What may have been the original “dog and pony show” came to Butte in August 1895.
The troupe was originally called “Gentry’s Equine and Canine Paradox” and had started at the family farm near Bloomington, Indiana, in 1885. Within a year the four Gentry brothers had purchased a train car prominently labeled “50 wonderful educated dogs and ponies” and were travelling the country.
By the time 27-year-old “Professor” Henry Gentry reached Butte in 1895 he and his brothers had more than 100 dogs and ponies. A parade through the streets of Butte at noon on August 12 touched off a week of performances, every night plus matinees on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
Their big tent was set up adjacent to the Public Library, in the then vacant field at the northwest corner of Park and Dakota Streets, where the Penney’s store once stood, and which is a parking lot today. The tent with its entrance on Park Street could seat 2,500 patrons, and every show sold out at 15 cents for children and 25 cents for adults.
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The most popular attraction was Barney the dog who could execute a dozen complete back somersaults in succession. The Anaconda Standard reported that Barney was “a small cur of doubtful breed,” but the show included Russian wolfhounds valued at $500 each and other purebred canines. Most of the equines performed precision maneuvers, except for Eureka the Tough, the clown pony, which “thoroughly amused everybody” with his contrary behavior.
Animals and their trainers were the only members of the troupe, which had no human performers. An outdoor version of the show was also given at Columbia Gardens as part of the Knights of Labor Picnic.
The two-hour show went on even after a windstorm August 15 destroyed the dressing room tent, so “the dogs and ponies were compelled to dress for the performance in the open air.” A foal born while the show was in town was named “Butte,” and travelled with the company to performances the next week in Anaconda, where the tent was erected at the corner of Third and Main, Kennedy Commons today.
Later in 1895 Gentry added performing house cats to their bill, and by 1902 the four brothers each had a travelling troupe, adding five elephants to each, making for four full-blown circuses based back in Indiana. In 1910 their ensemble was the greatest travelling show in the country, larger even than Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus. After several changes in ownership, the Gentry Circus went bankrupt and folded in 1929. Henry Gentry died in 1940.