Who was Dan Rice?

Dan Rice was an established circus owner long before making Girard his home. Born in 1823, he grew up on the Mulberry Street of a New York City's Manhattan District in the home of his loving mother, just doors from his paternal grandfather,a prominient lawyer and landowner. His mother and father's marriage was annulled, but Dan remained in contact with both parents even after his mother remarried. At age thirteen Dan was employed by his Stepfather to deliver a horse to Pittsburgh. Traveling through the state of New York to Buffalo, then south to Pittsburgh, Dan found work as a stable boy and sometime jockey. Falling in love with the city, he made Pittsburgh his new home. At 17, he married his first wife, Maggie, and shortly thereafter gained his first exposure as a performer while exhibiting a trained pig with a traveling show.

Dan joined a full-fledged circus at age 20, and along with Maggie traveled the country with various troupes, all the while learning and honing his craft. He proved a natural at performing, rapidly rising through the ranks to become one of the circus world's most popular acts, and by 1848 became owner of his first circus company.

Small in stature, Dan was a charismatic and charming performer. Quick-witted and possessing a powerful baritone voice, the multi-talented Rice was successful at all aspects of his trade. A gifted animal trainer, singer, dancer, speaker, and comedian, Dan had an uncanny ability to draw in audiences, immediately establishing a personal connection with them by knowing and discussing precisely what was on the public's mind at the time.

By 1852, Dan and Maggie, now the parents of two daughters named Libbie and Kate, settled in New Orleans where Dan managed the popular, lucrative circus company known as "Dan Rice's Great Hippodrome and Menagerie." Business was booming and with a profit of nearly $1000 a week, Dan was one of the highest paid performers in the nation.