by Emily Rinaman, Technical Services Manager
In 2017, the circus as we knew it, reached extinction when Ringling, Barnum and Bailey threw in the towel. While one can still find small homegrown versions of circuses that still travel to county fairs or state fairs in the summer, there will never again be a circus quite like the ones our ancestors were fondly enraptured by.
Beginning this fall, however, spectators can see a resurrected and modern form of the circus (sans animals) as Ringling has re-branded itself.
For decades, the classic circus was a mainstay for many Midwestern towns, including Tiffin. Seneca County saw the iconic brands of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey plus everything in between.
Before the railroads improved travel, circus caravans traveled by way of horses and wagons mostly during the summer months from May to October. Once circuses switched over to using railcars, it was much easier to travel farther distances for the circus troops, sometimes numbering in the hundreds (a combined count of humans and animals).
After they rolled into town with their special circus trains, they would gather an audience as they unloaded and pitched their tents, and then an official parade welcomed the visitors before they began their performances.
A girl pets a circus elephant’s truck in the 1950s. In the background is a pull car with the name Mills Bros. (Circus). This photo is being used with permission from the Ashtabula County District Library and is featured on the Ohio Memory Project at https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p16007coll82/id/8499.
In the early days of Tiffin, the circuses set up camp on the north side of the tracks near Franklin and North Monroe Streets (formerly known as La Fayette Street). The tents were pitched along Hudson Street. While the streets are no longer connected today, the circus parade route took Adams Street up to Frost Parkway (then known as Water Street). It turned left onto Water Street before heading onto the Washington Street bridge to arrive at Monument Square (where the Courthouse stands).
Eventually, the later circuses made camp in the Highlands section of town (what Tiffinites call “the Avenues”) near Wall and Davis Streets, particularly where the Ohio Lantern Company was once located.
One of the dead giveaways that the circus was in town and the parade had commenced was the unmistakable sound of the steam calliope. This instrument on wheels is undeniably one of the icons of the circus. They could be heard several miles away.
The variety of animals was a favorite among the children. One “menagerie” that came to Tiffin in the 1850s, Herr Driesbach’s “Grand Consolidated Circus,” featured lions, tigers, a giraffe, panthers, “every denomination of the bear species,” and, of course, elephants. In 1871, The Great Pacific Menagerie and Mammoth Circus featured the classic elephants, camels and 150 draft horses. The National Circus of Philadelphia and New York Circus brought ten cream-haired horses.
One local man, Ed Everest, began a winter circus featuring five lions, plus seals, ponies, dogs and pigs, which he debuted in Tiffin in September 1915. His 16-act show also included acrobats.
The stunts and fantastic, jaw-dropping feats by these athletic, flexible, and fit humans, is usually the main focus of today’s circuses. The tricks may be more advanced now, but audiences were no less enthralled by what the original acrobats were able to accomplish during their time. These included “Miss Castella,” a wire-walker in 1859; Helen Smidutz, a bareback horse rider; and muscle builders Glick and Yundt.
Not everyone was pleased with the variety of human art, however. One child was so embarrassed by the dancers’ scant clothing, she vowed never to attend a circus again. In Fostoria after the turn of the century, residents were afraid of witnessing the “can-can” dance when Pawnee Bill’s traveling show visited. A botched stunt during the Grady’s American Circus in 1871 had people from the area gasping in fear. A trapeze artist hanging from an ascending balloon when the stunt “faltered” in front of a crowd of 3,000 people (the details of what happened were not included in the source, only that the circus manager offered half-price tickets to the following year’s circus).
Bands and singers were also often part of a regular circus performance. Mabies’ Circus, once the largest circus company in the United States before Barnum and Bailey and The Ringling Brothers, had a singing clown named Tony Pastor, “the Great Yankee Clown.” Other circus companies offered performances by concert bands, brass bands, reed bands or cornet bands. Besides the circus bands, vaudeville, variety shows and thespians would entertain crowds with their talents.
Whatever each particular circus train brought with it, the event was highly anticipated. “When the circus rolled into town, daily life abruptly stopped.”
Works cited:
Seneca County Historical Society. Fort Ball Gazette, December 1980. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/40448/rec/1
Smith, Howard. The What, How and Who of It: An Ohio Community. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/15811
Yearbook Columbian Blue and Gold 1925. Seneca County Digital Library.
Barnes, Myron. Between the Eighties, 1880-1980. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/65422
Gibson, Martha M. Reminiscences of Early Days of Tiffin. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/12932
Bicentennial Sketches. Seneca County Digital Library.
Tiffin Historic Trust. Pamphlet-Sidewalks Streets and Alleys-Iron Horse Days. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/51857
Fostoria Centennial Committee. Fostoria Centennial Souvenir Program 1954. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/31504
Ringling. https://www.ringling.com/news/ Accessed March 6, 2023.
Davis, Janet M. “America’s Big Circus Spectacular Has a Long and Cherished History.” Smithsonian Magazine, March 22, 2017. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/americas-big-circus-spectacular-has-long-and-cherished-history-180962621/