“Give us fun and laughter,
And hand the smiles around.
We cannot laugh much after,
They put us in the ground.”1
Arailroad circus presented new opportunities and challenges for the Ringlings. Now the Brothers could travel anywhere in North America where there was a rail line. True, the Ringlings would now find themselves competing against the older and larger eastern circuses that had already been traveling by rail for several years. And they would now be at the mercy of the railroads’ schedules and rules; although the Ringlings owned their own railcars, they hired locomotives to pull their trains. But entertainment opportunities remained limited, especially for rural people, and the Ringlings were confident they would succeed. At least they would never again be pulled down by muddy roads and unceasing rains now that they were on the rails.
The Ringlings called their 1890 show “Ringling Brothers’ United Monster Railroad Shows, Menagerie and Museum.” They wanted everyone to know that their overland days were behind them and that they were ready to compete with other rail circuses. They had about 225 employees, 18 railroad cars, and a Big Top that was a 125-foot-round top with two 50-foot middle sections. In the menagerie they featured three elephants, three camels, a “Bovalapus” (water buffalo), a zebra, a zebu, a hippopotamus named Pete (the Ringlings’ first hippo), several monkeys, deer, two wolves, a couple of boa constrictors, and additional animals making up a total of fifteen cages. The show included 107 horses and ponies. Ringlingville was ready to roll.2
An 1890 handbill advertised the Ringlings’ “Enormous Railroad Shows.” It was the first year the Ringlings’ circus traveled by rail instead of by wagon. HANDBILL COLLECTION, CWM
The last decade of the nineteenth century in the United States was a period of great expansion. In 1890 Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which sought to prevent companies from becoming monopolies and restraining trade. Initially, the act was poorly enforced. On April 22, 1890, the first Oklahoma land rush took place. Within twenty-four hours, fifty thousand settlers claimed more than two million acres. The Oklahoma Territory was formed on May 2. North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington had gained statehood in 1889, and Idaho and Wyoming were admitted as the forty-third and forty-fourth states in July 1890. In December 1890 two hundred Sioux Indians were massacred at the Battle of Wounded Knee in South Dakota.3
Many people were using Bell’s telephone and Morse’s telegraph to communicate. George Eastman invented a handheld camera in 1888; it became popularly known as a Kodak. Thomas Edison’s lightbulbs and mercury vapor lamps were coming on the market in 1890, but his motion pictures didn’t appear until 1893 (sound motion pictures were not perfected until the 1920s).4
In rural communities most farmers had shifted from hand-operated cradle scythes to McCormick’s mechanical reaper to harvest their grain. J. I. Case’s steam tractors began to power threshing machines and do limited farmwork. But horses continued to be the main power source and means of transportation in the country as well as in villages and cities.
This was the milieu in which the Ringlings mounted their new railroad circus. On April 12, 1890, Ringling Bros. Advertising Car No. 1 left Baraboo. A few days later Advertising Car No. 2 left. A Baraboo newspaperman noted: “A first class artist worked several months on these cars embellishing them with representations of the various features of the monster shows. They are each supplied with steam boilers for making paste, etc., and were loaded with tons and tons of bills [advertising posters]. A small army of bill posters accompanied them.”5 That small army consisted of sixteen men in Car No. 1, under Gus Ringling’s direction, and fewer men in the other car.6
Ringling Brothers Circus performers, 1890. Lou Ringling is in the back row, first on the left. By this year the Ringling Brothers had about 225 employees. HERB JONES GIFT; PRINT COLLECTION, CWM
The Ringlings opened in Baraboo on Saturday, May 3. Their advertisement in the Baraboo paper featured a picture of a huge hippopotamus and the words: “The indescribable, tremendous monster of brute creation, the largest hippopotamus in captivity. The monster blood-sweating behemoth of holy writ. The new found monster mammoth amphibious Bovolapsus [an ordinary water buffalo], only real African Zebras in America, Royal Heathen Actors from Japan, Babylon, Largest Elephant on Earth … Jewel, the only umbrella-eared (i.e., African) elephant in the country.”7 The ad also pictured lion cubs, which had been born in Baraboo earlier in the spring.
The parade was described as “[t]he largest, longest, richest and most resplendent gratuitous display, representing with the most splendid effect and impressive truthfulness a grand triumphal march of nations. Never before in the history of American amusements has any show or combination of shows had the wealth, enterprise or pluck to attempt anything approaching in magnitude and magnificence this grand triumph of free street demonstrations.”8 With all that, who wouldn’t want to plunk down twenty-five or fifty cents a see the circus?
The first show of the season went well. A Baraboo Republic reporter gushed:
The Ringling Bros. Circus and Menagerie, which exhibited in this city Saturday was a grand success. It was witnessed by thousands of people; their mammoth tents being crowded both afternoon and evening. … The wardrobe is entirely new and of rich material, the design and workmanship on the same being very beautiful, particularly creditable to Mrs. Al Ringling, under whose supervision the entire work was done. … The Ringling Brothers are all gentlemen and are bound to meet with success wherever they go. One thing very creditable to their show is the entire absence of gambling or anything of that nature, nothing of the kind being allowed on the grounds.9
The Brothers now included on their stationery, posters, and checks the slogan “Founders of the New School of American Showman.” This is how the Brothers referred to those circuses that subscribed to their “no-grift” approach to the business. Some circus people began calling their show a Sunday school circus.10
After the Baraboo performance, the Ringling trains rolled on to Dodgeville, Wisconsin, where the show played May 5. On that cold spring Monday, it rained and snowed all day. No doubt more than one Ringling brother remembered the spring of 1888, when they had been stuck in the mud in similar weather conditions. But the trains rolled on, whistling into the night, foul weather or no.
