Ringlingville USA

The economic depression dragged on into 1895 and wouldn’t be over until 1897. But the Ringlings, fortified by their successful 1894 season, were already looking past the depression. How could they surpass what they had accomplished the previous year? How could they become an even greater presence in the circus world and take the undisputed lead?

As the Brothers looked ahead to the coming years, they saw the Barnum & Bailey circus as their major competitor. For several years Barnum & Bailey had opened their season indoors at their open-air building in New York City, the “Monster Hippodrome,” later renamed Madison Square Garden. The Ringlings considered opening indoors in the Midwest. They could start their season a month earlier and thus earn more money. Showing indoors for an extended time would also help performers perfect their acts before going on the road. Indoor shows wouldn’t require putting up and taking down tents each day; there would be no railroad expenses moving from town to town; and the show would require fewer employees than when on the road.

Early in February 1895 the Brothers announced that they had leased the Tattersall’s building, an exhibition hall for horse shows, in downtown Chicago. The show would play there April 6–28. It was the first time that a circus show, menagerie, and hippodrome track would be under one roof in Chicago. The Ringlings had never exhibited in Chicago and had never shown in one place for more than a few days, so the Brothers were taking a risk. Would city people attend a circus? For three weeks?

The Tattersall people quickly began remodeling the building for the Ringlings, adding opera chairs, reconstructing entrances, setting aside a section under the seating platforms for the menagerie, and hanging five thousand flags of many nations under the building’s dome.² The show would include two rings (a third would be added in succeeding years) plus an elevated stage.

The “five brothers in a row” image was developed around 1898. It became one of the most recognizable icons in show business. COURIER COLLECTION, CWM

The Ringlings began using an image of the five partner brothers as their signature logo in 1888 on their employee contracts, when only Al and Otto wore mustaches, and John, Charles, and Alf T. were clean shaven.1 An 1890 ad displayed the five brothers in pinwheel fashion, with one brother in the center and one at each corner. Now each had a mustache.² In 1891 the five mustachioed brothers were presented in a horizontal row.³

Their signature image, with Alf T. in the upper-left corner and Charles in the lower right, was developed about 1898. In this photo each had the same expression, each had a similar moustache, and each was wearing a standup white collar. There was a striking similarity among the five, which was surely the intent. When someone saw an ad, a poster, correspondence, or anything associated with the Ringling show, there were the likenesses of the five partners, all in a formidable row. The picture became their trademark.

NOTES

1. Ringling Brothers contract, April 3, 1888, Pfening collection and CWM.

2. Reproduction in Bandwagon, March–April 1984.

3. New York Clipper, August 1, 1891, p. 362.

The first two sections of the huge show left Baraboo the evening of March 23, 1895, and arrived in Chicago the next day. The last two sections, which largely included the baggage horses and the menagerie, arrived in Chicago on March 27.⁴ On Thursday evening, April 4, the Ringlings mounted their first-ever night parade. It was reported that four hundred thousand people saw the extravaganza of horses, wagons, wild animals, elephants, and circus performers.⁵

The show opened at Tattersall’s Saturday evening, April 6. The usual posters, newspaper ads, and news stories announced the gala event throughout the city. A local writer had this to say about the show:

The present experiment for the Ringling Brothers might have been a most costly one had the circus been less meritorious. The preliminary expenses were large, more than the lay reader would perhaps believe if the figures were given. The opening night proved a happy (predicator) of all the nights and days which followed. The Ringlings doubtless figured on the possibility of dropping some money here. As a matter of fact they will leave here several thousand dollars to the good, with an enhanced reputation, and the knowledge that the success of the Chicago engagement is already heralded through the territory they make in the immediate future.6

The Ringlings spent twenty-three days in Chicago and put on forty-five performances. Their gross receipts were $52,157; the average daily take was $2,267.⁷

The Ringlings now had confirmation that not just farm and small-town people were attracted to their show. No matter where they lived, people loved the Ringling Brothers Circus. After Chicago the Ringlings loaded their trains and went under canvas April 30 in Ottawa, Illinois. They showed in St. Louis May 6–11. Alf T. Ringling later wrote, “The unrivaled success of the World’s Greatest Shows in Chicago and on the road had aroused the expectations of the amusement-loving people of St. Louis to a fever heat, and the six days’ visit to the metropolis of Missouri was one continuous ovation.”8 The show took in $22,803 for the six-day run, with average daily receipts of $3,800.⁹

By 1895 the Ringlings employed 775 people. The various functions of the circus business were headed by managers, who each supervised up to several hundred employees. About seven hundred people traveled with the show; approximately one hundred of them were performers, and the rest were in labor and support roles. Another seventy-five worked in the advance and advertising department.

