Advertisement

Prairie du Chien has a place in Ringling history

Error message

  • Warning: array_merge(): Expected parameter 1 to be an array, bool given in _simpleads_render_ajax_template() (line 133 of /home/pdccourier/www/www/sites/all/modules/simpleads/includes/simpleads.helper.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to get property 'settings' of non-object in _simpleads_adgroup_settings() (line 343 of /home/pdccourier/www/www/sites/all/modules/simpleads/includes/simpleads.helper.inc).
  • Warning: array_merge(): Expected parameter 1 to be an array, bool given in _simpleads_render_ajax_template() (line 157 of /home/pdccourier/www/www/sites/all/modules/simpleads/includes/simpleads.helper.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type null in include() (line 24 of /home/pdccourier/www/www/sites/all/modules/simpleads/templates/simpleads_ajax_call.tpl.php).

On the far right of this photograph, behind the house, is the old barn in Prairie du Chien in which the famed Ringling brothers got their start practicing trapeze in the hay loft. The barn was torn down, but stood along County K near the Calvary Cemetery. Pictured is the William and Ida Swingle family, which lived in and also owned the home when the Ringlings rented it.

Betty Nolan, of rural Prairie du Chien, was a Swingle—daughter of Dan Swingle and granddaughter of William Swingle. Her grandfather hob-nobbed with the Ringling brothers in their boyhood days and, at one time, owned the old Ringling home in Prairie du Chien.

By Correne Martin

The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus will host its final performance in May. After 146 years, the iconic circus is closing because high operating costs and declining ticket sales have made the circus an unsustainable business for parent company, Feld Entertainment, CEO Kenneth Feld announced last month.

While many associate the Ringlings with Baraboo, where the circus was founded in 1884, and several landmarks keep the legacy alive publicly, Prairie du Chien has a place in the family’s history as well.

German-born harness and shoemaker Augustus Ringling and his wife Marie Salome first moved from Milwaukee to Baraboo in 1855, then to Prairie du Chien somewhere around 1858-1859. In 1860, they moved to McGregor, where four of the boys—Charles, John, Henry and Alf T.— were born. The family home still stands at 14463 Walton Ave.

Before eventually ending up back in Baraboo, the family also lived in Prairie du Chien from 1872 to 1875. A 1936 newspaper clipping stated, “Two of the children died in infancy while the Ringlings lived here and are sleeping in Evergreen Cemetery, close to where their brothers gave their first show in this city.”

According to an Aug. 1, 1956, Courier Press, the Ringlings were so poor that St. Peter’s Lutheran Church took up donations to feed and clothe them. They paid $3 a month rent while living on a parcel owned by Col. Hercules L. Dousman and located north of the community, along the riverfront, near the Calvary Cemetery on County K. Five of the seven Ringling brothers practiced their trapeze act in the hay loft of an old barn on the property. Their penny and pin shows in the area would be their first ventures into mass entertainment.

The 1936 clipping explained what happened to the barn in which they practiced: “William Swingle, one of the few old-timers who hob-nobbed with the Ringling boys in their boyhood days and who owned the old Ringling home more than half a century, tore down the old barn...Al Ringling took down the stubs of rope tied onto the rafters when he visited about 20 years ago (1916), to preserve as relics. The house [was] still intact just outside the city limits.”

That same article talks about the beginnings of “circus on the brain” for the ambitious youngsters: “The five lads had seen the trudging teams of the wagon cavalcade of Mabie and Company’s Menagerie Circus and Indian Exhibition drag into Prairie du Chien. With eager eyes, they watched the parade of a few gaudy cages, equestrian company, musical chariot and the gaily decorated Indians on spotted ponies.

“The first exhibitions given by the Ringlings were for their child friends and 10 pins was the admission charge. The first real money they collected was for a ‘collosal exhibition,’ ... in which two features were the ultra attractions—Al Ringling, strong man, balancing a breaking plow with the point of the blade on his chin, and ‘a horse with its head where its tail ought to be.’ Every person who purchased a 25 cent ticket to enter the 50-foot tent was pledged to secrecy about the horse, but Al’s balancing act was legitimate.

“The old gray mare and a light wagon carried the eight cages of wildlife—dry goods boxes containing pigeons, parrots, racoon, red fox and a bob cat. The caravan of beasts consisted of a pack of 14 performing dogs, two ‘educated’ pigs, a four-pronged deer and two billy goats with a mate for each.”

Betty (Swingle) Nolan, of rural Prairie du Chien, is the granddaughter of William Swingle, who shared many details of the little Ringling brothers and their shows.

“I was always told their first show was somewhere where the Lutheran church is,” Nolan said, “and it was called a pin show. You got in by giving a pin.”

Nolan’s grandfather reported, the Ringlings were a fine family, well-liked in the community and regulars in church attendance at the Lutheran church. The brothers and their neighborhood friends would swing from a rope attached to a tall tree on the riverfront property, and the Ringling children were more agile, could climb all the way to the top and do acrobatics there.

One of William’s jobs, as a youngster, was to collect the rent from the Ringlings. “He hated collecting that rent because [the Ringling family] never had any money,” Nolan relayed.

But, several decades later, after the Ringling Bros. Circus started bringing in money (though before they acquired the Barnum & Bailey Circus, in 1919), the oldest Ringling, Al, came back to Prairie du Chien in a fine carriage pulled by a spotted horse. It was 1900, and he wore a diamond stick pin, according to the 1956 Courier Press article. “The only thing Al could do was show off to his friends and former neighbors the fine success he had made,” the article said.

The exact time period during which the Ringling family lived in Prairie du Chien and more details regarding the family’s activities here are not widely published. But, according to what’s been passed down through the Swingle family, Prairie du Chien deserves more recognition among their storied history.

Nolan’s uncle, Lawrence Swingle, in fact, traveled to Baraboo once, she said, “to try and fight this out because he wanted them to say more about Prairie du Chien.”

The final shows of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus will conclude at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence, R.I., on May 7, and at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y., on May 21.

So far, there has been no talk of bringing the circus back to Wisconsin or Iowa for any performances.

Rate this article: 
No votes yet