Circus!

by Bob Brail

On a mid-September weekend in 1923, three highly anticipated trains arrived together in St. Charles. For weeks residents of St. Charles County had looked forward Monday, September 17, 1923, for on that day the Al G. Barnes Circus would perform in St. Charles. However, the appearance of a circus was nothing new to the county. By this time, circuses had been coming to the county for at least seventy years.

The earliest recorded circus performances in St. Charles County date to before the Civil War. A search of the St. Charles newspaper Der Demokrat indicates that these circus visits were almost an annual event in the county from 1853 through 1878. And what an event the circus would have been!

One early circus to visit St. Charles was Yankee Robinson's Big Show in 1865. In its twenty-first season, the circus advertised itself as an “immense congress of exhibitions.” The description was accurate for the show contained several very unusual acts. “The Great New York Circus Act” involved forty horses, ponies, and mules, and six female performers. “The Silver Mountain Equestrian Bears” dressed in costumes and danced, drove in harness, and drilled like soldiers, among other things. “Tom Thumb's Lilliputian Charge” had been performed before “all the crowned heads of Europe” (a close look at the fine print clarified that Tom Thumb himself would not appear). There were the “dangerous and firece . . . O'Reilly's Untameable Bisons” from the Himalalya Mountains and Monsieur Clarrie's monkies, ponies, dogs, and goats. The Snow Brothers performed their “Great Gladiatorium” and not to be missed was the “Double Troup of Comic Mules.” The biggest attraction, though, may have been the 26-inch tall General Grant, Jr., the “Smallest Man Living,” who had previously exhibited at the Barnum Museum in New York City.

The photograph below of a circus train and poster was very likely taken by a young girl from rural Hamburg when she attended the Al G. Barnes Circus in St. Charles on Monday, September 17, 1923. On the morning of the circus, a two-mile long parade of 1200 animals, six bands, three calliopes, and sixty-five clowns walked through St. Charles to the thrill of onlookers. The four-ring circus consisted of 110 acts, all involving animals in some way, including reindeer, rabbits, eagles, ostriches, kangaroos, and llamas, besides the typical circus animals. There was Tusko, the “largest creature that walks the earth,” a ten ton elephant. “Alice in Jungleland” was a musical production that featured hundreds of dancers, singers, and animals. Lions, tigers, and leopards performed to the commands of wild animal trainers, who were mostly women. The circus boasted 550 horses, some of which performed in an act featuring sixty dancing horses and sixty girls. The circus also had Johaan Aassen, the eight feet nine inch Norwegian giant, along with sixteen “Lilliputians.”

Since the release of the musical The Greatest Showman, which chronicles the career of circus great Phineas T. Barnum, there has been an increased of interest in the circus. Interest in the circus,however, goes back many generations in America, including this area. Although circuses “under the big top” are now a rarity, there was a time in St. Charles County when people looked forward to regular visits of traveling circuses.

Sources: Circusandsideshows.com; Circusinamerica.org; Der Demokrat (digitalshsmo.org); St. Charles Cosmos-Monitor (youranswerplace.org); Wikipedia.org.