Departments

Music, William F. Weldon (eighty-three performers, including a ten-person sideshow band, forty-nine-piece military concert band, and twenty-four-piece Grand Circus Band).

Transportation, Robert Taylor (thirty-one men responsible for railroad operations).

Canvas Department, John “Happy Jack” Snellen (205 men responsible for putting up and taking down sixteen tents, including erecting seats and constructing rings).

Horse Department, Spencer “Delavan” Alexander, Boss Hostler (114 men including teamsters, grooms, pony boys, stable men, blacksmiths, a harness maker, and a wagon repairer; Mr. Rhoda Royal was in charge of ring stock, the performing horses).

Menagerie, James Rafferty (twenty men who cared for twenty-four cages of exotic animals and birds, plus camels, sacred cattle, and elephants; Mr. Pearl Souder had specific responsibility for the fifteen elephants).

Properties, Charles Miller (twenty-two men responsible for show performance equipment).

Wardrobe, W. W. Rees (seven employees responsible for keeping all costumes in good repair).

Chandelier Department (lights), Charles W. Roy (seven men).

Dining Department, E. C. Haley (fifty-three men prepared and served three meals a day for all the employees).

Refreshment Department, A. E. Parsons (twelve men). Privately operated by Parsons, who paid a percentage to the Ringlings to sell pink lemonade, peanuts, cigars, and the like to the circus audiences.

Ticket Department, Otto Ringling (twenty-seven men); Henry Ringling was Big Show door tender.

Sleeping Car Department, Paul Cunningham (nine men).

Sideshow, Charles Andress (sixteen employees and performers).

Performers, Al Ringling, Equestrian Director (one hundred performers).

Financial Department, Otto Ringling (two employees).

Advance and Advertising Departments, John Ringling, router and railroad contractor; Charles Ringling, general advertising agent; Alf T. Ringling, general press agent, Gus Ringling, manager of Advertising Car No. 1. Three advertising cars: Car 1, approximately thirty-five men; Car 2, approximately twenty men; and Car 3, approximately twenty men.1

NOTES

1. Alf T. Ringling, With the Circus: A Route Book of Ringling Bros. World’s Greatest Shows, Seasons of 1895 and 1896 (St. Louis: Great Western Printing, 1896).

The show moved east and played Boston from June 24 to June 29. “Rain or shine, they [the crowds] thronged into the great amphitheatre [Big Top], and when the engagement was brought to a close the record of Boston amusements, like that of St. Louis had been broken; for those who were competent to speak declared that never before in the history of Boston entertainments had so many people passed through the entrance of a circus tent in a single week.”¹⁰

Newspapers praised the show. The Boston Journal announced: “The Ringling Brothers not only have the greatest show on earth, but also the greatest show that ever was on earth.” And the Boston Globe declared: “The Ringlings’ is the best circus, by all odds, that ever visited Boston.”¹¹

They played 201 stands during the 1895 season, with average daily receipts of $2,685. The season’s gross income was $539,753. Ringling profits for the year, assuming a 40 percent profit margin, were about $216,000 (about $4.3 million in 2002 dollars).¹²

Having found great success in 1895 with their indoor opening at Tattersall’s, the Ringlings returned there for the 1896 opening. On April 2, 1896, they loaded their railcars in Baraboo and headed for Chicago. (The trip, in near-zero temperatures, resulted in the death of three boa constrictors.) Once again the Ringlings held a nighttime parade in downtown Chicago prior to the April 11 opening. The Chicago Times-Herald said of the parade, “It had the right of way over everything except the United States mail … the street cars waited to allow the long procession to pass. The line of waiting [street] cars was many blocks long, yet the passengers did not complain for they saw a good show from an excellent vantage point.”¹³

