The Gollmar Brothers Circus Band

 

 "R. W. Baker, formerly an army bandman, and also a practical circus band director, is here to take charge of the Gollmar Bros.' concert and circus band this season. Mr. Baker is a saxaphone (sic) player."

     17 April 1907, Baraboo, Wisconsin Republic

 

 "Bert Gribble, formerly instructor for the Geary band, has joined the Gollmar Bros. circus band for the coming season."
    8 April 1907, Geary, Oklahoma Times-Journal

 

 "Bert Gribble, of Viola and Branson Wood, Gene Rolfe and Lester Green of La Farge, left the first of the week for Baraboo where they join Gollmar Bros. circus troupe as members of the band. The boys are all good players and we wish them an enjoyable season."
    3 May 1907, Viola, Wisconsin Intelligencer

 

 

 

 "Dr. F. E. Tryon of New York arrived yesterday to take his position as physician for Gollmar Bros. circus. Dr. Tryon is a handy man for he can handle the tuba in the band, and is considerable of an artist in that respect also."
    8 May 1907, Baraboo, Wisconsin Republic

 

 

 

 

 

 "Gets into Band Wagon:   Frank Palmer will leave for Baraboo tonight to join the Gollmar Bros. circus, which opens the season at Baraboo Saturday and plays at Beloit Monday. He will drive the eight-horse team on the leading band wagon."
    1 May 1907, Janesville, Wisconsin Daily Gazette 

 

 

 

 

 

So on a spring day in 1907 Prof. Baker, Dr. Tryon, and the other 21 musicians of Baker's Concert Band posed in front of their fancy mirror-bedecked bandwagon with Frank Palmer, the wagon's driver, at the reins. It made a nice postcard which was likely produced to sell as a souvenir of the Gollmar Brothers Circus. This "Greatest of American Shows" was "New and Superb, Brimful and Overflowing with the most Sensational, Ingenious and High-Class Arenic and Hippodrome Feature Acts Ever Exhibited. A Colossal Combination of Circus, Museum, Hippodrome and $1,000,000.00 Menagerie."

 

 

Oskaloosa IA Herald
9 May 1907

According to the advertisements, there were "200 Artists, 30 Clowns and 100 Feature Acts. Scores of Surprising Sights and Scenes in Salutation. 200 Blooded Horses, (a) $20,000 Blood-Sweating Behemoth, (and a) Monster Herd of Performing Elephants." There were two performances daily at 2 and 8 p.m. and a "Grand Gold Glittering and Glorious Free Street Parade at 10:30 a.m."

There was also a lot of Abstruse Alliteration and Convoluted Capitalization. 

 

 

 

Gollmar Bros. Circus 1910 Route Book
Source: Milner Library, Illinois State University

 

 

The four Gollmar brothers were Charles A. Gollmar, (1861–1929), manager; Benjamin Franklin (Ben) Gollmar,  (1864–1947), treasurer; Fredrick Corwin (Fred) Gollmar, (1867–1965) general advance manager; and Walter Samuel Gollmar, (1869–1933), equestrian director. There was even a fifth brother, the eldest, Jacob (Jake) Gollmar, (1851–1917) who may have shared ownership in the circus but did not participate in managing the show. The Gollmars produced their first circus in 1891 and established its "winter quarters" in Baraboo, Wisconsin.

The Gollmar brothers were following a family tradition as they were first cousins to the more famous, five Ringling brothers, Alfred, Charles, John, Al and Otto Ringling, who established a circus in 1884 that had already become an American show business dynasty. The Ringling circus was also based in the small town of Baraboo, as was another set of first cousins to the Ringling and Gollmar families, the Moeller brothers. Henry and Corwin Moeller operated a blacksmith shop and wagon factory in Baraboo which supplied both the Ringling and Gollmar circuses, and other shows too, with ornate and fanciful show wagons. The four-mirror wagon behind the band is an example of the Moeller brothers craftsmanship. 

Typically before the start of each season, each circus would put on a parade and show in Baraboo. This family heritage made Baraboo, Wisconsin the capital of circus history and its traditions are still preserved by the town.

