After 146 years, The Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus put on its final show this month. The company blamed declining attendance and high operating costs, which began when animal rights activists targeted the circus, alleging animal abuse.  Ringling was the biggest circus, but there are others.  And as Indiana Public Broadcasting’s Lindsey Wright reports small communities are hoping to take all the best parts of the circus and continue the tradition for generations to come.

At the French Lick West Baden Museum, you’ll find an exhibit that’s all things circus. That’s because French Lick was home to the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus. It was the second largest circus after Ringling Bros.

Museum Director Patty Drabing says the circus wintered in French Lick from 1913 to 1929.

“At the end of the season, the circus would come back here and they would fill up the barns with all the animals and the wagons and work on things and get ready for the next season in the spring,” Drabing says.

In 1929 Hagenbeck-Wallace signed a deal with Ringling Bros. and sold its circus, bringing it to an end.

But when you step into French Lick’s museum, and see a massive, 1,100 square foot diorama, you’re suddenly transported to the past. You feel like you’re there. It’s full of miniature scenes from the circus. You see the animals, street parades, and the big top circus tent, with incredible detail.

“These are all identical wagons to what was used at the time, down to the paint job the carving, and they are hand carved,” Drabing says.

The exhibit walls document stories from the circus. Many are surprising little anecdotes that give you a window into what the circus was like.

For example, the world’s smallest clown was part of the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus. Also, pictures tell the story of a 1918 train crash in Indiana, carting the circus crew, that killed more than 80 people.

Since Ringling Bros. is no more, Drabing says exhibits like this one will be how young people now experience the circus.

“It makes me very sad when people walk in here with a child four or five years old, and this is the only thing they’re going to see of a circus,” Drabing says.

But now, let’s head north to Peru in small town Indiana. The circus has been significant in Peru for more than 100 years, and it’s alive and well.

Performers at the Peru Amateur Youth Circus practice acts on the high wire. (Photo: Steve Burns)

There are no animal acts in Peru. The Peru Amateur Youth Circus is where performers between the ages of seven and 21 fly through the air, walk a high wire, juggle, and more.

“Roundup usually starts about the end of February, and then we have about two weeks off, and then we start mid march, and we go all the way up until show time in July,” says performer Jerral Deford.

Deford says the Peru Amateur Circus puts on a show every summer. It runs for a week and takes about 2,000 volunteers to get it off the ground. Many of the volunteers and kids do it year after year.

Don Ross, for example, has been working with the Peru Amateur Circus as a rigger for 15 years.

“It happens my daughter and son in law worked with Ringling and my grand daughter was born on that show,” Ross says.

Now, his granddaughter is part of the program. Ross says, although it’s sad to see the Ringling Bros. come to an end, he doesn’t think the circus is going anywhere.

“I simply don’t see a deterioration of that continuing,” Ross says. “This little show all by itself has its own inertia and it’s going to continue whether Ringling is there or not, and keep in mind there are many other circuses out there.”

The youth circus’ big show happens in Peru, but it makes its mark with performances across the state, and has even shared its talents abroad.

So, there are places out there like Peru and French Lick keeping the circus alive, you just have to find them.

And remember, as the Peru performers say at the end of each show, “May all your days be circus days.”