THEY WENT VISITING

Because they went visiting this week and left me in the slip I will let Rich do tonight’s report.

This week Carol and I would visit 5 different groups of friends here on the west coast of Florida, four of which used to live in New Jersey before retiring here.

On our way back from one of our stops in Ocala yesterday we stopped at John Ringling’s home in Sarasota.  John Ringling was the last surviving of the five brothers who created Ringling Brothers Circus.  He built one of the largest companies in the world at the time and entertained millions of people each year.  Each day more than 1,500 people were employed to unload the wagons from the train and then set up the tents.  The first tent to go up would be the commissary, there were 1,500 people who had to be fed 3 times each day and of course the animals had to be fed as well.  The wagons had to be unloaded and loaded in a specific order to ensure that all the parts were where they needed to be at the proper time.  John Ringling and his brothers were as much logistic professionals as they were circus people.  When John died the only cash he had was $311 in his bank account. 

John built a house that was called Cad Á Zan (house of John) in Sarasota.  When he died he willed the home as well as an art gallery that was located on the property to the State of Florida.  Today a museum of the circus is also on the property.

Here are several pictures of the house.  It is just incredible.

The circus museum contained several circus wagons including a calliope and a band wagon.

The museum also contained a full model of a circus.  The model was of the Howard Brothers Circus because John Ringling would not allow the modeler to use the Ringling name.  Here is a picture of the model’s big top and midway.



Model Big Top



Model Midway



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