Time Machine: The Ringling circus

McGregor residents were the first to see the Ringling Brothers' passion for circus showmanship.

It was in Walton Hollow (now Walton Street) that the Ringling family, August and Saloma and their sons Al, August and Otto, set up housekeeping in 1860. August Ringling was a harness maker in the small Mississippi River town.

Four more Ringling brothers were born in McGregor between 1861 and 1869: Alf T., Charles, John and Henry. Daughter, Ida, came after the family moved to Wisconsin in 1872.

In the spring of 1870, Dan Rice's Great Paris Pavilion Circus, a riverboat show, docked in McGregor and began to unload. The Ringling sons were there to watch.

After seeing the performance, the boys were hooked. They returned home and began planning and rehearsing their own backyard show.

One of their boyhood friends, Charles Bowen, whose father worked in the harness shop with August, recalled those early sawdust days for the Cedar Rapids Tribune in 1935.

'A calciminer's son mixed colors. John, Charley and Alf T. rustled all the discarded wallpaper they could find. Otto drew scenes on the backs of the rolls.

'A strike nearly ruined their first undertaking when the calciminer's son threatened to quit as the paint and capital were all consumed. Discarding a suggestion of colored chalk because it rubbed off too easily, Alf T. saved the show when he disappeared and soon returned with a bottle of his mother's laundry indigo.'

(Bonus fact: A calciminer was someone who applied a wash of glue, whiting and water to plastered surfaces.)

Admission to those early Ringling brothers' shows was 10 straight pins. For that, they got to hear Al lecture as Otto turned a crank to reveal illustrations from the painted rolls.

FIRST TENT

The following year, a covered wagon on its way West stopped at McGregor to replace its canvas cover. The boys pounced on the discarded cover and turned it into a tent. They felt that called for a street parade with a toy wagon and a fife and drum. The show, still costing 10 straight pins, featured somersaults, cartwheels and flips.

The brothers next acquired a goat. August made a harness, and the new attraction boosted admission from straight pins to a penny. The addition of an old mustang with a wagon, a Jew's harp, accordion, trumpet and drum, boosted the admission to 5 cents.

Al spun a hat and some china on a pole. Otto drove the goat. John was the clown, and Charley did some trick riding on the old horse. The brothers all performed on hoops and trapeze.

HELP FROM 'YANKEE'

The brothers kept at it and, as adults, struggled for a few years to put on their shows — until circus showman Rudolph Ludwig 'Yankee' Robinson signed on.

Robinson helped the Ringling Bros. Circus finally turn a profit, but in 1884 he fell ill and was taken off the circus train at Jefferson, Iowa, where he died. Years later, John Ringling credited the veteran showman with the success of Ringling Bros.

The Ringling circus, officially formed in 1884, came to Cedar Rapids on a regular basis for decades.

In 1890, its 'Veritable Traveling City of Splendor!' was the only big show to hit Cedar Rapids because of an agreement with the American Showmen's Pooled League Association. At 10 a.m. May 24, a grand parade strolled down city's streets. The show — with 200 performers, 250 horses, 75 musicians and enough attractions to cover 10 acres — performed at 2 and 8 p.m.

A GIRAFFE, SICK ELEPHANTS

An 1896 Gazette story, complete with hand-drawn illustrations, gave the Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows a rave review. The circus train's 60 cars arrived early in the morning. Tents were set up at Bever Park, and at 10 a.m., a grand circus parade headed from the park to downtown Cedar Rapids. The show claimed to have the only giraffe in captivity.

In 1900, the circus grounds were on First Avenue 'just beyond 17th Street.' The circus arrived early July 28 from Platteville and set up three rings and two big stages by noon. While the setup was going on, a parade started from the showgrounds at 10 a.m.

In July 1902, though, four of the circus' 30 elephants were incapacitated when they arrived in Cedar Rapids.

It started when the show's steward bought 600 pounds of butter and a large quantity of lard in Sioux City. There wasn't enough room in the refrigerated cars for such a large amount of perishables, so a temporary icebox was set up in the end of one of the elephant cars. Between Sioux City and Des Moines, one of the four elephants in the car managed to remove the staple holding the makeshift icebox door in place. Four tubs of butter and a cask of lard rolled out.

When the elephants' trainer opened the railcar's door in Des Moines, he was greeted by four slippery, greasy and very sick elephants. They were so weak from retching that they leaned against each other for support.

MERGER

Otto Ringling was the show's business manager. Before his death in 1911, he had acquired many of the Ringling competitors, including, in 1906, the Barnum & Bailey Circus. In 1920, The Gazette reported the recently merged Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus would appear in Cedar Rapids on Sept. 10 as 'The Greatest Show on Earth.' (The circuses had performed separately until 1919.)

On Aug. 2, 1932, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus arrived in Cedar Rapids. Advance men covered the city and surrounding countryside with posters and banners advertising two performances in the Mound Farm addition on 27th Street NE.

'Four long trains of double-length railroad cars transport the huge nomadic circus community with its 1,600 people, enlarged herd of 50 elephants, 700 horses and 1,009 menagerie animals,' The Gazette reported. 'Like a miracle from the pages of the Arabian Nights, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey cidrcus will erect within a few hours a city of thirty tents, including the largest canvas skyscraper in the world, weighing more than seven tons in canvas alone and seating 16,000 people at one time.'

The last survivor of the seven Ringling Brothers, John, died in December 1936 of pneumonia. The world's largest entertainment organization was taken over by his nephew, John Ringling North, who ran the operation until 1967, when the circus was sold. It is now owned by Feld Entertainment Inc.

TO THE FIVE

Twenty-five years passed between the Ringling circus at Hawkeye Downs in September 1954 and its next appearance in Cedar Rapids on Aug. 31, 1979, though other circuses visited the city during those years.

In 1979, trains carrying the Ringling circus' animals and performers arrived from Omaha in the rail yards near Quaker Oats the afternoon of Aug. 31. Spectators were invited to watch as the animals were led to tents near the 8-month-old Five Seasons Center.

The circus was back at the Five again in 1994 and again at the renamed U.S. Cellular Center in 2004 and 2006. The Flood of 2008 kept the show away from Cedar Rapids for five years.

The Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Fully Charged show returned for four performances on a weekend in October 2013.

In the next two years, the show would bow to animal welfare activists and start a three-year plan to retire its elephants from performing.