by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Circus impresario Al. G. Barnes’ move of winter quarters from just west of Culver City and east of Venice to the eastern San Gabriel Valley and near the town of Baldwin Park was explained in media accounts as due to the rising value of the Westside property and encroaching development. While there may have been some truth to this, it was also clear that Barnes, who was profligate in his spending, and was in some measure of financial trouble, as evidenced, for example, by a foreclosure brought by a Los Angeles lumber firm because of unpaid bills.
When Barnes purchased what was determined to be 100 acres, he set aside 60% of it for a future residential development and stated to the press that he was embarking immediately on a subdivision that would, in just months, yield hundreds of houses. His Barnes Realty Company, moreover, was to also turn the Westside property into a housing tract and the firm began selling first mortgage bonds through Angel City brokers to raise funds.
There were, however, other legal issues at hand. Early in 1927, reported the Los Angeles Times, a settlement was reached between Barnes and the federal government, which filed a tax lien of $205,000 for misrepresentation on statements from the 1920-1922 period. With the agreement, Barnes agreed to plead guilty to submitting a falsely reported tax statement, pay a fine of $5,000 and remit $175,000 for those taxes. Barnes’ attorney claimed that “errors made by accountants working under a lax book-keeping system” were to blame and that an audit revealed the degree of the mistakes which were submitted to the feds.
In April 1928, the impresario’s second wife, Kate Hartigan, filed suit claiming that the 1923 divorce, obtained by him in Las Vegas, was invalid and that its terms of $350 a month in maintenance were woefully insufficient, as she sought $2,500 monthly and asserted his annual income was $150,000. She also asked for $50,000 for her attorney ad $5,000 for fees, but, more than a year later, a judge ruled against her.
As the 1928 circus season began, the Barnes agglomeration launched at the Baldwin Park grounds, which were just east of the San Gabriel River off of El Monte Street, now Ramona Boulevard. The new feature show for the year was “Aladdin and the Parade of Gold,” while among the 1,080 persons in the circus was “The Chinese Beauty Lola Lee Chong,” the previous year having featured a Chinese-born giant. Also of note was “Klinkhardt’s Equestrian Midgets” identified as “14 tiny horsemen from Bavaria,” while a pair of elephants, Tusko and The Mighty Tusko were claimed to be “mastodons” and “the largest beats that walk the Earth today.”
Other news from that year included the arrest of an employee who attacked a group of children playing in the nearby watercourse and the Covina Argus of 10 February added that “Baldwin Park citizens were up in arms over the incident and the local post of the American Legion, of which the children’s father was a member, “resolved to take action in support of the officers in the case.” What this meant was unclear, but a half-century or more prior such language generally meant a lynching was being discussed.
A week prior, noted the Pasadena Star-News of the 3rd, the impresario was walking a zebra at the Baldwin Park quarters “when it became frightened and started to run, dragging the showman about the ground.” It added that “when he attempted to regain control of the animal, Mr. Barnes was severely bitten about the shoulder” while also being bruised, this leading to his confinement at the Covina Hospital, which opened in 1922 and is now Emanate Health Inter-Community Hospital.
After the conclusion of the 1928 season, the Barnes Circus folks and animals made their way back to Baldwin Park starting in mid-October, but it was notable that a few tigers and a baboon were shortly after sold to a Santa Barbara Zoo, an indication, perhaps, of further economic issues for the impresario and his enterprise. This followed the late September death, in Venice, of Barnes’ brother and partner in the circus for more than three decades, Albert Stonehouse. In a notable case in Calgary, Canada, the circus’ press agent was found guilty of false advertising in claiming that the Barnes Circus had a motion picture deal at that city—which leads one to wonder what other advertising gimmicks were used over the years to promote the enterprise.
As 1929 dawned, it was announced that Barnes, then in his late 60s, decided to end his circus career of some 35 years. The Times of 6 January reported that the enterprise was sold for $1 million to the American Circus Corporation of Chicago, which owned the Hagenbeck-Wallis, John Robinson, Sparks and Sells-Floto circuses. The paper added,
For a year Mr. Barnes has been negotiating with eastern interests for the sale of the circus. When he announced he was willing to sell he declared he wanted most of the price in cash. Yesterday’s deal followed several days of conferences . . . It was stated the circus property will not be moved east at the present time but that quarters will be maintained near Los Angeles as a base for western operations of the show.
The account observed the growth of the enterprise over the years so that there were 50 rail cars needed to transport it on its tours, while each car was named for a Southern California city “and it had been one of Mr. Barnes’ hobbies to advertise California as much as possible in connections with his circus.” The paper remarked that “in selling the circus he said he desired to devote all his time to the real-estate business” and that his headquarters for this was near the Baldwin Park house recently constructed, while Barnes declared he was through with show business.
The Vanguard played up Barnes’ roots in Venice dating back nearly two decades and reminded readers that “his show has become a California institution” and that “his tours have always been thorough, affording the populace of small California and other towns an opportunity of seeing a big three-ring circus.” Moreover, the paper reported “at a recent appraisal of circus property the surprising information was gleaned that the Barnes circus ranked third in size in the country, being exceeded only by the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey shows.”
When advertising was put out for the 1929 season, starting again with performances at the Baldwin Park grounds, there was no mention of the new ownership. It is interesting to note, however, that as the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors pondered the possibility of establishing a county airport, leading sites were mentioned on both sides of the San Gabriel River, one in El Monte and, reported the Times of 27 July, “the Barnes tract [which] comprises 950 acres.” The project, however, never took off.
