Circus World Museum - Baraboo, Wisconsin 1992
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Along the road to Rollag, Minnesota we stopped at Baraboo, Wisconsin to visit Circus World. Baraboo was the winter quarters for the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus.
All photos are 35mm Kodachrome.
Images Copyright © 2008 by Robert E Pence
In the 1800s and early 1900s the circus brought excitement and spectacle to humdrum lives in dusty towns all over America. Everything was colorful and dazzling, and although it was flim-flam for profit, it wasn't malevolent like the flim-flam of today's politics. There wasn't any intentional killing, and it didn't jeopardize the future of generations.
Before the steam calliope became almost synonymous with "Circus" the bell wagon often headed a parade, announcing to all within earshot that the circus had come to town.
Elephants ...
Tigers ...
White Percherons, both laborers and performers.
A big circus was a self-contained mobile city, and winter quarters were often chosen with regard for availability of railroad connections. Museum workers demonstrate the technique used in loading heavy circus wagons onto railroad cars using horse power.
Advertising cars arrived in town a few days to a couple of weeks in advance of the circus train. They provided living quarters, work space and glue-making facilities for the men who plastered every available fence and wall with posters proclaiming the wonders and spectacles that would soon appear.
A Mack chain-drive truck, the original Bulldog. See the sloping front end? The radiator is behind the engine, and the hot air exhausts through the louvers at the rear of the hood. There's a reason for that placement.
The earliest motor trucks had their radiators at the front, just like automobiles. The teamsters who still used horses and wagons were losing business to motor trucks and they resented it. Too often, a teamster at a railroad freight house or market would "accidentally" back his wagon into the front of a truck, smashing the radiator. A simple redesign resolved that problem.
The most spectacular wagons are displayed in large buildings.
A circus isn't complete without a real steam calliope.
No littering, please.
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