The Ringling Brothers Circus began in Baraboo, Wisconsin, in 1884, and until 1918, the circus wintered there.  Today the site is the home of Circus World Museum, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Circus World is a museum of the history of the circus, from the circus wagons to the sideshows, but it is also a living history museum, offering a daily schedule of performances.  Visitors can see how a clown’s makeup is applied, learn about tiger training, see a magician, participate in a children’s circus, and see a one-ring circus under the hippodrome.

When I saw the daily schedule of events, it looked like just a list, but once we were there we saw that the schedule has been carefully planned so that you move from one show to another throughout the day.  Most shows are offered twice daily during the summer season.  This well-planned schedule makes it easy to spend a half-day or more at Circus World without feeling hurried or missing out on anything.

Once you’ve paid your admission, everything is included except concessions, souvenirs, and extras such as elephant rides or having the clown paint your face.

Peanuts are often associated with circuses, so before we went I called to see if they sell peanuts on the premises.  They stopped selling peanuts a few years ago, although boxed Cracker Jacks are still available at some concession areas, and they can’t guarantee that no one else has brought in peanuts.  Still, as the parent of a peanut-allergic child, I felt comfortable at Circus World.

We treated the kids to their choice of an elephant ride or face painting by Roger the Clown at $5 each, and I was surprised that the usually-timid, often-afraid-of-animals girls chose the elephant ride and the boys chose the clown-face painting.  (Roger was kind enough to let me check the face-paint ingredients for peanuts as well.)

My grandmother had taken me to Circus World when I was a child, and I remembered a ferris wheel ride that day.  I found a long-time Baraboo resident working on the grounds who said it wasn’t my imagination; the ferris wheel was removed because of the cost of liability insurance.  A carousel still runs, however, and there’s a playground near the lunch wagon so kids can run off some energy between shows.

The children’s interactive circus allows kids to come up on stage and be part of the show; when we attended in the morning all my kids were too shy to volunteer, but by the afternoon event they were ready and were chosen to be elephants in the show.

We spent so much time at Circus World that we missed one of the other things we’d planned for the day.  We arrived at 9:30 a.m. and left at 2:30, enjoying the entire time.

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