By Wesley Harris
Anyone looking for an unusual purchase in January 1905 could have found one advertised in The Billboard.
For sale or lease: one complete circus.
And prospective buyers were told to inquire in Ruston.
The circus belonged to Alex Glasscock, a veteran showman whose traveling operation had grown considerably during the first years of the 20th century. In January 1903, the New York Clipper reported Alex Glasscock’s Dog and Pony Show was touring southern Louisiana and doing good business. Glasscock was listed as the show’s sole owner and manager.
By that fall, it was much more than a dog and pony show.
Glasscock reported the company had begun its 16th season with 12 wagons. It had since expanded to 28 wagons and about 40 people. Five cages formed its menagerie, along with what the show claimed was “the only snow white camel in the country.” The performance included 22 acts in the main show and another eight in the concert, with acrobats, trapeze performers, jugglers, tumblers, knife throwers, riders and two troupes of trained ponies.
The circus continued to grow.
At the beginning of 1904, Glasscock reported from winter quarters in Longview, Texas, that the company had just completed the most successful season in its history. What had started with about 20 people and 10 wagons finished with more than 50 people, 30 wagons, five animal cages and considerably larger tents. Plans for the coming season, Glasscock said, were already underway.
Those plans included abandoning the wagons for the railroad.
By late 1904, the operation had become the Alexander Glasscock Mammoth Railroad Shows. The Billboard reported the circus would travel aboard six new railroad cars. The lengthy roster included a railroad contractor, treasurer, construction superintendent, announcer, animal man, canvas man, bandleader, billposter, advance agent and a large cast of performers. Many carried the Glasscock name.
Another report from the period said the railroad show was touring Texas with about 50 people and “doing good business.”
But the expansion from wagons to rails did not go smoothly.
In August 1904, the railroad show ran into financial trouble at Anadarko, Oklahoma. Members of the company sued for about $800 in unpaid wages, and the county sheriff seized the show while the dispute was pending. The matter was apparently resolved because the show returned to the rails.
Still, the episode left a cloud over an operation that, on the surface, appeared to be expanding.
Then, in January 1905, Ruston entered the story.
The Jan. 21, 1905, issue of The Billboard contained a classified advertisement offering the entire Alex Glasscock Mammoth Railroad Show “for sale or lease.”
The inventory would have made for an unusual auction.
There were eight cages of animals, including a white camel, leopard, black bear and smaller animals. The buyer would also receive two spotted mules, a trick mule and five trick ponies.
Transportation was included: a 54-foot flatcar, a 64-foot flatcar, a 44-foot sleeping car, a 40-foot stock car and an advance car.
Then there was the big top — a 100-foot round tent with a 50-foot middle section — along with other show property.
At the bottom of the advertisement was the contact: E. R. Glasscock, Ruston, La.
Who E. R. Glasscock was and why the circus was being offered through Ruston remain unclear. The advertisement also does not establish that the circus itself was in Ruston. It gives Ruston as E. R. Glasscock’s address, but the animals, railroad cars, tents and other property could have been elsewhere.
The timing raises an obvious question. The Glasscock show had suffered financial trouble only months earlier, yet by December the trade press was announcing an ambitious railroad operation with six new cars and dozens of employees and performers. Then, in January 1905, the entire show was offered for sale or lease through Ruston.
Whether the August wage dispute had anything to do with the decision to sell is unknown. The advertisement offered no explanation.
The advertisement did not spell the end of Alex Glasscock’s circus career. By 1906, his show was traveling again. That September, The Billboard reported Ruth, the show’s baby elephant, died at Eagle Lake, Texas, from injuries received earlier at Rock Island. Arrangements were already being made to send Glasscock two replacement elephants.
Glasscock remained in the circus business for years. In 1909, Variety reported he had opened another wagon show in Hamilton, Texas, intending to spend the winter playing small Southern towns. Six years later, an advertisement for the Alex Glasscock and Ben J. Benschamp Big Combined Shows sought Wild West performers, circus people and musicians.
Even decades later, Glasscock had not completely left circus life. In 1936, The Billboard reported he was negotiating to purchase another complete circus near his horse and mule barns in San Antonio. If the deal went through, Glasscock said, the show would be turned over to his son.
The circus had been the Glasscocks’ business for generations. A history of Texas tent shows traces the family circus to Alex’s father, John Benjamin Glasscock. In 1898, the Glasscock Circus crossed the Neches River with about 25 brightly painted wagons. The entourage included trained dogs, lions and elephants. Alex reportedly brought the elephants to the river to spray water for the gathered crowd, while his sister Gracie, a circus performer known as “LaGracier,” crossed above the water on the ferry’s cable wire.
For a family accustomed to traveling with elephants, lions, acrobats and entire tented cities, perhaps selling a circus through a small Louisiana town was simply another day’s business.
But the advertisement leaves a tantalizing piece of Ruston history behind.
For at least a brief moment in 1905, anyone in the market for a white camel, a leopard, a black bear, five trick ponies, five railroad cars and a 100-foot circus tent knew where to inquire: Ruston, Louisiana.
