by Jerry Apps
A newspaper review of the first show reported, “The afternoon’s business was heavy, for Baraboo, as it does not usually patronize shows well in the afternoon. In the evening the tent was crowded so that it made it inconvenient for them to perform. The performances were very creditable considering the boys had never had any practice and we have not heard a single person find fault. They are proud of their home endorsement and desire us to return thanks to the citizens for their liberal patronage, and Mr. Al Ringling, one of the head men, says if business continues as good as it commenced he will come back to Baraboo with a big show.”33
Each day they performed in a new town. The little time they had for sleeping they spent in local hotels or dozing off in the wagons as they made their way along the dusty or muddy roads. One performer noted, “Sleep was the dragon which pursued me with a relentless and irresistible power. It was like a vampire that took the zest and vitality out of my very life sources, and I went about almost as one walking in a dream.”34
As the tour continued, newspaper reviews were mixed. After the show played in Argyle, Wisconsin, on Thursday, May 29, a local reporter wrote: “Yankee Robinson and Ringling Bros., double jointed, contracted, aggregation and exaggeration, has come, and gone, skipped, skedaddled, pulled out and perambulated toward the setting sun. Among the many curiosities were reserved seats, an Irishman, a Dutchman, an educated pig, and a full grown, live dude, plug hat and all. They also had a blind horse, which was mistaken by some as a ‘living skeleton.’”35
They played in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, June 3. A local editor wrote:
Yankee Robinson’s show was in Dodgeville last Tuesday, and although by some misunderstanding with the king of Siam, the white elephant was not sent on, yet the Ringling Brothers did the best they could to supply the missing link caused by the absence of the elephant, by shoving a sandy hog and black horse into the void. The hog and horse constituted a double show exactly as was advertised in the Star last week. We are always very careful not to advertise anything except genuine articles, but in the case of this show we just made a hair-breadth escape; and had it not been of the timely appearance of the hog and horse, all our advertisement about a double show would have been false, and we would have incurred the displeasure of all the good people of the county. … As it is now, we have maintained our good standing with all the ministers, Sunday school superintendents and temperance committees, at a great sacrifice.36
In the minds of many, for a circus to be a “real” circus, it must own at least one elephant. At this point the Ringlings did not yet own one.
The show moved into Iowa on June 21 and played twenty-seven towns there before pulling into Alden, Minnesota, on July 23. They played thirteen Minnesota towns and then forty more in Iowa.37
The circus caravan occasionally got lost, as country roads were poorly marked. Sometimes an outrider rode in advance, marking the road. “At a fork he would borrow a rail from a nearby fence and place it across the track that wasn’t to be taken.” When there were no fences, the outrider might use pieces of paper with rocks on them, or a handful of flour to mark the way.38
On rainy nights, the troupe packed up wet tents and lifted the heavy, dripping canvas onto wagons as a team of cold, wet horses stood by. They drove all night through the mud and gloom, with no sounds but horses’ hooves clopping through the mud and the slush of wagon wheels protesting the ooze.
