Hi Everyone! I've been plaqued by something for a while now that I need to ask about. I was wondering if anyone had heard of the Ray Barber Shows and Meeker Shows? They came to the Pacific Northwest in the 1970's through the 80's.

I grew up in Washington state and the Ray Barber Shows would make a stop at our county fair every year until 1979 when the fair folks hired Davis Shows as their replacement. Davis is still operating fine and has a Web site. However, I cannot find anything on Ray Barber Shows. I believe they went out of business (Bankruptcy?) due to ripping people off. They would offer the latest rides but they would fall apart. I recall one year the Rock-O-Plane's cables came flying off. It was rather shocking seeing this happen. You'd hear a bang then see them flying off the top while riders were still on the ride. The ops would scramble to get the riders off and fix the ride since it was popular. The following year the Hammerhead (Roll-O-Plane descendant) literally fell to pieces. It looked like one of the cars had collapsed. No one seemed to do anything about it. The ride ops and barkers were young guys who would go off and play frisbee with kids or would also smoke weed (gee what a surprise) and do an assortment of "other" carni stuff with the local girls. As a kid I was shocked to see some of the stuff going. LOL. In 1979 after Davis Shows made their first debut at our fair, I heard no more of the Ray Barber Shows. And they just vanished off the map.

The other traveling carnival, Meeker Shows operated at a town not far from where I lived. I heard terrible stories about them and that they had a bad reputation. But they too just disappeared from the limelight.

So, if anyone knows anything about what happened to these two carnival shows please share.

Lisa
Roller Coasters of The Pacific Northwest
http://www.rollercoastersofthepacificnw.com