Conklin Shows was founded by
James Wesley "Patty" Conklin, who was born Joseph Renker in 1892 in
Brooklyn, New York, and died in 1970. He was brought up by foster parents. By 1906 he had begun selling peanuts without a permit at Madison Square Gardens whenever a circus was in town, and newspapers on the streets of New York, before becoming a sideshow host at
Coney Island. When he was 21, his father dropped dead and Patty inherited . He moved the show north to play at the Winnipeg Exhibition. Due to a problem with the fair, their participation was canceled. While returning to the United States with a train car full of prize merchandise, Patty stumbled upon a show just outside Winnipeg. They joined up with the operator of the fair, International Amusement Company and worked all of the remaining Canadian shows that year.
War years After working the road hosting small fairs coast to coast for 20 years, Conklin Shows bid on and won the midway contract for the 1937 Toronto
Canadian National Exhibition. The fair, one of the largest in the world, was a prized show. By 1941, the company played at 98% of all the major fairs across Canada. To accommodate travel to the various shows, they ran a 45-car specialized train cars. Specialized boxcars painted bright orange long were fitted with custom doors to accommodate speedy loading and unloading of gear. The train carried 15 feature attractions and 21 rides and 700 people including performers and crews. Patty Conklin himself traveled in style with his Mexican stylized 5-room 'mansion on wheels' private car. This became official in Columbia, South Carolina in 2004. In January 2006, N.A.M.E. also acquired Mid America Shows, and several contracts and rides from Cumberland Valley Shows. N.A.M.E. provides rides at over 145 fairs and events yearly. Now included are Cinco de Mayo in New Orleans as well as the Dade Co. Fair, Illinois State Fair, Kentucky State Fair, Indiana State Fair, and Big E Eastern States Exposition. New and more expensive rides have been added to its line-up but at the cost of many of the old favorites. Frank Conklin, while owning part of N.A.M.E., has left the management of the combined company to others. In 1984, Jim Conklin donated many antique midway rides from his collection to Calgary's Heritage Park historical village. These restored rides now make up the majority of the rides at Heritage Park's Conklin Lakeview Amusement Park. ==Current operations==