Ringlingville USA

In the circus business—as in any business where public approval is essential—reputation means everything. As the Ringling Brothers struck out on their own, without Yankee Robinson’s assistance and advice, they set out to establish an unblemished reputation and to create a show that would appeal to families and people of all ages.

They finished their spring 1885 Carnival of Fun hall tour just three weeks before returning to the road with their new show, “Ringling Bros. Great Double Shows, Circus, Caravan and Trained Animal Exposition.” This year’s shows would be bigger than ever, with larger tents—the main tent was an eighty-foot round top, and the sideshow tent was thirty by fifteen feet—and a street parade prior to each show.² They boasted “[t]he largest and best 25 cent show on earth, containing all the prominent features of the amusement world. … 50 new and startling features, great clowns, 3 hours of solid fun. … Amoor the largest Baboon living, and the largest snakes ever placed on exhibition.”³

They opened in Baraboo on May 18. Some of the reviews were less than laudatory: “Ringling Bros. circus showed here last Friday to good crowds. The show contains several good features and is worth the price of admission. The band was the worst that ever appeared in this village, the performers knowing everything but music.”⁴

A circus’s success was measured in several ways. Most important, did the show make enough money to continue? Other gauges of success were the size of the main tent and the number of horses, wagons, and elephants. So far the Ringlings had no elephants (which were extremely expensive), but they were increasing the size of their main tent and adding horses and wagons each season. In 1885 the show had fifteen wagons and was making enough money to continue.

The Brothers closed the 1885 circus season in Randolph, Wisconsin, on Saturday, October 3. They had presented 114 shows in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois, the same number as in 1884. Six weeks after returning to Baraboo and winter quarters, they were on the road again with their 1885–1886 Carnival of Fun, opening November 12 in Ironton, Wisconsin. They added some of their summer circus regulars to their Carnival of Fun, including Rich Dialo, billed as “The Human Volcano. … He bites off bars of red hot iron, eating boiling and blazing sealing-wax. … [He closes his performance] by allowing anybody to come from the audience and melt lead and pour it into his mouth.” John Ringling was promoted as “the Emperor of all Dutch dialect comedians, in his funny Dutchey maneuvers; creating roars of laughter with every move and funny expression. You will laugh as you never laughed before.” Alf T. and Charles Ringling were billed as playing twelve different musical instruments “to the great delight of the audience.”5 They closed January 30 in Fort Dodge, Iowa, and returned to Baraboo for a few weeks before starting a late spring run in Waunakee, Wisconsin, on March 2, ending in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, on April 23. They returned to Baraboo on April 24, with only a few weeks to prepare for another summer circus season.

The Ringlings were developing a substantial menagerie, a big draw for rural people, who had little opportunity to view exotic animals. The previous January they had purchased a donkey and a Shetland pony—their first trick animal act. In November 1886 John Ringling purchased two lions, a kangaroo, a South American anteater, an elk, a ring-tailed monkey, and a cage of “rare and beautifully plumaged birds. … The boys will start out the spring with a well appointed circus and menagerie and will take the back seat for no show on the road. Success to the boys is the wish of the Republic.”⁷

On September 6, 1886, young Henry, who had been in Rice Lake with the Ringling parents, joined his five brothers as an employee. He would turn eighteen on October 27. That fall and winter the boys were out twenty-two weeks, three more than in previous years. They played 127 stands: 65 in Iowa, 43 in Minnesota, and 19 in Wisconsin.⁸

Newspaper reviews of the 1886 show were generally good. One reviewer wrote: “Some of those who attended the Ringling Bros. Circus Tuesday evening were disappointed, for they expected a somewhat poor affair but the performance proved to be much better than most of the more pretentious shows that are traveling. It is not a big show but it is a very good one.”⁹

Another writer proclaimed, “Ringling Bros.’ circus was in this city [Darlington, Wisconsin] Wednesday, gave a creditable street parade in the afternoon and another in the evening and the attendance was fairly good. Now that Darlington has had its annual circus our people can saw up their wood piles, fill up their coal bins and wait for hoary winter, feeling that the town has been saved.”¹⁰

That winter the Ringlings took over the former Bassett Factory on Water Street in Baraboo. There they stored their equipment and their growing menagerie. Working on next season’s circus was top priority, but they were still short of money, so once again they took their hall show on the road beginning in November 1886 and closing in April 1887. They took time off in January and February, likely to rest and avoid the depths of winter. They put on only forty-eight hall performances that winter.¹¹

In 1887 the Ringlings traveled the farthest yet from home, showing in Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri. They traveled hundreds of miles by horse-drawn wagons over rough, rutted roads that were sometimes nearly impassable. They put up their tents each morning, put on a parade and a show, took down the tents, and drove on to the next town—six days a week, resting only on Sunday. For everyone from the teamsters to the performers, it was hard, dirty work. Each night or early morning they faced another trip, usually along an unknown road, to an unknown place, often with little or no sleep and eating on the fly. No matter if the weather was bad, a wagon broke down or someone got sick or hurt, the show had to go on.

