Vigo County Historical Society

Historical Treasure Article

Historic Treasure of the Week - July 29, 1984
By Susie Dewey
Vigo County Historical Society

Historical display
Posters capture appeal of old-time circus

Nine posters on display at the Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley this summer evoke all the literary and historical memories that the circus used to have.

Today's incipient runaways to the circus can't comprehend the charm that led so many to dream, if not to do, about running away, joining the circus and living happily ever after in never-never land.

Yesterday's tented circus make pale today's air-conditioned, choreographed, programmed performance in a permanent structure.

Because Terre Haute was at the crossroads of the major traffic routes of America, the city was a convenient stopping place for circuses travelling first by horse and wagon and later by railroads. No one who has ever been near the arrival of the circus train at night with its animal sounds, shouts, torches and unusual people can forget the romance. The incomprehensible language of the roustabouts made the event even more exotic.

Early circuses, before the Civil War, appeared at a town lot on Spruce Street between First and Second streets. Later the site was changed to the north side, Main Street, now Wabash Avenue, between First and Second streets. In distant memory circuses set up at 25th and Wabash on the southeast corner. Later they moved to the site of Memorial Stadium.

The raising of thee big-top was an engineering feat free for early risers. Performers strolled between the cook tent, the dining tent and the menagerie tent. It was difficult to see the later glamour of the acrobat, the equestrienne and the lion tamer in the sleepy, sometimes sleazy people -- but it was there.

The posters show all the reasons the circus appealed to persons of all ages. A Ringling Brothers advertisement lures with 50, count them, clowns. Another Ringling poster advertises the presence of a male hippopotamus and a mammoth two-horned rhinoceros, the only two such creatures in captivity. Adam Forepaugh and Sells Brothers show glitteringly clad women driving somersaulting cars around loop-the-loop runways. The same circus shows Madam Maranette astride a jumping horse; she was a famous equestrienne performer.

The greatest lady equestriennes, secured at a salary of $100 per day, were two sisters, Marie and Ouika, advertised by Barnum and Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth. Their costumes were be-ruffled, pleated and titillatingly brief for the day. In addition, they wore white wigs. Barnum and Bailey also showed a children's circus with chattering live monkeys astride Shetland ponies. The Al G. Barnes Wild Animal Circus tempted the looker with a tiger on an elephant, and the last poster advertises a great presentation of marvelous living human curiosities.

All of these circuses, it is safe to say, appeared at one time or another in Terre Haute, People came from far and wide to stare, to eat cotton candy, to drink pink lemonade and to depart with a more romantic view of the world. Children left to dream about life as an acrobat and to put on circuses of their own for friends, relatives and neighbors.

The Historical Museum received the posters from Mrs. Fred Kramer. They explain the charms of earlier circuses and revive memories now only found in history and literature.