His innovations included commission of the first railroad cars for a traveling circus in 1877, the first three-ring presentation and the first Wild West show.

[2] He left home on the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad to Cincinnati, where he worked in cattle appraising and managing stagecoach lines.

[4] Forepaugh’s horse selling enterprise during the American Civil War became his most lucrative business venture.

Already independently wealthy when he entered the circus business, he was much less a showman and much more a businessman—a stark contrast to P. T. Barnum and the Ringling Brothers.

He would regularly seat himself at the main entrance into the circus, a vantage point that ensured that his face was seen by all and from which, it was rumored, he could estimate the night's receipts to hold his employees accountable.

Forepaugh had more animals than Barnum and generally paid higher salaries to the much-favored European talent.

In 1887, Forepaugh obtained permission to perform in Madison Square Garden, a venue that Barnum considered to be exclusively his but had forfeited by his neglect to renew his contract.

Forepaugh was also noted for his business acumen and marketing prowess, which made his circus profitable every year except one.

[14] To further illustrate the spirit of the business dealings between the two, a reporter who managed to sneak up and remove some of the whitewash from the "Light of Asia" to prove Forepaugh's fraud was able to sell this information to Barnum, instead of writing a story about it for his newspaper.

The source of the quote is most likely famous con-man Joseph ("Paper Collar" Joe) Bessimer.

Forepaugh died January 20, 1890, in Philadelphia during the 1889–1890 flu pandemic and is buried in the family vault at Laurel Hill Cemetery.

[3] Many local charities and churches in the Philadelphia area benefited from his estate, including Temple University, Morris Animal Refuge, St. Agnes, St. Luke's and Children's Medical Center.

[19] An article at the end of 1907 observed that the Ringling brothers intended to close the remains of their property, the former Forepaugh show, eighteen years after its original owner's death, and stop using the name and likeness which had "been seen oftener than that of any other American, dead or alive" by that writer's estimation.