Visitors can see a vintage circus in miniature at the Butler Eagle
Tucked near the presses, in a section of the Butler Eagle building dedicated to preserving the newspaper’s history, are tightrope walkers balancing on a delicate wire, men walking on painted stilts and flamboyantly dressed performers riding elephants.
While such scenes have been documented in past editions, this miniature traveling circus is being brought back to life.
With the end of its restoration in sight, community members will be able to visit the Butler Eagle to admire the circus handcrafted and painted by sign painter Jimmy Bashline, of Butler, who died in 2008.
The Jay Bee Miniature Circus, which includes scale-modeled acts from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, took Bashline about 30 years to create, said volunteer Dan Morrow, who knew Bashline as a fellow congregant at First English Lutheran Church in Butler. Bashline began working on the project after his military service in World War II.
A Lionel trolley runs on tracks bordering the Jay Bee Circus, which includes hand-carved figures, wagons, menagerie, a sideshow, food tent, train yard and circus parade.
“What he did by himself took him 30 years,” said Jack Cohen, president of the Butler County Tourism & Convention Bureau, which owns the display. “To have that kind of passion, to stick with something so long is special.”
In 2022, the tourism bureau, Butler County Historical Society and Butler Eagle agreed the newspaper would house the circus following several moves that brought the Jay Bee Circus back to Butler.
After the Butler Heritage Center in downtown Butler closed, the circus traveled to multiple locations, including the Wampum Area Historical Society in Lawrence County and the garage of the late Bob Brandon, a community member who was instrumental to the restoration and preservation of the circus.
Volunteers, including Morrow, painted the circus grounds green and added material mimicking coal along the train tracks.
Bashline photographed different circus acts throughout his life, Morrow said. The Jay Bee Circus, in part, replicates a circus that Bashline saw as a youth that set up on Fairground Hill.
“It’s history,” Cohen said. “That big top and all the characters actually were a circus that came to Butler County.”
The wiring of the circus was tested at the Butler Eagle on July 27 and volunteers confirmed the 10-foot-by-14-foot display was functional.
One of the hundreds of figures, a tiny elephant, spouted water out of its trunk in another test Tuesday, Aug. 1. Visitors will need to look for personal touches like the figurines exiting the circus outhouses — the man is supposed to be Bashline and the woman, his daughter, Morrow said.
In the near future, small groups of visitors will be able to tour the circus as well as see historical artifacts belonging to the Butler Eagle, including the first edition of the newspaper, which is more than 150 years old, said general manager Tammy Schuey.
“At last we know now people can come see it and share that history,” Cohen said.
Morrow said the plan is still developing. However, he said he hopes the circus eventually finds a permanent home.
“The ultimate goal would be for the circus to go somewhere for the public to view it as the piece of art it is,” Morrow said. “It needs to be somewhere it can be seen on a more regular basis.”
