Showman's Rest — Cemetery for Circus Folks

Cemetery | Unusual tombstones | Open to the public

Because Hugo has served as the winter home for some well-known circuses, Mt. Olivet has its own "Showman's Rest" - complete with some eye-catching tombstones. The kind that celebrate lives spent in such nontraditional careers as lion taming, tightrope walking and trapeze work. That's not all. Yet another of those pint-size Buster Brown personifiers is buried here, as are a batch of big-time rodeo folks.

From Atlas Obscura + Historic Houston:

Hugo, Oklahoma was founded in 1901 and named for French novelist Victor Hugo.  In 1937 the Al G. Kelly Miller Brothers Circus began wintering here after a local big top fan, Vernon Pratt, went to Mena, Arkansas and convinced circus owner Obert Miller to accept his offer to house the Circus in Hugo during the non-traveling months. Since that time more than 22 circuses have wintered in this small Oklahoma community. Often as many as five different troops at a time called Hugo their winter home.  It wasn’t long before people were calling the town Circus City, USA.  Today three troops, Carson & Barnes, Kelly Miller and Culpepper & Merriweather, can be found there in the winter.

The animals and performers enjoyed the milder climate of southern Oklahoma from December until March when they began traveling from town to town, thrilling people of all ages with their fabulous “under the big top” shows.  Over the years a performer would go to the celestial big ring.  His earthly remains were interred in Mt. Olivet Cemetery where a small plot, Showmen’s Rest, was laid out for them.  This rectangular area is marked off by tusked elephants atop granite columns.  In the middle of this beautiful tree-filled burial ground is a large monument featuring an elephant performing with an etching stating “A Tribute to All Showmen Under God’s Big Top.”

Although many circuses have rested in Hugo, its current winter denizens are Carson & Barnes Circus and its sister circus, Kelly Miller. When Kelly died in 1960, his brother D.R. Miller purchased a section in the town cemetery to memorialize him and other circus performers.

Marked by elephant topped monuments, the Showmen’s Rest section in Hugo’s Mount Olivet Cemetery holds tributes to “all showmen under God’s big top,” from animal trainers to jugglers to high wire artists. The life-size grave of Ringmaster John Strong wearing a top hat designates him as ”the man with more friends than Santa Claus” and Zefta Loyal still celebrates her title as the “Queen of Bareback Riders.”

Elephant trainers Ted Svertesky, who perished in a circus train wreck, and John Carroll, who was crushed by one of his animals, both have graves decorated with pachyderms. While most of the performers chose epitaphs that grandly immortalized their talents, circus manager and cemetery founder D.R. Miller’s grave says simply: “Dun Rovin.”

The Mount Olivet Cemetery also has the Bull Rider’s Reprieve section, with the graves of rodeo stars Freckles Brown, who was the first to ride the wild bull Tornado, and Lane Frost, a young champion bull rider who was gored during a performance.

The vitality captured in granite at the cemetery is still alive and breathing in Hugo, where practicing performers set up trapeze swings in their front yards or park circus trailers in their driveways, and a herd of elephants always roams at the Endangered Ark Foundation.

Credit:

Atlas Obscura  https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/showmen-s-rest

Historic Houston: http://historichouston1836.com/showmens-rest-section-mt-olivet-cemetery-hugo-oklahoma/

 

Creation date: 1960-current

1198 S 8th St
Hugo, OK

http://www.carsonbarnescircus.com/funeral/showmans.html