A relic from the 1939 World's Fair somehow ended up here--we suspect that this may belong to Newcastle resident Joe Bailon.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Thing You Might See On The Corner of Taylor & Old State Hwy
We're talking Newcastle CA, where the Central Pacific Railway first began operations in 1864. Though today's post is kinda-sorta transportationally (is that a word?) themed, our subject is a horse of a different color. (mainly red and yellow)
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2 comments:
Very good in so many ways. Great topic/subject for sure! Just the truck alone is highly amusing. Right out of an old Batman comic.
I quite liked the B&W image of your own photo to transition the viewer back in time to the vintage images!
As for that "mechanical" rodeo . . . I get that it rotates or something, to bring other things into view, but what else moves? Does the bucking bronco move up and down or around or something? I'm guessing those little characters don't actually walk around the stage!
I was amused, too, to see the hand-scrawled names posted by each of the characters (after all the work that went into creating this thing, the best they could come up with was just scrawling those names on the nearby stands or whatever?) and all those ranch brands put all over the rodeo stands - cowboy graffiti!!!
Not really sure about the inside workings of the Puppet Rodeo. I was hoping to find some archival footage from the Treasure Island Fair, but so far no luck.
I am a little more certain about my theory that the vehicle belongs to Joe Bailon though. The name may not be familiar, but he's a legend in the Hot Rod community for "inventing" the paint color Candy Apple Red. He's mentioned in Wikipedia as a notable resident of Newcastle, and if you check out the street view of the intersection in question, you'll see the lot filled with old cars...possibly restoration projects?
It looks like my suspect Mr.Bailon has a facebook page--perhaps that would be the place to ask some questions and possibly get a few more details regarding the provenance of the vehicle.
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