Vintage 1960s Mail-Order Catalog Ponies (and Burros)

Once again, researching the history of model horse figurines in the United States has led me down the trail of real horse history. 

We've talked in the past about the mid-twentieth century practice of ordering model horses through the mail, for holidays, birthdays, etc.  We saw ads for Breyers, Hartlands, and Hagen-Renakers in horse magazines as well as (forthe plastic models) catalogs for major retailers like Sears, Montgomery Ward, JC Penney, and Spiegel.

It was the heyday of the TV cowboy, after all, and scores of American youngsters received model horses as gifts -- or, if we could afford them, we bought them ourselves.  Some model horse collectors owned real horses; to the rest of us, the model horse took the much smaller, less expensive, low-maintenance place (temporarily or always) of a living, breathing equine.

While looking for examples of mail order catalog model horses, I came across the Spring-Summer 1960 Spiegel catalog, and in it the evidence of a small piece of real 1950s horse history. It was a time in our history when you could order live animals -- dogs, birds, monkeys, hamsters, coatimundis (yes), and more -- from mail order catalogs.

I was disappointed, but not really surprised, not to find model horses in this non-holiday issue of the catalog. In the back of this volume, though, I spotted that saddles and bridles for real horses could be ordered and shipped to customers....

...As well as real, live, Shetland Ponies and burros.  Adult ponies, without tack, were about $300 and Shetland colts up to a year old, $180.  A young burro cost about $80. And they took time payments.

These listings are placed towards the end of the catalog, after the farm and pet supplies and before the life-size chart that allows you to measure your foot size for shoes. 

I read through my research on the subject of buying ponies, burros, and other animals from catalogs with mixed feelings.  It's nothing new to have an animal shipped by rail or by truck from Point A to Point B.  Still, I imagined what the life of a mail-order pony or burro might have been if its new owners knew nothing about horse care -- to say nothing of its overland journey, shipped in a crate (which the owners had to return) to its excited new young masters or mistresses.

News stories from that era say that Spiegel had begun offering mail-order Shetlands and burros in 1954. This 1960 Spiegel ad shows the source of these Shetlands: the Fashion Club Pony Farm.  The Fashion Club was founded by Gene Harris of Chicago. Its branches in Leon, Iowa and Libertyville, Illinois sold thousands of ponies in person and to mail order vendors.  

Spiegel wasn't the only catalog selling small equines in the late 1950s-early 1960s.  The Chicago Tribune, June 30, 1956, announced that Sears and Montgomery Wards were offering Shetlands and burros as well.

The Des Moines Tribune had published an article on Harris the previous year.  In it, Harris was quoted as saying, "There'll be a pony in every suburban backyard someday."  Harris also said that a Shetland Pony "needs no care" would "grow fat" cropping its owners' lawn.    

 

I was able to trace one source of mail-order burros through articles in the Arizona Republic, April 3, 1955.  It and other stories described the mail order burro business of Dr. Fred Schmidt's Poverty Flat Ranch in Douglas, Arizona.

The article says a gift company in New Jersey was selling 40 burros a day. For his mail order house customers in the midwest and eastern US, Schmidt would order 50 to 100 burros, 3 to 6 months old, from sources in Mexico.

The Arizona Daily Star, April 1, 1956 told more about Schmidt's burro sales. He describes burros as "wonderful pets for youngsters," as loyal as dogs.

This news story says Schmidt foresaw the day when the burro supply from Mexico would start to dry up, so he planned ahead and had 200 jennies (female burros) at his ranch to ensure he would have an ample supply of young burros to sell.

Not all small equines from major retailers came through catalogs. Sears sold Shetland ponies from at least some of their bricks-and-mortar, as this May 31, 1959 ad in the Nashville Tennessean shows:

With advertising and news stories as persuasive as this, how was a parent to explain to a child that not all suburban zoning laws allowed livestock to be kept in a small backyard? How to counter the published claim that a Shetland pony was "no trouble," and the implication that it only needed to graze on the lawn to be fat and healthy? Some newspaper articles from that era describe anxious parents going so far as to remove the catalog pages showing the real ponies and burros while their children slept.

Eventually the fad of the mail order equine ran its course. The Arizona Republic, June 20, 1958 reported that more than 4,000 burros had been sold "back east" to date, and supplies were running low.

And a classified ad in the Des Moines Register, September 9, 1962, announced that the Fashion Club Pony Farm was having a Closing Out Farm Sale.