Ringlingville USA

by Jerry Apps

  The Ringlings were always looking for horse meat to feed their lions, tigers, and other carnivores. They advertised in area papers and received many interesting replies. One display ad in winter 1912 read: “Wanted to buy old useless horses in good health to be used for animal feed. Apply to Charles Smith, Ringling Brothers Winter Quarters, Baraboo, Wisconsin.”36

  A fellow from Hancock wrote the Ringlings:

  I could pick up a few horses in this section, and ship you dressed horse meat, mostly rather thin. If you are in need of anything in this line, kindly write me and I will dress some in good shape and ship to you. Let me know whether you want them examined by a horse doctor before butchering. The manner of shipping, whether boxed or wrapped and all particulars including price. Hope to hear from you, I am, Harry Humphrey, RFD #1, Hancock, Wisconsin.37

  Even with all their wealth and prestige, the Brothers themselves continued to work on the minutest details. That winter Al was concerned about the need to replace the Number 3 advertising car and wrote in a detailed letter to Charles, “[The car] is not as strong as the number one and number two cars but the only fault of the number three car is that the roof is in bad shape, but this could be easily fixed.” He went on to say that John was looking for a new Number 3 advertising car.

  Ringlingville: A Portable City

  By 1915 Ringlingville on the road had grown to the size of a small city, its tents requiring about fourteen acres. With few exceptions, the show moved to a new town each day. PHOTO BY STEVE ALBASING; ALBASING COLLECTION, CWM

  The more the Ringlings’ circuses grew, the more people marveled at how Ringlingville’s twelve hundred residents could move from town to town, day after day. An example of this incredible accomplishment was recorded by a Pittsfield, Massachusetts, observer in June 1913:

  Ringling Bros. Circus arrived this morning from Holyoke, Mass., at 3:30 a.m. and the first section started to unload at 4:30 a.m. First section consists of 21 cars: 17 flats, 2 horse cars, 2 sleepers, 56 wagons of which 30 are cages.

  Second section came in at 7 a.m. and consists of 21 cars: 19 flats, 6 horse cars, 5 sleepers, 25 wagons and 3 small wagons.

  Third section came in at 7:30 a.m. and consists of 20 cars: 14 flats, 5 horse cars, 1 stock car, 38 wagons, 2 chariots.

  Fourth section came in at 8 a.m. and consists of 20 cars: 7 horse cars, 4 stock cars, 9 sleepers.

  Twenty horses are loaded to a car so there are over 400 horses, 27 elephants, 20 camels, 5 zebras.

  Stock cars are painted yellow and the ends red. Flats are yellow. Sleepers are red and the wagons are red and yellow. Some have gold lettering. Advance cars No. 1 and No. 2 are red and advance car No. 3 is blue and yellow.

  All tents were put up Sunday morning except the big top [the Ringlings had no shows on Sunday]. There are 17 tents—big top, menagerie, side show, dining tent, colored dining tent, private dining tent, cookhouse, 3 horse tents, 1 pony tent, 2 dressing tents, ballet tent, wardrobe tent, candy stands and small tents. All of the wagons are unloaded by 10:30 a.m.

  A large crowd was watching the unloading and also on the lot. Sunday afternoon the horse tents were open to the public. A large crowd was on the street Monday watching the 10:00 a.m. parade which was the best circus parade ever seen here.1

  * * *

  NOTES

  1. Unpublished notes by Isaac Marcks, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, June 22–23, 1913, CWM.

  Most of the Brothers’ letters are solely business related, but Al ended this one a bit more personally:

  Everything here going good but the weather is very cold, in fact we are having the coldest weather of the season. I hope that you are well and putting in a nice winter. Henry was here a few days last week. He and his family are going to Florida—I think they left Chicago last night for the south. The weather and climate does not agree with little Henry so this is the reason for them going south.38

  That winter Al also took care of awarding the 1913 balloon privilege. During the 1912 season the balloon contract (which included the privilege of selling “toy balloons, whips, canes, beads and badges”) had gone to Thomas Zingaro of Jersey City, New Jersey. Zingaro had paid the Ringlings $150 each week in advance. The Ringlings furnished transportation for four balloon sellers and paid a twenty-five-cent meal allowance.39