But travel by rail did not eliminate all the dangers and delays of life in the circus. On May 20 three Ringling flatcars ran off the tracks, and on May 22 they arrived late because of a train wreck ahead of them. When they arrived in Whatcheer, Iowa, for a May 30 show, they discovered that the Grand Army of the Republic Civil War veterans did not think it right “for a circus to exhibit on Decoration Day”—but the Ringlings put on their show anyway.11
When the show was in Manson, Wisconsin, a railroad man was cut in two near one of the circus cars, killing him instantly. And after that night’s show, a team ran away, throwing a gentleman and two ladies out of the buggy. The man broke his neck.12
On June 2 the Ringlings played in Tama, Iowa, where five hundred Indians from a nearby reservation attended. The Ringlings were developing a reputation for having something for everyone, no matter their age, their ethnic background, or where they lived.
With the grueling six-day-a-week schedule, circus employees enjoyed their Sundays, catching up on sleep, tending to laundry, writing letters, and resting. Fishing was a popular activity, although not always fruitful. The 1890 route book noted, “Sunday June 29. The Club went fishing, but it was on the bum.”13 (Luckily, the fishing seemed to improve as the season went on, as reported in the route book, “July 15. Best fishing of the season.”)14
The crew also occasionally played baseball on Sundays, playing against local teams. On Sunday, June 15, the circus team was edged out by the Monson, Iowa, ball team 14–13.15 Through such activities, the Ringling Brothers were attempting to build strong community relationships as they traveled around the country. Sometimes such attempts were successful, but often they were not. While many local people came to the circus and enjoyed the show, there was often an element that despised circus people. Fights between circus employees and town ruffians were not uncommon. For instance, the 1891 route book reported, “At Bolivar, Missouri, on September 26th, a very fierce battle was fought between the show and the people of the town and vicinity. Many of the local bad men were badly injured.”16
Afternoon shows in the rural towns drew larger crowds than the evening shows, as farmers wanted to drive home in daylight. This crowd, in Algona, Iowa, took in the spectacle of the circus on a hot, humid afternoon in July 1890. HERB JONES GIFT; PRINT COLLECTION, CWM
Business continued to improve, and full houses were reported in the route book as “down in front afternoon show,” “afternoon house packed to the ring bank,” “afternoon show big,” and “had to close the ticket wagon.” Crowds were so large on July 28 in Whitewater, Wisconsin, that the Brothers had to add another fifty-foot section to the Big Top. Two days later, in Hartford, Wisconsin, a huge windstorm blew down the Big Top, breaking a center pole. No one was injured, and the canvas was up and the show running in forty minutes.17
The Baraboo newspapers continued cheering on the Ringling boys. A short piece written in late August read, “We learn from responsible parties that Ringling Bros. are meeting with better success than ever this season. They are far overlapping last season’s receipts. The boys are hustlers and no mistake. They are Baraboo boys.”18
In September the show was on its way east, into new territory—Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, they had record attendance: “Afternoon house ring bank [meaning that people were sitting near the ring], had to close the ticket wagon half an hour after the doors were opened, night house ring bank. This has been the banner day of the season.”19 The Ringlings’ first year as a railroad circus was proving highly successful. The Brothers found that the “sophisticated” eastern audiences bought tickets as often as did the midwesterners.
Rumors began in 1890 that the Ringlings might leave Baraboo. “It is … rumored that the coming winter is the last one that the Ringlings will winter here; that they intend to go south where they can winter cheaper.”20 Such rumors swirled around the Ringlings nearly every year, their sources generally unknown.
Despite such speculations, the Ringlings were back in Baraboo for the winter of 1890–1891. There they learned that their cousins the Gollmars were starting a new circus. Now two circuses would winter in Baraboo.
That winter the Brothers rented the old Union Hotel near the winter quarters to house their winter employees.21 Always trying to save money, the Brothers leased the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad buildings in Baraboo, including the roundhouse, where they painted and repaired railroad cars. They would rent these buildings until they built their own shops in 1893.22
Everything was abuzz in preparation for the 1891 season. The Brothers were expanding. They added several new railroad cars (they now had a total of twenty-six) and a third advertising car, and they laid more tracks in Mrs. Potter’s field. They painted the railcars yellow with red lettering.23
In November 1890 John Ringling traveled to Great Bend, Kansas, to attend the sale of a “stranded circus” (one in financial trouble) owned by Charles Andress. (Andress later worked on the Ringlings’ administrative staff, at one time supervising the sideshow performers; he is also credited with inventing a pneumatic stake-driver.)24 John purchased a male African elephant named Zip, several camels, a llama, and an ibex (which, unfortunately, died on the way to Baraboo). The Ringlings also purchased a pair of tigers and a pair of hyenas.25 The Ringling menagerie now included four elephants, five camels, four kangaroos, and assorted other exotic animals, including the “terrifying” hippopotamus.
In 1891 the Ringlings added the spectacle “Caesar’s Triumphal Entry into Rome” to their show. It was the first year they used the phrase “World’s Greatest Shows.” HANDBILL COLLECTION, CWM
In spring 1891 the Ringlings were still buying horses for the coming season. An April 8 newspaper ad read: “Ringling Bros. want to buy 25 head of horses. Must be good stock weighing from 1,000 pounds upward to 1,600 pounds.”26 By opening day in May, the show would have 130 horses and ponies, the largest number so far.
