THE NEW YORK TIMES, July 17, 1956 

* Last performance under the canvas "Big Top"
* Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus 
* "The Greatest Show on Earth" tradition ends 

The bottom of the front page has a four column photo showing an aerial view of the last setup of the "Greatest Show on Earth" under the canvas "Big Top" with heading: "The Big Top Folds Its Tents for Last Time" and reporting. (see images) 
I suspect this to be an extremely rare item because there was really no reason to save it at the time.
Complete with all 42 pages, light toning and minor wear at the margins and central fold, generally in very nice condition.

Background: On July 16, 1956, an iconic chapter in American cultural history came to a poignant end in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus gave its final performance under a traditional canvas tent, bringing a permanent close to the nomadic "Big Top" era. This historic transition was forced by a perfect storm of modern pressures: skyrocketing labor and railroad transportation costs, a shrinking availability of massive urban lots, and fierce competition from the rapid rise of household television and suburban drive-in theaters. When circus president John Ringling North famously declared the tented circus "a thing of the past" at 11:15 PM that night, the decision to pivot exclusively to modern, indoor sports arenas and municipal stadiums beginning in 1957 successfully saved "The Greatest Show on Earth" from immediate financial ruin. However, the true significance of this event extends far beyond a corporate restructuring; it symbolized a major macroeconomic and sociological shift in post-war America. The folding of the canvas city marked the death of a distinct, community-wide ritual where the circus train's arrival brought small-town America to a complete standstill, trading that raw, nostalgic, and intimate sensory magic for the commercialized, air-conditioned efficiency of 20th-century mass entertainment.