'It's a Butler treasure'
A group of Butler County residents is working to bring the circus back to town.
The group wants to return the Jay Bee Miniature Circus, created by Butler sign artist Jimmy Bashline, to the county.
The 10-foot-by-14-foot display of hundreds of hand-carved figures as well as a big top, menagerie, sideshow, food tent, train yard and circus parade encircled by a Lionel train were created by Bashline, who died May 14, 2008.
“It's Butler artwork,” said Bob Brandon, 73, of Center Township. “Jimmy Bashline worked on this thing for almost three decades. It belongs in Butler.”Bashline, a well-known cartoon artist who also painted, sketched, carved and sculpted over his lifetime, worked on the circus in a garage on New Castle Street where he ran his sign-making business.By the 1960s, his circus was attracting children from all over the county. He later exhibited the circus at other venues, including the Butler Farm Show, Freeport Art Show, Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg and Saxonburg Arts Festival.In 2008, the circus became the property of the Butler County Historical Society, which displayed the curiosity in its Heritage Center on West New Castle Street. Bashline had been a member of the society, as well as the Terrell Jacobs Ring Circus Model Builders.When the center closed in May 2011, the display was put in the carriage house storage facility behind the society's headquarters in the Sen. Walter Lowrie House, 123 W. Diamond St.And that was the problem, said Jennifer Ford, executive director of the society.“After the Heritage Center closed, the circus and everything was put into storage,” Ford said. “For well over a decade, it's been exposed to sunlight and dust, disintegrating by inches. It's a shadow of what it once was.”Ford said the historical society's board of directors decided the circus deserved better.When an appropriate location couldn't be found in Butler County, Ford said she worked with the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh to find another location for the miniature circus.Ford said the Wampum Area Historical Society in Wampum, Lawrence County, was chosen to house the circus and, in August 2020, it was sent there.
That was an act that didn't sit well with Brandon, a collector of Bantam cars, who first saw Bashline's circus when he was 6 years old. He remembers the circus fondly, including that a lot of the little trucks have Butler names on them.“It's an absolute gem,” Brandon said. “It's a Butler treasure, and for that to be given away was an absolute travesty. It really was.”“I don't think the right people in the community were contacted,” said Bashline's daughter, Aryl Bashline of Butler, an artist herself. “I'm not a big person in the community like my father. I wasn't thrilled about Wampum.”She said she was asked if she wanted her father's circus, but added that she didn't have room for it.Brandon said he is forming an association of people who hope to acquire the circus, restore it and display it.Efforts to bring the circus home are already in motion, said Jack Cohen, director of the Butler County Tourism and Convention Bureau, who knows Brandon as a fellow Bantam car collector.
Cohen said the Wampum historical society had been unable to begin restoration work on the circus because of the COVID-19 pandemic.“We all hoped it would be up and running by this time,” Ford said.“My dad's whole goal was for it to be seen,” Aryl Bashline said. “His prediction that it could wind up in storage came true.”Ford said this week the circus issue could be solved by all parties agreeing to recategorizing the circus from a museum-quality object, which must have certain protections in place, to a hands-on educational piece.This would allow the Wampum society to give the circus to Brandon's association, leaving the reputations of the Heinz History Center and the Butler and Wampum historical societies intact.Ford said she will work with the Heinz History Center to identify appropriate venues in the county to display the circus.“It's probably in bad condition,” Cohen said. “Where do you put it? We're working with museums.“We are going to get it back to Butler. That's a promise from me.”
