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Circus Owners and Managers

CIRCUS OWNERS, MANAGERS and STAFF

Intro:

Excerpt from the book: Step Right Up, The Adventures of Circus in America
By authors Lavahn G. Hoh and William Rough

Circus owners are a varied lot indeed. Some were born into circus families. Some ran away with the circus as youngsters and worked their way up through the ranks of ticket takers and candy butchers. Others are entrepreneurs and businessmen. And still more see themselves as creative artists, sometimes even serving as headline performers. There are owners who never miss seeing a performance of their own shows, and others who never leave winter quarters.

Why would anybody want to own a circus? Everyone knows that its a very tough business. The short historical list of people who were successful at running or owning their own shows suggests that a lot of pain went with the job. Plenty of owners, including P.T. Barnum, made fortunes, only to lose them again. Many, like Dan Rice, the circus-owner clown who wanted to be president, died as forgotten alcoholics. Yankee Robinson, the boom-or-bust pioneer owner who gave the Ringlings a boost at the beginning of their career, died broke.

At least for these and many other men, there was always a chance for economic success. That had to be enough, and in many cases success was irrelevant anyway. Consequences, and the possibility of failure were not part of the equation.

 

Circus Trivia, Did You Know?   Did You Know, Circus owner Kenneth Feld offered every child born in 1993 a free ticket to the RBBB circus, his way of making sure a new generation of children will be exposed to the wonders of the circus.

 

 

A - E   F - K   L - P   R - W

Jess Adkins
 
Edna Antes
 
Parley Baer
 
James Bailey
 
Al G. Barnes
 
Roger Barnes
 
P. T. Barnum
 
Clyde Beatty
 
George R. Beers
 
Paul Binder
 
Dr. Charles W. Boas
 
Roger Boyd Jr.
 
Randolph Calhoun
 
Dan Castello
 
Bob Childress
 
G. W. Christy
 
James M. Cole
 
Jerry Collins
 
Art Concello
 
James E. Cooper
 
William Cameron Coup
 
Cristiani Family
 
Ben Davenport
 
Andrew Downie
 
Robert & Doris Earl
 
George Engesser
 
Irvin Feld
 
Kenneth Feld
 
Adam Forepaugh
 
Wayne Franzen
 
Henry B. Gentry
 
Ernest Haag
 
Carl Hagenbeck
 
John Hall
 
Ward Hall
 
George A. Hamid Sr.
 
Ernest A. Harrington
 
Jimmy Heron
 
James A. Haley
 
Allan C. Hill
 
Dave Hoover
 
Jack Hoxie
 
Charles T. Hunt
 
Terrell Jacobs
 
Walter Kernan
 
Bill Ketrow
 
Floyd King
 
Karl Larsson
 
Lindemann Brothers
 
Paul M. Lewis
 
John Lewis
 
Walter L. Main
 
Arnold Maley
 
Billy Martin
 
Frank McCloskey
 
Joe and Donna McMahon
 
Rob Mermin
 
D. R. Dores Miller
 
Obert Miller
 
Stuart Miller
 
Tom Mix
 
Jack Moore
 
Robert Morton
 
Jerry Mugivan
 
John Ringling North
 
Frank Orman
 
Tom Packs
 
James Patterson
 
Irving J. Polack
 
John Pugh
 
 
 
Dan Rice
 
John Bill Ricketts
 
Ringling Brothers
 
John Robinson
 
Yankee Robinson
 
Ozzie Schleentz
 
Bob Snowden
 
Sig Sautelle
 
Charles Sparks
 
Louis Stern
 
Zack Terrell
 
Tihany / Franz Czeisler
 
Ned Toth
 
Hoxie Tucker
 
Cliff Vargas
 
Cedric Walker
 
Johnny Walker
 
Ben Wallace
 
Claude and Pauline Webb
 
Alson F. Wheeler

 

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