Gandini's Abandoned Circus

The Rumor Mill

Rumor has it there’s an abandoned haunted circus here in downtown Edmond Oklahoma. While playing outside with the kids one day, my neighbor clued me in to the rumor. Excited and curious, I can’t wait to check it out and see just what’s left of it. I couldn’t believe when he said it’s nestled in the woods at the end of our very street. He pointed out the direction and gave me some vague directions to follow. As soon as the snow melted and we had our first warm day, we ditched school and went for a hike (I’m homeschooling this year so it’s really not a big deal). Over the creek and through the woods, the deeper we went the more we wanted to turn back. The woods were so dense, there were thorny vines hanging from virtually every tree, and my 2 year old had lost all enthusiasm and just wanted to be carried the rest of the way. We trudged on only because I could see the sunlight breaking through the trees and turning back would have been continuing into the dark forest from which we came without having seen anything. This would never do. I had to extinguish my curiosity somehow. We broke through the trees only to find a vacant field. It would appear that the circus must have been cleared away when they decided to build a retirement community nearby. We trek across the overgrown grass toward the retirement community. Nearer to the woods, burrowed under the tall grass we found small tires, abandoned mowers, gas cans, and sheet metal. Could this have been what he was talking about? Saddened and deterred, but also satisfied that this was likely it, we took a shortcut through the trees continuing toward the retirement community. Oh crap! Are you kidding me? We’re fenced in with barbed wire and chain-link fencing. Refusing to go back the way we came, we followed the fence and found a weak spot. I lifted the kids over and just as I went to give the dog a boost he turns and runs back into the woods. Torn between what I should do next. Do I jump the fence and let the dog find his own way home or do I trust the kids to stay put and chase him down? Being our first real outing, and knowing that he would not likely be able to find his way home, I turned to chase him down and he led me to a spot in the fence that was nearly all the way torn down. (He can certainly move through the woods faster than I can). I jumped the fence and got some strange looks from the construction workers, but we were well on our way home.

I may have been satisfied in believing that this could have been the abandoned circus, but I still needed to know more. Was it just a rumor that people made up to explain where all that junk came from or was there, in fact, a circus there at one point in time? I asked around. The vast majority of people had no idea what I was talking about. An older gentleman at my gym however, knew about it. He even gave me slightly better directions than my neighbor did, but still quite vague. His directions were not quite where we found ourselves in those woods so I googled it. The satellite image revealed trailers and such on the other side of the woods just off Kelly Ave. My curiosity peaks yet again, but this time I’m going to do a little more research before heading out there with two kids and a dog. Through my research I discovered that the circus was called Gandini’s Circus. Once I had a name I thought the research would go pretty smoothly. Sadly I couldn’t find much of anything except short blogposts and a few pictures from people who were brave enough to journey out there. The rumors and blog posts all seem to tell a story of a circus ground that is not haunted by ghosts, but rather by the history of Gandini’s Circus and how it was burned down forcing the show to disband. There’s little agreement on when the circus opened and when they closed up shop. The best I could find was that they opened early in the 1900’s to 1910’s. Many of the posts say that it closed during the great depression sometime in the 1930’s, however there are accounts of people who claim to have seen circus animals and performers in the field all the way up until the 1970’s. Every nugget of information I find takes far too long to extract from the internet. There’s simply too much mystery surrounding this place. I thumb through archives at the historical society and the Edmond Sun newspaper with no success. Then I stumbled across a brief sentence on a website talking about the history of the Clyde Bros. Circus. Apparently, Gandini’s Circus was sold off to the Clyde Bros. Circus in 1943. If that was true, what was left in the lot and why were there trailers out there on the satellite image. Time for another field trip.

Finding the truth

I did a google image search to help me know what I was even looking for. I came up with a grainy image similar to this one that I took.

I knew exactly where that was. I pass it nearly every day on my way to the gym. Ignoring the

warning signs, we hop the fence and begin walking across the field. I must admit, I was more than a little nervous. Trespassing with 2 kids when I have no idea what’s really back there. At first it just looked like an empty field, until we saw an abandoned building. As we get a little closer we see a trailer that’s been graffitied, then a bus that’s been burned up, and some cages tucked in the trees. Sure enough it’s here. After I get home and begin looking at the pictures, something just doesn’t sit right with me. It was the bus that first tipped me off. This bus wasn’t from the 1930’s when Gandini’s supposedly went up in flames. This bus was definitely a 1950’s style bus. I did a search to confirm. My mind is officially blown. So how is it possible that Gandini’s burned down and sold off what remained in the 1930’s when the burned up bus was clearly from the 1950’s? And what about the rumors of elephants grazing in the field as late as the 1970’s? Although the bus was burned, which would seem consistent with the rumors, it was burned up in bits and pieces and only on the inside. This is a trademark of arson not a wild fire that ravaged the entire circus ground as I had been lead to believe. That’s when it occurred to me that the paint peeling off the side of the trailer didn’t say Gandini’s at all. It read “Hagen Circus”.

