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In the days before television, U-Tube, and the internet, folks came from miles around to be entertained by traveling shows, social picnics and county fairs. Southern Wisconsin has long been known for the 38 circuses that started out there in the 19th century. The most renowned was Ringling Bros. Circus.

John Ringling was born on May 31, 1866 in McGregor, Iowa. He was the sixth of seven sons and one daughter of German immigrant farmer and harness maker, August Ringling, and his wife, Marie. John was only 4 years old in 1870 when he and his brothers saw a circus being unloaded from a steamboat and he persuaded his brothers Al (18), Otto (12), Alf (9) and Charles (7) to create their own backyard circus, charging neighbors a penny for admission. The Ringling family moved several times over the next few years and finally settled in Baraboo, Wisconsin in 1875. The five brothers continued to perfect their performances and performed their first "real" show on November 27, 1882 in Mazomanie, Wisconsin - Charles (then 19) did skits and juggled, while John (16) sang, another brother danced, and the other two played instruments. It was more a vaudeville show than what it would later become. They brought in $300, hardly enough to cover expenses for the 30-mile trip from their home. The brothers used their profits to purchase evening suits and top hats to improve their show image. They brought their show to many small Wisconsin towns via a wagon and a rented horse.

 Having saved $1,000, the Ringlings bought their first elephants in the spring of 1884 and partnered with veteran showman "Yankee" Robinson. They opened their first one-ring circus on May 19, 1884 in Baraboo under a big top 45' X 9' and charged $.25 admission. The circus traveled through the Midwest and the season went well. Unfortunately, Robinson died in Iowa on September 4, 1884 -- before the circus season ended. Two years later (1886), the Ringling brothers had their own donkey and a Shetland pony, the makings of their first trick act. A sixth brother, Henry, joined the show in 1886 and Gus joined in 1889. While the circus continued to grow, its progress was slow at first. Each brother had a specialty: Al picked the acts; Alfred publicized the circus; Gus arranged advertising; Charles produced the show; Otto was treasurer; John supervised transportation - and Henry attended each performance. It was John's skillful routing of their circus that allowed them to avoid direct clashes with competitors and to grow their audience in small or neglected towns. Even though some jobs may have been harder than others, the Ringlings always split the money they earned equally.

In 1889, two of the Ringlings went to Philadelphia to purchase 18 railroad cars and parade equipment from a well-known showman. With this change in transportation, the circus was no longer limited to moving only 15-20 miles a night, and could now skip the really small towns with limited audiences in order to set up at larger towns and greatly increasing revenue. Admission rose to $.50 for adults and $.25 for children. They added four more train cars in 1891.

By 1895 the Ringling Bros. Circus had established itself as one of the largest and best-run circuses in the country and opened in Chicago and other large cities. They then went east to compete with the popular Barnum & Bailey Circus. The two circuses subsequently agreed to divide the U.S. rather than compete head-to-head. The Ringlings established their headquarters in Chicago, while Barnum & Bailey stayed in New York, and neither would intrude on the other's region.

The Ringlings had one of the largest traveling shows in the country by 1900 and began buying other circuses. After P.T. Barnum died in 1891 and James Bailey died in 1906, the Ringlings bought the Barnum & Bailey Circus (their largest competitor) in 1907 for $400,000, creating a virtual monopoly of traveling circuses. They kept the two entities as two separate circuses. By the 1910s the Ringling Bros. Circus had more than 1,000 employees, 335 horses, 26 elephants, 16 camels and other assorted animals that traveled on 92 railcars. The Barnum & Bailey Circus was roughly the same size. When the U.S. entered World War I, audiences declined and many employees joined the military.

When Otto died unexpectedly in 1911 and Al in 1916, it soon was apparent that running two circuses was more than the remaining brothers could handle, so they combined the two into "The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows, the Greatest Show on Earth," and debuting on March 29, 1919 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. When Alf died in 1919, Charles took over the management. Seven years later (1926) Charles died, leaving John to manage the empire. The following year, John announced he was moving the circus to Sarasota, Florida (where the Ringling family had spent much time over the years and where they had financial investments). In 1929, John purchased the American Circus Corporation, a conglomeration of five major shows, for $1.7 million. With that acquisition, Ringling owned every traveling circus in America.

