Baraboo, Wisconsin -
Circus World Museum

Circus World Museum

It's the circus that came to town and never left, with memorabilia, yes, but also with wandering clowns and a deafening steam calliope. Roadsideamerica.com Report...

Circus World Museum

This location was the home of the Ringling Brothers, and thus the winter home of their circus before merger with the Barnum and Bailey circus. The Circus World collection of circus wagons is amazing. They are constantly working to restore new wagons, and many of them are one-of-a-kind. A couple of them are covered with gold leaf and are breathtaking. [David Simmons, 04/26/2011]

Valentine's Day "Bouquet of Noses" raises dough for Circus World Museum
Circus World Museum, Baraboo, Wisconsin, continues a successful practice started last year of selling bouquets of a dozen clown noses to raise money for the attraction's operations. This romance season, media attention applied a marketing whoopee cushion, sending requests sky high.... [02/08/2004] Complete News Story

Circus World Museum

The town of Baraboo boasts what is probably the largest collection of circus wagons in the United States at the Circus Museum. The Museum has hundreds of circus artifacts such as costumes, posters, etc. Visitors are also treated to a live circus performance and a daily parade featuring an antique steam caliope. The reason the museum is in Baraboo is the fact that it's the birthplace of John Ringling North. For a number of years the town served as the winter quarters for Ringling Bros. circus. [Thomas Duddy, 07/25/1999]

[RA: We visited the Circus World Museum on our Road Cheese tour... Inside, interesting circus artifacts, posters, models, children dancing deleriously at the foot of a blaring calliope wagon. Out at the sideshow tent, you can see a statue of Chang and Eng (famous Siamese twins) and a replica Cardiff Giant.]