Gainesville Community Circus

It was a joke that outgrew its town. The Handbook of Texas says the Little Theatre staged a burlesque circus in May 1930 to cover a $300 deficit, and three shows raised $420. Everyone in it was an amateur with a day job, supplying his own costume and most of his rigging. By the end the outfit owned seven tents, a big top seating 2,500, tableau wagons and a calliope. From 1930 to 1952 the troupe gave 359 shows in 57 cities and cancelled one, after a tornado wrecked the tent in Ardmore in 1939.

What the plaque says

Gainesville Community Circus Editor A. Morton Smith (1903-57) organized and promoted this show after a circus parody by the town's little theater group in 1930 revealed many talented amateurs. Chartered as a non-profit corporation, the community circus used its earnings to buy tents, trucks, and costumes. Local performers practiced their acts with circus professionals who spent the winters here. Touring in the summers through Texas and neighboring states, the popular show won national fame. The Gainesville Circus declined after 1954, when a fire destroyed most of its equipment. (1975)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Great Hanging Memorial — 0.7 mi
  Two granite monuments in a Gainesville park, dedicated in 2014, for the Cooke County men the Confederate militia hanged in October 1862 on suspicion of Unionism.
• Stonewall Saloon Museum — 22 mi
  Saint Jo's first permanent building, a stone saloon of 1873 with rooms upstairs for trail drovers, in a town named, the story goes, as a joke on a founder who did not drink.
• Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge — 24 mi
  A 1946 refuge on the Big Mineral Arm of Lake Texoma, laid over land bought for Denison Dam and the site of the vanished railroad town of Hagerman, now a winter stop for geese.

More markers nearby

• American Paint Horse Association — steps away
• Cooke County — steps away
• Cooke County, C.S.A./2nd Frontier Regiment — 0.2 mi
• Moffett Park — 0.2 mi