09/22/2026
Every winter, when the circus packed up and the road season ended, dozens of the most famous traveling shows in America came home to Hugo, Oklahoma. 🎪
Hugo is a small city in the Choctaw Nation of southeastern Oklahoma, population around 5,000. For most of the 20th century it was also the winter quarters capital of the American circus world. The John Strong Circus, the Tarzan Zerbini Circus, Carson and Barnes Circus, and several others called Hugo home during the off-season, stabling their animals, repairing their wagons and equipment, and training in the red dirt fields outside of town. At peak times, thousands of circus animals, including dozens of elephants, wintered in the fields around Hugo.
The legacy is still visible. Mount Olivet Cemetery in Hugo has a section called Showmen's Rest, where the graves of performers are marked with carvings of elephants, acrobats, and clowns. The markers tell the story of lives lived under canvas and on the road, people who came home to Hugo at the end of every season and eventually stayed. Carson and Barnes Circus still winters in Hugo. The town still knows what the circus smells like in January. 🐘
