The World's Finest Shows

If you happened by the fairgrounds outside Simcoe in the spring of any of the middle decades of the past century, you might have been lucky enough to witness an annual ritual. You might have seen huge Tiny Jamieson opening the barns to mark the start of another carnival season for the World' s Finest Shows.

From the 1940s through to the '60s, the WFS train sat out the winter months on a siding across the street from the fairgrounds in Simcoe, Ontario; an hour and a half south west of Toronto on the northern shores of Lake Erie. Each spring Tiny and his crew rolled the carnival wagons out of the barns on the grounds and loaded them onto the train for the journey to Hamilton, where everything would be repainted in eye-catching silver and orange. Paint still wet, the show would head out to Ontario spring dates, then travel to the Canadian west for the big class B fairs, returning to Ontario and Quebec for the late summer and fall exhibitions. After the Norfolk County Fair in Simcoe in October, everything went back in the barns.

Patty Conklin, 1937

These years also saw two of Canada's most colourful and well-known carnival showmen at the height of their careers. The stories of Patty Conklin's Conklin Shows and Jimmy Sullivan's Wallace Brothers Shows converge in the history of the World's Finest. Both American born, Patty and Jimmy transformed themselves and their shows into Canadian outdoor entertainment institutions.

Conklin Shows

J.W. Patty Conklin, the founder of Conklin Shows, was born Joseph Renker to German immigrants in Brooklyn in 1892. A kid on the mean streets of New York, he sold peanuts, newspapers, and herring, before a stint as a sideshow talker on Coney Island. By the 1910s, Joe was operating gambling games on midways in the wild-west boomtowns of Texas and Oklahoma. He not only survived, he made money.

The real James Wesley Conklin founded Clark and Conklin Shows in 1916 and Joe joined him a few years later. The Clark and Conklin played the mid-western states, but folded after four seasons. By then Joe was one of the family, taking his adopted father's name and sticking with the Conklins when they went with other shows. J.W. Conklin Sr. died on the road in the fall of 1920.

Patty and widow Conklin remained in the United States until the middle of 1921, when, at Patty's urging, they decided to try Canada, taking 18-year old brother Frank with them. Their plan to book in with a big show at the Winnipeg Exhibition fell through. They were heading back across the line with their boxcar full of bedraggled kewpie dolls when Patty spotted a ragbag outfit on the outskirts of Winnipeg. The Conklins hooked up with the International Amusement Company, staying with the show for the rest of the season. Their future lay in Canada.

After another year working tiny fairs, rodeos and vacant lots with a variety of American carnival companies in Canada's growing west, Patty joined up with Speed Garrett, partner of a small show based in Seattle. Conklin and Garrett Shows was born in 1924 when Patty bought out Speed's partner. Starting from two railroad cars, Patty grew the show to fifteen within a few years.

Conklin and Garrett played small farming, mining and lumber communities throughout the Canadian west. They worked the prairie C circuit of two-day fairs for a few years and eventually climbed up to the B circuit. The show grew to as many as 200 carnies, more than a dozen shows, five or six rides, and scores of gaming concessions or "joints," the Conklin specialty.

Speed got tuberculosis and spent less time on the road. By 1929 he was an invalid. Patty bought him out and sold half the show to brother Frank, also struck with TB. The brothers moved the show east to Ontario in 1932, picking up contracts for fairs in Leamington, Peterborough, Kingston, and other regional centres; fairs which World's Finest plays to this day. In 1937 Patty got the midway contract to the largest fair in the world, the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto.

Jimmy Sullivan

James Patrick Sullivan, son of a railway man turned hotelkeeper, was born in 1889 in Fargo, North Dakota. Much like Patty Conklin, Jimmy left school at the age of 12 to sell popcorn outside of a theatre in Youngstown, Ohio. As he grew up, Sullivan rode the rails, played semi-professional baseball and worked as a railroad clerk. In 1916, after losing two week's pay in a crap game, he borrowed $250 from his father and went into the carnival business. Sullivan joined up with John Paul Flanagan and in a few weeks bought him out.
After serving in the U.S. army during the Great War, Sullivan returned to the outdoor amusement business. In the early 1920s, he changed the name of his show to Wallace Brothers, both to capitalize on the fame of another showman and to avoid the persecution against the Irish then prevalent in Ohio and West Virginia. A few years later Sullivan moved his show to Canada, took out Canadian citizenship, and changed the name to Wallace Brothers Shows of Canada. During the 1926 season Sullivan first brought shows to the Norfolk County Fair in Simcoe; the Wallace Brothers or the World's Finest shows have played it ever since.

Joining Forces

Jimmy Sullivan (on the left) and Pat Marco

For a few years during the 1930s Wallace Brothers and Conklin Shows competed for the B circuit of western Canadian fairs. The Conklins won, but Patty subcontracted the circuit to Jimmy. Patty also started contracting fairs in Quebec and letting Wallace Brothers play them under the management of Frank Conklin. Throughout the late 1930s and the '40s Conklin Shows and Wallace Brothers shared fairs and still dates throughout Ontario, Quebec and the west.

