The Day a Baboon Walked the High Wire at Coney Island

Every wire walker faces the danger of giving in to gravity and turning family entertainment into a horror show. But perhaps no other performer ever faced a danger like Will H. Hill. During a 1913 show at Luna Park in Coney Island, high over the lagoon and bandstand, Hill was joined on the wire by a baboon. It shook the wire “as though bent on mischief” while Hill struggled to maintain his balance.

“This second wire walker was not on the program,” the article noted. “Hill found that he could neither advance nor retreat. He just kept his balance, with his eye on that baboon.”

Fortunately for Hill, another Coney Island performer came to the rescue and tossed a lasso around the creature’s neck and carefully pulled him back from the wire and onto the platform. 

“The wire’s swaying subsided, and Hill made good his escape as the crowd cheered,” the newspaper reported.

The baboon had just arrived in New York to join a Luna Park circus and slipped away from the show’s attendants during an idle moment. He was “out on the wire before they knew it.”