That winter the Ringlings developed an exciting new production number that would be the opening act for every performance and, they hoped, attract customers who wanted more than the usual circus fare. The new show reenacted “Caesar’s Triumphal Entry into Rome.” A description of the “Grand Spectacular Tournament” read, “Displaying all the pageantry and pomp of Rome’s Victorious Legions, and introducing the unparalleled scenic and spectacular resources of the Ringling Bros. World’s Greatest Shows.” The 1891 promotions marked the first appearance of the name “World’s Greatest Shows,” a title the Ringlings would use for many years.
The Ringlings had come a long way from Al balancing a breaking plow on his chin, John telling stories, Alf T. and Charles playing their horns, and Otto struggling with a bass drum. For the first time, in 1891 they began advertising their show as a three-ring circus, with a “Millionaire Menagerie, Museum and Aquarium.”27
The Brothers opened the 1891 season May 2 in Baraboo to a good afternoon house and an even larger evening audience. Then they traveled on, this year avoiding the eastern states, staying in the Midwest and South. They were out twenty-three weeks and showed in 143 towns. Some route book comments from the season included the following:
June 22, Grand Forks, N.D.: “Afternoon house packed to the hippodrome track; night house big. Temperance town, but thirty-five saloons across the river.”
August 3rd, Streator, Illinois: “A great many of the company spent Sunday in the Windy City. Sam Cohn, merchant tailor of Chicago, visits and receives several thousand dollars worth of orders from the boys for winter clothes.”
August 12, Trenton, Missouri: “The first band wagon got stuck in a soft place, and it took eight horses and three elephants half an hour to get it out.”
August 20, Monticello, Illinois: “We had the pleasure of witnessing the ascension of an air ship.”28
Newspapers cheered the Ringling show. The Grand Forks, North Dakota, paper reported, “Ringling Bros. are now the leading showmen, and the five brothers who, in a few years have taken the front rank in popular favor, understand their business from the ground up, they know it pays best to be honest with the people and they aim to do more, rather than less that they advertise, and thus everyone sees their show becomes a free advertiser.”29
The Galesburg, Illinois, paper mused, “Twenty-five years ago had anyone predicted that one day an enormous amusement enterprise of such vast dimensions as the Ringling Bros.’ colossal railroad shows would wend its ponderous way to almost 200 principal cities of the Union each year, the statement would be listened to as veriest nonsense. Yet all of this has come to pass.”30
| Ringling Profits, 1891 (143 Stands) |
| Average daily receipts: $1,445 ($206,635 for the season; $3.9 million in 2002 dollars) |
| Estimated daily operating expenses: $538 ($76,934 for the season) |
| Estimated daily salary costs: $300 ($42,900 for the season) |
| Estimated total daily expenses: $838 |
| Estimated daily profit: $607 |
| Estimated season profit: $86,801 (about $1.7 million in 2002 dollars)31 |
| Example of Ringling Daily Expenses, June 17, 1891 (Wahpeton, Minnesota) | |
| Transportation: $200 | Feed: $54.60 |
| License fee: $25 | Livery: $42 |
| Lot expense: $5 | Car department: $9.71 |
| Hotel: $65.25 | Animal department: $5.40 |
| Billboards: $25 | Chandelier department: $15.67 (gasoline for lights) |
| Cook house: $69.05 | |
| Total expenses: $516.6932 | |
By 1891 the Ringlings’ staff had grown to an astounding four hundred employees. The salary for working men (those who put up canvas, cared for animals, worked in the cook tent, erected Big Top seats, etc.) was about fifty cents a day ($9.60 in 2002 dollars) plus free room and board. Those in management positions received more, and some performers received handsome salaries. The Brothers divided up profits at the end of the season, drawing only expense money during the year.33 Amazingly, the five partners had no written contract—they had only a verbal agreement to split the business five ways.
Until well into the twentieth century, horses were a major attraction for any circus. They had many roles, performing in the ring, competing in races around the Big Top tent, pulling the wagons from the train cars to the show lots, helping put up the heavy Big Top poles, and walking in the daily circus parade. Performing horses were known as “ring stock”; working horses were called “baggage stock.”
Mike Rooney, a bareback rider, was one of several Rooneys from Baraboo who performed with the Ringling Brothers over the years. PHOTO BY HUDSON & SHADLE, ALGONA, IOWA; PRINT COLLECTION, CWM
In the 1870s there were more than 8.7 million horses in the United States. By 1900 the number had grown to 24.1 million. About 3 million horses were in urban areas in 1900.1 Nearly all farmers and small-town people owned horses and depended on them. City folks knew horses, too, for they were everywhere. They pulled carriages that ferried passengers from railroad depots to downtown hotels. They moved heavy, high-wheeled wagons containing beer, coal, ice, lumber, bakery goods, and groceries. In many of the larger cities, before electricity arrived, horses pulled streetcars. Livery stables were available in most cities, where a person could rent a team and buggy much as we might rent a car today.
The most popular breed for circus baggage horses—those that did the hard work around the lot—was the Percheron. Percherons weighed up to 1,600 pounds, were sure of foot, and generally withstood crowds and excitement with few problems. They were packed tightly in stockcars to avoid injuries when the car lurched forward or stopped quickly. They traveled wearing their harnesses, sometimes with the collars lifted slightly off their necks by overhead chains. The harnesses were removed on the circus lot while the animals rested in the horse tents during the afternoon.
