Backyard Circus

"Imagine growing up next door to the Big Top: a huge, musty circus tent outfitted with wooden rings, a laminated ball for the elephant to balance on, cages for chimps, gaily painted circus wagons, and a Palomino Pony that could dance. Living next door to Grace and Arvel Allread, I didn't have to imagine. I just had to hop over the fence." Dave Delgardo, Eden, Indeed: Tales, Truths and Fabrications of a Small Town Boy

Arvel Allread was a musician in both the Army Air Force Band during WWII and the circus. With his wife, Grace Jr., he was with C.R. Montgomery Circus, Robinson Bros., Tom Thumb Circus, before they began their own rare wild animal exhibition, the Great Pan-American Zoological Exhibit, which thrilled and educated children and families on the California Fair circuit, and their Robinson Bros Circus. After retirement, Arvel taught music at various schools in Butte and Glenn Counties in Northern California.

Arvel and Grace introduced their children to such circus luminaries as Clyde Beatty, Big John Strong, and Victor Robbins. They would wake up Saturday mornings to the melodious tones of Arvel playing "Entry of the Gladiators" on his baritone horn, finish the chores by mucking out animal cages, and then play hide-n-seek in a "Backyard Circus" filled with sideshow banners and those 1924 Eagle and Sullivan-built Cole Bros, Walter L. Main, Gentry Bros & Robinson Bros. circus wagons.