I followed Hwy A out of Wisconsin Dells, WI looking for the fairground a few days ago and passed by this! The Circus World Museum. I knew I had to come back to explore and we did!
I certainly didn’t think I’d stumbled upon the Winter Grounds/housing grounds of the Greatest Show on Earth back in the early 1900’s! Right?
This is what travel does to you…. you never know what you’re going to stumble across.
Let’s take a picture tour first and then I’ll add my “logistic” comments….
Baraboo, WI is a small town. And Downtown by the river is the Circus World Museum (tickets: peak season $20 each/off season $10 each) but the buildings are right on the street. Most were built in the early 1900’s to house the circus animals and occupants it looks like. I’m not sure.
We didn’t do the official tour but we made our own tour, as most do … Look at these buildings that housed the Greatest Animals on Earth and the Greatest Show On Earth, the costumes, and the carriages, etc!
How cool is this???
Let’s look at some of the markers and buildings…. there’s an entire street of buildings!
The Camel House
Below is the Wardrobe Building with stalls. But in the second and third picture you can see the amount of wardrobes. Think about the “handling” it took to get everyone changed into their correct costume at the right time.
And lets move on to the Ring Barn…. circa 1901
And the winter quarters and other barns that store artifacts from the Greatest Show on Earth…
Standing here, before doing my research, I wondered why on earth would a circus have their winter quarters in Baraboo, Wisconsin? They eventually moved it to Ellenton, FL These pictures were up to the early 1900’s.
There’s a lot more on the inside, but the outside is just as awesome. I’m sure “inside” you’ll find out many more details but we enjoyed the outside. Here are some pics of some of the animals currently housed here.
Can you see the Elephant in the center of the pic?
And what about the Tigers? A bit far for my iPhone to capture but they are lounging under that green canopy.
I found the whole afternoon quite intriguing and phenomenal. And all of a sudden, we’re both asking each other… logistics questions….
How did they move all these people, animals, equipment, food, get rid of waste, etc. back in the early 1900’s and even to current day. I couldn’t find much video on the early 1900’s movement so I started looking for more current day content.
You see, I love “logistics”… it amazes me how things move across the country; how freight moves, how Amazon accomplishes what they accomplish on a daily basis… I worked for years for FedEx Express… and I was amazed at how we moved so many small packages on a daily basis via air! I am just mind-blown when someone wants to talk logistics!
When we got back home I went down the rabbit hole to find out how this moving the circus really worked. I watched a lot of videos about the lifestyle of living on the train in the “coaches” (which was pretty fun – kinda like living in an RV) and then I ran across this video.
Spectacular how this largest (privately owned train) moved around with 61 – 65 cars in tow (the animal cars were in the front of the train)! The skill, talent, patience, and maintenance it took it to move the show across the United States.
At their peak they employed over 1,000 people. Acts from all over the world joined the circus and you had the animals.
It’s sad, to me, kids nowadays won’t have a huge circus to go to or watch the Elephant Walk in a city.
The circus morphed a few times over the years to become Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey and was in some way shape or name in operation from 1871 to 2017.
One hundred and forty six years later…… May 21, 2017 was their final show. The elephants were removed in 2016.
And to add my own farewell…. Here’s an awesome recap video! Showing the place I just showed you, but in a different perspective! Enjoy!