Chappie Fox

Who was Chappie Fox?

Charles Philip "Chappie" Fox was a circus historian and philanthropist born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who greatly expanded the Circus World Museum and helped found the Great Circus Parade in Milwaukee.

Fox took over the tiny museum, in Baraboo, Wisconsin, in 1960, and began to collect and restore antique circus wagons. These wooden wagons had been built in the late 19th and early 20th century, and lay in disrepair across the United States and Europe. Today, the museum owns over 200 of these wagons.

In 1963, Fox and Ben Barkin, under the sponsorship of the Schlitz Brewing Company, began the Great Circus Parade.

A self-trained circus historian, Fox wrote and edited many books about circus animals, advertising and imagery, and also authored many children's stories. He died of heart disease at a nursing home in Baraboo and is survived by his wife Sophie and daughter, Barbara Fox McKellar.