Ringlingville USA

by Jerry Apps

  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

  Ringlingville Baraboo

  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.

  Newspaper reviews were strong:

  Ringling Bros.’ World’s Greatest Show closed the season at Tattersall’s this evening. The business during the past few weeks has been phenomenal, and the standing-room-only signs are liable to be displayed at the performance for the remaining day. The great show has added wonderfully to its reputation during the present stay, and all lovers of this style of entertainment pronounce it the best and biggest ever seen in Chicago. … Chicago emphatically likes the Ringling show, and prefers it to any other.14

  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

  During the 1897 season, under “the largest tents ever constructed,” the Ringlings had their highest average daily receipts to date. HANDBILL COLLECTION, CWM

  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

  During the 1896 season the Ringling circus made two hundred stands, including twenty-two days in Chicago, where they took in $46,668 at an average of $2,121 per day. For the entire season they took in $501,968, with average gross daily receipts of $2,510, down somewhat from average daily receipts in 1895 ($2,685). Their largest daily income to date, $6,388.30, occurred in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 2.20

  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

  They showed six days in Colorado, averaging $3,148 each day, and then moved into Wyoming with a stand at Rock Springs, where they took in only $841.90. The keeper of the route book had this to say about Rock Springs:

  Hot and dusty. Business light. A cosmopolitan crowd of Huns, Fins, Norwegians, Poles, Dagoes and other foreigners who work in the coal mines here. A desolate, barren mining camp, with a cosmopolitan bunch of weather in keeping with its people. It was clear, cloudy, sunshiny, dusty and rainy, by fits and starts. One show was given, and no one was sorry to leave the place.25

  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:

  This has been the hottest opposition fight of the season so far. Every effort has been made by the opposition to get the people to “wait,” and even the weather is with them. In spite of pouring rain, the street parade went out on time, and the streets were thronged with a dripping crowd to witness it. The afternoon house filled the big top, and at night it was all but a turn-away.28

  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.

  The 1897 season included only 177 stands, but average daily receipts were the highest ever, and their total income approached that of 1895, when they had 201 show dates.30 For three years in a row, the Ringlings’ gross revenue had exceeded $500,000 ($9.9 million in 2002 dollars).

  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

  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.

  Then, shortly before the start of the 1898 season, in April, a fire at the winter quarters put a scare in everyone. The Baraboo Republic reported:

  Wednesday afternoon before three o’clock a fire alarm was sent by telephone to the electric light plant and the fire whistle was sounded. The fire was located at Ringlingville, but by the time the department arrived it was out. The fire is said to have originated in the paint shop from oil that was being heated on the stove. At Ringlingville the employees got out the fire hose that is always kept for the purpose and had a stream of water on the roof of the building in less time than it takes to tell it. In this building were several wagons, one the new hippopotamus cage and the other a lighter but expensive animal cage. Had the fire gotten under good headway it would have been difficult to have saved the big four and a half ton cage. The damage is but slight.32

  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:

  [W]ith rare presence of mind and consummate skill George “Buggy” Stump, the driver, seeing that he was powerless to check them, kept them in the middle of the street until he met an electric car, against which he dashed. The sudden shock of it had a quieting effect on the team, one of the “wheelers” being thrown under the car wheel, resulting in a broken leg, thus averting what might have been a terrible catastrophe, with great loss of life. The side show band, who participated in this mad flight, were not slow at this point to escape from thei
r perilous position on the wagon, and with blanched faces thank their lucky stars they were still numbered with the living.35

  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: