24-05-2025
This Day in History, 1890: A Ponderous Moving Mountain startles the sluggish blood of Vancouverites
When you do a Google search for Queen Jumbo in Vancouver today, a pizza place in Langley comes up. (It's behind McDonald's at 26426-56 Ave.)
If there had been an Internet 135 years ago, it would have come up Queen Jumbo, the 'Massive, Mammoth Mastodon' that was appearing in McMahon's New United Shows circus on May 26 and 27, 1890.
McMahon's circus was a popular attraction in small towns and cities in western North America in the late 1880s and early 1890s.
But it wasn't a mere circus: Advertisements trumpeted it as a 'Circus, Museum, Wild Animal Exposition and Grand International Horse Fair!'
The McMahon's extravaganza had made its debut in Vancouver in 1889, when the fledging metropolis was only three years old. In true huckster hype, the 1890 edition claimed to have been 'Enlarged to Four Times its Former Size,' which made it '100 Times More Grand.'
Queen Jumbo was the big new attraction, 'A Ponderous Moving Mountain' that appeared with another elephant, Romeo.
'The presence of the largest animal in the history of the world, a living, breathing mountain of flesh, is sufficient to startle the sluggish blood of the most inert among us,' said a preview story in the May 25 Vancouver Daily News-Advertiser.
Another attraction was Prof. Redmond, who ascended in a balloon, did parachute jumps and also performed in a flying trapeze act. To reel in the rabble when the circus hit town, Redmond went up in the balloon at 5 p.m. May 27 for about half an hour, 'which was witnessed by the whole city.'
It worked. The Daily News-Advertiser claimed that 3,000 people jammed into a tent for a performance that night, which may be a bit of an exaggeration — the 1890 Henderson's Directory estimated Vancouver's population was only 12,890.
Some of the old stories about McMahon's circus are hilarious. Apparently it became so popular 'irresponsible vultures' were selling fake tickets.
In the May 17, 1891, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a story warned people 'some impecunious tin-horn hobo may undertake to deceive the people of Seattle by advertising the appearance of McMahon's circus sooner than its regular date, as has been the case recently in other places.'
Ne'er-do-wells often followed the circus around. On June 9, Sinclair the clown got into a beef with a 'three-shell swindler' who was 'plying his vocation' on the McMahon's circus grounds at Rosyln, Wash.
'Sinclair was badly clubbed over the head,' reported the Post-Intelligencer on June 10, 1891. 'The city marshal arrested the grifter, who attempted to draw a revolver.'
Sadly, the McMahon's circus also had its share of tragedies.
Redmond the balloonist died in Snohomish, Wash. only three days after leaving Vancouver in 1890. His balloon 'was carried away' by the wind and 'lit on a very large pine tree,' and Redmond was thrown out and 'fell fully 70 feet, killing him instantly.'
On May 25, 1892, Henry Hollins, the six foot nine 'coloured giant' in the McMahon's side show, was getting into a rail car to go to bed when another car 'suddenly jammed against the one he was on, crushing his right leg.' He was taken to town but died.
On Nov. 18, 1892, owner McMahon was travelling by private train car to the Chicago World's Fair when he fell ill in Helena, Mont., with consumption (tuberculosis), 'aggravated by a severe cold' and died. He was only 37.
Another McMahon's circus played the American mid-west through 1897, although it's not known whether its proprietor Joe McMahon was related to John S. McMahon.
Joe McMahon met his maker on April 3, 1897, in Wichita, Kansas, when a police officer from Abilene, Texas, arrested one of McMahon's employees on a Texas charge. They quarrelled and the police officer shot McMahon dead.
On April 14, 1898, The Saturday Evening Kansas Commoner cast some aspersions on the mid-west McMahon's circus and its followers.
'McMahon's shows were followed by such a gang of swindlers, fakirs and thieves that several times the militia of Kansas was called for to suppress them,' said the Commoner, which was published in Wichita.
'Once Governor Lewelling of Kansas actually sent a company of state militia to capture McMahon's circus. The sheriff of a certain county had tried to arrest the gang of robbers, and were driven off with shotguns.'
The west coast McMahon's circus never seemed to have any problems in Vancouver or British Columbia, however.
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