In 1899 the Ringlings owned about three hundred horses, about one hundred of which appeared in acts of various kinds. Training of the horses and their riders took place during the winter months in the ring barn, which had at one end a forty-two-foot ring with a pole in the center. Attached to the pole was a pulley-and-rope device called a “mechanic.” The mechanic consisted of a side arm with a pulley on the end. A rope was passed through the pulley and attached at one end to a leather harness that the rider wore. An assistant held the other end of the rope. If a rider fell from a horse, the mechanic helped to break the fall.
A reporter for the Milwaukee Journal described the horse-training sessions at winter quarters this way:
Male and female riders come in to practice their old tricks and essay new ones. They find it absolutely necessary to work in this way during the winter. Neglect means stiff limbs and ungraceful carriage when the regular season opens. As much pain is taken with the practice as though the show was in full swing and thousands of spectators were present. Nothing is omitted so that the horses may become thoroughly familiar with their parts. Hoops are jumped through; hurdles leaped, fiery circles penetrated and the ringmasters whip cracks just as loud and at exactly the same moment as when the actual performance is on.2
The mechanic, a device used to train horses and riders, protected fallen riders from injury. The mechanic was found at the end of the ring barn at Ringlingville winter quarters. RALPH PIERCE COLLECTION, CWM
Walter Gollmar, whose father was with the Gollmar Brothers Circus, recalled watching his father train horses.
Dad had a beautiful stallion Shetland pony that he wanted to train for the show. He used ropes to show the animal what he wanted it to do—and never harmed an animal. Never whipped an animal. He pulled the ropes to show the animal what he wanted it to do. He wanted this Shetland pony to put one foot up on a block of wood and hold the other foot out in a pose. The pony just wouldn’t do it. Dad tried again and again. Day after day. But the pony wouldn’t do the trick. He was ready to sell it. While a potential buyer was there, the pony ran around the ring and, to Dad’s surprise, stopped, lifted one foot onto the block of wood, and held the other foot in the pose Dad had been trying to teach it. The Shetland stallion turned out to be one of the best ponies Dad ever trained. Dad trained twenty-eight horses to ride one winter. Sometimes, though, the riders were more trouble to train than the horses.3
Ringling horses were trained both in winter quarters and on the road. This photo, labeled “training to cake-walk,” was taken in Greenville, Texas, in 1902. RICHARD E. AND ALBERT CONOVER COLLECTION, CWM
NOTES
1. U.S. Census information quoted in Clay McShane and Joel A. Tarr, “The Centrality of the Horse in the Nineteenth-Century American City,” in The Making of Urban America, 2nd ed., ed. Raymond A. Mohl (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1997), p. 107.
2. Milwaukee Journal, January 27, 1900.
3. Walter Gollmar, interview by the author, Evansville, Wisconsin, August 20, 2001.
The Ringling Circus Band, shown here in 1891, performed in concert before the show and played throughout the circus performance. William F. Weldon was director. PRINT COLLECTION, CWM
Profits varied among circuses; for the Ringlings it was about 40 percent for several of their most profitable years. Forty percent profit was certainly not the case for all businesses; circus profits, especially for the Ringlings, were outstanding, and some circuses turned in even higher profit margins. According to circus historian Stuart Thayer, profits for some pre–Civil War circuses reached 60 percent.34 Profits represented all cash money—no accounts receivable, no credit. And they were earned by selling twenty-five-cent and fifty-cent tickets to mostly ordinary country folk who thirsted for some good, clean entertainment.
The Ringlings had to earn almost all their money from April to October. The rest of the year they had essentially no income, only expenses. The animals kept on eating, and the winter quarters crew had to be housed and fed—and paid. Supplies had to be purchased and equipment repaired for the coming year. And if the Ringlings wanted to keep expanding, they had to add more of almost everything.
It is unlikely the residents of Baraboo had any idea of the vast amounts of money the Brothers were taking in, other than knowing that the boys were buying things in town and employed a number of locals at winter quarters. While the name “Ringling Bros.” was becoming well known throughout the land, back in Baraboo they were just a bunch of local boys with a crazy idea that seemed to have paid off. It had to be difficult for local businessmen and farmers, who could barely scratch out a living, to understand the Ringlings’ success.
In 1891 rumors persisted that the Ringlings might move from Baraboo. A local paper carried a brief notice: “The report that the Ringlings were about to change their place of rendezvous from Baraboo to Milwaukee is denied, on authority of the Brothers.”35
The Ringlings had no intention of moving. They were focusing on their recent accomplishments and trying to figure out how to expand and compete with much larger circuses, such as Barnum & Bailey, which had a tremendous reputation in the eastern United States and was known throughout the country. The five young Ringling partners had a taste of success, and with some luck, hard work, and careful attention to thousands of details, they were on their way to becoming a show that other circuses needed to worry about.