The winter hall shows had added to the Brothers’ financial coffers, and they acquired two elephants in February. When John heard that the elephants had arrived in Baraboo, he quit the hall show five days early so he could see them.¹⁴ Although the first of these exotic animals had arrived in the United States in 1796, few midwesterners had ever seen one.¹⁵ Those along the circus route would now be treated not only to a long parade of wagons, horses, and cages of wild animals making strange sounds; they would see two huge elephants shuffling along. The sight would stop anyone in their tracks, no matter what they were doing. With the purchase of these amazing beasts, the Ringlings’ show became a “real” circus.

The Ringlings had borrowed money from the Bank of Baraboo before and always promptly repaid it, so they had a good credit rating. This time the bank granted them a ninety-day loan of $1,000.¹⁸

Otto sent a letter of thanks to the bank upon receiving the loan and indicated that they had not yet used any of the loan money and were “trying our utmost not to.”²⁰

Once the skies cleared and the mud disappeared, the Ringlings were on their way with their usual confidence. After Minnesota and Iowa, they moved into Dakota Territory, Nebraska, and back to Iowa, finally returning to Wisconsin for eight stands in October.

Business was not especially good in Nebraska. In an August letter Otto wrote, “Business has been very bad during harvest (it always is) but is steadily improving and harvest is nearly over.”²²

Besides problems with the weather and harvest time, the Brothers faced other unforeseen events. For years circus people and local folks often got into tussles over one thing or another, leading to fist fights and worse. On June 23, when the circus was playing in Webster City, Iowa, James Richardson, a Ringling performer, was murdered, reason unknown. His killer, Thomas Baskett, was convicted and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.²³

The 1888 season closed October 13 at Sauk City, Wisconsin. The local paper reported:

The new animal house sheltered the exotic animals during the long, cold winter months. In Ringling circus parlance barns were unheated structures that primarily housed horses. Horses gave off sufficient heat to keep the buildings warm. Houses sheltered animals such as elephants and the other exotic animals that required additional heat from coal-fired furnaces.

Trimming an elephant’s toenails was no small task. Notice the equipment: a hacksaw and a large file. This photo was taken behind the elephant house at Ringlingville winter quarters. PRINT COLLECTION, CWM

A circus wasn’t really a circus until it owned an elephant. But elephants were expensive. The Ringlings didn’t purchase their first ones (Babylon, or Babe, an Asiatic, and Fannie, an African) until February 1888, four years after they went on the road. By 1892 the Ringlings owned six elephants, and by 1908 they had forty huge beasts in their elephant herd. To many observers, the number of elephants a circus owned was a measure of its size and prestige.

In 1898 the Brothers purchased a “white elephant.” The Ringlings heavily advertised the animal, named Keddah, as sacred, mythical, and “the most expensive of animals.” It was not really white, but lighter colored than most elephants, with pink around the ears, white feet, light hair around its lips, and no tuft of hair at the end of its tail. Barnum & Bailey had a white elephant that had proved a disappointment in attracting crowds, so the Ringlings are likely to have purchased Keddah at a discounted price. Frugal as the Ringlings were, they converted a giraffe wagon into quarters for their prize “sacred” animal. Keddah traveled in this wagon on the train, to and from the lot, and in the street parade. He did not ride with the other elephants.1 While traveling to Ft. Smith, Arkansas, on October 15, 1898, the wagon carrying the white elephant caught fire, and the animal suffered bad burns and smoke inhalation. As hard as his handlers worked to save the animal, it died five days later in Arkansas.²

The Ringlings were always on the lookout for additional elephants. In an exchange of letters with E. D. Colvin, an agent for Hagenbeck’s, the German animal dealer, Otto inquired about the big beasts. Colvin replied, “I quote you a list of all the elephants on hand at the present time: One male (Albert) 4 ft. 10 in. high—$1,400, One male (Tambus) 4 ft. 5 in. high—$1,375.00, one female (Clara) broken, 5 ft. high—$1,500.” In March Otto learned from Colvin that the animals he had ordered from Germany could not get on the mail boat and had to come by way of Bulgaria on a ship that took fourteen days.³

