CIRCUS: Talk about the circus closing has brought up some happy memories for local people who remember seeing Ringling Brothers come through town. We have comments from a couple of people today.

One reader wrote, “With the announcement that after 146 years, the Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey circus is ceasing, it may be of interest that their last Big Top (tent) performance was in Heidelberg, PA (east of Pittsburgh) in 1956.

“Apparently then due to rising railroad costs, changing technology, labor troubles, space issues and competition from television led to the end of that era in entertainment.”

The person cited www.phmc.state.pa.us as a source of information.

Our reader noted, “The Ringling Bros. circus travels via train. Depending on their show schedule and if one was fortunate to observe it, their train would on occasion transverse through Bradford.

Also, Sarah Gerg of St. Marys said that in the summer of 1946 or 1947, her family — then in Emporium — traveled to Olean, N.Y., to see the circus. “It was a very, very, very hot day,” she recalls.

She and her brother were quite disappointed because “Gargantua” the gorilla wasn’t taken off the train, as the car was air-conditioned and it was so hot. “Nobody got to see him that day.”

A few years later — Sarah estimates around 1956-57 — she went with a friend who was visiting relatives in New Haven, Conn. While there, they went to see Yale student Sandy Speer, son of Jack Speer of Bradford.

Sandy took his guests on a tour of the campus, including a walk through its museum, and what did she find but “Gargantua” himself.When the gorilla died, they had him stuffed, then put him on display standing up in a glass cage at the Yale museum.

She got to see the famous primate after all.