STORY BY CLAYTON TRUTOR • PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF THE WOLCOTT HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Photo courtesy of Richard Bailey Wolcott
Once upon a time in Lamoille County, the circus made an unexpected stop in Wolcott.
Shortly after 1pm on Tuesday, May 16, 1961, a trailer truck owned by James E. Strates Shows of Orlando, Florida crashed into the 12’ railroad underpass on Route 15, just outside the village of Wolcott. The underpass was owned by the St. Johnsbury and Lake Champlain Railroad Company. Locally, the underpass was known as the Pottersville Crossing. Confrontations between vehicles and the low hanging structure were not uncommon.
“ A lot of accidents and different things happened at that underpass,” said Stephen Hill, a longtime resident of nearby Hardwick whose father operated a potato farm in Wolcott.
“ It wasn’ t very tall. A number of vehicles had collisions with it,” Hill recalled. The collision between the trailer truck and the underpass that Tuesday afternoon proved particularly memorable. James E. Strates Shows was one of the country’ s largest circus and carnival companies. Their cargo that afternoon consisted of three African Elephants that each weighed more than 7,000 pounds. The accident interrupted a journey that began in Montreal, Quebec and was scheduled to end in Lewiston, Maine, where the three female elephants would perform as part of the Shrine Circus. The top of the truck trailer was ripped off in the crash. The three circus elephants in the back of the trailer were guided out from the wreckage by their handlers. The trainers shepherded the compliant animals to an adjoining field owned by George Houghton, who soon brought out hay for the elephants.
Vermont State Police officer Stephen Keith of Hardwick arrived shortly after the crash and took charge of the scene. He had his hands full all afternoon— investigating the
56 VERMONT MAGAZINE