Somethings about a circus' coming to town seemed to bring the worst qualities in Jacksonville's otherwise temperate population. Not once but on numerous occasions before and after the Civil War, rowdy citizens of the isolated young town were everything but congenial hosts to traveling shows.

The town's tough image began to emerge in 1854 when the ..olds Circuis raised the first show tent in the public square of Jacksonville, then coming to life on Gum Creek's east bank.

News of the show's arrival with the prospect of a little excitement brought throngs of people from outlying sections of town on "circus day." Country folk, starved for entertainment, arrived early in the morning to watch the show set up, and some of the more boisterous ones were frequent visitors in the numerous saloons around the square.

A holiday atmosphere prevailed as the show's matinee performance went off without incident. When time came for the night performance and people crowded to the main entrance, a drunk tried to enter without paying. Turned away quickly by the door...per, the would-be gate crashed went around to the back and attempted to sneak under the tent. A peace officer discovered the ...dge, dragged the man out by his heels, and gave him a whack on the head as a reminder not to try that again.

Soon the drunken culprit reappeared at the front door, brandishing a large pocket knife and demanded to know who hit him. Apparently he had not recognized the peace officer in the dark. A young showman attempted to calm the malcontent by offering to escort him inside the tent for free. "Did you do it?" shouted the drunk, and without waiting for an answer drove the knife into the showman's neck. While the crowd's attention was focused on the dying man, friends placed the killer on a horse and started him southwest toward home and the Neches River. The murderer escaped and was never seen in these parts again.

The next trouble came in the spring of 1870, when martial law governed the land after the Civil War. The tumultuous war years and the oppressive Reconstruction Days that followed spawned a generation of reckless young men along the Western frontier. No community was immune to the wild bunches, and although few obtained the national notoreity of the James and Bass gangs, they were a constant annoyance to peace officers and law-abiding citizens everywhere.

Unfortunately, the Orton and Brothers Circus came to Old Jacksonville when two of these local gangs were feuding and killing one another. A well-known leader of one of the gangs, grown desperate from all the fighting, shot and killed an Orton Circus man. The slaying on the Northern showman intensified an alreaedy on-going investigation by federal authorities in Tyler into the previous killing of a black man at Jacksonville.

Three weeks later another circus, the C. W. Noyes Show, came to town accompanied by Federal soldiers disguised as showmen. As later revealed, this affair was calculated to discover and apprehend the killer of the Orton showman a few weeks before. The plan could not have worked better. About dark that day, the murdering gunman, although warned about the trap, appeared in town. While feeding his horse near the circus tent, he revealed himself to the authorities as the wanted killer. A while later two soldiers confronted the desperado, ensconced in the chimney corner of a nearby store building. There they bludgeoned and shot him to death.

The dead man's body was dragged to the public square where a guard was posted and the soldiers, then without disguises, ordered the disbersing crowd of circus spectators not to approach the dead man. In the confusion, Bill Smith, son of Jackson Smith, Jacksonville's namesake, was shot from his horse as he galloped across the town square. Groans of the dying youth were audible to the frightened townspeople, who had taken refuge in nearby stores and residences. No one dared go to his aid for fear of being shot. That was a bad night in the old town, and memories of ......................... were hard to forget

Two years later, 1872, when the International Railroad was built through the area, Jacksonville moved from Gum Creek to its present location at Fry's Summit.

On a cold November day in 1873, the Robinson Brothers Circus came to Jacksonville on a special train that pulled into a siding along present Wilson Street, then called Front Street, where all the business houses stood.

Jacksonville was a young Southern town populated almost to the man by ex-Confederate soldiers. The Robinson Brothers Circus was a veteran Northern show that had held its own against many stormy audiences. Old memories die hard, so the South's recent chafing under martial law and the hateful state police had done little to allay the sectional ill-feeling.

The showground was a vacant lot between Bonner and Bolton Streets where the First National Drive-In Bank now stands. A matinee and night performance had been scheduled. That afternoon a large crowd of townspeople and country folks crowded into the circus tent to watch the show.

Trouble started at once. A gang of ruffians, seated down front, disrupted the equestrian performance by throwing wood shavings into the ring and spooking the horses. Ignoring the ringmaster's request that they desist such behavior, several members of the gang took seats in the ring and were returned forcibly to the stands by burly showmen. Spectators deserted the bleachers and sought safety in nearby residences and stores.

The rowdy bunch finally moved uptown into the saloons, the better to nurse their bruises and grievances. They returned soon to the circus train with a warrant for the arrest of Showman De Vere, whom they claimed was guilty of assault. After the gang failed to locate De Vere, who had been hidden in a nearby thicket, the Robinson Brothers decided to load the show and get the train out of town before bigger trouble began.

Before the loading was finished, a group of local toughs began to harass the workmen at the train, brandished knives and pistols, and demanded that De Vere be turned over to them. In the ensuing scrap, the seasoned circus men took the upper hand and chased their antagonists into the nearest store building (J. B. White Store location today) and continued to chase the townsmen through the adjacent stores to the east end of the block at Main Street. The fight, in which several Jacksonville people were wounded, broke off at that point and the showmen returned to the train.

Capt. W. H. Lovelady, proprietor of the store at Wilson and Bolton Streets, barricaded his door with sacks of coffee to protect the people who took refuge in his building.

The street battle did not end the fight. Random shots from nearby buildings were fired at the roustabouts as they continued to load the train. Gil Robinson, who shot at the culprit, narrowly avoided being shot himself when a load of buckshot was discharged near him and killed a caged hartebeest. The show train finally managed to leave Jacksonville, but only after the circus bosses made the threat to saturate the wooden buildings with coal oil (kerosene) and set fire to the town unless the violence ceased.

Unknown to the circus people, some rowdies had slipped out west of town and had weakened the railroad trestle over Gum Creek, while others waited in ambush along the right-of-way. The trestle held together while the circus train went over it, but one showman was wounded when shots were fired at the passing train.

The Robinson Brothers Circus managed to get back home to Cincinnati, Ohio, without further harm, but the tough reputation of Jacksonville spread far and wide among show people. Twenty years passed before another circus ventured into town.