History & Lore
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Showmen's Rest, Hugo, Oklahoma
The cemetery at Hugo, in southeast Oklahoma, boasts a high concentration of circus performers and other employees.
Hugo had long been a winter home for several traveling circus companies. In the 1960s, a professional elephant trainer, known affectionately as the "Elephant Man," established a trust and purchased a large tract in the local cemetery, and Showmen's Rest was born.
Showmen's Rest offers free or discounted burial plots for professional circus performers, many of whom spend their later days in relative poverty and obscurity. A brief walk will acquaint you with animal trainers, announcers, and trapeze artists of the past, many of whose graves are adorned with stonework indicative of their circus backgrounds.
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