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Museum about carnies caught in mid dream

An organization of traveling show people thinks people will come - if it can lure the $2-million needed to finish it.

By S.I. ROSENBAUM
Published June 28, 2005

	[Times photo: Skip O'Rourke]
	Now the museum in Riverview is just an empty shell. It will take at least $2-million more to complete it. Traveling carnivals are raising money for the project.

RIVERVIEW - Right now, the world's only carnival museum is just an empty shell - bare metal and concrete, a huge shadowy space.

Chuck Mayo, president of the International Independent Showmen's Association, looks at it and sees more.

He points to where the antique 1800s Ferris wheel will stand. To where the galleries will be, full of exhibits on carnival history.

"The only holdup right now," he says, "is money."

The idea for the museum was conceived in the late 1990s by a group of carnival workers intent on preserving the history of their unusual culture, which has thrived in the Gibsonton area since the 1940s.

The world of traveling show people, or carnies, has traditionally been tight-knit and closed to outsiders, Mayo said.

The museum would unveil that closed world, preserving a heritage that would otherwise be lost.

"The object of the museum is to portray the carnival business as it is, and as it was, to the whole world," Mayo said. "We definitely look forward to the day when school kids come here in buses to tour the museum."

Through the Showmen's Association, a carnival workers trade organization based in Gibsonton, a "nostalgia committee" began to raise money through private donations.

All over the country, traveling shows held jamborees, fundraisers to collect money for the museum, said Ivan Arnold, president of the museum corporation that evolved from the nostalgia committee.

"It turned out pretty good," Arnold said. He said they raised a million dollars.

Plans were drawn and permits obtained. Construction started in late 1999 and continued until 2003, when the shell of the museum's main building was completed across the street from the Showmen's Association building at 6915 Riverview Drive in Riverview.

Then the project came to a halt.

Mayo said it's not quite accurate to say money ran out. The multimillion-dollar project was always planned in stages, he said. The first stage is complete, bought and paid for.

"We don't owe any money on any of this," he said.

Still, it will take at least $2-million more to complete the building. Once again, traveling carnivals are raising money on the road. But Mayo said he is looking for a single generous donor to become the museum's patron.

"We need a big donor," he said.

Mayo said the museum also faces another hurdle: Because construction halted for so long, he said, all the building permits have lapsed.

He said the museum corporation will have to draw up a new set of plans for finishing the building's interior and its facade, and it must obtain new building permits.

He's concerned that the existing structure will have to be altered to comply with new code standards. But a spokesman for the county said the old permits can simply be reissued.

Either way, Mayo said, he hopes to secure a donor by the time the new designs are finished.

He and Arnold are optimistic that the museum could even be under way again before Mayo's presidential term ends next year.

"I don't think there's anyone in (the Showmen's Association) who won't be proud of this place when it's done," Mayo said. "There won't be anyone in town who won't be."

A version of this story appears in some regional editions of the Times.

[Last modified June 28, 2005, 01:45:13]