130-year-old circus poster found in Wisconsin bar

Circus posters are not designed to last long. Once the show has left town, the billboard promoting it is obsolete.

A couple of years ago, however, the renovations of a Wisconsin bar revealed a 9-foot-high, 55-foot-long, multi-sheet, full-colour circus poster for the Great Anglo-American Circus that had been hidden behind a wall for 130 years.

Apparently, it had been on an outside wall before the bar was built against it almost immediately after the show on 17 August, 1885.

Among the acts depicted is that of circus owner Miles Orton, who specialised in riding horses bareback, standing up, with his two children standing on his shoulders and head.

The poster was printed by Russell, Morgan & Co. from Cincinnati, which was the lithograph capital of the world.

Today, the carefully restored montage of bison, ostriches and aerialists is preserved behind glass and has pride of place in the dining room of the Corral Bar & Riverside Grill in Durand on the banks of the Chippewa River.