As early as 1939, Conklin Shows advertised itself as "the World's Finest Shows." By following the "gigantic, scintillating skylights" to the grounds, one could be treated to "a million laughs on the glittering gayway, 50 startling midway attractions, spectacular free acts and a rainbow of color." A typical line up included such rides as the Rolloplane, Octopus, Tilt a Whirl, Auto Speedway, Merry Go Round, Sky Rocket, Twin Ferris Wheels, Stream-lined Train and a couple of kiddie rides. The side shows included a "Sally" girl show, Baby Thelma fat show, an illusion show, the World's Fair Freaks, the Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow Show and the Ro-Lo Funhouse. The Conklin games—the joints—continued to rake in the biggest part of the midway gross.

After the war Patty tried to retire. He and Frank sold off their equipment to various carnies, including Jimmy Sullivan. The general manager of the Canadian National Exhibition lured Patty out of retirement and back to the reopening of the Ex in 1947 with an unprecedented five-year contract.

Back in the business, Patty concentrated on the Ex, while Frank developed the circuit of fairs in Ontario and Quebec. Under Frank's management and with the help of Jimmy Sullivan, Conklin Shows began working a string of solid Ontario fairs like Renfrew, Leamington, Peterborough, Kingston, Belleville and Lindsay, and the
three or four top exhibitions in Quebec. The show had almost every big fair in the two provinces, with the exception of Ottawa's Central Canada Exhibition.

There was close collaboration amongst Patty, Frank and Jimmy, especially in the later 1940s and the '50s. But who was in charge was never an issue, as Frank pointed out in 1946: "When James Patrick Sullivan is around his own Wallace Bros. Shows of Canada he is the boss, but when he is around Conklin Shows he is the hi striker operator."

The End of an Era

Patty and Jim Conklin

In 1955 Sullivan changed the name of Wallace Bros. Shows of Canada to World's Finest Shows. It still travelled by rail, using 50 large boxcars, seven Pullman cars and more than 30 flatcars. The majority of the cars were owned by the show, making it the largest privately owned railway in the country. Tiny Jamieson was in charge of transportation, while Hank Blade and Pat Marco were key management employees. Tiny's son Barry spent his summer holidays with the show, staying with his father in a state car.

Frank Conklin died in 1963 and Patty's son Jim took over management of the road show. By this time Conklin Shows, like most big shows, moved almost exclusively by truck. At the end of the 1963 season Conklin Shows purchased Sullivan's show, breaking up the show and train, but keeping a few World's Finest contracts like Simcoe's Norfolk County Fair. The Conklins also retained some of Jimmy's key personnel, notably Jamieson and Marco. During the 1960s and '70s, Conklin Shows expanded throughout Ontario with a little help from other carnival operators. In 1970 Patty Conklin died and the show was Jim's. A year later Jimmy Sullivan died.

Modern Times

A typical route in the mid-1970s saw the show playing late April still dates—midways without fairs—in southwestern Ontario, moving east for more still dates, and then further still dates in central Ontario. Throughout the spring and early summer, the constant refrain was "wait until you get to Kingston"—the first fair and the first chance to make more than a pittance. Following Kingston the show played fairs in Leamington, Napanee, Peterborough, Barrie, Kitchener, Renfrew, Port Hope, Lindsay, Markham, Simcoe, among others.

Barry Jamieson started with the Conklin road show in 1974. The same year Jim Conklin and Alfie Phillips, the show's president, produced the first awards dinner for the fair boards. An annual event for more than 30 years, it's the company's opportunity to show its appreciation to the people who sign its contracts.

Conklin Shows returned to the western exhibitions in 1976. Two years later the show bought Bernard and Barry Shows. With this purchase came fairs in Gloucester, Beamsville, Welland, Ancaster, Caledonia and Brigden. The expansion led to the division of the eastern road show into the Bicycle Unit and the Bernard Unit. By 1986 a third unit was added. The three units of the eastern road show were now known as the Bicycle Unit, World's Finest Show and Supershows.

World's Finest Shows

In 1992 Barry Jamieson became President of a new company, World's Finest Shows, that bought out the assets and contracts of the Conklin eastern road show. The show remained based in Simcoe with the barns at the fairgrounds used for storage and a workshop in the winter months. World's Finest needed its own workshop and two years later bought a vacant fabricating plant in an industrial park in Nanticoke, Ontario, which has been home to the show ever since. The company continues to upgrade its rides and equipment in the new facilities, striving to always live up to its name, World's Finest Shows.

In 1997, World's Finest won the contract for the Central Canada Exhibition in Ottawa, the only major exhibition that had eluded Patty Conklin. This new contract in hand, the show picked up several new spectacular rides. The show retains all the other major dates it has played over the years.

The spring ritual recurs to this day. Barry, his sons Stacey and Patrick, and a solid crew open the barns at the Simcoe fairgrounds and move the rides and trailers out so that they can be hooked up to the trucks for the move down the highway to Hamilton, where the season still begins. And patrons still follow the "gigantic, scintillating skylights" to lead them to the fairgrounds where they can always rely on World's Finest to treat them to "startling midway attractions" and "a million laughs on the glittering gayway."