Florida: A Miniature Circus
The Tibbals Learning Center, Ringling Museums, Sarasota
Sarasota has a long history with the circus from the days when the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus wintered there. At the Ringling Museums there is not only the Circus Museum but also a miniature circus in the Tibbals Learning Center.
The Miniature Circus
This enormous miniature circus, which was created by Howard Tibbals, and covers 3,800 sq. ft., consists of 55 rail cars, 8 main tents, 152 circus wagons, more than 700 circus animals, 1,500 individual performers and workers and 7,000 folding chairs.
For over 50 years, this retired owner of a Tennessee wood-flooring company spent much of his spare time carving and sewing to create his dream. As he emphasizes, every piece of carving is individual, even down to the food on the plates in the commissary.
First you see the train yard with men offloading the trains while in the field others are setting up the circus encampment. There are performers, a coach containing a beautiful "princess" and jugglers practicing; men are in the barber's, there are show horses in the stock tent and the band.
The Big Top, which has three rings and two stages, would have been erected in less than four hours, using six center poles, 74 quarter poles, 122 sidewall poles, 550 stakes and 26,000 yards of canvas. Makes you tired just thinking about it, doesn't it?
During a performance, while acts are performing in the rings and on the stages, above there are trapeze artists. Here the two outer rings are rotating with animal acts on them, the center ring is caged with wild animals and a tamer, and people are performing on the stages. In addition to all of this there are young ladies swinging around on ropes above the arena and, all about are clowns, stilt walkers and glamorous showgirls.
Creating a Dream
As a boy Howard Tibbals loved it when the circus visited his home town. He would stand on a neighbor's porch and, using binoculars, watch the roustabouts setting up the tents. As he grew older he would haunt the circus, not just the Big Top, but behind the scenes, taking photographs of everything - the animals, people rehearsing, the cookhouse - and measured the wagons.
In 1952 he read an article called "Here Comes the Circus" (Popular Mechanics) which described a 79-car circus train and the layout of the circus grounds. A later article gave the dimensions for a model, which is when the young Howard started taking notes of the dimensions so that his 3/4" to the foot model is completely accurate.
"I don't think it will ever be finished as such, in my lifetime," he admits, "Unless someone else takes over." At which stage he suspects that more modern techniques will probably be used.
Children of all ages love spending time looking at this miniature circus then ambling around the rest of the exhibition with the posters, costumes and other artifacts.
The Ringling Museums (including the house, Ca d'Zan) are open seven days a week from 10.00 a.m. to 5.30 p.m.
Admission prices are:
Adults - $19/Seniors - $16/Students and Children (6-17) - $6/Under 6 yrs - free.
Directions to the museums:
They are at 5401 Bay Shore Road, in north Sarasota, Florida just one block west of SR 41. The parking lot is in front of the Asolo Theater.
Many people visiting Sarasota go to Orlando for a few days; while there, travel on a little further to Winter Park and the Morse Museum.
For a day out, travel south to Fort Myers to visit the Edison and Ford Winter Homes.
