Ringling Circus family made mark on Montana
No one who was an eyewitness to the first Ringling Brothers Circus in Montana remains to tell the tale.
Montana was barely a state then, with the first show in Dillon in May 31, 1897. Yet the circus’s legacy lives on all these years later, particularly in Meagher County.
Musselshell Valley rancher Lee Rostad describes that legacy in her new book, “Three Ringlings in Montana.”
John Ringling, who traveled the country scheduling circus appearances, was a millionaire with investments throughout the country. He also built short-line railroads and saw opportunity for one such between White Sulphur Springs and Leader.
In 1903, Ringling bought 20,000 acres in the area, then another 70,000 acres in the Smith River Valley. Ringling and White Inc. then started advertising the land, “large and small tracts for sale on easy terms.” Ringling’s own operation was highlighted as evidence of the fertility of the land.
“The venture did not immediately take off,” with many finding homesteading a better deal, Rostad wrote.
Ringling made plans, too, for a $200,000 bathhouse and hotel centered around the local hot springs, though an economic downturn scuttled that scheme.
White Sulphur Springs had long hoped for a railroad, the better to get their minerals and agricultural goods to market. Ringling saw to it the railroad was built, after shaking down, one might say, local businesses for contributions, and the town began to crow about the 10,000 residents they would soon have as a result. (Freight charges would be such that wagons were usually cheaper, though.)
In celebration, the town of Leader changed its name to Ringling, which it still has today.
Not everyone liked the shrewd Ringling brother. In fact, one local said of him: “There were crooks and crooks and there was John Ringling, the master-minded crook of the ages.”
Nephew Richard Ringling came next, raising cows and sheep on vast acreage, canning sweet peas, founding a dairy and launching the Bozeman Roundup. C.M. Russell painted the logo, which included the motto: “She’s wild.”
His son, Paul Ringling, continued the ranching legacy and served in the legislature. At 93, he waxed nostalgic in an interview with Rostad for the days when equipment did not so vastly outpace the valley of produce, when he established a ranch he called the Ringling Ranch LP near Ekalaka. He said living on the land meant “a really free life.”
Book: “Three Ringlings in Montana: Circus Trains to Cattle Ranches”
Author: Lee Rostad
Pages: 160
Price: $16
Publisher: Riverbend Publishing