| This
is the Clyde Beatty Show (my dad wrote that on
the slide) in 1949. I was in 1st grade at
Midway Elementary and I remember being let out
of class early so I could go. My mom thought
this might be the last chance ever to see a
circus. I think they were set up on Midway
Drive a bit south of Aztec Villa. In the
foreground is my sister, Margaret '59, between
Frances Blumenstock and her dad, David.
Frances was born "deaf and dumb" as it was
called in those days, but eventually learned
to read lips and to speak fairly well and
raised a family. The thing I remember most
about this circus was when a cash prize was
offered to any man who would climb into the
ring and survive some number of minutes with
their muscle-bound wrestler. I couldn't
imagine anybody being so foolish, but a guy
stepped forward. There must have been lions
and tigers, too. Clyde Beatty's fame was built
on getting into a cage with them, but that
didn't impress me as much as the wrestling
proposition -- Bob Richardson '61
Actually, you are close. The
Clyde Beatty Circus used to set up in a
baseball field behind the Big Wheel Auto
store about have a mile east of where the
Sports Arena sits. It was near the old
traffic circle, which is now Rosecrans and
Sports Arena Blvd, then known as Frontier
St. The was a Navy housing project there at
that time, Frontier Housing, where I lived
through 7th grade, before moving to Rolando
Village and Horace Mann. Just east of where
the Sports Arena sits was Frontier
Elementary where I went to school. Some may
remember that the Big Wheel Store was where
the radio DJs would live at the top of pole,
sometimes for a couple of weeks or more as a
publicity thing. As for the Clyde Beatty
Circus -- what I wouldn't give to see one
again! The first human canonball, Dale Evans
and Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, The Cisco
Kid and Pancho, Gene Autry, and of course
the great Clyde Beatty, just to name a few
-- John “Jack” Abernethy '64
I was also at that circus that year. My
grandpa took me down to the tracks to watch
the unloading of everything and then we went
to the site to watch the elephants erect the
big top! Later we went to the shows. It was
obviously very memorable for me. I am quite
pleased that I had the chance to watch
elephants at work like that -- Barbara Bright Wilder ‘62
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Here's a clipping from the
April 21, 1949 San Diego Union.
Frontier is now Sports Arena and Enterprise
is still there. It must have been in
the area between today's SpaWar building
(the old Convair Plant #2) and the Midway
Post Office.
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