While in winter quarters in 1891–1892, the Brothers planned an even larger circus for the coming season. In October they bought two more elephants, three camels, a Russian elk, a mountain lion, a leopard, and a Sumatra tapir.36 The animals had been a part of Sam MacFlinn’s Great Eastern Circus.37 In February the Ringlings acquired a large polar bear to add to their menagerie.38
That winter the Ringlings turned the former Peck and Cramer Building, at the corner of Water and Ash Streets in Baraboo, into a carpenter shop where workmen built new seats for the Big Top. In a three-story building on the “corner near Hoyt’s mills,” leather crafters under the experienced eye of the Brothers’ father, August, made harnesses. The second floor was the lithograph room, “filled with tons of attractive advertising paper,” and the third floor was used for making mattresses for the “Ringling hotel,” a private facility where many Ringling winter employees lived. A brick former feed store near Noyes corner at Ash and First Streets was used as a paint shop, and tent canvas was stored in the back. And in a building at the corner of Oak and Fourth Avenue, in the Wright Block, seamstresses under the careful direction of Mrs. Al Ringling were reported to be “manipulating the needle and thread in the manufacture of their sparkling and costly new wardrobe.”39
The Sauk County Democrat reported that the Ringling hotel (at the southwest corner of East and Water Streets) “was crowded with employees of the show, and the room of other hotels is also being infringed upon as the newcomers arrive.” The Democrat also declared that in the Ringlings’ business office, “typewriters, pens and pencils are almost constantly in motion,” and it described the car repairing department as “keeping a force of men at work in making improvements in rolling stock. The wagon manufactories of Moeller and Sons [located on Third near Broadway] and Gollmar Bros. are also compelled to run extra forces in order to build all the necessary new vehicles. Space will not permit further mention of one of Baraboo’s greatest industries.”40
In 1892 the Ringling Brothers commissioned a new bell wagon, shown here in a parade that August in Black River Falls, Wisconsin. PHOTO BY C. J. VAN SCHAICK; BLACK RIVER FALLS HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The Brothers began the 1892 season with a larger Big Top, a bigger menagerie, and twenty-eight railcars (increased to thirty-two before season’s end). They added several other new features, including an impressive bell wagon—the nine bells weighed more than five tons and were cast especially for the Ringlings—and a huge J. I. Case steam tractor, referred to as a traction engine.41 The tractor had a steam whistle and a cab similar to one on a railroad locomotive. With their massive size and unusual characteristics, the new wagon and tractor became important attractions in the Ringlings’ parade.42
By April everything was in order for the season’s grand opening in Baraboo. Charles was sufficiently relaxed two days before the opening that he went fishing, catching “thirteen speckled trout that together weighed 15 pounds.”43
For many years Gus Ringling managed the activities of Advertising Car No. 1 and its bill posters, shown here in 1892. PRINT COLLECTION, CWM
The city of Baraboo designated opening day, Saturday, April 30, “Ringling Day.” A long list of businessmen advertised that they would close their doors at 7:30 p.m., “in order to give all proprietors and employees an opportunity to attend Ringling Bros. Circus.”44
Rain began falling after the parade and continued all afternoon and into the evening, making it an uncomfortable “Ringling Day.” Nonetheless, thousands of people sloshed through the mud and water into the relatively dry tents to see what new thrills the Ringlings had in store this year. After Baraboo, it continued raining, day after day, town after town. A month of rain—and muddy show grounds, and missed appearances.
While the circus was traveling from Madison, South Dakota, on June 9, an animal cage blew off the train and a kangaroo escaped, “wildly hop-step jumping over the seas of plains.” The following day the kangaroo was captured. The brief bit of freedom must have been too much for the animal, however, and it died three days later.
Glowing newspaper reviews for the Ringlings’ show continued. A writer for the Duluth, Minnesota, paper reported, “Ringling Brothers’ Show, [June] 27th had fully 10,000 people at afternoon and over 10,000 at evening performance. It was pronounced by all to be the best exhibit ever given in Duluth of the kind.”45
The Ringlings were working hard to maintain their reputation as an honest, family-friendly circus, and they even employed Pinkerton detectives to assist. When the show played in Waupaca, Wisconsin, on July 14, 1892, the local newspaper carried this story:
Thursday morning last the Ringling Brothers notified the mayor that there were five pickpockets in town who had followed the show. Chief of Police Larson spotted them and made them leave town on the noon train, before they got in any fine work. It is seldom that showmen take such pains to preserve the reputation of their shows as did the Ringling Brothers.46
In August, while in the show was in Garrett, Indiana, the assistant master of properties, a Mr. Kelly, was killed. The route book account relates the incident:
The night was very dark, recalling what the Bible says about those who “love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.” Mr. Kelly was lured from the door of the dressing-room tent, no doubt with the intention to rob and waylay. He probably made resistance, and then came a struggle, a blow on the head with a coupling pine, and finally the sudden shot which startled all in the dressing room, laying the victim low. Mr. Kelly was borne to a neighboring house where he lived an hour and a half in great apparent agony. … In the excitement and darkness the murderer escaped.47
During the 1892 season, the Ringlings showed in thirteen states, mostly in the Midwest but as far away as Oklahoma Territory. That year they played a third of their stands in Iowa and Wisconsin, old and well-known territory for them. The biggest day of the year was June 27 in Duluth, where they took in $5,183. They closed in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, on October 26, having played 153 stands (10 more than in 1891).
The Ringlings’ receipts for 1892 exceeded those of 1891 by about $122,000 (in 1891 they took in $206,635; in 1892, $328,878).48 Assuming a conservative 40 percent profit, the Ringlings banked about $131,551 in 1892 (about $2.5 million in 2002 dollars).