  Al assured Zingaro that he would have the privilege again in 1913. In December 1912 Thomas Zingaro sent Al Ringling two kegs of wine, one white and one red, and a letter asking about the contract Zingaro’s brother had signed. Zingaro wrote, “What my brother signed is all right. He told me he didn’t leave no deposit if you want it I will send it to you.”40

  Al replied, “Your letter as well as the wine arrived here alright. I surely thank you very much for same. … In regards to the deposit for your privilege: It is alright, you can suit yourself. … The privilege is for you and we will look for you to handle the balloons with the Ringling Bros. show next season.”41

  That winter the Brothers were also concerned with larger matters. They had been considering taking one of their shows to Europe, and in December 1912 Al wrote to brother John:

  You ask me to let you know what I think about the London proposition. Would it be the Ringling show that would go over? If either of the two shows goes over I should think it should be this show for the simple reason that this show would be new over there while the Barnum show would not be a new attraction for them. Besides, the B & B show may not stand so well over there on account of the stock being sold at a loss and perhaps the show had quite a lot of newspaper notoriety on that account. But I don’t think much of any of them going over. Surely we can do plenty of business without running those chances and going to all that trouble.42

  Al’s downtown Baraboo theatre project had been on hold since 1912, and in February 1913 the architect for the project, George Rapp of Chicago, wrote to Al:

  We have not heard from you for quite a while, but judge that you will be ready to go ahead with your theatre proposition now within a few weeks. Your plans and specifications, of course, have all been completed and figures have been in for some time.43

  When the Ringlings returned to Ringlingville in Baraboo in the fall of 1912, they were aware that the Wisconsin legislature was considering income tax exemptions. In reply to Rapp, Al Ringling wrote:

  Our state legislature is now in session and I hope that legislation will be so that I can go ahead with the construction of the theatre building. From what I can learn the conditions are favorable and I should be in position to let you know concerning this within a few weeks.44

  The legislature had considered the Ringlings’ complaint of unfairness and debated whether to give the Brothers a reprieve from the new state income tax. An April 1913 news item in the Baraboo Weekly News detailed the legislature’s discussion. “Most of the argument against the bill to exempt the Ringlings and other shows from the income tax on business done outside the state was that it was an entering wedge for other lines of business to ask the same favor.”45

  Assemblymen Andrew Gulickson and George Carpenter explained that the Ringlings paid monthly license fees of $13,000 while on the road, meaning that they were already heavily taxed. After considerable debate, the bill to exempt the Ringlings from state income tax passed sixty-nine to sixteen.46 The exemption would save the Ringlings up to $40,000 a year ($700,000 in 2002 dollars). Their income tax nightmare was over.

  No doubt feeling the sting from their hassles over state income tax, the Ringling Brothers agreed in 1912 to come under the provisions of Wisconsin’s new Workmen’s Compensation Act without complaint.47 A labor newspaper in Duluth reported:

  The Ringling Circus has over 1,000 employees who are on duty practically 24 hours a day when the show is on the road. All are included in the number coming under the protection of the act. Twenty-eight other concerns [businesses] have elected to come under the act so far this month.48

  The Ringling Bros. World’s Greatest Shows, again featuring the spectacle Joan of Arc, opened in the
Chicago Coliseum on April 5 and played there until April 20. The show moved east until late June, when it returned to the Midwest. From there it continued on to California and then south, closing on November 1 at Okmulgee, Oklahoma. Meanwhile, Barnum & Bailey, The Greatest Show on Earth, with the spectacle Cleopatra, played at Madison Square Garden from March 22 to April 19 and then played in Brooklyn for the week of April 21. Barnum & Bailey moved on to the Midwest and then played in eastern Canada until the end of June. Then it was back to the Midwest, including dates in Milwaukee and Madison, west to the Dakotas, and then into the South. The Barnum & Bailey show closed November 3 in Louisville and returned to winter quarters in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

  MAP BY AMELIA JANES

  Ringling Winter Employees 1913–1914

  Baggage horses: 23 Blacksmith shop: 5 Harness shop: 3 Wardrobe: 5

  Ring stock: 7 Car shop: 16 Wagon shop: 1 Watchmen: 2

  Animals: 8 Paint shop: 16 Repair shop: 8 Office: 1

  Elephants: 10 Boarding House: 12

  Average weekly salary for workers was $3.50; car shop workers earned sixteen dollars each week and blacksmiths and harness-makers earned about fifteen dollars. Meals (worth about seventy-five cents per day) and lodging (about fifty cents) were also furnished to the working men.