 

New York Clipper
7 July 1906

The Gollmar bandsmen came from all over, since each year the Gollmar company would place a WANTED advertisement in show business trade magazines like this one from the July 1906 New York Clipper. The leader was likely engaged separately and might bring his own favorite principal players. Unfortunately I could not find a reference with R. W. Baker's full name or hometown, so I was unable to uncover anything about his background except the one brief newspaper report. However in October 1909 he had moved his Baker's American Band of 14 men to play at the Cooley and Thom Wonderland Floating Theatre in Plaquemine, Louisiana. Since the rigors of playing with a touring circus required a robust stamina it's not surprising that many musicians regularly switched to work with more  accommodating employers.  

 

 

Libertyville IL Lake County Independent
10 May 1907

The concert band provided the live soundtrack to all the acts that performed in the three rings under the big top. But there was also a sideshow band and a few vaudeville vocal duos who offered renditions of popular songs. Every act required music and during a show the musicians were playing nearly continuously. A brass or woodwind player needed lips of steel to keep up.

 

 

Gollmar Bros. Circus,
Four Mirror Tableau Wagon, circa 1913
Source: Kenneth Whipple Collection, Circuswagons.org

Besides band musicians, clowns, jugglers, acrobats, and assorted entertainers, a circus company also employed hundreds of people to set up tents, lights, and rigging; care for animals; maintain costumes; run concessions; organize train cars; and prepare meals for the entire circus troupe. Everyone traveled on a special train with rail cars purpose-built for transporting heavy tents, equipment, animals, crew and entertainers. After its arrival at a town and as the crew began raising the canvas, the circus entertainers presented an elaborate parade that of course required lots of music. 

 

This picture from 1913 shows the Gollmar band seated on their special mirrored wagon drawn by six white horses. I suspect that it didn't have room for all 23 musicians so the remaining players probably rode on another wagon. This image showing crowds of people along the street is similar to another mirrored bandwagon photo that I featured in Send in the Clowns!!! back in August 2015. A circus parade like this served as a seductive lure for patrons who might otherwise have skipped buying a ticket. 

 

 

The Gollmar Bros. Four Mirror Tableau band wagon was built for the 1903 season. It was 16 feet 8 inches long by 8 feet wide and 11 feet 2 inches tall. Though primarily constructed of wood it still weighed 6,020 pounds. I imagine the interior was used to store the band's instruments, chairs and music stands. After the Gollmar Brothers sold their circus in 1916, its rolling stock was used by a succession of circuses. The band wagon appeared in the Patterson Shows, the Gentry Bros. Circus, the Walter L. Main Circus, and the Cole Bros. Circus until eventually in 1957 it was sold to the Pabst Brewing Company which donated the band wagon to the newly formed Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin, not far from where it was built. 

 

The museum undertook to restore it and this 1960s postcard shows what it looked like it during one of its transitional phases. The mirrors are arranged differently and the top sideboard has lettering instead of a carved wood motif as seen in the next image of the band wagon from 1917. Notice that in the mirrors are reflections of people and horses but in the modern color photo there is only an open sky landscape. Extra points if you spot the clever positioning of the photographer. (hint: look for a camera tripod leg.)

 

 

Patterson-Gollmar Bros. Circus,
Four Mirror Tableau Wagon, 1917
Source: Circuswagons.org

 

A typical circus season began in late April or early May and lasted until mid-October or November. The circus played six days a week, reserving Sunday as a day of rest, though the company might move later  that evening. The Gollmar Brothers Circus, like most circuses and shows, followed the rail lines and averaged about 70-75 miles each night in order to reach the next town. The picture of the four Gollmar brothers comes from the circus route book published at the end of each season. It listed all the performance dates in order as well as the distance traveled. In 1910 the Gollmar circus started in Baraboo on April 30 and finished in Sikeston, Missouri on 8 November before returning to Baraboo for its "winter quarters". Altogether, covering 35 weeks and three days, the show traveled 12,753 miles in total, with a daily average of 73⅓ miles. 

 

 

Rugby ND Staats Anzeiger
20 June 1907

The Gollmar Brothers Circus traveled with an impressive collection of animals. The most numerous were horses, hundreds of which pulled the wagons and performed in the show's equestrian acts. In this advert from Der Staats Anzeiger, a German language newspaper in Rugby, North Dakota, the biggest exotic animals appear in a woodcut in a way they never would have been in the wild. There are Indian elephants hanging out with Bactrian camels from the steppes of Central Asia and rhinoceros and hippopotamus from Africa. There may even be an American buffalo too. The "Monster Herd of Elephants" that it promoted was just 8 elephants leased from the Ringling brothers' circus. On this tour the Gollmar menagerie also included the "Mysterious Vlack Vark" which was actually a warthog from South Africa, and no mystery to the Boer people who lived there and gave it that name.

