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| One of several circus costumes. |
The name on the building - The Tibbals Learning Center - isn’t exactly
riveting but inside is the largest hand made miniature circus you have probably
ever seen. The building is a part
of The Ringling Museums. The Ringling
family began to winter their circus in Sarasota
in the 1920s and John and Mable Ringling had a fantastic house built
there. That house, an art gallery and
various museums now comprise The Ringling Museums.
Howard Tibbal’s miniature circus
covers 3,800 sq. ft., has 55 railroad cars, 8 main tents, 152 circus wagons,
more than 700 circus animals, 1,500 individual performers and workers, and
7,000 folding chairs (that actually fold and stow into five circus
wagons).
The display begins with a train
yard where men are offloading the trains.
In the field others are setting up the circus encampment with the
cookhouse, the mess tent and the commissary.
There are performers getting ready, a coach containing a beautiful
“princess” and jugglers practicing. In
the stock tent are show horses and cages with the wild animals. The Big Top itself is 4 ft. high and has
three rings and two stages.
As a boy Tibbals loved it when the
circus visited his home town in West
Virginia. As
he grew older he haunted 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 about
circuses which was published in ‘Popular Mechanics’. It described a 79-car circus train and the layout
of the circus grounds. A later edition
of the magazine gave the dimensions for a model, which is when the young
Tibbals started taking notes so that his model is completely accurate. To learn about the historical items, as well
as reading about the circuses he also watched over 100,000 ft. of films.
This retired owner of a Tennessee wood-flooring
company spent much of his spare time carving and sewing to create his
dream. Amazingly, every piece of carving
is individual, even down to the food on the plates in the commissary.
Also in the Tibbals museum is a
display of circus posters and, upstairs, other circus memorabilia, including
sparkly costumes.
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| John Ringling House |
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| Sunken Garden surrounded by Art Gallery |
As you can easily spend a day
exploring the museums and gardens it is as well that there is also a handy
cafe!
The Ringling Museums
Sarasota Tourism