Years later Al Ringling shared some of his wagon-show experiences with a friend. “[Al] recalled one rainy morning driving a team while sitting in a wet puddle high up on a wagon. An old razor back [circus employee] sitting beside him says to Al, as he had seen an old farmer coming out of his house and going to barn to do chores. ‘Look at that rube.’ Al turns to the man and says, ‘You call him a rube. Well he is going into a nice dry barn and back to a dry house to eat and we are both soaking wet. We are the rubes.’”39
On such cold, wet nights, many disillusioned young farmers turned their teams and wagons toward home, remembering the warm, dry beds that they had left a few weeks earlier. The show constantly sought new recruits to replace those whose excitement for circus had turned to misery after one too many cold, rainy nights in the wilds of Wisconsin, Iowa, or Minnesota. As Alf T. Ringling wrote, “Every time it rained, or the wind blew, or the roads were bad, or the proprietor of one of the teams had seen enough of the country, the showmen had to skirmish for some other rural person with a pair of horses and an ambition to travel.”40
Yankee Robinson appeared in every show. But he was ill and sometimes hardly able to walk out to center ring. His last appearance was August 16, 1884, in Correctionville, Iowa. In front of the crowd that day he said, “For 40 years I have followed a showman’s life, during winter and summer. I have traveled through rain, hail, wind, frost and snow to please the public. For 40 years I have rested my head on a strange pillow and eaten at stranger’s board. I have suffered all the reversals and hardships of an eventful career. And today I come from my sick-bed to attempt to please you and do my duty. For a number of years the public has said that I am dead but I am alive—as far as I have got—and when I die—I expect to die among strangers.”41
Fayette L. “Yankee” Robinson died September 4, 1884, in Jefferson, Iowa. The Boys were left without their mentor and consultant. They were also now without their biggest drawing card. People came to see Yankee Robinson; they didn’t know the Ringling boys.
Robinson’s death was a turning point for the Ringling Brothers. If their circus was to succeed, they would have to do it on their own. On they drove, into September, playing the Iowa towns of Palo, Center Point, Center City, Hopkinton, and Cascade. They made three stops in Illinois before crossing back into Wisconsin with show dates at Shullsburg and Benton on September 26 and 27 and then back to Baraboo.
They had played 114 towns in four states and had been out nineteen weeks.42 Upon arriving in Baraboo, the boys stored their equipment and began planning the 1885 season. But first they would mount another round of fall and winter concert shows.
As soon as November, the Brothers were on the road again as the “Ringling Bros. Carnival of Fun,” playing the small town halls in Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and Wisconsin. They opened at Garden Prairie, Illinois, on November 12, 1884, and closed at Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, on March 14, 1885. They opened a second round of shows on April 6 in Warren Mills, Wisconsin, and closed May 5 in Barron, Wisconsin. Including their previous spring hall shows, their summer circus performances, and their fall Carnival of Fun shows, the boys put on 241 shows in 1884—an enormous accomplishment.43 If nothing else, the Ringling Brothers had proved to themselves and to a largely accepting public that they could put on a show, move to another town, and do it all over again, day after day, week after week. They also proved that the five of them could work together as a team, sharing the duties of managing and performing and moving from town to town through all kinds of weather without destroying their relationship.
The Ringling Brothers
Albert Charles “Al” (1852–1916)
As the oldest, Al was the leader of the Brothers. He was equestrian director for the circus, in charge of the program and the hiring of performers. Al was nervous, always on the go, and a perfectionist, especially when it came to circus performance. For many years he was in front of the audience while the other Brothers worked in the background.
Al was a taskmaster, but he also had a soft side. His nieces and nephews found him warm, friendly, and always ready with a funny story. In one incident Al noticed a crying woman with a little girl hurrying away from the show grounds. Al caught up to her and asked her what was wrong, and she replied that she had lost her purse, which contained three dollars and her railroad tickets home. Al motioned for one of his men and instructed him to take the woman and her daughter to the show and sit with them, in the best seats. After the performance the man was to escort them to the best hotel for supper, buy the woman a new purse, reimburse her stolen money, purchase train tickets for their return trip, a
nd make sure they got on the right train.1
William Henry Otto “Otto” (1858–1911)
Always fond of numbers, Otto was treasurer for the circus and became the financial genius of the Ringling operation. Quiet and methodical, he loved good books and built a substantial personal library. But he was always a frugal man. He never married and he never owned a home, living with his brother Alf T. when he was not on the road. His brothers sometimes called him The King because he and he alone controlled the Ringling purse strings.
Alfred Theodore “Alf T.” (1863–1919)
Alf T. was in charge of press relations. He established contacts with hundreds of newspaper people across the country, and as the Ringling Brothers Circus grew he oversaw a cadre of public relations writers who were constantly feeding news articles to the press about the circus at home and on the road.