The Ringlings arrived in Baraboo on Saturday night, October 29, 1892, and immediately proceeded to tuck animals and equipment away for the long, cold Wisconsin winter. There was no denying that they had become a major force in the circus world. For those not privy to account books, a circus’s success was judged by the number of railroad cars, horses, and elephants, the size of the menagerie, the number and size of tents, especially the Big Top, and the quality of the Big Top show. All of these were on the increase for the Ringling Brothers—with the possible exception of the quality of the Big Top show. Some historians argue that the quality of the Ringling show hadn’t reached that of the Barnum & Bailey Circus, which often competed with the Ringling Brothers. “The Ringlings were a Chevrolet show, the Barnum & Bailey show was a Cadillac.”49
If the Brothers were aware of an unfavorable comparison, they didn’t let it bother them. With their assets and confidence on the rise, they immediately began preparing for the 1893 season. They were considering new acts, John Ringling was scouting new towns to play, and they were adding to their menagerie. They purchased more elephants, increasing the herd to eight: Babe, Jule, Fannie, Lou, Fanchon, Prince, Duke, and Sultan. (Zip, the huge African elephant, died during that winter.) They bought a gnu (often referred to as a horned horse) and a giraffe. “During the winter of 1892–93, we purchased of John Robinson one female giraffe [named Mamie] and shipped it to Baraboo on a flat car in a cage over which was built a shanty—unloaded when the thermometer registered zero.”50
The circus train rolled through the dark and rainy early morning of May 17, 1892, on its way to Concordia, Kansas. Suddenly, everyone was jarred awake by a terrific crash and then the screams of injured and dying animals and the cries of workers caught in the rubble. A railroad bridge had washed out, and the train had hurtled off the tracks.
Pouring out into the night, our men perceived by the flickering light of lanterns a chaos of wrecked [rail] cars, some crushed to utter kindling wood, and others hurled headlong or sidelong into a lake of mad waters that held both sides of the track, and whose undermining power had wrecked a trestle and train. This lake was full of dead and drowning horses. … With humane bravery, our men plunged into the waters and cut harness right and left, or pulled the necks of drowning horses out of the water with halters. As the gray of morning came on the situation grew worse. Robert O’Donnell, of Gratiot, Wisconsin was found in a mass of blood-stained wreckage, with a splintered piece of two-by-three scantling driven clear through his head. … Nearby, mid twisted rails and rack and ruin, was the body of Albert Dietzler, aged sixteen, from Freeport, Illinois. The poor boy’s head was crushed as if by a sledge hammer. Twenty-six magnificent draught horses, heavy Clyde stallions, Normans and Percherons, floated dead in the lake on the other side of the track. Other poor brutes had broken legs or ripped bellies and had to be killed.1
Four other men were severely injured and were taken to a Kansas City hospital. Immediately after the wreck, a handbill began circulating, “Wanted, Draft Horses, weighing from 1,200 to 1,600 pounds. Will pay what they are worth. Ringling Brothers’ Circus.”2
No time was taken off. The circus performed as scheduled on May 18 in Concordia.
NOTES
1. O. H. Kurtz, Official Route Book of Ringling Brothers: Season of 1892 (Buffalo, NY: Courier, 1892) pp. 53–54.
2. Ibid.
Sideshow performers (shown here circa 1893), including the tattooed man, fat man, bagpiper, and snake charmer, had similar contracts and salaries to other performers’ and were treated no differently than other show people. PRINT COLLECTION, CWM
The Ringlings bought this giraffe from the John Robinson circus during the winter of 1892–1893. WALTER SCHOLL COLLECTION, ILLINOIS STATE UNIVERSITY, NORMAL, ILLINOIS
Exaggeration had always been a part of circus promotion, and the giraffe offered a new opportunity. In 1893 Ringling posters proclaimed, “Largest living giraffe.” She was a big one—but as a female, hardly the largest living one. She remained a major feature of the Ringlings’ menagerie until her death in July 1896 while the circus was in Iowa.51
Baraboo contractor Carl Isenberg and his brother, George, constructed most of the Ringling winter quarter buildings as well as several homes for the Brothers. SAUK COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
By the end of January 1893, the Ringlings had a new car shop adjacent to the Chicago and Northwestern yards on the south side of the Baraboo River.52 Local contractor Carl Isenberg did the work and would build several other buildings for the Ringlings in ensuing years. The Ringlings also built a paint shop near their railroad tracks in Mrs. Potter’s field.53
By late 1892 plans were well under way for the World’s Columbian Exposition, to be held the following summer in Chicago. The international exhibition would commemorate the four hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s discovery of America and was purported to cost $31 million. The show would display wonders of technology, including the first movable sidewalk and the forerunner of the movie projector, and showcase unheard-of products that are now familiar: Cream of Wheat, Shredded Wheat, Aunt Jemima syrup, Juicy Fruit gum, and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Visitors would stand in awe of the huge Ferris wheel, invented for the World’s Fair; this one was 250 feet across and held more than two thousand passengers. Admission would be only fifty cents for adults, twenty-five cents for children age six to twelve, and free for those under six. It was predicted to be the event of the year.54 The word was that people would forgo a visit to the “ordinary” circus and would travel to Chicago to see this extraordinary World’s Fair.