During the winter of 1895–1896, Ringlingville Baraboo consisted of thirty-seven Ringling employees, three listed as part time. They included Spencer Alexander, superintendent of livestock; James Rafferty, superintendent of animals; Rhoda Royal, superintendent of ring stock; John Snellen, boss canvasman; Wilson Reese, superintendent of wardrobe; and Pearl Souder, superintendent of elephants. In addition there were four animal keepers, nine teamsters, two grooms, two cooks, one dishwasher, one canvas maker, two harness-makers, two advance agents, and eight “general” employees.¹

It is unlikely that nine teamsters were required during the winter months. Like other employees, teamsters did various tasks as needed during the winter off-season. One way the Ringlings were able to keep experienced team drivers—it took considerable skill to drive multi-horse teams—was to provide them winter employment.

NOTES

1. 1895–1896 Angell’s Baraboo City Directory.

Rain and wind were the Ringlings’ constant companions in the spring of 1896. It rained so much in Peoria, Illinois, that the entire lot was under four inches to two feet of water. “It was impossible to give any further performance as the trunks in the dressing rooms were floating, so the audience waded out to terra firma and the show people turned their attention to saving their wardrobe and other properties from floating away.”¹⁵

On August 12 the Ringling Brothers bought the failing W. B. Reynolds Circus. William B. Reynolds had started his overland circus during the winter of 1891–1892. The show became a railroad circus in 1893 but did not fare well because of the depression. Reynolds managed to go out for two more years, but by 1895 they had only eight cars. In 1896 they went out with only five cars and admission at twenty and ten cents; they spent much of the season showing in the Chicago suburbs before selling to the Ringlings. The show’s properties included four advance wagons, twenty baggage wagons, a ticket wagon, two bandwagons, seven passenger wagons, and twelve cages of animals. They also included two elephants, Baldy and Queen, who remained with the Ringling show for many years.¹⁶

On August 22, in Kankakee, Illinois, five hundred patients at a nearby “insane asylum” attended the show. A fierce windstorm came up and blew down three horse tents, the Big Top, the dressing room tent, and the menagerie. Ten thousand people, including the asylum patients, were soaked. “During the excitement 29 lunatics escaped from their keepers and at dusk were not yet found.”¹⁷

The Ringlings moved on to the South with great success and closed on November 26 in Luka, Mississippi. As usual, rumors circulated about whether they would winter in Baraboo, and now it seemed there might be some truth behind the speculation that they would leave their hometown. The season’s route book closed with these words, “Had arranged to winter at Philadelphia but changed and returned to Baraboo.”¹⁸

Other circuses, including Barnum & Bailey, Forepaugh-Sells, and the Buffalo Bill show, had been watching the Ringlings’ growth with alarm, and several circus owners devised a plan to drive the boys out of business. The idea was for one competing circus to show just ahead of the Ringlings, and one just after, “to make a sandwich” of the Ringling Brothers’ show. When the press learned of the scheme, the idea collapsed. The “press began to resent the idea and called it a conspiracy against America’s only real live show.”¹⁹

The continuing economic depression was affecting attendance and receipts. A Berlin, Wisconsin, newspaper included this in a review of the circus: “The hotels we are informed did not do quite as large a business as that of two years ago, the last visit of the big show. The threatening weather of the night before is probably responsible for this. Then again, there is not so much money in circulation as there was two years ago.”²¹ The attempts of several circuses to crowd the Ringlings likely also had some effect on income.

Back in Baraboo for the winter of 1896–1897, the winter quarters were crowded with the growing number of horses and other circus animals the boys were acquiring. By the time the show returned to the road in 1897, the elephant herd alone had grown to twenty-five animals.²²

The Ringlings opened the 1897 season in Chicago, where the average daily gross receipts were only $1,417, compared with $2,121 in 1896 and $2,267 in 1895.²³ Perhaps this was a sign of the continuing recession. Or perhaps the newness of the circus had worn off for Chicago people.

After Chicago and a few stands elsewhere in the Midwest, including a week in St. Louis, the boys moved west, with stops in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, and Montana. They played St. Louis with huge crowds and daily receipts averaging $2,157.²⁴

In Utah and Montana, daily receipts averaged about $3,000 per day. The Ringlings were back doing what they had done several years before—going to small towns in out-of-the-way places, for the most part drawing huge crowds of people thirsting for entertainment.

