This image depicts the fourth annual Hadi Shrine Circus at the Coliseum in 1936, where a captivated crowd watches daring acrobats in action.
The circus performed at the Coliseum until 1956, when it moved to the new and much larger Roberts Stadium, its home for over the next fifty years. Circuses in America date back to colonial times, and Evansville has enjoyed them throughout most of its history.
The first arrived here by steamboat in the nineteenth century, and a “floating circus†performed at the riverfront as early as 1856. Before the Shrine Circus began in 1933, citizens enjoyed traveling acts that pitched their tents at various sites, including First Avenue at Morgan, Willard Library’s grounds, outer Lincoln Avenue, and Howell Park.
