This lithograph from the Chris Berry Collection was used by the Sparks Circus at about the time that John Ringling bought the show as part of his purchase of the American Circus Corporation only a couple of weeks before the stock market crashed in October of 1929. Posters for Sparks Circus are relatively scarce, and this one is no exception.
Sparks was originally known as the “John H. Sparks Old Virginia Shows,” a circus that originally traveled by wagon in the Southern United States.
By the time that World War I started, John’s adopted son Charles Sparks had the circus on rails, and by the mid 1920s its train required 20 railroad cars.
In the fall of 1928 Charles Sparks sold his show to Henry Gentry who had operated the Gentry Bros. Circus with his brothers…but what Sparks did not know was that Gentry was only working as an agent for Bert Bowers and Jerry Mugivan, owners of the American Circus Corporation. According to circus-lore Sparks was furious as he did not respect Bowers and Mugivan and when they had tried to purchase the show previously he had always refused.
Although the American Circus Corporation had a large winter quarters facility in Peru, Indiana, the Sparks Circus never moved out of its quarters in Macon, Georgia – and the 1929 tour origiginated from there.
When John Ringling took possession of the Sparks Circus as part of the acquisition of the A.C.C. he too kept the show in Macon, and the Sparks train was actually hitched to the Ringling train and taken north toward its first date in Chester, Pennsylvania in May of 1931.
By 1931 The Great Depression was having an effect on John Ringling’s empire and the Sparks Circus of 1931 was much smaller than previous seasons and used recorded music instead of a live band.
Sparks closed its 1931 season in Sarasota and the equipment was stored at the Ringling winter quarters until 1938 when most of the wagons were burned and the scrap iron salvaged.
In 1946 a promoter named James Edgar leased the Sparks title from Ringling for a truck show that he framed that season, and in 1947 Edgar converted his show to rails.
After one season Edgar’s incarnation of the Sparks Circus closed and the title was never used again. Several of the wagons were picked up by the Clyde Beatty Railroad Circus including the ticket wagon that was later put on the chassis of a series of trucks and used for many years by Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros.
-Chris Berry
My Grandfather worked for Sparks Circus as a young man. I have photos if anyone is interested.
Hey Alison, I’m actually producing a show of Elephant’s Graveyard next Spring, the play that revolves around Sparks Circus and tells the story of Mary the elephant. If you have the pictures, I’d absolutely love to see them for better reference of historical accuracy! If you’d like, you could send copies to my email at jacobrubino11@gmail.com!
Wanted to check in and see if you ever saw this comment, Alison! We’d still be very interested in photos!
Very interesting information here. I would like to know more about the original owner John Sparks. Was he from the Sparks brothers and Cousins that migrated from Fareham Hampshire England about 1662. Most settled in Queen Anns County and Frederick County Maryland. Their descendants moved down the Great Wagon Trail into Virginia and my branch went through North Carolina and on to Tennessee. See Sparks Family Tree or Sparks Quarterly.