They swung back east, with several dates in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, and on July 15 played in Baraboo for the first time in two years. The route book noted, “Hot and clear. Business good. The home of the big show. Mr. and Mrs. Ringling, senior, and a number of relatives of the firm, visited the afternoon show, and later had dinner in the dining car.”²⁶

They were in Janesville, Wisconsin, the next day, where a reporter wrote, “Ringling Brothers’ big show—Wisconsin’s own circus—is in town, and so are ten or twelve thousand people who want to see the show is carrying the fame of the Badger state to every nook and corner of Uncle Sam’s domain.”²⁷

As had been true the previous season, competition from other shows was fierce, especially in the Midwest. Two or even several circuses might play in the same town, sometimes just weeks apart. The Ringlings showed in Detroit on July 26 and faced Barnum & Bailey, who were already advertising their upcoming show in that city. The route book writer noted:

One feature of the 1897 show was the black tent, or projectoscope tent. Inside a tent with a painted or dyed black ceiling was a moving picture machine.²⁹ Circus goers interested in seeing a silent movie bought separate tickets to enter the tent. Little did the Brothers know that moving pictures would eventually become the circus’s major competitor.

Since the Ringling Brothers put their circus on the rails in 1890, it had grown each year (going from twenty-nine railcars to fifty-six). They had survived the competition, although at times it lowered their income. And they had faced the national economic depression head on. Although there were dips in receipts, the depression years were good ones for the Brothers.

By the end of the 1897 season, the United States had become involved in the Spanish-American War, fighting in Cuba and in the Philippines. The depression of 1893 was ending. The economy was humming again, and people had a little more money in their pockets.

The Ringlings looked forward to 1898 with more enthusiasm than ever. The economy was promising, and their nemesis for the past several seasons, the Barnum & Bailey show, had packed up and moved to Europe for an extended stay. The Ringlings’ main competition would now be Forepaugh-Sells, Buffalo Bill, Great Wallace, and the smaller shows.

“When the news was published that Bailey was to go to Europe, … Otto Ringling, who is the real business man of the outfit, thought it was the opportunity of their lives. That fall there was plenty of money in the country, as we were enjoying a wave of McKinley prosperity. … During the winter of 1898, they purchased a new line of railroad equipment, new cages, … and extensively added to their menagerie.”³¹ It was an exhilarating time for the Ringlings, but their excitement was dampened by the death of their father, August Frederich Ringling, on February 16, 1898.

The Ringlings had enough confidence and money that they decided to put two shows on the road in 1898—their own and the John Robinson Greatest of All American Shows, which they leased. The Robinson show had twenty-two railcars plus two advance cars and consisted of Robinson property combined with Ringling animals and equipment. Animals for the show included six elephants and one Ringling-owned hippo, plus fourteen cages. The Robinson circus opened in Baraboo on April 27 and toured the Midwest with numerous stops in Wisconsin and Iowa. It closed on November 7 in Rogers, Arkansas.³³

Charles Ringling traveled with the Robinson show for its first twelve weeks, while it was getting established. Henry Ringling served as manager of the show for the entire season, and John G. Robinson traveled with the show as an employee.

Meanwhile, the Big Show, as the Ringlings referred to the Ringling Bros. World’s Greatest Shows, opened in the Coliseum Building in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 11, 1898. It is possible the Ringlings didn’t return to Chicago for the season opening because of declining revenues there and the clear possibility that Chicago residents were losing interest in circus performance. A circus had never before played indoors in St. Louis, and the community looked forward to the event. City leaders knew the Ringling shows had opened indoors in Chicago in previous years and were flattered that the Brothers picked their city for their 1898 opening.

The show traveled with fifty-seven cars (twenty-eight flatcars, twelve stockcars, ten coaches, four elephant cars, and the usual three advance cars). The show had nineteen elephants and thirty-two cages of exotic animals.³⁴

On April 11, opening day, festivities begin with a parade that tied up traffic, disrupted streetcar schedules, and was enjoyed by thousands of people lining the parade route. The parade included four hundred horses and a herd of elephants, all of which had known peace and quiet since the previous October. Suddenly, an eight-horse team pulling the yellow bandwagon bolted and ran away. The writer of the Ringling route book described the event:

Gross receipts for the ten-day stand in St. Louis were $21,479.75. The Ringlings paid the exposition center one-eighth of the gross—$2,684.90.³⁶

While they were in St. Louis, the Ringlings heard news of the United States’ involvement in the Spanish-American War. They sent a telegram to Washington.

