Friday, August 6, 2010

Gibsonton, Florida


gibsonton, florida, originally uploaded by a nameless yeast.


I grew up in Illinois, but we moved to Sarasota, Florida when I was 17. It was in 1976 and reminders that Sarasota was a circus town were easy to find. Flipping through the phonebook I found a listing for for the famed circus clown Emmett Kelly. It was not at all unusual to see a trapeze a people in someones backyard. After all, the town's high school was home to the "Sailor Circus" and people took this legacy seriously. Our neighbor's parents had owned a circus in Canada and her household pets were a team of performing poodles, with one teeny, tiny Yorkie who would climb on top of the pyramid they used to form. Retired to sunny Sarasota, the poodles eventually died off, leaving the Yorkie as the last survivor of the act. In time, like so much of Florida, he too passed away.


There were the more obvious circus landmarks in Sarasota, such as the John Ringling's home and the Ringling museum. A little more obscure, just up the road toward Bradenton there was a cemetary where many past circus performers are buried.

If you were to travel even farther north, but not quite to Tampa, you would run into a curious little town called Gibsonton, also known as "Showtown U.S.A.".

Gibsonton

In the circus pecking order sideshows and carnies were on the lowest rung, and Gibsonton became their curious winter home. "Gibton" is what the locals call it. It isn't a very big place, in fact if it wasn't for the tilt-a-whirls and carnival trailers lining the road you could pretty much blink and miss it.

Girl Show Wagon, Royal American Shows

It is one of those curious bits of Floridana slowly fading away. I think Gibton is more likely to rust than fade, but as real estate prices climbed, wealth and so-called taste prevailed, little bits of Florida-past become more difficult to find.


gibsonton, florida, originally uploaded by a nameless yeast.



Traveling south from Tampa along U.S. 41 (the Tamiami Trail), you would cross the Alafia river and there would be the sign advertising Giants Camp Restuarant. It was, of course, owned by a giant, Al Tomani, who stood over eight-feet tall and his wife, Jeanie, also known as "half-woman" because she was only two-and-a-half feet tall. The bought the place back in the 1940's, rented out a few places out back, and soon Gibton would become a winter haven for carnival and sideshow people. Sadly, the restaurant closed down in 2006, but for better or for worse, Gibton lingers on.

Showtown reasturant Gibsonton gibtown fl


It is not unusual to see a pile of circus junk in somebody's yard in Gibton. Where other communities form neighborhood associations to regulate and restrict their subdivisions, in Gibton there is civic pride in having a tilt-a-whirl in your front yard. At its best, Gibton is pretty seedy. If that sort of thing bothers you, you may want to pass on through.

Gibsonton

Strangely enough though, it is the part of Florida I miss the most.

rockets

10 comments:

  1. I love taking local roads instead of 75 when I visit my parents. I don't drive down often, but when I do I cut across Jacksonville and drive down using old roads from Gainesville to Sarasota. It's a great trip.

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  2. It's the best. Florida at it's quirky finest.

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  3. I had no idea. Florida is quirky enough, but circus stuff??!!! Wow. I must look into this more. "In Gibton there is civic pride in having a tilt-a-whirl in your front yard." So funny!

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  4. Sarasota was the winter home of Ringling Bros. for many years. I believe they now winter in Venice, FL. I remember seeing famous lion trainer Gunther Gebel-Williams strolling the beach in Nokomis. I think there is an actual "Clown College" in Venice.

    There was a "City Confidential" about the murder of Gibton resident "Lobster Boy". There was also an "X-Files" that took place in a town based on Gibton.

    In Central Florida, of course, there is Cassadaga, a spiritualist camp where people talk to the dead.

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  5. Actually, locals refer to Gibsonton as "Gibtown",not Gibton,and it is far from "seedy".

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  6. I have seen it spelled "Gibton" and "Gibtown" and did not realize there was a community standard for the spelling of the name. My crack research team -- me -- did an official search, (I "Googled"). I found it spelled both ways and picked one. I knew it was pronounced "Gib-TOWN" but the spelling "Gibton" seemed to prevail. So I did what I am so often prone to do when faced with a boring technical issue. I engaged in a little "e-ne-mee-ne-mi-nee-mo" and settled on Gibton. I am so glad to find someone well-versed on this matter who can correct me. I do hope you will bring this to the attention of the correct the PROFESSIONAL journalistic community from which I obtained my mis-information. I am just a humnble housewife with a laptop, a story and a flamingo on her head.

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  7. No problem, glad you have wrote about Gibsonton.Maybe we'll see you on your way through here. Keep up the good work!

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  8. A Resident of th little hamlet of "GibTown" I find that our home is like none other that you wil find anywhere in the whole Universe. I love the fact that everybody knows eveybody and that majority of the residents are onlyhome for a matter of up to 3 months in the wintertime.
    In Gibsonton you can fnd several perfect examples of the Americana that you linger for so much. The Ferris wheel that Mr. Mulligan, Owner of Mulligans Fabrication is coming along well and the thought of creating something that will bring millions of people joy and happiness is being constructed in my own back yard.
    We have a sense of PRIDE and COMMUNITY that you wll never see anywhere else. Although we ae no home as much asyoure typical americans we all keep incontact with eachother like going next door to martha and billys to borrow a cup of sugar but we are all seperated by mile of roads and feilds,untill that day we all gather at our GIBSONTON SHOWMENS CLUB for the Welcome home Picnic. In Celebration and exctiement we all talk of our hard work and share or troubles and joys. It is kind of neat to see all the generations upon genertations of Carnival Folk that stretches thru the historybooks. I am a PROUD GIBSONTONIAN! WE ARE CARNIVAL FOLK... Joy Run Thru Our Veins!

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  9. It's a unique place that holds a unique place in my heart. There is no other place like it that I have ever seen.

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  10. I live by showtown its not closed my auntie has been working there a while & never closed

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