On November 19, 1900, a spectacular event occurred at winter quarters: a baby Asian elephant was born, the first one in Baraboo.⁴ A magazine reporter enthusiastically wrote:

The Ringling Bros. are without question the proudest and happiest showmen in America today. The baby elephant is of course the cause of this joy. And such a dear little baby he is. A perfect miniature elephant, 34 inches long, weighing 300 pounds, carrying a trunk one foot in length. … Little Nick was born about 4:30 Monday morning, only a few hours after the show arrived in winter quarters. Alice, a monster elephant is the mother of the small wonder, and his father, Baldy, boasts of being the largest pachyderm in America today. When the calf was born the mother awakened the sleeping elephant men who were in the elephant building. … Like many animal mothers, Alice tried her very best to kill her offspring by trampling on him, and it was only by heroic measures little Nick was carried out of the mother’s way into a place of safety. When picked up it was between life and death, but he lived, and today is as spry as a kitten. … [S]he was removed, together with little Nick, to the ring barn where the two are now kept. The mother is getting over her ferociousness toward the infant elephant, and it is firmly believed that after a few weeks she was become reconciled to him.5

For the 1903 season the Ringlings advertised “Little Baby Boo” as an “American born baby elephant.” The little elephant had in fact come from Ceylon with its mother. PRINT COLLECTION, CWM

The elephant was christened some days after its birth by Wisconsin governor Edward Scofield and his wife, Agnes, who visited winter quarters.⁶ The baby elephant would have been a great draw for the circus, but unfortunately it died before the Ringlings went on the road in 1901.⁷

Alice gave birth to an unnamed baby elephant on October 26, 1902, but she killed the calf. The Brothers ordered another elephant and calf from Hagenbeck’s about November 22, 1902, and the animals arrived in Baraboo on December 18, 1902. The boys decided to advertise the new little elephant as having been born in Baraboo, and they named it “Baby Boo.” This was an elaborate hoax—or advertising genius. An April 4, 1903, article in Billboard proclaimed:“Ringling Bros. possess quite an attraction this year in the shape of a baby elephant, which is about seven weeks old. It is named ‘Baby Boo,’ and she is about 30” high. She is the daughter of Baldy and Alice, two of Ringling Bros. largest elephants.” In fact, the elephant and its mother had come from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).⁸

Circus elephants sometimes caused problems. For the 1909 season, the Ringlings replaced Pearl Souder, elephant superintendent, with William Emery. Problems with the elephant herd began immediately. On July 30 five elephants ran away while the herd was unloading in Laramie, Wyoming. Two were captured immediately, but three others headed for the open prairie. One elephant was still on the loose when the train had to leave for Rawlins. Two elephants and three men were left behind to search for the runaway. They all returned to the show two weeks later, presumably with the recalcitrant elephant.

When the show played in Bakersfield, California, on September 19, 1909, five elephants ran away again, this time while the street parade was assembling. They knocked over the snake den and caused general havoc. The same five elephants bolted the next day in Santa Barbara. They were rounded up with great difficulty and were loaded back onto railcars, where they remained for the next seven weeks, with Al Ringling’s approval.9

In 1910, while handlers were unloading the elephants from their railcars in Danville, Illinois, nine elephants ran away. They knocked down fences, destroyed outhouses, trampled gardens, and smashed sheds. The havoc went on for four hours before the escaped elephants were caught and brought under control. A reporter for the Rockford, Illinois, Morning Star wrote, “The attendance at both [Ringling] performances today were enormous, the thrilling events of yesterday having acted as a splendid advertisement for the show.” Ringling lawyer John Kelley was busy settling claims.¹⁰

An elephant debarks the elephant car one early morning in 1902. The elephants were loaded side by side with their heads toward the car’s center door. RICHARD E. AND ALBERT CONOVER COLLECTION, CWM

NOTES

1. Richard J. Reynolds III, correspondence with the author, December 1, 2002.

2. Red Wagon: Route Book of The Ringing Bros. World’s Greatest Show, Season 1898 (Chicago: Central Printing and Engraving, 1898), pp. 78–79.

