July 2021

 July 1, 2021

Paris, Texas has it's own Eiffel Tower (Or maybe Texas Tower would be better) with a great farmer's market.    This was a day trip while we were staying in Hugo, Oklahoma. 

Hugo, named in honor of the French writer, Victor Hugo as was suggested by the town surveyor's wife, is an unassuming little town but when you reach the city limits there is a big sign that says, Hugo Oklahoma, Circus City, USA. Then when you get into town there are businesses with circus in the name, Angie's Circus Diner... 

 

The old railway station has a park in front of it with 2 statues of lions and the depot has a statute of a lion and a buffalo in front of it. Curiousier and curiousier.

 

I knew why it was called that, but if you didn't have the background you would be a bit baffled. In 1941 a man and woman who operated a grocery store in Hugo approached a circus, Kelly Brothers, to have their winter quarters there. Over the years since 21 circuses have made it their winter home. Now, 3 winter over in Hugo; Kelly Brothers, Carson & Barnes, and Culpepper & Merriweather.

When we lived in Corpus Christi the boy's nanny was the wife of the bandmaster of Charles Stevenson of Carson & Barnes. She wanted to go on the route with the circus that summer with both my young boys in tow; it would be educational. Of course that didn't happen. Now, maybe if I could have gone too it would have!

 

In the town cemetery there is a special section called "Showmen's Rest" that has graves of circus people. Some of the stones are pretty elaborate.

 

Also in the cemetery are some notable rodeo people, Freckles Brown, who rode a bull named Tornado he, Brown, not Tornado, was from the area. Lane Frost, another famous rodeo bull rider, wanted to be buried next to Freckles so he is there too, along with some rodeo people who were famous from earlier years.

 

The guy who was the spokesman for Buster Brown shoes (in a Little Lord Fauntleroy costume) for 27 years was from Hugo and is buried there.

 

Not buried, there but also from Hugo is B.J. Thomas (Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head).  And the man who wrote Swing Low Sweet Chariot.

 

Also not buried yet, but his marker is there, is the guy who was the Marlboro Man in all the magazine and billboard ads for years (who is not and never has been a smoker according to information on the cemetery's website). He lives near there and his marker is there because his son died at 19 so they have a family plot for the son, and both parents. 

 

It was pretty interesting and not something you would expect from such a small town that seems to have fallen on hard times and struggling economically.