William Preston Hall (1864–1932) aka "The Colonel", "Diamond Billy", and "Horse King of the World" was an American showman, businessman, and circus impresario.

[6] Diamond Billy: With the coming of the Boer War in 1899 came opportunity, one which Hall seized by establishing a sale barn in Cape Town, South Africa and selling many horses to the British army.

[8] Organizers of the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri, asked William Hall to provide horses for a reenactment of Boer War battles.

[11] Camels, lions, bears, and especially elephants were housed in giant barns and paddocks, while surplus circus wagons and other equipment dotted the landscape awaiting resale.

[13] A substantial percentage, perhaps as high as seventy, of the British and Canadian armies' horses and mules came from Colonel Hall's animal brokering.

Big or small, a huge number of American circuses, including major names like Ringling Brothers and Cole, had dealings with Hall.

[citation needed] Diamonds to dust: Even prior to the October 1929 Wall Street crash, the American circus business had begun to suffer, thus so did William Hall's revenues.

The Great Depression severely curtailed all traveling shows, while the international demand for horses and mules was steadily in decline with the advent of motorized tractors and the automobile.

Facing huge debts, William Hall offered all his remaining equipment and animals for sale in a May 1932 advertisement in Billboard Magazine.