 

 

 

Darlington WS Democrat
25 July 1907

 

 

 

But the real star animal for the Gollmar was the so-called "Black African Hippopotamus", the "Blood-Sweating Behemoth". 

 

 

This hippo supposedly cost $20,000 and was purportedly "transported in a colossal tank which is built to hold 40,000 gallons of water, weighing more than a freight car." An old standard boxcar was about 10 ft. wide by 10 ft. high by 36 ft long. Assuming brim measure, this space geometrically equals a capacity of only around 27,000 gallons.  Considering that this amount of water would weigh around 112 tons without a hippo's mass, I seriously doubt the Gollmar hippo was ever carried in a tank this size, much less one nearly twice as long. Maybe this is why the hippo sweated blood.

And even if it did survive swimming in water slushing about during the train trip, how would a trainer persuade a hippopotamus to get out of such a tank? Hippos have a reputation of being the most deadly of African wildlife since by nature they have a very belligerent temperament. Yet somehow the Gollmar circus exhibited the one exceptionally passive hippo in the world. And according to reviews this hippo competed in some kind of race along a special track. Who won, the hippo or the warthog?

[NOTE: Hippopotamuses do not sweat blood, but their skin does secret a pinkish red oil that helps the animal control body temperature and possibly has antiseptic properties. Source]

 

 

 

 

 

Anthony, KS, Republican
2 October 1907

Dr. F. E. Tryon, the company's physician and sometimes tuba player must have been a man of many talents as he was also employed as the circus's press representative. Several small town newspaper editors made mention of him as "a real gentleman" since he treated them to free tickets. Though I don't know which of the three tuba players is Dr. Tryon, I think the center man looks most like a family physician.

 

Outside of charming newspaper reporters and playing the bass lines, Dr. Tryon's work as a doctor must have been quite challenging. In addition to treating the usual sickness that might arise with several hundred humans and animals traveling together, Dr. Tryon was also the first responder for any artists injured during a performance. In October 1907, a young girl, a member of the Morales tight wire entertainers, suffered a dreadful fall during a stunt where she was supposed to slide down a long wire suspended by only her hair. The hair knot failed and the girl "fell to the ground below, injuring her spine and breaking her ankle."

 

 

Dr. Tryon probably got involved in this story too.

 

Cherokee, OK, Republican
11 October 1907

 

As the Gollmar circus season came to an end, evidently so did tempers too. During the afternoon performance at Carmen, Oklahoma, an argument broke out between two members of the band. One man named Dock knocked down another man, Towns, over his disparaging comments regarding their leader (or about a girl according to other stories.) When Towns "gained his feet he had a 32 caliber revolver short barrel revolver in his hand which he fired twice at Dock who fell. Only one bullet hit him that took effect just below the heart and entered the stomach. An operation was considered necessary... It is not expected he will live." 

 

 

Wisconsin Rapid, WS, Daily Tribune
23 October 1907

The competition in traveling railroad shows like the Gollmar Circus was intense in 1907. One trade magazine listed over 165 companies that had moved into winter quarters by January 1908 which included big three ring circuses like the Gollmar and Ringling shows as well as smaller one/two ring circuses, wild west shows, combined carnival & fair shows, dog & pony shows, and even a pig & goat show. But only one show had a hippopotamus. Where the Gollmars kept it during in the Wisconsin winter remains unknown. 

 

In late October 1907 the Gollmar brothers announced they were retiring from show business and their entire circus was for sale, including trains, menagerie and the winter quarters at Baraboo. Notices were placed in all the trade magazine too. But the Gollmars also bought ads soliciting acts for the 1908 season too, so their offer to sell the circus may have been just a test of the market. Apparently they got no satisfactory offers so the Gollmar Brothers Circus continued riding the rail lines around the Midwest for the following nine summers before it was sold to James Paterson in 1916.

 

 

 

 

I finish this story
with a short silent film made in 1902
by the Selig Polyscope Company
of the Ringling Brothers Circus on parade.

Undoubtedly their circus wagons
were made in Baraboo, Wisconsin
by the Moeller Bros. Wagon Company.
There are elephants and Bactrian camels in the parade too,
but no marching hippos.

 

 

 Don't you want to see the circus now?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where sometimes you never know
who's riding on the bus.