Circus Trees

Axel Erlandson (December 15, 1884 – April 28, 1964) was a Swedish American farmer who shaped trees as a hobby, and opened a horticultural attraction in 1947 advertised as "See the World's Strangest Trees Here," and named "The Tree Circus."

The trees appeared in the column of Robert Ripley's Believe It or Not! twelve times. Erlandson sold his attraction shortly before his death. The trees were moved to Gilroy Gardens in 1985.

Erlandson was born in 1884, in Halland, Sweden, to Alfred Erlandson (1850–1915) and Kristina Larsson (1844–1922). He had two older brothers, Ludwig (1879–1957) and Anthon (1881–1970), and one younger sister, Emma Swanson (1885–1969). The family emigrated to the United States in early 1886, settling in New Folden Township, Marshall County, Minnesota, where his father farmed and built barns, homes, and churches. His family also ran a limestone kiln, producing quicklime for mortar, plaster, and whitewash. Limestone rocks were collected from the surrounding fields and the men and boys kept the kiln fires going 24 hours a day during the processing time.

As a young boy, Axel produced a working model of a threshing machine, but was disappointed when told by his parents that he couldn't take it along when they moved to California. In 1902, the family loaded their possessions into a rented box car and moved with a couple of other Swedish families to live at Hilmar, a new Evangelical Covenant Church colony in the Central Valley of California promising irrigated land for farming operations.

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