From "Illustrated Police News", March 23, 1876
When Mayor George W. C. Johnston first proposed a Mardi Gras celebration for 1876, skepticism poured in from other cities who knew Cincinnati’s rather stuffy reputation. The St. Louis Globe-Democrat [February 26, 1876] was typical:
“The people of Cincinnati are a good, honest race—a worthy people, every one of them; and we can not think of them, clad in pink tights, and paraded through the streets in crimson chariots in a snow storm, as a charming or amusing spectacle. We know that they would make the sacrifice if patriotism demanded, but that is not true patriotism that requires a man to catch a cold in his head. Even if the day were fine, there would be something incongruous in the spectacle of a Cincinnati man putting on a paste-board suit of armor or otherwise adorning himself for a procession.”
Ah, but the nay-sayers had not reconned with the festive obsessions of Cincinnati’s mayor. George Johnston’s reputation was built upon his lavish holidays and parades and this strategy had got him re-elected the year before. The Cincinnati Gazette [March 1, 1876] had his number:
“Mayor Johnson delights in the pleasure of his subjects—we mean his constituents. He is never so happy as when they are glad.”
So, when Mayor Johnston said he wanted a Mardi Gras Carnival, the Queen City jumped to attention. The problem was, the mayor’s brainstorm rolled in rather late. He first broached the Mardi Gras concept in early January. Fat Tuesday that year was February 29, so plans evolved over seven weeks of chaos. A committee was formed, duties assigned and reality confronted. The Cincinnati Commercial [March 1, 1876] described just one of the organizational hiccups:
“The getting of costumes from New York was also an embarrassment. The inexperienced committee, unaided with instructions as to what was wanted, the procession not being organized, didn’t know what to order. A costumer came here with a large lot of miscellaneous stuff, much of it not of the best quality or condition.”
Instead of arriving a week in advance, the costumer and costumes didn’t arrive until the night prior to the festival. The shipment got picked over like a pig’s carcass at a buzzard orgy. Meanwhile, two separate committees had mapped out two detailed but totally disconnected routes for the grand parade, with neighborhoods lobbying City Hall to be visited by Rex and his entourage.
Consequently, it was a bit of a miracle when, just a few minutes after 3:00 p.m., the Mardi Gras king, Rex himself, descended the grand staircase from the Burnet House to his royal carriage on Third Street. We use here the term “carriage” in the loosest possible terms. The Cincinnati Commercial described the “fantastic car”:
“A hog’s head, painted to resemble it roasted, and representing Porkopolis, eight feet high and thirteen feet long, rested in a capacious gravy dish, garnished with pieces of lemon, carrots and other fixings. In a head of lettuce between the hog’s ears, was arranged the king’s seat, with seats for his pages on either ear. His jester, during the parade, sat astride the snout, and here cut up his monkey shines.”
From "Cincinnati Commercial", March 1, 1876
Unfortunately, given the abbreviated schedule for planning and constructing the parade vehicles, no one had given much thought to precisely how King Rex, encumbered by ceremonial robes and tons of costume jewelry, was supposed to mount up to his porcine throne.
“The mounting of the King was attended with some difficulty, and was not the most dignified and courtly undertaking. With considerable effort he was boosted into the gravy dish, where, with his long train dangling down, he for a few moments stood irresolute before he essayed to clamber up the sleek jaws and snout of the hog to his perch between the ears.”
Anon, four nearby clowns grabbed Rex by his hands and feet and tossed him onto the throne, an effort requiring some muscle because Rex was embodied by William I. Torrence, a local capitalist whose substantial girth was as ponderous as his bank account.
Drawing the royal “carriage” were four of Old John Robinson’s elephants, preceded by a small herd of the Robinson Circus camels. With Rex finally seated, the procession marched east toward Main Street, up to Fifth and westward through Government Square where the “city gates,” proudly assembled from scrap wood and muslin, awaited His Highness, there to receive the keys to the city from Mayor Johnstone. Alas, the mayor was detained by real business and Rex, nothing loath, marched on toward the Exposition Buildings, soon to be demolished to make way for the construction of Music Hall.
While crossing the canal, the King’s carriage bumped into the trailing elephant, who bumped the elephant ahead and sent all the pachyderms charging toward their winter quarters in the basement of the Exposition Buildings, tossing King Rex nearly out of his throne while his pages landed in the streetside shrubbery.
At length, order was restored and many of the spectators adjourned to the interior of the Exposition Hall where a masked ball occupied the hours until just shortly before dawn. Like all good Cincinnati events of the day, it was briefly interrupted when a couple of attendees commenced shooting at one another. No one was injured and the dancing resumed.
Throughout the festivities, a major, nearly disastrous flaw in the planning was uncovered. Mayor Johnston ordered the entire police force to march in the parade, meaning that some officers lined up after patrolling all day and some lined up hours before they were scheduled to patrol all night, so no one patrolled the streets for most of the day. Pickpockets ran rampant, fights erupted without interruption, a few stores were looted and drunks wandered in undisturbed flocks.
There was one Mardi Gras related death. Mary A. Thornton, a 72-year-old dowager from the West End, took an elevator to the upstairs of a pharmacy warehouse on Main Street. On her way down, she fell out of the elevator, plummeting to the floor ten feet below. She fractured her skull and died.
Despite all the missteps, the event was considered a triumph for the Queen City. The Cincinnati Commercial [March 1, 1876] summed it up:
“Altogether it was a grand success, and furnishes additional testimony to the already fixed fact, that when Cincinnati starts in a big thing, she goes the ‘whole hog,’ and then smothers in glory.”
Still, the experiment was not repeated the next year. In 1877 there was no parade and only a few smaller balls. Perhaps because of the absence of citywide celebrations, Mayor Johnston was defeated at the polls.
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