Alf T. was somewhat of a free spirit. Although he was part of all major decision making, he left day-to-day operations to Al, Charles, and Otto. He had considerable musical abilities, playing the cornet during the circus’s wagon-show days. For several years he penned the annual route books, chronicling the show’s travels. He also wrote Life Story of the Ringling Brothers (1900), a history of the Ringling Brothers circus.
Carl Edward “Charles” (1864–1926)
Charles was in charge of advertising and promotion, including overseeing the vast army of bill posters, who plastered circus posters throughout the countryside prior to the show’s visit. Charles also worked behind the scenes to keep the circus operating smoothly and efficiently. He was a favorite among the circus employees, laborers as well as performers, providing an even keel on the circus lot where he spent a great deal of time. The staff affectionately referred to him as Mr. Charlie.
Charles was the most musically talented of the Brothers. Once a season up to the year before he died, he played a horn solo with the circus band. He also collected rare and expensive violins and was an avid fisherman.
John Nicholas (1866–1936)
John was in charge of scheduling and became an expert on where railroads ran and who ran them. He always dressed impeccably and never cared much for Baraboo; some found him a pompous show-off. He was tall, with curly hair and droopy eyes, and was considered a ladies’ man. Even while his brothers were still living in Baraboo, he lived in a hotel in Chicago, and he later lived in New York.
In addition to his scheduling duties, John traveled widely in Europe on the lookout for outstanding circus acts. Along the way he became an amateur art collector and an entrepreneur. He built the Yellowstone Park and White Sulphur Springs Railroad between Ringling and White Sulphur Springs, Montana. He also purchased ranch land totaling more than one hundred thousand acres and founded the towns of Ringling, Montana, and Ringling, Oklahoma. He built a short-line railroad from Ardmore to Ringling, Oklahoma, and named this twenty-three-mile railroad the Oklahoma, New Mexico and Pacific.
August Albert “Gus” (1854–1907)
Gus signed on with the Ringling circus in 1890 and was content to work as an employee, not as a partner. He was in charge of Advertising Car No. 1, which was responsible for pasting circus advertising on the barns and sheds across the country. Gus was well read and, some said, the most gentle of the brothers.
Henry William George (1868–1918)
Though the youngest of the boys, Henry was six foot, three inches and weighed more than three hundred pounds—the largest of all the brothers. He joined the show in 1886 and later became superintendent of the main entrance to the Big Top. When Otto died in 1911, he left his fifth of the circus to Henry, who then became a partner.
* * *
NOTES
1. “From Mud to the Field of the Cloth of Gold,” Show World, September 17, 1910.
PHOTOS ON PAGES 23–24 FROM PRINT COLLECTION, CWM
Establishing a Reputation: 1885–1889
“Waukon, Iowa. May 15, 1888. We have had the worst experience in business since we started.”1
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.
Members of the Ringling Bros. Great Double Shows, Circus, Caravan, and Trained Animal Exposition, 1885. From left to right (standing): candy butcher (unknown), Al Ringling, Frank Sparks, G. P. Putnam, Rich Dialo, Alf T. Ringling, Sam Hardy, Frank Kissell. Middle row (sitting): George Hall, Vic Richardson, John Ringling. Front row: George W. LaRosa, Theodore Asmus, Charles Ringling, Dick Hunter (advance agent), Otto Ringling. Those not pictured include Lou Ringling, Al Ringling’s wife. PRINT COLLECTION, CWM
The Ringling Brothers opened their 1886 circus in Baraboo on May 15. This year they had a ninety-foot round top tent (to which they added a thirty-foot middle section on July 3) and a seventy-five-foot by forty-five-foot sideshow tent. They now had eighteen wagons and had added a caged animal display consisting of a hyena, a bear, monkeys, and an eagle. According to a Ringling legend, they advertised the hyena as “Hideous Hyena Striata Gigantium. The mammoth midnight marauding man-eating monstrosity, the prowling grave-robbing demon of all created things.”6
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