Once the 5th wealthiest man in the United States, John died at home of pneumonia on December 2, 1936 with only $311 in the bank. After his death, nephew John Ringling North was able to rearrange the circus financing and reestablish family control of its management. The folding of the Big Top tent for the last time in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 16, 1956 drastically changed the structure of the three-ring circus. Without the Big Top tent, several additional service tents and moving equipment, the need for 1,000 roustabouts, a 75+ car train, or a 200-acre winter quarters greatly diminished. The Ringling family controlled the circus until 1967 when they sold it to the Feld Family for $8 million, and kept the Ringling Bros. name. The Feld family sold the circus to Mattel (Toys) in 1971 for $50 million in company stock, and purchased it back in 1982.

John bequeathed his $1.2 million art collection, mansion and estate to the people of the State of Florida. By the late 1990s, the once valuable and opulent estate was in disarray and partially condemned. In 2000 governance was transferred from the State of Florida's Department of State to Florida State University establishing the Ringling estate as one of the largest museum/university complexes in the nation, where it is again well-maintained and generating income.

Your contract with Mazon Associates is a "recourse" agreement, which means that your company will ultimately absorb the credit risk either by replacing the invoice with another collectable invoice or having the amount due for the invoice deducted from the next advance or from your reserve.  (Other competitor factor may use "non-recourse" agreements, whereby the factor will usually charge a larger fee and sometimes require an account deposit.  In a non-recourse agreement, the factor, not the client, will absorb the credit-related loss.)  Mazon often obtains credit insurance for larger accounts to ensure that both Mazon and the client are covered from losses.

If you would like to find out more about our factoring services for your business and/or apply for an account with Mazon Associates, please phone us at 972-554-6967 (toll-free 800-442-2740) or visit our website www.mazon.com.

Oct. 1: Child Health Day; Oct. 6: Physician Assistant Day; Oct. 8: Columbus Day, National Children's Day; Oct. 9: Leif Erikson Day; Oct. 14: Peace Corps Birthday; Oct. 16: National Boss Day, World Food Day; Oct. 24: United Nations Day; Oct. 27: Navy Day; Oct. 28: Mother-In-Law Day; Oct. 31: Halloween.

Notice: Mazon offices will be closed on October 8th in observance of Columbus Day. We will resume normal business hours of 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on x. You may still submit invoices during our closed hours via fax, e-mail or drop-slot to be processed on Tuesday.

Columbus Day, October 8th 

A U.S. national holiday since 1937, Columbus Day commemorates the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the New World on October 12, 1492. The Italian-born explorer had set sail two months earlier, backed by the Spanish monarchs King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. He intended to chart a western sea route to China, India and the fabled gold and spice islands of Asia; instead, he landed in the Bahamas, becoming the first European to explore the Americas since the Vikings set up colonies in Greenland and Newfoundland during the 10th century.

Later that month, Columbus sighted Cuba and believed it was mainland China; in December the expedition found Hispaniola, which he thought might be Japan. There, he established Spain's first colony in the Americas with 39 of his men. In March 1493, the explorer returned to Spain in triumph, bearing gold, spices and "Indian" captives. He crossed the Atlantic several more times before his death in 1506; by his third journey, he realized that he hadn't reached Asia but instead had stumbled upon a continent previously unknown to Europeans.

The first Columbus Day celebration took place in 1792, when New York's Columbian Order - better known as Tammany Hall - held an event to commemorate the historic landing's 300th anniversary. Taking pride in Columbus' birthplace and faith, Italian and Catholic communities in various parts of the country began organizing annual religious ceremonies and parades in his honor. In 1892, President Benjamin Harrison issued a proclamation encouraging Americans to mark the 400th anniversary of Columbus' voyage with patriotic festivities, writing, "On that day let the people, so far as possible, cease from toil and devote themselves to such exercises as may best express honor to the discoverer and their appreciation of the great achievements of the four completed centuries of American life."

In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed Columbus Day a national holiday, largely as a result of intense lobbying by the Knights of Columbus, an influential Catholic fraternal benefits organization. Originally observed every October 12, it was fixed to the second Monday in October in 1971.

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