by Jerry Apps
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.
Circus Horses
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 wa
tching 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
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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.