  Salaries for superintendents ranged from a little over fifteen dollars per week for Charles Rooney, who was in charge of baggage horses, to seven dollars per week for Howard Anderson, superintendent of wardrobe.1

  * * *

  NOTES

  1. Ringling Brothers 1913–1914 Winter, Working Men Time Book, CWM.

  Even with excellent leadership in all departments, the Brothers maintained their hands-on management approach. In August 1913 Charles wrote a detailed letter to Al about plans for the 1914 season:

  With reference to the Saxons. In my opinion the act is good, but hard to place in a number with other acts and a lot of stuff to carry; but outside from this I would not reengage them because they demoralize things in the cars. They had been bringing tubs filled with beer into the sleepers and breaking all the rules. I have had this stopped, but I would not reengage them under any condition. …

  Regarding the spectacle: I think we should have it next year. I believe it is a necessity, but I would do as you say—have one scene only, one change of costumes only and a ballet of fifty instead of sixty. I would open same with a fanfare of twenty trumpeters, the musicians in the band, then the band and tournament followed by an assembly and ballet, and confine the slow pantomime work to the least possible. I would put it away up high so that everybody can see it. Our spectacle this year is not put up high enough and the people on the back side of the blues [bleacher seats] cannot see it. It will be easy to arrange a spectacle of this kind and it will advertise as well as before and give better satisfaction.

  With reference to Detective Brice. In my opinion he is the deadest detective we have ever had since we have been in show business. He is a good fellow personally, but no good on the job, and I would positively not reengage him. I have one other reason besides this which I will explain to you later.

  With reference to the Roeders: Mrs. Roeder pretty near put an end to the Martinettes [a “heavy-juggling act,” meaning they juggled heavy objects]. She broke a plate in the cook house and with the raw edge of one piece cut a hole in Martinette’s head, cutting a principal artery. He has not been able to work since, as the cut is right where he balances on his forehead. The Roeders should not be reengaged. I assessed a heavy fine against both for fighting, etc. I suppose I should have let them go.49

  The Ringlings and the U.S. Army

  In 1912 the Ringling Brothers’ incredible efficiency caught the eye of the United States Army. That year two army officers from Washington, D.C., spent two weeks traveling with the World’s Greatest Shows. According to the Baraboo Weekly News, “They will study the methods by which a circus moves so smoothly and rapidly. It has been estimated that taking into consideration the total number of people with the circus, nearly 1,300, and the fact that it carries about 1,000 animals and 650 horses, besides all the necessities of a moving village, the machinery of the thing must be worth observation. No army detachment in action has ever pitched camp and moved each day with such rapidity.”1

  * * *

  NOTES

  1. Baraboo (Wisconsin) Weekly News, May 23, 1912.

  In 1913 the Ringling Brothers replaced all their gas lighting with electricity. The Brothers had used light plants as early as 1903, but their new General Electric generators were more reliable than anything they had used before.50 Electric lighting also lessened the danger of the Big Top’s gas lamps causing a fire.

  Unfortunately, fire remained a fearsome threat to the circus. While the Ringling Brothers circus was playing in Cleveland, Ohio, on May 25, 1914, a fire broke out in a nearby lumberyard. Although the Big Top was five blocks away, embers soon began falling near the circus grounds. Circus officials stopped the performance, and the crowd of thirteen thousand customers left the tent. The tents were spared, but the circus railcars, which were spotted on sidings in the midst of the fire, did not fare as well. Forty-three cars were lost—twenty-three flats, nineteen stockcars, and one baggage car. Al Ringling was the only brother in attendance at the time, but working with his brothers he soon acquired replacement cars so the show could be moved to Marion, Ohio, for its May 27 engagement. The Brothers rented cars from the Frank P. Spellman circus, moved some from the Barnum & Bailey show, which was playing in Buffalo, rented others from the Palace Car Company, and obtained still more from the New York Central Railroad.51

