source of conveyance and were parked all over the grounds. In 1889, just a decade after the original debut in El Paso, John Tyler was president of the fair board, and Walter Bennett was secretary.

Professor Munos, the "Greatest Living Aeronaut," brought his balloon and his magnetic presence to that fair. The El Paso Journal of August 31, 1889¹ announced that "the professor will make the ascension from the grounds and while poised in space many thousand feet above the ground, will drop from the balloon. This is the most wonderful feat ever attempted by man and must be seen to be appreciated." If the sun shone on the day of that great event, more than one youngster, and adult too, had the roof of his mouth sunburned! Yes, 1889 was some year; even if we hadn't had the fair, there was Ringling Brothers & Van Amburgh's Circus. Heralded far and wide as the "United Monster Circus, Museum and Menagerie," the big top came here on September 20, and with its wealth of exotic wonders left impressions that lasted a lifetime.

The fair of 1890 was probably just as exciting and well patronized as its predecessor. One big attraction was a diorama or panorama depicting the Battle of Gettysburg which was housed in a huge tent near the floral hall. If there were any errors of fact in that scene it was almost certain to be ferreted out by some of the many veterans of the Civil War then living, some of whom must have seen action in that decisive struggle.

Due to the overshadowing stature of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, El Paso dispensed with what would have been her fourteenth annual celebration. We made up for lost time by staging a Crystal Celebration in 1895. Ed Hodgson was then president and George R. Curtiss secretary. The special feature was bicycle races. The two-wheeled vehicles, resembling nothing seen on the streets today, were in the crest of their greatest popularity wave. There are authorities who claim that it was really the bicycle and not the automobile that spearheaded the demand for improved roads.

Balloon ascensions with parachute drops were still popular in the closing period of the nineteenth century, and El Paso, constantly on the alert for anything dramatic in entertainment, engaged Professor M. M. Forsman, "the most successful aeronaut in the Mississippi Valley" to perform here. We don't know why, but these aeronauts always bore the "professor" title.

Seemingly determined not to be outdone by imported talent at the 1899 fair, the Kemp brothers' "Wild West Show and Hipprodrome," were engaged to come to their own home town from a long and spectacular showing at Atlantic City, New Jersey. The Kemp Sisters' act with Lida and Mida Kemp surprised their home town friends who were seeing them for the first time in their great professional exhibition of fancy riding and accurate marksmanship.

We will not deal much with the Kemp shows because the following chapter tells a complete story about them, we believe for the first

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