Sixty years ago, the Great Circus Parade filled the streets of downtown Milwaukee with colorful wagons, marching bands and clowns.
The parade showcased Wisconsin’s history as the birthplace of many circuses, and the unique collection of wagons owned by the Circus World Museum in Baraboo. Over the years, the parade repeatedly returned to Milwaukee with the final hurrah in 2009.
This might all sound like ancient history to people who never experienced the spectacle, but the parade’s memory lives on today and the Milwaukee Public Library is about to celebrate its history.
Milwaukee Public Library celebrates
Milwaukee Public librarians Jennifer Pahl and Dan Lee are busy preparing to show off the library’s Great Circus Parade collection.
"The last one was 14 years ago and that was the swan song of the circus Parade and there’s a whole generation that has never grown up with the circus Parade. Jen Pahl is our digital projects librarian, and she thought, well since it’s the 60th anniversary, 'let’s digitize some of the materials that we have,'” Lee says.
Lee has personal parade memories. We’re standing on Wisconsin Avenue where he and his parents watched the splendor in the 1970s.
“We would have lunch at Big Boy. Looking at the window, you could see that there were already rows of people camping out on Wisconsin Avenue waiting for the parade to start. The rows were about like five-deep already. And then we would finish our lunch we would try to find a spot and squeeze our way in where we can actually see part of it,” Lee recalls.
We meet Jennifer Pahl a few blocks west on Wisconsin Avenue inside Milwaukee’s majestic central library. Pahl pages through some of the materials donated over the years, including a box chocked full of slides from the first and second parades.
“One of the slides included the wagon that contained the hippopotamus which didn’t start being pulled in the parade until 1964,” Pahl says.
Pahl says organizers kept meticulous records of every element of the parade.
“We have an itinerary that lists descriptions of all of the circus wagons, the number of horses that pulled them, colors that the wagon was painted, circuses they came from,” Pahl says. “Just a wealth of information.”
Pahl digitized that too. That means with the click, people can peruse the materials from a screen of their choice. Digitizing also protects posters, flyers, and tickets from deterioration.
July 29, Pahl and Lee will lead a celebration of the parade’s 60th anniversary at the central library.
“Jen will talk about the digital collection and what goes into digitizing it, and we’ll briefly talk about the history of the circus parade here. Then we’ll take visitors to see the display” Lee says.
It was his job to artfully fill two glass-covered display cases with memorabilia. He included something personal — a framed photo his dad had taken of Lee and his mom on the lakefront grounds where the circus wagons and animals lived over the days before and following the parade.
“I wish I asked my dad why he chose to frame that photo of all the family photos that we have. It was in my parent’s bedroom and when my mom went into assisted living, I placed it there as a memento,” Lee says. “I figured geez I’m setting up a display on the circus parade, I figured it would be nice to have it in there.”
Jennifer Pahl has a personal connection too.
Although she moved to Milwaukee from Michigan after the circus parade era, Pahl inherited photos her uncle left to her.
“I think it was ’66 or ’67, he had come up from Chicago to attend the circus parade,” she says.
Two of those photos are on display, “Including the one with the clown and the llama ... It’s a connection to my uncle who is no longer with us,” Pahl explains.
Horses
Countless people cherish memories of one or more of the 29 circus parades held in Milwaukee. Jake Ruby is one of them. He grew up on his family’s farm in Brookfield and has vivid memories of all of the circus parades.
Horses were his dad, Rolland’s, passion.
Jake sat beside his father as he drove six of his cherished draft horses in the first and many of the Milwaukee circus parades.
“Circus World Museum up in Baraboo, Chappie Fox was the leader of that … Chappie Fox headed up the museum up there and it was his plan and his idea to have a circus parade and bring it back after all these years. And so in doing that he did need some help on getting some horsemen,” Ruby says.
Dozens of teams of massive horses were needed to pull the restored antique circus wagons.
"That’s where my dad was so vital to Chappie because my dad basically screened every driver and every team in the first parade," Ruby says.
The Rubys — father and son — showed their horses and competed across the Midwest. Jake says his dad knew which horsemen had the most seasoned teams.
Rolland Ruby also made sure the parade route was as hazard-free as possible.
“Turns, as far as the bridges being the old graded type where you can see through to the water. For that they laid out rubber mats so the horses would not see through the bridge when they crossed it,” Ruby says.
Rolland Ruby hitched up his horses for his last circus parade in 1989. He died only months later. Jake Ruby says, “It was the happiest time of his life when he was with his horses."
The Music
The South Milwaukee Municipal Band was among the ensembles chosen to march in the inaugural Great Circus Parade, and many of them that followed.
I caught up with bass clarinetist Russ Daharsh recently when the much smaller and older municipal band performed at a local senior living facility.
Daharsh says over the years the band toured and played around the country. How does the circus parade compare?
“It was a highlight in that it was the biggest parade and you got to be with other big groups. You knew it was important,” Daharsh says.
It was also hot and long. “We bussed down to the lakefront and you had to wait for the circus team to give you your uniforms because they owned the uniforms,” Daharsh says.