  In 1901 a fire in the Kansas City Exposition Building, across the street from the circus grounds, threatened the Ringling tents. Circus tents were treated with waterproofing material that made them highly flammable; even a spark from a nearby fire could set them ablaze. DON S. HOWLAND CIRCUS COLLECTION SCRAPBOOK, CWM

  It is unlikely the Brothers had insurance to cover their loss, and the fire had considerable economic impact. They contacted the Barney & Smith Car Company of Dayton, Ohio, to build twenty-eight new railcars (eighteen flatcars and ten stockcars). The stock cars would cost $1,175 each and the stockcars $1,400 each, for a total cost of $35,150 ($614,530 in 2002 dollars).52 They also hired Barney & Smith to repair seven flatcars damaged in the fire, repair costs unknown.53

  In the fall of 1914, with the Ringling show safely back in Baraboo and the Barnum & Bailey show at winter quarters in Connecticut, the Brothers looked to the coming season with confidence, despite the horrific fire that had destroyed more than half their namesake show’s railcars. The Wisconsin income tax was no longer a major threat to their continued success.

  But little did they know how the events of June 28, 1914, in faraway Sarajevo, Bosnia, would effect them and their circus. They would soon find out.

  The Effects of War: 1915–1918

  “It was Al Ringling’s success in show business that influenced his four brothers to join him in the circus venture. Although he had given up the active management of the shows some time before he died, his was always the guiding spirit. More than any of the other brothers he was beloved of his associates and friends the world over.”1

  On June 28, 1914, the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand ignited World War I. It was soon obvious to the Ringlings that their business—which had withstood economic depression, formidable competition, and the death of one of its founders—would not escape the war’s impact.

  The Ringlings had for many years relied on circus acts they imported from Europe. With the onset of war, it became difficult to obtain acts—or even to contact them. In fall 1914 the Brothers were trying to locate the Eretto Trio, a performance act. They sent a letter to an address in England that read:

  For sometime past we have made every effort available to locate you, but without success. We have cabled, written and otherwise inquired. We are wholly without information as to your whereabouts, and at a loss to understand why, as is customary,
you have not communicated with us. … We are anxious that you respond immediately.2

  There is no record as to whether the Eretto Trio ever joined the Ringlings’ shows.

  The Ringlings were also unable to obtain new wild animals for their menagerie. According to circus historian Richard J. Reynolds:

  The war devastated the [German] Hagenbeck firm, which depended heavily on shipments of African animals from its German colonies. That source was soon cut off. The firm of Louis Ruhe was somewhat less affected because it had a subsidiary in America and continued to send animals from Alfeld, Germany, via Dutch intermediaries and Dutch ships, the Netherlands having remained neutral.3

  The Ringling Brothers opened the 1915 season at the Chicago Coliseum. PRINT COLLECTION, CWM

  Not all troubles the Ringlings encountered during the 1915 season could be blamed on the war. Because of an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease in the country, the U.S. Department of Agriculture banned the interstate shipment of cloven-hoofed mammals. This ban prevented circuses from carrying camels, giraffes, water buffalo, bison, deer, antelopes, and warthogs. Thus, when the World’s Greatest Shows headed to Chicago for its April 15 opening at the Coliseum, it left those animals behind in Baraboo. A writer for the New York Clipper commented: “The hoof and mouth quarantine has curtailed a good deal in the circus menagerie. A herd of ostriches has taken the place of the giraffes with the Ringling show and none of the cloven footed hay-eating animals were brought to Chicago for the Coliseum engagement. The youngsters missed the camels.”4

  The Ringlings played in Chicago until the end of the April and then went under canvas in Zanesville, Ohio. A highlight of the 1915 show was the remarkable aerialist Lillian Leitzel, who became known as one of the finest female performers of all time. Fred Bradna, equestrian director with the Barnum & Bailey show in 1915, believed that Lillian Leitzel was the greatest circus star of either sex: “Her showmanship, her artistry, [and] the management’s ballyhoo of her act are without parallel. And the way in which she, alone in the tent top, twisted her dainty body over one arm seventy-five to hundred times in a feat of endurance, was unique.”5