Many thought the spectacular 1893 Columbian Exposition would steal customers from the Ringling Brothers Circus. It did not. WHi(X3)40415
While Americans eagerly awaited the World’s Fair, they were also about to enter one of the most severe economic depressions in the country’s history. Early in 1893 banks around the country began to fail. Panic spread, farm prices fell, and soon thousands of businesses had closed and individuals had gone bankrupt. Within a year three million workers—20 percent of the workforce—would be unemployed, and thousands of homeless and starving men would aimlessly walk city streets, searching for their next meal.55
With both the World’s Fair and the country’s economic woes to consider, it seemed clear that businesses, especially those in entertainment, should hunker down and ride out the economic storm. Many of them did.56 But the Ringlings decided to go on with their show no matter what. They opened in Baraboo on Saturday, April 29, World’s Fair and depression be damned. With 35 railcars, 3 advertising cars, 207 horses, 20 cages of wild animals and birds, 7 elephants, 3 camels, and about 700 employees, the 1893 Ringling circus was the largest ever.
An 1893 handbill advertised “The Giant Giraffe, Tallest Animal on Earth” and “Mr. Charles W. Fish, the Acknowledged Champion Bareback Somersault Rider in the World,” among other features. HANDBILL COLLECTION, CWM
On May 1, opening day of the World’s Fair in Chicago, the Ringlings played a little more than a hundred miles away in Sterling, Illinois. The show included three rings and two stages, sometimes with five events going on at the same time. There were clowns and acrobats, trained horses, and tight-rope walkers. Charles W. Fish, well known for his horsemanship, was one of the featured performers. He was billed as “The world’s champion summersault rider.”57 And of course, the “Largest Living Giraffe” was boldly promoted.
The show also featured an eight-piece sideshow band under the direction of John Marshall, a Grand Concert Band of twenty-one members directed by William F. Weldon, Minstrel Orchestra of eight (an entire minstrel show was part of the performance), three parade bands ranging from nine to thirteen members, and a four-member Parade Field Band with fife and drums.58
The Brothers quickly discovered that even though times were tough, farm prices were low, and many people were out of work, families still went to the circus. The color and splendor, the animals, and the music took people’s minds off their problems, at least for a short time. The boys reported an “enormous crowd” in Mankato, Kansas; “business was big” in Phillipsburg, Kansas. In Wayne, Nebraska, “the number of tickets sold exceeded by several thousands the entire population of this county.” In Minneapolis a newspaper reported it as “the largest [business] ever done by a circus in Minneapolis, and the show as the most satisfactory ever seen here.”59 One day’s receipts in Minneapolis were $3,510.60
The Ringlings’ business was flourishing, and yet the country’s economic situation grew more dire. On May 12 there was a run on the Plankinton Bank of Milwaukee, precipitated by the failure of a big furniture company to which the bank had lent money. The bank closed on June 1.61
While in Milwaukee in late July, the Brothers saw firsthand the effects of the depression. Many local firms were closed or operating with limited hours. Unemployment was high and money was short, but still, people came to the circus. Milwaukee’s Evening Journal reported an afternoon attendance of fourteen thousand people, with every seat taken and people sitting on the hippodrome track. The paper reported, “The show was superior to any circus performance ever seen in Milwaukee.”62 Afternoon and evening receipts for the Milwaukee performance totaled $3,234.45.63
It became a Ringling tradition that at the end of the season, chef E. C. Hailey would serve up a special meal for all the employees. In 1893 the keeper of the route book described the bittersweet event: “The band plays, ‘Home, Sweet Home,’ and the hundreds who have lived together for six long months as one great family scatter to the four winds of the heavens.”64
| Farewell Dinner Menu |
| Soups: Cream of chicken with rice. Tomato. |
| Fish: Baked white fish. Egg sauce. Boiled trout. Cream sauce. |
| Boiled Meats: Boiled leg of mutton. Caper sauce. Beef. Horse Radish Sauce. |
| Roast Meats: Roast beef. Brown gravy. Pork roast. Apple sauce. Roast Lamb. Green peas. Roast veal dressing. |
| Poultry: Boiled fowl. Oyster sauce. Roast duck dressing. Roast chicken dressing. |
| Entre: Kidney stew. Mutton stew. Maccaroni [sic] and cheese. |
| Vegetables: Green corn. Mashed potatoes. Baked sweet potatoes. Stewed tomatoes. Stewed onions with cream. |
| Dessert: Chocolate cake. Cream cake. Coconut Cake. Green apple pie. Lemon pie. Peaches. Oranges. Grapes. Nuts. |
| Refreshments: Coffee. Tea. Ice tea. Milk.65 |
The Ringling circus ended its season in Havana, Illinois. Despite the depression and competition from the World’s Fair, the Ringlings’ gross income for the 1893 season was $318,451 (138 stands) compared with $328,878 in 1892 (153 stands). The average income per stand in 1893 ($2,308) was higher than in 1892 ($2,149).66
Back in Baraboo the Brothers once again rented the old City Hotel on Water Street for the winter, put away their animals and equipment, and immediately began planning for the coming year. Could they top their 1893 season?
In 1894 the World’s Fair was over, but the depression continued. The Ringling Bros. World’s Greatest Shows, now with thirty-nine cars and three advance cars, opened in Baraboo on April 28 and then went on to the Midwest, East, Northeast, and South. Crowds were good, the weather tolerable. They competed with Sells Brothers Show in Iowa and won hands down. Alf T. later described the May 28 show in Des Moines: “In spite of the fact that the big top had been enlarged for the occasion by the addition of an extra center-pole and many extra seats, it was utterly impossible, both at the afternoon and night performances, to furnish seats for all of the thousands, and many occupied standing room.”67
While the circus was traveling in Iowa, one of the property wagons caught fire when the train was moving, most likely caused by sparks from the steam locomotive. “It was a novel sight to see our train speeding along at the rate of twenty miles an hour while the large wagon was in flames.” The fire was put out before it spread.68
Crowds continued to be good to excellent. It was the Ringlings’ first time in several eastern states and their first time in the South. Alf T. wrote: “Our first stand in Texas is a corker. People here are overcome with the merit of the World’s Greatest Shows, and welcome the change from the inferior concerns that have been playing this region so long.”69 Nothing like a little self-congratulation. But the boasting was well earned. It had been a stroke of genius to take the circus to Texas, where they played twenty-two dates and did extremely well. In Dallas in mid-October, even with extra seats, the Ringlings had to close the doors at 1:30 and give evening show tickets or refund money to nineteen hundred people. That evening’s show sold out as well.
