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v. .-xrmmmmsmr ■». v,;lt; j t * 1jr4 '• ■ • ■:■ va-.'-Wirfds^wxiSfcS*l^¥•«** •A^S,3*-«* '«^-CE v.:.... 'lt;?,** K!i*■B»£jtesaswnpMMband played a concert in Central Park. The holiday meant that farmers and townspeople from a 40-mile radius would be in the city. For most of them, it was the first electric light they were to see.Barnum's Hippo Some six years later P. T. Bar-mnrPs circus came to town with its hippopotamus billed as the “Blood Sweating Behemoth of Holy Writ Spoken of by the Book of Job.”* OLD-TIME CIRCUS POSTER - Circus posters may *----not always have been as colorful as they are today, but [figured on and they werethey had more of an effect °n the youngsters, and the y *ei®oldsters, too, for that matter. This poster shows that the acts haven’t changed too much down through the^-ov*es television and other entertainment have cut down on the appeal of the “Big Top.”ior High School next came into use.Parker's WoodsWhen Ringling Brothers cameto Mason City in 1918, they set up -----in Parker's Woods. The serviceBarnum too had an electric dag displayed by the circus hadm r* 1 TV. 1 4 « I ■ 1 r\ M i t- ■ ^marvel. He announced that the main tent would be illuminated by eleetricity. In the middle of theafternoon performance everything stopped and around the center poles carbon lights glittered for a few minutes like fireflies in early twilight.The first circuses to play in Mason City did so in Central Park. The grounds then wereenough stars on it for an army of its own, but Ringling Brothers could not get enough help to put up the tent and. so the circus showed in the open air.The old fairgrounds in south Mason City were used by the circuses which later played in the North xowa town. One year, though, Ringling’s set up east of the Odd Fellows Home,w ^ llUUlC,moved to north and west of Wash- Smaller circuses played else-1VI D f /V VI 0%*/T NT \I7 'TM 1 i ntrl-1 nr»n it* „ i, i.* .. _ .ington and 3rd N. W. The land now occupied by the Monroe Jun-where in town at times.But a circus cannot be a circuswithout an elephant. Norwood has a large fund of reminiscences about elephants.Aigona Visit *T remember particularly,M he said, “the time when the Ringling Brothers visited Aigona and showed in the Ambrose Call pas-Pond.’“It arrived early one Sunday afternoon and the elephant trainers thought it would be fine to let the elephants into the pond for a swim. So.the big herd was let loose and in they went.“But, when the time came for the bathers to be fed and bedded down for the night, they preferred to stay in the pond and soak. This was something the trainers hadn’t‘stumped.’“In this emergency a hero ap* peared in the person of John Seifert. He volunteered to get the elephants out of the pond. His services quickly were engaged for $10.Baling Wire“He went to an old hay barn and gathered up a lot of baling wire and on the way back picked up a kerosene can and a lot of old rags. 'Us kids’ helped him. Weture next to the 'Soft wlterrags along every little way. The wire then was stretched out on the west end of the pond.“Then five or six of us pulled on each end and John ran along with the kerosene soaking the rags. He lit them and we startedalong each side of the shore holding the fiery line. The elephants began to get out in a hurry,“Fortunately the fence and the trees stopped them at the river/*
Newspaper Details
Mason City Globe Gazette
Mason City, Iowa, US
Fri, Feb 22, 1957
Page 10
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 15 Jun 2020
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