Many in the circus and carnival world are familiar with the name Johnny J. Jones.
John Jenkins Jones rose to national fame being known in the entertainment world for the Johnny J. Jones Exposition.
He was the founder of a traveling carnival that by 1910 was playing at over 30 venues from Calgary, Canada to Daytona, Florida with 14 train cars.
Johnny Jones was born in Arnot, Pennsylvania, Tioga County, in 1874. Soon after his birth, his Welsh family moved into nearby DuBois to work in the mines.
Johnny was forced to quit school and work in the mines as a trapper’s boy. In c.1888, he was a newsboy peddling The Courier Express newspaper on the streets of DuBois.
During this time, he began selling concessions on the Pennsylvania Railroad line between Erie and Williamsport. Within a few years, he had saved enough money to invest in a cane rack booth.
After finding success with that venture, he realized there was money in being a traveling salesman. He soon joined a regular fair route selling concessions from town to town.
By 1915, Johnny Jones managed one of the largest traveling amusements companies in America. He always had a show in DuBois each year.
When in town, he would visit the family burial plot at the Rumbarger Cemetery and would make substantial donations to the DuBois Hospital.
Johnny Jones was constantly changing his acts and buying up folding competitors. In the roaring twenties, the amount of train cars swelled to over 37 at its peak and hundreds of people were employed by Johnny J. Jones Expositions.
Carnival rides, trained animals including lions, tigers, bears, elephants and camels, freak and burlesque shows and concessions were all a part of the show. The outfit wintered in Deland, Florida.
Johnny J. Jones was a well-known celebrity of his day. He began attracting famous personalities to his shows, such as Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.
In 1927, Thomas Edison and his wife, Mina celebrated their wedding anniversary at Fort Myers, Florida where there was a fair. They happened to meet the greatest showman of the time and strike up a friendship.
The Edison’s were so enthralled with the sideshows and the friendships that they developed with the little people that Thomas Edison invited the group to his estate the following evening.
The friendship continued between Edison and Johnny Jones. It is written that Edison visited Johnny Jones in DuBois during one of his journeys back home.
On Christmas Day in 1930, Johnny Jones died suddenly of at the age 56. His wife Etta “Hody” (Hurd) Jones and his nine-year-old son Johnny Jr. became the owners of the Johnny J. Jones Expositions.
They operated the traveling carnival with hired management until the year 1947 when John Jr. went to college, selling out to Paddock & Lipsky.
The IRS sold the entire operation in March of 1951. One of the buyers of the four-train flats and a steel boxcar was James E. Strates, who came to the Clearfield County Fair, from 1948 until 1994.
Thus came the end of an era of one of the largest-moving shows on earth.