a volley which killed him instantly,\" according to theArkansas Gazette.
The most dramatic confrontation involved a single hunter, Roiston Fair, who used two dogs to track down the remaining leopard. One of Fair\'s dogs, \"a game little cur,\" was killed during the confrontation. Though shot three times, the leopard charged Fair--who \"used his rifle as a club and finished off the wounded leopard,\" breaking the bolt-action rifle.
The fate of the polar bear was not known for three weeks. Math Singleton, \"a stockman living near Oden,\" dispatched the great white bear with a single shot two days after the wreck. Singleton generously shared the polar bear meat, so it is not difficult to find people who tasted the meat, including my late brother-in-law, Wayne A. Hopper of Pencil Bluff, who recalled it as being tough.
Another Pencil Bluff resident, Billy John Ballentine, recently told me the meat was not only tough but had an exceedingly strong taste. \"It was the sorriest meat I ever put in my mouth,\" he drawled.
BY MELANIE BUCK –
Mena garnered national attention in 1951 with arguably two of the area’s most unique pieces of history that occurred only twelve hours apart. The two accidents rocked what was otherwise a sleepy little section of Arkansas: the death of a 9-year old girl from a circus lion and the escape of a polar bear, leopards, monkeys, a gorilla, and other exotic animals.
It was on the evening of Tuesday, October 30, 1951, that the Campa Brothers Circus had set up their billowing tents full of colorful performances and exotic animals on what is now the site of Bearcat Stadium. Unbeknownst to circus attendees, during the show, a lion was roaming the grounds when the tragedy occurred.
The lion, called ‘tame’ by circus management, had been used in a performance during the show. However, upon completion of his performance, the lion was tied up using a small chain, which it was able to free itself from. When 9-year old Maria V. de la Campa came walking haplessly by, the lion grabbed the girl and pulled her under a truck by the back of her neck. Then Polk County Sheriff Hobart Hensley, who was attending the show, heard screams outside the main tent and investigated. Hensley found the girl still in the clutches of the lion’s jaws. According to reports byThe Evening Star, several circus attendants “beat the animal with clubs and poles but the girl was not released until the lion trainer forced the brute’s mouth open with a stick.”
The lion was immediately caged while Maria was attended by Dr. Henry Rogers, who was also at the show, and transported to Polk County Memorial Hospital, where she was pronounced dead approximately 30 minutes after arrival. She had been “fatally clawed and chewed by a half-grown lion cub following the big cat act shortly after 8 p.m.,” reportedThe Evening Star.
Maria V. de la Campa was the daughter of tight rope performers, Alfonso P. Campa and Mrs. Eloisa V. de la Campa. Maria was survived by her parents, seven sisters, and six brothers, all travelers and/or performers with the circus.
Maria was buried by Geyer Funeral home after a Funeral High Mass ceremony at St. Agnes Catholic Church in Mt. Calvary Cemetery, on Eve Street in Mena, with a tombstone that reads ‘KILLED BY CIRCUS LION.’ It is quite possibly the only tombstone in the United States that has such an inscription. Upon research,The Pulsecould find no other stories, or tombstones, that had similarities.
Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Howard Stone had originally issued two ‘John Doe warrants’, one for the circus manager and one for the trainer in charge of the lions, charging ‘negligent homicide’ in connection with the death of Maria V. de la Campa. “After a hearing at Mena Wednesday, Police judge Clem Brown said there wasn’t sufficient evidence of negligence,” reported theSarasota Herald-Tribune,of Saratosa, Florida, on November 1, 1951.
The next day, on Halloween, around 7:45 a.m., as the Campa Brothers Circus was on its way to perform in Mt. Ida, another accident occurred near Pencil Bluff. In torrential rains, a circus truck carrying several animals wrecked, demolishing the cage and causing the escape of 2 leopards, one polar bear, and two black bears. A gorilla and several monkeys were also reported to be on the loose. A posse was quickly established, and the hunt was on for the capture, dead or alive, of the escaped animals.
News of the events quickly spread nation-wide.The New York Timesreported on November 1, 1951,“Sheriff Wilbur Tidwell of Montgomery County, of which Mount Ida is the seat, said a leopard had been spotted about 100 yards from the scene of the wreck. He reported that nineteen persons shot at the cat and that five hits were registered. The search for the animals was being conducted in bad weather and over urged [rugged] terrain in the Ouachita National Forest section about fifteen miles northwest of Mount Ida. The area is inhabited by native panthers, bears and other wild animals.”
Nationally knownLifemagazine also gave an account of the story in its November 1951 edition, page 58 reads:“Last week a jinx hit the Campa Bros. Circus on tour in Arkansas. First a 9 year old girl was killed by a supposedly tame lion. Next day a big circus truck turned over on the wet roads near Pencil [B]luff and spewed two leopards, two tame black bears, four monkeys and a polar bear into the rough. Sheriff Wilbur Tidwell promptly organized a posse of more than a hundred men armed with rifles and shotguns. Within a few hours after the crash a group of 19 men found one leopard. They all blasted away, but a state trooper, who was using a submachine gun, got credit for the kill. At dawn the next morning lumberjack M.Ralston Fair, 28 year old, stalked the other leopard with a little mongrel pup called Tony and a deer hound. Tony first spotted the leopard and bravely charged it. [H]e was instantly killed. Fair stunned the beast with three quick shots and then clubbed it to death with his rifle. By the week’s end one black bear and a monkey had surrender meekly, but the other animals were still at large. Fair[,] who shot the leopard[,] and gets to keep pelt.”
The state trooper credited with the kill of the first leopard was Arkansas State Highway Patrolman Clarence (Red) Montgomery of Malvern.
The show was never performed at Mt. Ida that day. Some of the animals from the wreck were recaptured and returned to the circus, some were killed by locals, and some were never seen again. Local historian, Harold Coogan, wrote inThe Mena Star, “Some locals in Polk County who spot black panthers from time to time trace these non-native creatures to those circus animals which were never recaptured in 1951.”
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