Was it connected? If so, then how? It was all so confusing and misterious. After meticulous digging, (and I’m talking about hours upon hours of research here), I discovered that Gandini’s circus did, in fact, sell off to Clyde Bros. Circus in 1943 and that Hagen Bros. Circus was a smaller entity of the larger Clyde Bros. Circus. During the winter months both Clyde Bros. and Hagen Bros. circuses would reside right in that very spot to train and practice until 1976 when they sold off to Carden & Johnson International Circus and moved out of town. The only evidence of there ever being a fire appears more to be arson and nothing more than some minor burnt wood on the bus suggests there was ever any fire. I couldn’t find any pictures when it was still Gandini’s. That's probably because of the quality and labor intensive process of taking and developing pictures at the time. There were however, plenty of pictures of Hagen Bros. Circus. There were even some pictures of the very same vehicles left in the abandoned lot. So here’s where I’m going to throw a ton of pictures in because I’d like to show what it looked like in its prime, but I also want to give you a chance to see what’s left without having to break the law and go out there yourselves.

This is my daughter walking through the large open field. The trailers and house were tucked behind the trees. (Which is why it remains such a mystery).

This was the first thing we came across. It looks any other abandoned house at first glance, but when you go inside you see remnants of what was once there.

Inside the house there's broken bench seating and a chandalier that has crashed through the floorboards. Not to mention graffiti. It's rummored that if you dig through the rubble you can find old flyers from the circuses hay day. We didn't dig around though.

Graffiti artists can be so creative. I mean who would have ever thought to paint a penis on the wall?

I feel like images like this one of my daughter almost make the place seem haunted. As much as I adore this picture, something about it just seems eerily creepy. I don't know if it's the way the light glows through her hair and off her little white dress or if it has something to do with the fact that you know she's this innocent little girl wandering around a creepy abandoned circus. Something about this image just sticks in your brain and sends a little chill down your spine. It totally gives me goosebumbs.

My son got excited when he saw the colorful graffiti on this trailer.

Personally I'm not a fan of vandalism or stupid graffiti, but I love art. I feel like the colorful graffiti is weirdly appropriate here and kind of added to the experience.

Inside this trailer were small cages. someone said they thought the small cages in this trailer were for monkeys or something. I thought they looked way too small to house monkeys. In my research I came across a picture of this exact same trailer. This is where the large snakes were held.

The snake trailer in its prime.

More graffiti. Once again, I thought it was kind of cool. Most all the paint had rusted off the trailers long ago, so the graffiti made it feel like it was something more than just a heap of old trailers.

This was a bus and 2 other vehicles that had all sort of toppled and slid on top of eachother.

I'm not certain that this is the same trailer. The wreckage is simply too mangled and rusted to to know for sure, but when you get up close you can see where there were windows. Even though there was no bottom left to the vehicle I could see where the tires once belonged and the trailer hitch was found sliding down into the nearby creek. I believe it may have been the same vehicle, but can't say for certain.

This bus had a bathroom and sleeping bunks in the back. This is the back of the bus. Unfortunately I didn't get a good picture of the front. As you can see it's pretty overgrown.

Sorry, this was the best I got of the front.

The bus tucked behind the hay bales is the one we found hidden away from the world. (We did not see the circus clown bus out there.)

At one point this was actually inside the bus. LOL.

Animal cages. I made my kids get inside because they are such wild beasts. LOL.

Now I'm going to bombard you with a little history and the remainder of the pictures I was able to dig up about the circus because I just thought it was to fascinating to keep it all to myself.

About the Circus

The circus housed the animals and their handlers as well as some of the other employees in Edmond Oklahoma during the winter months. The abandoned grounds are located off Kelly Ave. between 2nd St. and Danforth almost directly across from the baseball field and new splash pad. What began as Gandini’s traveling circus was sold off to the Clyde Bros. and renamed the Hagen Bros. Circus in the late 1930’s – early 1940’s. Both entities were travelling circuses, but the Clyde Bros. circus was primarily an indoor circus while the Hagen Bros. circus was a smaller subsidiary and was your typical tent and canopy outdoor circus (the way most of us think of the circus). Although rumored to have burned down, none of these circuses ever reported having a fire, however there are records of them being sold off and renamed. Hagen Bros. circus was sold off in 1974 as part of the Carden-Johnson International Circus which disbanded in 1998.

There were once heated barns for the elephants, costume shops, and homes for the employees at the grounds off Kelly Ave. Now all that remains is a few vehicles, a house, and an empty field littered with concrete slabs. The animals that were housed here include: a Tiger, a Honey bear, a bull, large snakes, elephants, a baboon, monkeys, 2 lions, mabdrills (whatever those are), Coyotes, Pigeons, several trained dogs, camels, and a South African rat. Some of the acts included: a punch and knife throwing act that was performed while standing on small round platforms, aerial apparatus act, pony rides, a snake pit show, a kids show, acrobats, clowns, juggling, a fire hoop act and several animal based acts. As cool as it was to forage around the abandoned circus, I wish I could have seen it in its prime. I bet it was truly a sight to see. An article in the Edmond Sun archives tells a little more on what it was like. Click here.

#GandinisCircus #Abandoned #AbandonedOklahoma #EdmondCircus #GandinisAbandonedCircus #HagenCircus #GandinisAbandonedCircus #AbandonedPlaces #AbandonedOK