Seventy-five years ago this week, in August 1940, the front pages of the Times were filled with accounts of English and German planes clashing in the sky above Britain.

But that conflict still seemed far removed from Central Minnesota, where county fairs were beginning and the harvest season loomed ahead.

And beyond even those distractions, the circus was in town.

Four long, silver-enamelled trains carrying the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus rolled in from Bemidji to set up on the show grounds at Third Street and 33rd Avenue North in St. Cloud.

The trains carried 1,600 people, 50 elephants, hundreds of horses and a menagerie of 1,009 animals.

They all helped populate a mini-city that included the world's largest, air-conditioned Big Top and 40 other tents.

"The Greatest Show on Earth is using four more flatcars than ever before as the costumes and trappings for 'The Return of Marco Polo' (the spectacle that opened the performance) — designed by Max Weldy, genius of the original Parisian Folies Bergere and the Casino de Paris shows in the French capital — requires 16 baggage wagons more than the normal rolling equipment of 267 vehicles," the Times reported rather breathlessly.

Among the featured attractions were Alfred Court, the world-famous trainer of animals, and Texan Hubert Castle, wizard of the tight wire.

Castle began his career in the circus cleaning up after Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey performances and went on to perform in the Cole Brothers Circus before rejoining Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey as a performer.

He would go on to appear on the cover of Life magazine in 1941 and was featured onscreen in the 1944 film "Sensations of 1945."

Eventually, he would own his own circus — the Hubert Castle International Shrine Circus — into the early 1970s.

"I've heard stories from my grandmother about him walking from Dallas to Forth Worth to help clean up for the circus," Castle's granddaughter Mariane Jackson said. "It was the Depression and he had cardboard in his shoes. He started out cleaning up afterward. But he learned how to walk the wire by teaching himself and he went on from there."

It was an oftentimes painful profession.

"He did break bones," said Jackson, who resides in Onalaska, Texas. "As we understood it, he broke every bone in his body at least twice. There were times he left the hospital with several broken bones. He was very much a the-show-must-go-on kind of guy."

Jackson's daughter Ami Burkhalter said her grandfather's speciality was the slackwire, where the tension on the wire or rope is mainly provided by the weight of the performer and their props.

"He'd sway side-to-side like crazy," Burkhalter said. "I don't know how he stayed on that thing."

But Jackson said her grandfather — who died in 1989 — loved the circus life, traveling far and wide to towns like St. Cloud.

"He just loved traveling as much as he could and seeing as much as he could," Jackson said.

"We still carry on some of his traditions. I know how to juggle and how to ride the unicycle. My daughter knows how to ride the unicycle. And as soon as her daughter is old enough, she'll learn how to ride the unicycle, too.

"The circus is part of our legacy."

The late Richard Vogt — a Richmond native and an Eastern medicine enthusiast — was portrayed in the Julia Roberts movie "Eat, Pray, Love." Vogt, who was known as "Richard from Texas" in the Elizabeth Gilbert book on which the movie was based, had died the previous March. He was played in the film by veteran character actor Richard Jenkins.

Eight homes and one business were razed in preparation for the beginning of construction of a new bridge across the Mississippi River connecting Sauk Rapids and St. Cloud.

Mark Knoblauch, an announcer at KMSR-AM in Sauk Centre, was marketing asphalt from the "Original Main Street" as a way of offering a souvenir based on "Main Street" author Sinclair Lewis' ties to the city. The items — available for $4.99 in local stores — featured asphalt mounted on plastic with an accompanying script about Lewis.

It was a wild night in Pierz. One youth was injured and three others were arrested after a riot involving about 75 teenagers erupted at the Funhouse, a local dance spot. A crowd of 350-400 had been dancing inside at the time.

The riot was apparently touched off when two boys began fighting over a girl. Two priests who came to the scene when they heard about the trouble reported seeing rocks thrown.

Follow Frank Rajkowski on Twitter at @rajko1973 or like him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/sctimesfrank.