• Lecturer: Talker inside a show.
• Liberty Horses: An act of from one to twenty four horses working in a ring with no reins being used by the trainer.
• Lunge Rope: The rope held by a person outside the ring which is threaded through a pulley above the ring and attached to the safety device of the performer who is working in or above the ring.
• Menage: The performance of ‘high school’ type riding in a circus arena by one or more persons and their horses. Thirty or more riders in one display was not uncommon on the larger circuses of fifty years ago.
• Night Riders: Bill posters on ‘opposition crews’ who went out at night and tore down or covered up the advertising paper of another show playing their show’s route.
• One Day Stand: Most circus dates were of day’s duration.
• Priviledge: The consideration paid for the right to place a concession on a carnival midway. Early day circus owners sold privileges for almost everything on the lot except the performance itself.
• Pitchman: A person who sells merchandise with lectures and demonstrations.
• Ringer: A substitute person or animal passed off on the unwary as the person or animal they expect to see. All the big name circus stars had understudies ready to go on in their place.
• Shill: One who pretends to play a game, or to buy a ticket to an attraction, in order to entice others to join or follow him.
• Sunday School Show: A clean show. No crooked games, no dirty ‘gal shows’, no other illicit activity tolerated by the show owner.
• Take: The cash taken in from a performance, a concession, a series of performances or a string of concessions.
• Trouper: A person who has spent at least one full season on some type of traveling amusement organization. By then, they are usually hooked.
• Wild Cat: Book and play into new territory on very short notice due to problems on the old route.

• Ace Note: A dollar bill
• Back Yard: “Off Limits” to the general public.
• Bally Broads, Bally Girls: Woman and girls who sang and danced in the circus spectacles.
• Boss Hostler: Perhaps the most picturesque figure on the circus grounds was this man who had charge of all the baggage (work) horses on the show.
• Candy Butchers: Concession salesman who sells concession items on the circus seats before and during a performance.
• Crier: A later term (1870-1880s) for the side show talkers.
• Dike (Klondike): Brass or copper sold as scrap.
• Dukey Run:This term became common usage for any unusually long distance.
• Educator: The Billboard Weekly
• Fireball, a Fireball Outfit: A show with a poor performance which allowed so many dishonest practices on its grounds that the towns played by it were literally “burned up” for any show that tried to follow it.
• Flea Bag: A disreputable, ragged and dirty show
• Gimick: A trick used to win. The mechanical device used to control crooked games.
• Grinder: A person who has a certain set speil, or sequence of words that he delivers on the front of a show or a midway attraction as long as the doors are open.
• Haul: The move between the circus train and the show lot.
• Herald: Type of advertising for individual reading. Many sizes and shapes printed on colored newsprint in one, two or four pages. These heralds were handed out to people on the streets, or put into the front doors of homes.
• Horse Opera: A Wild West exhibition.
• I.W.W.: International Workers of the World. This far left labor union issued red cards to its members. It’s stronghold was in the lumber camps from Minnesota to the Pacific Northwest.
• Joey: A clown. From the famous European clown, Joe Grimaldi.
• John Robinson: A much shortened circus performance.
• Kip: A sleeping place, a bed.

As the International Circus Hall of fame reports, a portion of the circus journey can begin at the Circus Winter Quarters in Peru, Indiana — home to the Circus Hall of Fame established by Ben Wallace in 1892.Here circus wagons were repaired, painted and carvings received gold leaf; and during the height of the winter respite thousands of horses roamed the fields and hundreds of exotic animals were housed and trained in scattered barns.To listen to the old timers, they would tell that it was not at all unusual to see zebras and camels grazing on snow covered ground, and this resulted in visitors passing by daily just to see what was going on.But the history of the circus goes much farther back than Peru, Indiana in 1892 in fact, Ancient Romans began the process with their Circus of Rome and its chariot races, jugglers, and trained animals which were thought (more…)

When you first step through the door of the museum you’ll be immediately greeted with a 1955 Fleetwood Cadillac at the Cole Porter exhibit.Yep, it was the composer and songwriter’s personal automobile the same Cole Porter who contributed to the musical comedies Kiss Me Kate and Fifty Million Frenchmen. How fitting since he was born in Peru, Indiana where he learned the violin at age six and the piano at age eight. And I guess we should mention his operetta at age 10.Next you’ll see (more…)

Contrary to what some might think the name implies, Miami County Museum is NOT in the state of Florida. It is in Indiana.Peru, to be specific.No. Not Peru, South America.Peru, Indiana.Okay, now that we have that cleared up we can get down to some interesting information about the Miami County Museum located in Peru, Indiana.The museum is closely aligned with the Miami County Historical Society dating back to 1916 when the Governor asked each county in Indiana to form a historical society.Since then the society has provided resources for the museum to become one of the larger small-classified museums in the country where it houses over 150,000 historical objects and archived items on two exhibition floors with a third floor reserved for storage of collections.The Museum and Historical Society are currently (more…)