They also did outstanding business in Louisiana and Mississippi. They expanded their 1894 season to 175 stands, the most yet, and were on the road for 205 days. They closed in Water Valley, Mississippi, on Saturday, November 17, and were back in Baraboo the following Tuesday.
Not only did the Ringlings have more stands in 1894, but the average gross receipts for each stand were higher than in the previous two years. They took in $5,858 in Dallas, their biggest day so far. They brought in $4,829 in Fort Worth on October 17, $5,143 in Waco on October 24, and $5,019 in San Antonio on October 30. Earlier in the year, their biggest day had been May 2 in Davenport, Iowa, where daily receipts were $4,596.70
| Ringling Average Daily Gross Receipts |
| 1891: $1,445 |
| 1892: $2,149 |
| 1893: $2,308 |
| 1894: $2,48471 |
Gross income for the 1894 season was $419,768—the largest amount ever for the Brothers. Of course, expenses were up, too, although the salary for most circus workers remained at fifty cents a day, with board and a bunk on the train included.
| One Day’s Expenses: Fort Dodge, Iowa, June 5, 1894 |
| Transferring cars: $75 |
| Billboards: $100 |
| License: $100 |
| Oil: $3.75 |
| Sledge hammer handles: $8.25 |
| Hay: $7.00 |
| Hotel: $178.25 |
| Shears: $.85 |
| Gasoline [for lights]: $14.34 |
| Animal feed: $55.25 |
| Lot permit: $25.00 |
| Meat: $5.25 |
| Cook house: $116.65 |
| Livery: $44.50 |
| Police fines [details unknown]: $25.00 |
| Newspaper ads: $80.00 |
| Total Expenses for Fort Dodge, Iowa: $839.09 [excluding salaries] |
| Receipts for Fort Dodge, Iowa: $2,677.95 |
| Profit for Fort Dodge, Iowa, excluding salaries: $1,83872 |
Using the conservative 40 percent profit figure, the Ringlings netted approximately $168,000 (about $3.2 million in 2002 dollars) for the 1894 season.
Five years on the rails had placed the Ringling Brothers among the top circuses in the nation. Even during a severe depression they attracted thousands of people to their shows. They had demonstrated that they could compete in the eastern and northeastern states, as well in the South and as far west as Texas. And their solid midwestern support never wavered.
They had suffered blowdowns, a devastating train wreck, and a lightning storm that killed several people, yet they persevered, always with an eye toward becoming larger, entertaining more people, and making more money.
Now, as they faced the last five years of the century, it seemed nothing stood in their way. They had both reputation and monetary resources, and all seven brothers were involved, contributing their unique skills and honing their expertise. When the city of Baraboo welcomed the Brothers home in the fall of 1894, a local newspaper man wrote:
“The Ringlings are home again!” was the good news heralded about town Tuesday afternoon. The four large trains bringing their paraphernalia and many of the people connected with the show rolled into Baraboo between one and two o’clock Tuesday afternoon [November 20], and as usual many eager spectators were on hand to take a look at the outfit and to greet the proprietors and resident employees of whose faces Baraboo people never tire. Upon the arrival of the show one could not avoid thinking that the Ringlings were certainly born lucky, and we’re glad of it. All went well again during the entire season, which will go on the records of these successful show managers as the best of all.73
The circus was contributing considerably to the economy of the community, and the Ringling boys were local heroes. But big changes were about to take place that would affect Baraboo and would have a great impact on the future successes of the Ringling Brothers.
Noncompete Agreements
One way the Ringlings sought to lessen competition with other circuses was to sign noncompete agreements with other shows—a fairly common practice among circuses at the time. For instance, on June 8, 1893, the Ringlings signed a noncompete agreement with the Adam Forepaugh Show, which agreed to cancel appearances in all Wisconsin towns, the Red River Valley, and all towns north of Minneapolis except St. Cloud, Willmar, and Litchfield. The Forepaugh show also agreed not to advertise in Mankato, Minneapolis, or St. Cloud, Minnesota, until after the Ringlings had played the towns. The Ringlings agreed to not play in any towns west of the Mississippi River except Mankato, Minneapolis, and St. Cloud. The document also specified that it “be treated strictly confidential between the parties hereto.” The fine for violating the agreement was set at $20,000.1
In 1894 the Ringlings struck a similar agreement with Barnum & Bailey. The Ringlings agreed not to show in a specified list of towns in Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Missouri. Barnum & Bailey agreed not to show in specified towns in Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Kansas. The Ringlings also agreed not to “circulate or cause to be circulated any advertisements of any kind or description” in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island during the 1894 season.2
NOTES
1. Noncompete Agreement, June 8, 1893, Adam Forepaugh Show and Ringling Brothers, CWM.
2. Noncompete Agreement, March 7, 1894, Barnum and Bailey and Ringling Brothers Shows, CWM.