Circus Owner. D. R. Miller will be most remembered for owning the Carson and Barnes Circus, the largest five-ring circus under the big top in the United States. Following in his father's footsteps in the circus business, he was nicknamed “Mr. Circus” for the 75 years in this profession. As an eight-year-rider on a small pony, he started his career as part of his father's circus act in 1924, With some skill, he become a tightwire walker. Along with his father, Obert Miller, and brother Kelly, they started their own circus show with two monkeys, four ponies and a personnel roster of six people in 1937. At the age of seventeen, he met and soon married Isla Marie Beach. The couple was penniless but survived by joining the Herrington Nickle Plate Circus and then the Seils-Sterling Circus on near-starvation wages. Each week during those early days of marriage, the biggest argument was how they would spend the 25 cents left over after subsistence had been paid; he would have a cigar, and Isla a candy bar. In 1937, the couple started their own circus, Kelly and Miller Brother Circus. They started wintering their show in Hugo, Oklahoma since 1941. He and Jack B. Moore formed a partnership in 1953. He leased from Moore tents, equipment and an elephant named Mabel to the show. The elephant became his “good lucky” charm. He purchased his first elephant in 1937 and well over 200 Asiatic and African elephants went through his hands in subsequent years. In 1954, the now larger circus traveled the circuit as the "Tex Carson Circus". In 1958 the show was renamed the “Carson & Barnes Circus”. The show grew to become the largest five-ring circus needing six trucks to transport up to 57 elephants, other large animals, the performers, crew and equipment to twenty different states covering nearly 20,000 miles annually while on tour over the next ten prosperous years. At some point, he became a licensed pilot, who crashed his plane once but walked away from it unharmed. Upon Moore's death in 1969, Moore's interest in the circus was transferred to his wife and children but Miller gradually purchased the family's interest and in 1971 became the owner continuing to travel the circuit until his death in 1999. He died between shows and upon his wishes, his funeral was delayed until the circus came to Hugo for the winter. He was buried along his wife in “Showman's Rest”, an area of Mt. Olivet Cemetery, which is reserved for circus people. His funeral was turned into a circus with a parade with circus animals. His daughter and two granddaughters continued in his circus footsteps as performers.