The Los Angeles Express of 10 September reported that American Circus Corporation unloaded its five enterprises to rival John Ringling, who, it commented, “has acquired control of the largest group of tent shows in the world, including their talent, menageries, equipment and winter quarters.” The paper added that the sales price was said to be in the several millions of dollars, although other sources state that the amount was actually $1.7 million.
In any case, Ringling continued to operate the Barnes name, almost certainly because of its emphasis on wild animals, though, with the onset of the Great Depression just several weeks later, economic impacts were going to be significant. Still, the 6 October 1932 edition of the Argus related that “work on the new home for the Al. G. Barnes circus is progressing rapidly on Holt [now Francisquito] and Athol avenues, west of Baldwin Park.” Close to half the structures were finished and the paper continued,
A long row of pens through the center of the grounds already house most of the lions, leopards and tigers while across from them the elephant barns with cages for the monkeys, birds and smaller animals arranged through the center aisle. Pens for the zebras and camels are to be west of the lions’ cages and adjoining the [Francisquito] street side of the lot. On [the] south [side] cages and pools are being constructed for the hippopotamus and seals while at the far south side will be stables and pens for the ponies and horses used in the circus act. The heavy draft horses are not kept at the circus grounds but are out on pasture during the winter.
On the Athol Street side a dining room and kitchen was being built, with bunkhouses anticipated to the north. Mechanical plants were also in the works and the construction superintendent added that all the edifices were to be painted green, except for statutory requirements that the lion cages had to be whitewashed for sanitary reasons.
The business office was in a former lumber yard on Francisquito along with tent canvases and poles, horse harnesses and other equipment, while racks for storing the rail cars were moved to the east end of the new quarters and the wagons parked at its south end. The account concluded that, “when completed the arrangement will be so that visitors can see the entire circus zoo and a small admission charge will be made for entrance to the grounds.”
As for Barnes, he did not pursue the real estate development business as he told the media he would. While much of this was almost certainly because of a lack of ready cash, not to mention a soft market and the onset of the depression, his health became a significant issue. He retired to a house in Santa Monica, kept a few of his circus dancing horses and visited the elephant “Tusko” at his Los Angeles pen. In August 1930, he was hospitalized with lobar pneumonia, caused by bacteria, though he recovered and, at the end of the year, wedded his third wife, Margaret Goldsborough, a Denver widow. Notably, the nuptials were held in Phoenix, where the dry desert air was sought for his ailment.
Just five months later, however, pleural pneumonia set it and, though, he fluctuated between serious illness and some matter of improvement, his condition worsened badly while he spent time at a friend’s ranch in Indio, east of Palm Springs, where, again, the weather was better. Almost certainly sensing the seriousness of his situation, Barnes began working on an autobiography that was published in 1935.
On 25 July 1931, however, a month after surgery to try to drain fluid built up in his lungs, he died at age 68. Though a Find-a-Grave listing states he is buried at a Native American cemetery, he was interred at the Coachella Valley Public Cemetery, whose most prominent “resident” is almost certainly famed film director Frank Capra, who was buried there in 1991. Barnes’ modest flat headstone simply states that he was a “Master Showman.” Despite the sale price of his circus, it was revealed, when probate was filed a few weeks after his death, that Barnes left an estate of less than $5,000, an indication that he likely used much of the proceeds to pay debts, while he may also have continued a lavish lifestyle, even as his finances dwindled.
As to the Baldwin Park winter quarters, they continued in operation for several more years with the Barnes name used for the circus, known at the end as the “Al. G. Barnes and Sells-Floto Combined Circus,” though in spring 1939, the county tax assessor attached the property with a lien on $1,809 on unpaid taxes for an assessed valuation of some $40,000. The official observed, “we won’t go into the circus business” but added “we’ll sell the whole works at public auction” if the levy was not paid.
In February 1940, an advertisement was published by the Los Angeles Wrecking Company that it was “Now Wrecking [the] Al. G. Barnes Circus Winter Headquarters” and advised interested parties “bring your trucks for Lumber, Corrugated Iron, etc., at give-away prices!” Eventually, both winter quarter properties were developed, especially as post-World War II suburban development relentlessly marched eastward across the San Gabriel Valley and through Baldwin Park.
Today, there is a Barnes Avenue running south from Ramona Boulevard, a short distance east of Interstate 605 and the San Gabriel River, and terminating at Bess Avenue. A right turn on that street heading west leads to Patritti Avenue, named for a family of longstanding in the area. A left turn leads to Barnes Park, which adjoins the 605 Freeway and which has undergone a complete renovation thanks to state grant money and including new soccer fields, basketball courts, a playground, covered parking with solar panels and expansion to the south among others.
Few people living in the area, however, are likely aware of the origin of the name and the history of the Al. G. Barnes Wild Animal Circus as part of the early development of Baldwin Park. As mentioned before, we’ll look to share some of the background of Vineland and Baldwin Park in a future post, so be sure to look out for that next March.
I was trying to imagine how they once restored and moved their rail cars on a rack between the circus grounds and the train – particularly in the days before trucks and trailers became common.
Running a circus enterprise was not only a show business, but required extraordinary logistical expertise. Managing a workforce of nearly a thousand people, along with animals comparable in scale to a traveling zoo, was a massive undertaking.
Yet, no matter how professional or experienced these enterprises were, decades of tradition and skill could not withstand the pressures of recent years, when sustained animal rights protests and advocacy ultimately brought this era of the circus to an end.