3. E.D. Colvin to Otto Ringling, March 3, 1900, Fred Pfening III, private collection, Columbus, Ohio.

4. To date this was the fourth baby elephant (all Asians) born in the United States. All were circus elephants: Howes Great London (1875)—the calf apparently did not survive—Cooper and Bailey (1880), and Barnum and London (1882). Richard J. Reynolds III, correspondence with the author, December 5, 2002.

5. “Shows in Winter Quarters,” Billboard, December 12, 1900. Also see Richard J. Reynolds III, “Baraboo’s Baby Elephants,” Bandwagon, November/December, 1993, pp. 4–12.

6. Baraboo (Wisconsin) Evening News, December 6, 1900.

7. Mention of baby elephant’s death in correspondence from the Standard Embossing Company of Chicago to Charles Ringling, March 11, 1901, Pfening collection.

8. Reynolds, “Baraboo’s Baby Elephants.”

9. William H. Woodcock Jr., unpublished lists of circus elephants and elephant history notes, CWM Library.

10. Rockford (Illinois) Morning Star, April 29, 1910; Danville (Illinois) Commercial-News, April 27, 28, 29, 1910; Sauk County (Wisconsin) Democrat, May 5, 1910, and May 10, 1910; Baraboo (Wisconsin) News, May 5, 1910, and June 23, 1910; Baraboo Republic, May 5, 1910; Richard J. Reynolds III, correspondence with the author, December 18, 2002.

That year Gus Ringling, the second-oldest son, joined the show as advertising agent, although he remained an employee of the partners. Now all seven brothers were with the show. The Brothers also hired Spencer Alexander (nicknamed Delavan because of his connections to Delavan, Wisconsin) as boss hostler in charge of all the horses. That year the Ringlings had 110 horses and ponies. Butch Parson continued to manage the candy and lemonade stand.

By this time the Brothers had acquired another elephant, and this season’s show traveled with those beasts plus two camels, nine cages of other animals, one cage of birds, and three advance wagons that traveled several weeks ahead of the others and were in charge of advertising, posting bills, and pasting signs on the sides of barns. During the muddy spring of 1888 the advance men briefly switched to rail travel, but they went back to driving wagons as soon as the roads allowed. The entire circus traveled by horse-drawn wagon in 1889.

The circus was out twenty-four weeks, closing in Lodi, Wisconsin, on October 15. The Ringlings made 147 stands, the most in their six years of operating an overland circus. And they made money. From May 10 to August 17 they deposited $22,731.00 ($437,000 in 2002 dollars) in the Bank of Baraboo.

Unlike many circuses, traveling medicine shows, and other rural attractions, the Ringling Brothers’ show was an honest show—no shortchanging, pickpockets, or game-of-chance cheats. They even snagged pickpockets and turned them over to the local authorities. These immoral and illegal acts were known as “grift.” A rural newspaper editor wrote, “The Ringling Brothers are personally known to many of our citizens and they are esteemed as upright young men. Their purpose to exclude every disreputable feature and ‘snide’ affair from connection with their show, is but characteristic of them.”³¹

Once more in winter quarters, the Brothers immediately began planning for 1890. No one had forgotten the rains in the spring of ’88, when they almost lost their show. One way to make sure muddy roads would no longer affect travel was to switch to rail. What’s more, as an overland circus they could not grow much larger, and their routes would always be limited by how far horses and men could walk. By 1878 several circuses (Barnum starting in 1872, John Robinson in 1872, W.W. Cole in 1873, Cooper and Bailey in 1876, Forepaugh in 1876 or 1877, and Sells Bros. in 1878) traveled by rail.³² The Brothers decided it was time to take to the rails as well. No more mud and dust. No more walking fifteen, twenty, or more miles a day, usually at night and often half asleep, through the dark and gloom on their way to the next town.

The Ringlings offered their road-show equipment for sale. An ad in a national trade magazine proclaimed: “From Road to Rail. The Ringling Brothers Great United Circus and Menagerie has closed the most successful season known in the history of wagon shows.” The ad went on to list for sale tents, seats, lights, poles, ropes, cages, dens, baggage wagons, harnesses, costumes, banners, and more. “All property in first class condition, and can be seen at winter quarters in Baraboo, Wisconsin.”³³

Now the Ringlings needed a place to store their train. In November 1889 the Ringlings were negotiating with a Mrs. Potter for land she owned across the Baraboo River from the Bassett property. They ending up leasing some of Mrs. Potter’s land and began constructing a spur line for their newly purchased railcars. The Chicago and Northwestern Railroad had a major rail operation near the Potter property that included machine shops, a roundhouse, a water tank, wood yards, depots, and a switching yard.

