There was a buzz of excitement in Mauch Chunk when the Sparks World Famous circus arrived in town on Sept. 6, 1912.
A noon parade, which one Mauch Chunk Daily Times reporter said "was a good advertisement for the afternoon performance," featured three bands and a calliope, as well as a herd of elephants and camels, plenty of clowns and "some of the prettiest and most refined looking lady riders ever seen here."