Question: Which Florida city is known as the Circus Capital of the World?
Answer: Sarasota
Thanks to the legacy of circus magnate John Ringling building his home, Ca’ d’Zan, on Sarasota Bay, Sarasota is known as the Circus Capital of the World. Ringling established his circus’s permanent winter headquarters in Sarasota, moving 3,500 new residents to the city, including more than 300 circus families and laborers who manufactured railway cars used in the circus’s travels.
The winter quarters opened to the public on Christmas Day in 1927. Adults were charged 25 cents and children 10 cents for a behind-the-scenes look at circus life. Ringling became a mainstay of the Sarasota community and established the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art that same year.
