Charlie Kelton

From the list of elephant persons Family: Kelton

☨ Charlie Kelton
Profession	circus owner
Personal details
Born	1900 Saxtons River in United States
Dead	1991-12-04 in United States
Country	United States

Locations
Title	owner 1963-1970
Location	at Charlie Keltons elephants in United States

Biography details

Carl E. Kelton , circus owner in United States

Born 1900 in United States dead 1991-12-04 in United States .

1900: Kelton was born Carl E. Kelton in Saxtons River, and grew up in the tiny town of Athens on his family’s Sleep Valley Farm.

1943: He met his wife, Shirley, in Saxtons River, and they were married in 1943.

A high school dropout, Kelton got into the milk and mail trucking business in White River Junction, and then into selling new vehicles. At one time, Kelton’s heavy truck dealership was the largest General Motors dealership east of the Mississippi, according to earlier news accounts.
In a satellite view of Connecticut Valley Auto Auctions in Hartford, one can see an octagonal hippodrome that Charlie Kelton built in 1963 to house an eight year-old elephant named Shirley. “My dad was a wannabe circus owner and had sawdust in his veins,” says his son Bodie who was just eleven at the time. “Dad got hold of a man in Michigan and bought the elephant and a truck. He named the elephant Shirley after my mother.”
Charlie said he bought Shirley to promote his trucking business in Hartford. But Bodie says his dad just loved elephants. He spent hours training Shirley and soon found two more elephants, Missy and Diamond.

Charlie displayed the elephants at promotional events and often took them on the road to events like the Hartford Fourth of July Parade, the Woodstock Homecoming Parade, the Rutland Fair, and the Cowtown Rodeo in Canaan. The biggest event of the year was the Northeast States Fair in Springfield, MA.

1969 article

1970: Circus owners Remo and Irene Cristiani consulted with Charlie on training and acquired his elephants in 1970.

On October 19, 1987, the NYSE lost 508 points as part of a global market crash. As a result, Charlie’s assets lost value, he was unable to get new financing, and he entered a desperate period trying to keep his companies afloat. “We did everything we could,” remembers Bodie. Charlie liquidated his dealerships and finally managed his accounts in a way that led to his conviction for Bank fraud. He also began a struggle with prostate Cancer. Charley served six months in a minimum security facility in Pennsylvania.

1991: When he died at 91 on Dec. 4 at the age of 91, he and Shirley had been married for 72 years.

Reference list

References

Koehl, Dan, (2025). owner Carl E. Kelton in United States. Elephant Encyclopedia, available online retrieved 29 March 2025 at https://www.elephant.se/person.php?id=1134. (archived at the Wayback machine)

Sources used for this article is among others:

Selected publications

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