Telegram to War Department

Russell A. Alger, Secretary of War

In the event of war can we place at the disposal of the War Department twenty-five elephants for special artillery service in Cuba. Some of them have served in the Punjaub, and neither the climate, food, swamps nor underbrush of Cuba could interfere with their utility. In the heavy underbrush they would be particularly useful, where horses cannot travel freely. They could be armored so heavily as to be utilized as moving forts. We have men competent to handle the animals, who are anxious to enlist, and the value of the elephants in the light artillery has been fully demonstrated in India. Ringling Brothers.³⁷

Alf T. made sure the newspapers knew about the telegram. The St. Louis Post Dispatch printed a long article with the headline, “Elephants for Cuba. Ringling Brothers make a tender of their herd to the War Department.”³⁸

There is no record that the Ringlings’ offer was seriously considered. But what would the Brothers have done if the government had accepted the elephants? It had been long established that a circus wasn’t a circus without elephants.

The Ringlings did not wait around for an answer from the War Department. From St. Louis they moved east, through Illinois and into Kentucky and West Virginia. The show quickly ridded itself of early season problems. The route book entry for April 27 reads:

Reception in the East was positive. When they played in Troy, New York, on a Monday at the end of May, all the businesses and factories closed, “and the city was veritably given over to the circus.”⁴⁰

The 1898 season had its usual assortment of accidents and unusual happenings. While playing in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, on June 7, everyone heard a terrific explosion about 8:00 p.m. War fever was high, and someone said it must surely be a Spanish bomb. In fact, a tank of gas used to feed one of the lights had exploded, blowing two workers over a tent wall for a distance of twenty feet. No one was reported killed.⁴¹

When the show played in Jackson, Michigan, on August 13, the Brothers suggested to the warden of the nearby prison that they do a show at the prison. The warden accepted the offer, and several performers made their way to the huge building inside a walled compound. Alf T. Ringling described the event this way:

In 1898 Alf T. Ringling traveled in Europe and spent some time in a chalet in Switzerland. He fell in love with the setting, and upon returning to the United States he went looking for a place that was similar. He learned from a friend that only six miles east of Baraboo, in Greenfield Township, was such a place. On December 3, 1901, Alf T. bought 120 acres for $5,800; the following March he purchased an additional 20 acres for $1,000.¹ In 1903, 1905, and 1907 Alf T. bought additional nearby land, making his total holdings 280 acres. There he built a chalet and a guest/carriage house, where over the years he entertained such well-known celebrities as Buffalo Bill Cody, Tom Mix, and Babe Ruth. (The Aldo Leopold Foundation of Baraboo currently owns the property.)

NOTES

1. Greenfield Township, T.11, R.7 E., Section 2. Land ownership records. Aldo Leopold Foundation, Baraboo, Wisconsin.

Many Ringling clowns joined the Puff Club, shown here in 1910. PRINT COLLECTION, CWM

Circus people traveled, worked, and ate together for up to seven months of the year. Many formed close friendships and even makeshift families.

Some of these “families” devised names for themselves. The “Pot Gang” consisted of animal caretakers who gathered in the evenings around a campfire after the closing of the menagerie to eat, tell stories, and pass the time before loading the trains for the next stand. And the “Puff Club” consisted of the show’s principal clowns; one of the club’s rules was that each member must use a powder puff as part of their making up. The initiation fee was twenty-five cents.1

The residents of Ringlingville shared joys and suffering like any family. When there was an accident or a death, it touched everyone in Ringlingville. While the show was in Athol, Massachusetts, on June 4, 1898, an employee’s son died.“The sad news of the death of little Georgie Conners, who passed away at 4 o’clock this morning, in the Springfield hospital, from appendicitis, fell like a pall over the entire show. … He was the only child of Mr. and Mr. George Connors, an unusually bright and lovable boy, who had grown into the affections of many of the members of the show. Many hearts ached with loving sympathy for the sorrowing parents in this, the dark hour of bereavement. … The following day the body was tenderly laid to rest in the cemetery at Springfield. Mrs. Al Ringling and Miss Ida Ringling attended the funeral obsequies.”²

NOTES

1. Alf T. Ringling, The Circus Annual: A Route Book of Ringling Brothers, Season 1901 (Chicago: Central Printing and Engraving, 1901), p. 37.

