The announcement that, after 146 years, the “The Greatest Show on Earth” is calling it quits brings back fond memories for generations of Akron residents and also a painful reminder of the city’s role in a dark day in circus lore.
The owner of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus announced late Saturday night that it is calling it quits in May.
The owner says declining attendance, along with high operating costs, helped fuel the decision. The circus made a stop in Cleveland last fall.
But the real culprit, the owners say, is a fickle audience and protracted fights with animal rights groups over the care of animals, particularly its elephants.
The two branches of the circus now on tour are the first sans the giant elephants that had long been a staple of the circus ring, which dated back to the mid-1800s, when a showman by the name of Phineas Taylor Barnum would travel the countryside with a menagerie of exotic animals and human oddities.
Around the same time, the five Ringling brothers performed juggling acts and skits from their home base in Wisconsin.
The rival traveling acts eventually merged, giving birth to what experts call the modern circus.
Akron was a regular stop for the circus from the 1900s through the 1950s.
But a stop at the Akron Rubber Bowl in 1944 was among the most important and saddest in the circus’ history.
The performances from Aug. 4 to 6 that year were the first since the circus experienced its worst catastrophe.
Some 8,000 eager spectators — mostly women and children — were packed under the big top on July 6, 1944, in Hartford, Conn. The Great Wallendas were just taking the high wire when the tent erupted in flames.
The fire claimed 167 lives and injured more than 550 people.
The circus retreated to its winter home in Sarasota, Fla., while investigators looked for a cause and workers built new props and repaired what little equipment was not lost to the flames.
With its signature big-top tent destroyed, the circus turned to large, open-air stadiums.
Akron’s Rubber Bowl was the first stop, and the circus’ signature red-and-yellow train cars — 68 in all — rolled into Akron on Aug. 2, 1944.
The arrival made news — not only because it was the first stop since the fire, but because it meant a 5-mile circus parade to the stadium from the railway crossing.
The circus at the time had five herds of elephants, hundreds of horses and scores of other exotic animals, including lions, bears and its famed gorilla Gargantua the Great.
Emmett Kelly was among a small army of 100 or so clowns with the circus, along with tightrope artist Karl Wallenda.
Memories of the tragic event in Hartford still weighed on the hearts of the performers.
“We must forget the fire,” Kelly told a reporter before the Akron show. “We must entertain. In wartime, it’s more important than ever. It’s going to be great in the open air.”
The remaining stops by the circus that year became known as the “Blue Heaven” circuit — a moniker penned by Akron Beacon Journal writer Murray Powers. It was the second such phrase coined by an Akron Beacon Journal writer: In 1934, the newspaper reportedly introduced the phrase “The Flying Wallendas” for the famed family’s tightrope act.
“We’re no longer limited by the big top,” Wallenda told a reporter before the 1944 Akron stand. “I can’t tell you just how much higher we’ll go, but it will be a more thrilling act than ever.”
It was also the first time that the circus performers had to practice and perform outside of the cover of the big top, and hundreds of Akron residents gathered to peek over the Rubber Bowl fence for a free look.
The circus’ president Robert Ringling traveled to Akron to see the performances, which got off to a soggy start with just 2,000 people braving rain and temperatures in the high 90s for a Friday matinee.
The number tripled for the evening show, but far short of the stadium’s 35,000-seat capacity.
The rain kept falling that Saturday and Sunday.
Total attendance was set at 30,000, but historians say that, in true circus tradition, it probably was inflated.
The circus moved on to Detroit after the Akron stop.
Ringmaster Fred Bradna tried his best to put a positive spin on the Akron performances.
“To stage the show in the stadium was entirely new to me,” Bradna told an Akron reporter. “The big top seemed indispensable, but I concede the spectacle is equally attractive under the heavens.”
There was some question at the time whether the circus could survive such a tragedy and, in his book “The Circus Fire,” author Stewart O’Nan wrote in 2000 that Akron healed the circus.
“I think the stadium tour helped the circus and the performers get back into rhythm, gave them the usual routine and helped get the fire off their minds,” he wrote. “Anyone who is suddenly thrown out of work has trouble just getting through the days, and this one-of-a-kind challenge gave the circus folks a goal to focus on and work toward.”
As the circus prepares to take its final bow in four months, it becomes clear that the circus could survive a fire — but not the digital age. Today, global oddities or death-defying feats are no further away than a phone screen or tablet.
“The competitor in many ways is time,” Kenneth Feld, chairman and CEO of Feld Entertainment, told the Associated Press. “It’s a different model that we can’t see how it works in today’s world to justify and maintain an affordable ticket price. So you’ve got all these things working against it.”
The Feld family bought the Ringling circus in 1967. The show was just under 3 hours then. Today, the show is 2 hours and 7 minutes, with the longest segment — a tiger act — clocking in at 12 minutes.
“Try getting a 3- or 4-year-old today to sit for 12 minutes,” he said.
Beacon Journal staff writer Mark J. Price and the Associated Press contributed to this article. Craig Webb can be reached at cwebb@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3547.