The Sauk County Democrat reported: “The new buildings which are being erected at ‘Ringlingville’ for the accommodation of the Ringling Bros. Circus paraphernalia are getting along nicely under the personal supervision of Chas. Ringling.”³⁵ This is the first evidence of the use of the term Ringlingville, and from this time forward, the Ringling buildings in Baraboo would be known as Ringlingville. A few years later, the cluster of Ringling tents on the road would also become known as Ringlingville.

Also during that busy winter of 1889–1890, the Brothers opened a new office over Horstman’s Meat Market on Oak Street.³⁶ It was an extremely busy planning season: the Brothers established routes for the coming summer season, contracted the acts, developed advertising and promotional materials and budgets, organized and readied equipment, trained animals, and ordered supplies.

The city of Baraboo thought well of their efforts. “Ringling Brothers contribute no small amount to the volume of business of the city this winter. They have twenty-eight people on their payroll. Besides this the cost of keeping a large number of horses, animals, etc. to say nothing of the five Ringling Brothers’ personal expenses, which help to reduce their bank account for the benefit of the community.”³⁷

In January 1890 August Ringling, now sixty-three, Salome Ringling, fifty-seven, and daughter Ida moved from Rice Lake back to Baraboo. The entire family was together again, for the first time in many years.

The Brothers were more optimistic than ever as they made the giant and expensive transition from an overland wagon circus to a railroad circus. If they managed well, routed carefully, and had a little luck, their opportunities would be unlimited. Their relationship to their hometown of Baraboo was strong. The community had been watching what they were doing down on Water Street, and it liked what it saw. The Ringlings had built a substantial reputation as an overland circus; now the challenge was to keep their reputation and enhance it as they moved to the rails.

The Ringlings’ female performers were overseen by a circus mother, a combination chaperon, hospital nurse, friend, and counselor. Officially, she was matron of the women’s dressing room.1 Mother ruled with a heavy hand. There was no “hanky panky”; women were expected to do their work and adhere to a closely kept schedule.

The Ringling Brothers published a list of “Suggestions and Rules.” It was said to be for all employees, but most of the rules applied only to women:

1. Do not dress in a flashy, loud style; be neat and modest in appearance.

2. You are required to be in the sleeping car and register your name not later than 11 p.m. and not to leave car after registering.

3. Girls must not stop at hotels at any time.

4. [Girls] are not permitted to visit with relatives, etc., in cities where show appears without permission.

5. [Girls] are not permitted to talk or visit with male members of the show company, excepting the management, and under no circumstance with residents of the cities visited.

6. The excuse of “accidental” meetings will not be accepted.

Note—if some of the rules seem harsh and exacting, please remember—experience has taught the management that they are necessary. It is intended to protect the girls in every possible way. Good order and good behavior are necessary, if you are to be comfortable and happy. The management urges each girl to live up to the spirit of the rules as well as to the letter.²

On the one hand, the circus strove to protect women, on the other hand it exploited them. Few places in late-nineteenth-century America would condone scantily clad young women as did communities embracing the circus. As historian Janet Davis has noted, “[I]t seems that proprietors succeeded in selling the contradictions between titillation and respectability because sexual display at the circus escaped state regulations. Not only did state officials ignore the circus’s spectacle of semi-nudity. They actually condoned it.”³

A peek inside the women’s dressing tent, 1902. Second from the right is the acclaimed strongwoman Katie Sandwina. DON S. HOWLAND CIRCUS COLLECTION SCRAPBOOK, CWM

In 1914 the Factory Department of the State Department of Illinois examined the wages and working conditions of Ringling Brothers’ female employees. The department’s report concluded that “the girls with the circus receive higher wages, perform easier duties and enjoy more wholesome physical and moral surroundings than girls working in Chicago department stores and factories.”⁴

NOTES

1. W. C. Thompson, On the Road with a Circus (Self-published, 1903), p. 131.

2. Charles Ringling, Ringling Brothers, “Suggestions and Rules: Employees,” ca. 1900, CWM.

3. Janet M. Davis, “Instruct the Minds of All Classes: The Circus and American Culture at the Turn of the Century” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1998), p. 166.

4. Quoted in Davis, “Instruct the Minds of All Classes,” p. 167.

Establishing a Reputation: 1885–1889