2. Red Wagon: Route Book of The Ringing Bros. World’s Greatest Show, Season 1898 (Chicago: Central Printing and Engraving, 1898), p. 47.

After a series of acts, the 854 prisoners had a chance to see several elephants put through their paces. Alf T. wrote:

At its conclusion, the prisoners marched into the prison, the band leading and playing “Auld Lang Syne.” The air was taken up by the convicts and they sang with feeling almost indescribable. As they filed by the expression depicted on the long line of faces showed joy, excitement, pleasure and pain. Here and there a tear stained face betokened the mission of the players had not been in vain. On entering the corridors the men marched silently and took their places in front of their respective cells. The great gong sent out a deep detonation, the cell doors opened and each prisoner entered there to resume the dreary monotonous life of a convict.⁴³

As the circus crisscrossed the country, the quality of the show lots varied considerably. In Huntington, West Virginia, the lot was covered with big sewer pipe, and the lot in Syracuse, New York, was a dumping ground filled with ashes, tin cans, “hoop skirts and a worn out washing machine.” As Alf T. reported, “The aroma rising from this odoriferous combination was unlike anything we have ever met before. The English tongue, comprehensive as it is, fails to find anything in its vast vocabulary that can begin to express what was wafted o’er the ‘dump.’”⁴⁴

The weather remained an unpredictable factor in circus life as well. In 1898 the rains began in late summer and continued into November. Many of the show lots were in miserable condition, making everything about showing difficult and at times nearly impossible. The only bright spot was a five-day stand in New Orleans, where good crowds turned out. But even the New Orleans lot was far from ideal. On Thursday, November 17, upon returning from their parade in a heavy rain, the circus workers found the lot under water. They hauled in cinders, hay, and straw, placed planks in the menagerie tent, and built walks from the streetcar lines to the show lot. And people flocked to their performances. As Alf T. wrote, “It is said that our business surpassed that of any circus that has ever visited the city and this fact alone is a source of much satisfaction to the management.”⁴⁵

For 1898 the Ringlings had planned their longest season yet—opening in St. Louis on April 11 and scheduled to close on December 8 in Kosciusko, Mississippi. But the weather caught up with them. They closed on November 28, canceling nine stands in Mississippi and Alabama. “Show closed and shipped to Baraboo, canceling … stands on account of mud, cold, rain, and conditions of lots and roads.”⁴⁶ Even with the cancellations, the Brothers played two hundred stands for the season, including ten days in St. Louis. The John Robinson Show played 167 stands. Thus, with two shows, the Ringling Brothers offered 367 circus stands in 1898.

For the 1899 season, with the Barnum & Bailey show in Europe, the Ringlings had clear sailing. They seemed content to go on the road with their main show only, and the Robinson show went out of Cincinnati on its own that year.

The Ringlings returned to Tattersall’s in Chicago for their April 15 opening and then headed to St. Louis for a week’s stand under canvas. Special features for 1899 included three herds of elephants performing at the same time, in three rings, and John O’Brien’s horse act, which included sixty-one horses performing at once.

Even with occasional weather problems, crowds were huge as the show traveled through the West as far as Washington State, with stops along the way. Then it was back through Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin (there was no show date in Baraboo). Always dependable Iowa was next with several dates, followed by Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma Territory, and the South, with three dates in New Orleans, including the closing on November 22. The Ringlings made 186 stands in 1899.

The year 1899 had been an old-fashioned, conservative year for the Ringling circus. Other than traveling to the Northwest, the Brothers tried few new things. Their good reputation and credit rating continued. The Martindale Mercantile Agency in New York (a kind of credit-rating agency of its day) received a request from the Strobridge Litho Company of Cincinnati concerning the Brothers’ ability to pay bills. The agency replied:

Referring to your request of August 12 that we obtain for you a report as to the responsibility of Ringling Bros. of Baraboo, Wisconsin, we beg to submit the following information which we have obtained from F. R. Bentley, the Attorney for this Agency in Baraboo:

The firm of Ringling Bros. is composed of five brothers, (Charles, Al, John, Alfred and Otto), … are known to be prompt in meeting their obligations. They have never failed, nor been sued, nor asked an extension. They have valuable real estate in their own name, unencumbered. They all own their own homes and have about $15,000 worth of other real estate. Their supposed total net worth real and personal, is $500,000. So far as known, they have no indebtedness, nor no judgments, or chattel mortgages.

