A live Lion up in a Balloon?

From Leora Goff Wilson’s memoir: “And attending the Guthrie County Fair was a highlight, too. Usually we took our dinner, as so many families did–fried chicken always and sandwiches, cake or cookies, and a jug of lemonade. If we had a dime to spend we were happy, and if a quarter, we were rich. One great thing at the county fair was the balloon ascension. It was exciting in the early days. Sometimes the man  would have a lion or tiger with him when the balloon went up. He would release the animal with a parachute when  not far up. We lived south of town and could see the balloon when it got high, when it released the smoke and gas, from our home 6 miles south.”

I was skeptical about the lion and had not been able to confirm her claim until this ad for the 1909 Audubon County Fair: “A live Lion up in a Balloon! What do you think of it? Going to an enormous height and descending in a parachute every afternoon between the hours of two and five o’clock. Prof. Robinson goes up with the Lion and they come down in different parachutes.”

This may have been a side endeavor of the John Robinson Circus, which toured from 1842 to 1911, one of the longest running family owned circuses in the US. It was owned and managed by four generations of John Robinsons.”

One of the Robinsons must have toured as Professor Robinson and his “live lion up in a balloon” must have made the circuit of Iowa, and maybe other, county fairs, at least in 1909.

This was before TV and radio, so families came up with their own entertainment or looked forward to fairs and circuses, Chautauqua, Independence Day gatherings, amusement parks, and even the Iowa State Fair.

Leora Goff, 8th grade graduation, 1907, Audubon County, Iowa

See more stories from Grandma Leora’s early life in Leora’s Early Years: Guthrie County Roots. The Goff family lived in Audubon County for six years, when she rode a horse into Audubon for piano lessons, graduated from 8th Grade, the whole family rode into Audubon for Independence Day festivities, and when wind blew away their corn crop so they planted sweetcorn for the first time.

Here’s another story about the Goff family enjoying a circus.