For that day, they became the Wild West Band. “We wore a wild west shirt. You wore blue jeans. You had to wear plastic chaps they provided, and then a cowboy hat and bandana around your neck,” Daharsh says. Then the band waited until their time had come.
“Once you stepped off you did not stop playing. Most parades don’t run that well — they stop and start. Not the circus parade. It was the big time,” Daharsh says.
Firefighters
Rob Seelen never marched in the circus parade, but is proud of his dad, Richard, who did. Seelen had unearthed old photos of his dad taken on July 4, 1963. At the time Richard Seelen was a Milwaukee Fire Department. "He became chief in 1986 and retired in 1989," Rob Seelen says.
Seelen was only 2-years-old when his dad and three other firefighters pulled an antique fire wagon, he loves the idea of his dad having so much fun. The firemen sported fake mustaches and oversized helmets.
"Yeah, that’s my dad on the left. They were all acting sort of silly. Some have their helmets on backward," Seelen says.
Seelen followed in his dad’s footsteps, serving on the fire department. He didn’t pull a wagon in the circus parade, but Seelen did spend a night guarding the animals and circus wagons during their stay in Milwaukee.
"I think it was midnight to 4 a.m. The animals were fenced in, lots were sleeping. Just walking around it was fun to get up close," Seelen recalls.
Parade memories of Wisconsinites
Joel Kempfer says he and his young son had a once in a lifetime thrill while visiting the circus grounds in the early 1990s.
My son and I were alone, he was four or five, my daughter wasn’t with us for some reason. Anyway we were thrilled to see the 40-horse hitch all hooked up to the wagon. We moved closer to see better.
Someone was supposed to be getting a ride, but hadn’t shown up.
"The gentleman who was driving looked at my son and I and says, ‘hey do you want a ride.' We said sure and scrambled up the ladder," Kempfer says.
He has only one regret — his son was too young to remember their lap around the grounds behind the magnificent team of horses.
Julie Janke grew up Menomonee Falls. She experienced the first circus parade when she was 9-years-old. Her dad especially loved the 40-horse hitch.
"He had driven a lot of teams in his life because he was a farm kid. And my mom too. My mom’s dad was a sleigh and buggy maker. So they were very excited," Janke says.
ConnieJean Baatz and her siblings have fond memories of experiencing multiple circus parades from their dad's antique truck.
"It's a 1.5-ton 1931 Chevy. Then he sold it to a man, and then he pined over it for several years and then ended out buying it back from that man for $1,100," Baatz recalls. "He always said he paid $100 for the truck and $1000 for the memories."
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After his dad died, Baatz and her family kept up the circus parade tradition until it ended in 2009.
"I can remember going around that curve and up the hill to the War Memorial and seeing the people 13, 14 people-deep on either side. It was just an amazing thing to see," Baatz says.
Baatz and her siblings continue to care for the truck.
"We were just in the Butler parade for the 4th of July. We just love her like a sister — we call her Bessie," Baatz says.
Footage of the 1966 Great Circus Parade
Paul Brownell came across this footage of the 1964 circus parade when sorting through what his uncle, who was also named Paul Brownell, left behind when he died.
"He purchased the 8 mm film camera in 1960. A month later they came out with sound. He was always mad he didn't wait," Brownell says.
As a traffic engineer for the City of Milwaukee, his nephew says it's no surprise the beginning of his uncle's home movie zeroes in on antique cars.
Brownell loved cars and had lots of them.
"He actually took two downstairs, so he could sit in them when he was in the basement (to) watch TV like a move, a drive-in movie," Brownell and his sister Lisa recall.
Paul and his sister Lisa admit they shared their uncle's circus parade footage because they take any chance they get to talk about their uncle.
"Lisa and I and our other sister were the only kids in his life. He lavished us with gifts all our lives," Brownell says.
Clowns
Linda Shipman has a real connection to the circus parade. Sitting in her shaded backyard in Germantown, Shipman pulls out the costume she wore. “Here’s my favorite, my shoes,” Shipman says.
Shipman is petite, but these shoes are supersized .
That’s because she was a clown — Noodles the Clown.
She and her fellow Milwaukee Metro Clown Club members waved to the mass of humanity throughout the parade route. In July 1994 her white face artfully made up by Shipman herself was on the front page of the Milwaukee Journal.
“One of the favorite things that I used to do in parades, I’d be walking down the street and I’d see an empty lawn chair and I’d plunk myself down in this lawn chair and I’d say ‘I hear there’s a parade here today. Have you seen anything,'” Shipman recalls.
Shipman says kids loved it, but the circus parade had different rules.
"Baraboo wanted clowns in the parade, they didn’t want them … how can I explain that … they wanted them there for show, they wanted them for color. They didn’t want us to talk to the people, “ Shipman explains.
But Shipman says, don’t get her wrong, “If I were younger I would do it again in a heartbeat. If they said 'oh the Circus Parade is back,'” she says.
Each conversation with everyone who stood in awe from the sidelines or played a role in the parade, agreed, the Great Circus Parade was a highlight in Milwaukee’s cultural history.
