Circus Parade 60th Anniversary
The Circus Parade was to Milwaukee as Macy's Thanksgiving Parade is to New York and the Tournament of Roses Parade is to Pasadena - just as Schlitz Brewing President Robert "Bob" Uihlein, Jr. had hoped.
It started with Circus World Museum Director Chappie Fox trying to raise $20,000 to hold a circus parade in Baraboo in 1963. He met public relations specialist Ben Barkin in Milwaukee, whose eyes lit up and suggested holding it in Milwaukee. One of his PR firm's clients was Schlitz and he arranged a meeting with its president. The beer brewer agreed to sponsor the parade on the 4th of July.
An estimated 425,000 people jammed the streets, temporary stands, office windows, and low-level roofs on the 3-mile route in downtown to watch the parade. In its 1963-1973 heyday, the 4th of July parade was officially named "A Day in Old Milwaukee," then "Old Milwaukee Days," but most people called and remember it as the Schlitz Circus Parade.
The Circus Train from Baraboo to Milwaukee became part of the event in 1965. Thousands of people went to the circus lakefront showgrounds for a close-up look at the performers, animals, and wagons in the days before the parade.
When Johnny Carson asked Ernest Borgnine on "The Tonight Show" if there were any roles he never played but wanted to, the Oscar-winning actor replied "A clown." Barkin invited him to be a Circus Parade clown the next day. Borgnine made his first of many appearances as a clown at the 1970 parade. WMVS-Ch. 10 produced the first national TV telecast of the parade in 1971 for NET (PBS forerunner). 
Dick Sparrow and his family revived the crowd-pleasing 40-horse hitch in 1972 for the first time since Barnum & Bailey used it in 1904.
The Arab oil embargo, fuel shortage, and probably Fox leaving Wisconsin to work for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey in Florida in late-1972 led to the cancellation of the parade in 1974. Schlitz never sponsored it again, due to the 1973-1974 recession and declining beer market share as it fell from being the second-largest to fourth-largest national brewer from 1976 to 1980.
Chicago held the circus parade in 1981-1982. When Barkin received the Milwaukee Press Club's Headliner of the Year award at its 1983 Gridiron Dinner, he said it was time for the Circus Parade to come home to Milwaukee.
Fox was back in Baraboo and joined Barkin and the Circus World Museum in reviving and renaming it The Great Circus Parade over the opposition of Mayor Henry Maier who worried it would overshadow his City of Festivals Parade. He was right. About 775,000 people welcomed back the Circus Parade in 1985 and booed him riding in an antique car. It outdrew the City of Festivals parade held weeks earlier by more than 300,000.
The parade played a role in the development of digital TV. Channel 10 taped the 1988 parade in experimental high definition TV (HDTV) and the 2000 parade was the first PBS live HDTV broadcast, nine years before the analog to digital TV conversion.
For 40 years, Fox and Barkin were synonymous with the Circus Parade. An ailing Ben Barkin watched the 2000 parade from a gurney in front of the Federal Building before dying in 2001. Chappie Fox watched the 2003 parade in a wheelchair at a reviewing stand. The parade died with him later in the year. His nephew Bill Fox and Jack McKeithan brought The Great Circus Parade back for a swan song in 2009.
The Milwaukee Public Library is home to The Great Circus Parade Collection, 185 photos in the Historic Photo Collection, Circus World Parade Collection (slides), posters in the Historic Poster Collection, and postcards in the Milwaukee Postcard Collection. Many of the materials can be viewed in The Great Circus Parade Digital Collection.
A program and display to commemorate the Circus Parade 60th Anniversary will be at the Central Library, Saturday, July 29, at 2 p.m. Register at mpl.org or call Ready Reference, (414) 286-3011. Street parking is free on Saturday but time limits apply.
Photos:
MPL Historic Photo Collection
The Milwaukee Journal (circus wagon and parade route photos)
Posters:
MPL Historic Poster Collection