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    Staging the Great Circus Parade
    Staging the Great Circus Parade
    Staging the Great Circus Parade
    Ebook152 pages40 minutes

    Staging the Great Circus Parade

    By Jim Peterson and Donna Peterson

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    About this ebook

    Milwaukee was home to the Great Circus Parade for almost 30 years. Beginning in 1963 and continuing until 1972, the parade became an annual tradition, except in 1967 when the event was cancelled because of civil unrest. Revived on a smaller scale in 1980, the parade traveled between Baraboo and Chicago until it returned to Milwaukee in 1985. Each year, it grew in size and scope, gaining national prominence. The old-fashioned circus parade became an event of mammoth proportions, requiring an army of volunteers working behind the scenes.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateMay 23, 2016
    ISBN9781439656143
    Staging the Great Circus Parade
    Author

    Jim Peterson

    Jim Peterson has published three poetry chapbooks and seven full-length collections of poetry, most recently The Horse Who Bears Me Away from Red Hen Press in 2020. His collection, The Owning Stone, won Red Hen’s Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award in 1999. His poems have been published in more than eighty journals, including Georgia Review, Poetry, Shenandoah, Poetry Northwest, Prairie Schooner, and South Dakota Review. His novel, Paper Crown, was published by Red Hen in 2005 and is now available on Audible. His stories have appeared in such journals as Los Angeles Review, South Dakota Review, and Laurel Review. Several of his plays have won regional awards and have been produced in college and regional theaters; The Shadow Adjuster was published by Palmetto Play Service in 1997. Peterson was Coordinator of Creative Writing and Writer in Residence for many years at Randolph College in Virginia. He is currently on the faculty at the University of Nebraska Omaha’s Low-Res MFA Program in Creative Writing. He lives with his charismatic corgi, Mama Kilya, in Lynchburg, Virginia.

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      Book preview

      Staging the Great Circus Parade - Jim Peterson

      collection.)

      Images of Modern America

      STAGING THE

      GREAT CIRCUS PARADE

      JIM AND DONNA PETERSON

      Copyright © 2016 by Jim and Donna Peterson

      ISBN 978-1-4671-1573-5

      Ebook ISBN 9781439656143

      Published by Arcadia Publishing

      Charleston, South Carolina

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2015948414

      For all general information, please contact Arcadia Publishing:

      Telephone 843-853-2070

      Fax 843-853-0044

      E-mail sales@arcadiapublishing.com

      For customer service and orders:

      Toll-Free 1-888-313-2665

      Visit us on the Internet at www.arcadiapublishing.com

      Dedicated to the hundreds of volunteers over the years who made this parade a safe, memorable family event—Down the Road!

      CONTENTS

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      Re-creating the circus parades of old was the brainchild of Charles Phillip Chappie Fox. He approached Benjamin Ben Barkin to pitch the idea to a Milwaukee sponsor. Robert Bob Uhlein of the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company stepped up to the plate, and the parade was born. We will be forever grateful to their foresight in providing a free, fun, family venue that was enjoyed by children of all ages.

      We would also like to acknowledge Robert Bob Parkinson, the former Circus World Museum chief librarian, for reviving the parade and personally inviting Jim Peterson to volunteer and allowing his family to tag along.

      We owe the Circus World Museum staff—former employees Frankie Braun, Keri Olson, Rick Percy, Tim Perkins, Greg Parkinson, and Dale Williams; along with current employees Scott O’Donnell, Circus World executive director; David Saloutos, performance director; Peter Shrake, Circus World archivist; and Heavy Burdick, wagon master—for enthusiastically supporting this project.

      We worked side by side with literally hundreds of fantastic volunteers. We wish we could name you all.

      Unless indicated otherwise, all photographs are from the authors’ collection.

      INTRODUCTION

      In the early 1900s, Wisconsin was home to over 100 circuses. The Ringling brothers’ show started out in Baraboo, Wisconsin. Chappie Fox was fascinated by horses, trains, and circuses. He was an avid photographer and took many pictures of his three favorite subjects. His own circus collection included the Mother Goose wagon. With support from John M. Kelly, a lawyer who worked for Ringling Bros., Chappie worked to start a circus museum in Baraboo. Circus World Museum opened in l957, and the grounds encompassed the buildings along the Baraboo River that were originally constructed by Ringling Bros. for its animals and workshops for winter quarters.

      Chappie felt the best way to show off the growing circus wagon collection was to stage a parade, which would bring recognition not only to the museum but also to the state. He knew circus fans from all over the country would come out for an old-fashioned parade. Chappie’s vision was embraced by Ben Barkin, a marketing and advertising genius who put Chappie in touch with Bob Uhlein of the Schlitz Brewing Company. Schlitz provided the financing to produce the first run of Milwaukee parades from 1963 to 1972.

      Circuses always fascinated coauthor Jim Peterson. His dad took him to any show that traveled into town. When foot surgery laid him up for an entire summer as a young boy, his dad brought him circus models and animals and he began his half-inch scale model circus. In 1963, a circus parade of days gone by was staged in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, by Circus World Museum of Baraboo. Peterson jumped at the chance to volunteer with the full-scale wagons. He was a teenager back when he started volunteering on the flags and banners crew. The parade was scheduled for July 4, and it became a yearly Milwaukee family tradition, as common for Wisconsinites as state fair cream puffs. Free circus acts were staged on the lakefront prior to the Fourth of July. The baby boomer parents of that day were too young to remember turn-of-the-century circus parades. The city parents never saw six-, eight-, and ten-hitch draft horses pulling circus wagons. A piece of history was brought to life, and the city of Milwaukee embraced the event. Circus World Museum paraded its wagon collection down Wisconsin Avenue to thousands of spectators, and every year it grew with new costumes, wagons, and sections. During the first parades, the wagons were trucked into town. Later

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