Very sad to see the end of ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ . As a youngster I helped raise the Big Top on a summer morning of one of the final years that the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey five ring circus was still under canvas . Only later in life did I appreciate what a phenomenal logistics operation it was , to offload the train , set up a cook and a dining tent to feed over a thousand circus workers three meals each day , raise the sideshow , animal , and Big Top tents ( and bleachers in the Big Top , which they called Bertha ) in time for an early matinee show , then the main evening show , tear it all down again , transport and load it all back on the train , and overnight head to the next town , to repeat the whole thing the next day . Absolutely amazing ! BTW the elephants and horses were used to haul the ropes which raised those immense tents – I believe seating capacity of the Big Top was around 5000 customers at each performance .
In the case of my home town , the arrival of those circus workers increased the city population by 5% for the day . Just increasing the food supply by that much for a single day is almost a miracle .
Patton studied the Ringling operation to improve troop movement logistics in the European theater during WW II , it is claimed .