Did you watch in 2020 when Nik Wallenda walked 1800 feet on a cable across the mouth of the Masaya volcano, an active volcano in Nicaragua? That was truly scary and unimaginable for this guy with two left feet. Wallenda not only comes from a family of wire walkers but is the latest in a long history of them.
One of the greatest high wire artists was a man known as Charles Blondin or “The Great Blondin” and he filled the newspapers with stories about him during the latter half of the nineteenth century. He was born Jean François Gravelet on February 28, 1824 in Hesdin, Pas-de-Calais, France. He was trained as an acrobat and made his first appearance as “The Boy Wonder” at age 5 or 6. He came to the United States in 1855 and achieved fame in 1859 when he walked an 1100 foot cable stretched across Niagara Falls. He repeated this feat a number of times blindfolded or pushing a wheelbarrow or carrying his manager on his back or on stilts. One time, he stopped midway and cooked and ate an omelet!
In 1869, the same year he rode a bicycle across a highwire in the Crystal Palace in London, to the acclaim of the Prince of Wales, he visited Youngstown. A highwire was strung across West Federal Street from the Excelsior Building (roughly in the same location as the Paramount Theater was located) to the Gerstle Building, just east of Hazel Street. Horse and buggy rigs and spectators gathered in the street below to watch him walk above Federal Street as easily as those below walked on it. This was exciting stuff for the small town of Youngstown. You can see a photograph in this Business Journal article. He can be seen in the middle of the cable in the picture. He stayed in the Tod House during his visit.
He continued to wow the crowds for many years. In 1896, at the age of 72, he crossed a lake in Leeds several times, repeating the feat blindfolded one time, and once again. stopping to cook an omelet on another transit. He died February 22 of the following year, just short of his 73rd birthday.
I would guess that he walked no more than 150 feet or so from one building to the other (John Young laid the street out as 100 feet wide, far less than his other feats. But I suspect few if any in the crowd would or could do what he did, nor any of us reading. This was big news in 1869!
To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!