The Greatest Show and the City It Changed

The story of America's greatest circus-and the Florida city it helped transform.

For generations, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey meant spectacle on an almost unimaginable scale: thundering circus trains, enormous tents, elephants and exotic animals, death-defying aerialists, famous clowns, sideshow performers, brilliant lithographic posters, and thousands of workers capable of building a temporary city almost overnight.

The Greatest Show and the City It Changed traces that remarkable history from P. T. Barnum's mastery of publicity through James Bailey and the rise of the Ringling brothers to the creation of the legendary "Greatest Show on Earth."

But this is also the story of Sarasota, Florida.

Gordon Howe explores how John and Mable Ringling became intertwined with Sarasota's extraordinary growth during the Florida land boom, while also restoring important figures such as Bertha Palmer, Owen Burns, and Charles Ringling to their proper places in the city's history.

Along the way, readers encounter Jumbo, General Tom Thumb, Lillian Leitzel, Alfredo Codona, the Flying Wallendas, Emmett Kelly's unforgettable Weary Willie, the devastating Hartford circus fire, Hollywood's The Greatest Show on Earth, the end of the canvas big top, Clown College, the Feld era, the retirement of Ringling's elephants, the circus's 2017 closing, and its eventual reinvention.

Illustrated with historic photographs and colorful period circus artwork, this book separates documented history from circus legend without losing the sense of wonder that made the American circus unforgettable.

Part circus history, part Florida history, and part portrait of a vanished American world, this is the story of the Greatest Show on Earth-and the city that became its home.