The attorney concluded by stating that “these people are perfectly good in every respect.”⁵⁰

At the end of 1899, Alf T. wrote, “It is scarcely necessary to dwell upon the great success of the Ringling Brothers’ show during the past season. Financially it has been three seasons, and as to its artistic and exhibitional achievements the comments of the press and public give the most forcible and convincing expression.”⁵¹

Ringling employees picked up their mail at the Ringlingville post office—a circus wagon (shown here in 1915). PRINT COLLECTION, CWM

By 1895 Ringlingville on the road functioned like a sophisticated small city. It included sleeping and eating facilities, a huge livery, a blacksmith shop, a barbershop, a candy store, and even a post office. Ringlingville’s postmaster for many years was Jules Turnour, a clown in the circus. Because the circus’s routes were planned well ahead of time, circus employees’ families knew where to send mail. Upon arriving in a city each morning, Turnour hitched up a team and drove to the local post office, where he picked up the mail for the circus people.

Jules Turnour was both circus clown and Ringlingville postmaster for many years. PRINT COLLECTION, CWM

As Turnour wrote:

I know every performer by name, and I am the agent that brings joy or ache. Many eager hopes hang on those post-office trips of mine. The dashing bareback ladies and the daring trapeze performers look for letters that never come. Human nature is the same the world over, whether it is in the gilded palace or under the canvas of the big tent. I send away money orders for all the performers, and in this way I find out some of their secrets. The gruff strong man, whose giant muscles are the admiration of the crowd, sends part of his wages each week to his old mother in Germany; the bewildering little rider, who moves in a gay world of motion and color, has a sick husband, whom she supports. I become the friend and confidant of all of them, and it makes life richer and deeper and more worthwhile for me.1

By 1908 Ringlingville included a doctor, a chaplain, a veterinary surgeon, detectives, barbers, blacksmiths, and a storekeeper—everything one would expect to find in a small city. And as in many cities, the circus population was, as one writer noted, “a congress of nations.” In that year Ringling employees, both performers and workers, included 16 Japanese, 40 French, 10 Swiss, 30 Italians, 5 Portuguese, 4 Bohemians, 10 Austrians, 50 Russians, 65 Germans, 8 Belgians, 10 Scots, 8 Spaniards, 10 Poles, 4 Egyptians, 2 Singalese, 6 Cossacks, 12 Hungarians, 4 Burmese, 6 Welsh, 390 Americans, 460 Englishmen, and a hundred or so others of unknown origins. The writer concluded that Ringlingville on the road was “a Tower of Babel for tongues, a congress of religions, a gathering of clans and families.”²

Ringlingville on the road was a traveling city that boasted most of the services found in any rural village, including a barbershop, shown here circa 1890–1891. The Ringlings wanted all employees to be well groomed for the public. Note the razor strap and straight-edge razor in the barber’s hands. PRINT COLLECTION, CWM

The blacksmith shop was an essential service in Ringlingville on the road. PRINT COLLECTION, CWM

NOTES

1. Jules Turnour (as told to Isaac. F. Marcosson), The Autobiography of a Clown (New York: Moffat, Yard, 1910), pp. 78–79.

2. Duluth (Minnesota) Herald, June 24, 1908.

By the end of the century, the Ringling circus had clearly become a giant. Would it maintain its lead among competing circuses? And perhaps more important, could it compete with the many new entertainment opportunities, especially the moving picture?

Seven-Year Summary of Ringling Finances
Year	Gross Revenue	Average Daily Receipts	Stands	Railcars
1891	$206,635	$1,445	143	29
1892	$328,878	$2,149	153	32
1893	$318,451	$2,308	138	38
1894	$419,768	$2,484	169	42
1895	$539,753	$2,685	201	47
1896	$501,968	$2,510	200	50
1897	$524,153	$3,081	177	56

A Giant Emerges: 1895–1899