2017-Mar. 2 - Tampa Bay History Center posted event Finding Fairyland, Rediscovering Tampa's Lost Theme Park
Snow White and Seven Dwarfs. Humpty Dumpty. Little Red Riding Hood. Once upon a time in Tampa, these storybook characters frolicked near the Hillsborough River at a place called Fairyland. After closing in the1990s – the fabled figurines disappeared, but the memory of times spent at Fairyland lived on in the imaginations of Tampa residents. Those figures have found a new – if temporary – home at the Tampa Bay History Center.

Jeff Houck joined the Columbia Restaurant Group in late August of 2015 after working most recently as the marketing and public relations director for Locale Market in St. Petersburg. He previously spent 25 years in journalism, including 12 years as a food editor, writer, columnist, blogger and podcaster for The Tampa Tribune.

Jeff also worked at FoxSports.com, the Palm Beach Post, the Florida Times-Union, the Anchorage Times and the Pensacola News Journal. His has won awards from the International Association of Culinary Professionals, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Florida Press Club, the Alaska Press Club and the American Academy of Nursing. In 1998, his work was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

 

Photo from Tampa Bay History Center on Facebook

 2017-Mar. 18 "Finding Fairyland exhibit opened at the Tampa Bay History Center

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Photo provided by Nikki Chandler Couture

This was the first Lowry Park Zoo, although in the 1960s we called it Tampa’s Lowry Park, period.

Today, the spider’s either not as scary or even creepier, depending on how you look at it: What scares you more, a giant spider with all its legs or a giant spider who has lost three legs and still lives?

The spider isn’t the only character who needs a little cosmetic surgery — the three little pigs needed new fingers (or any, really — they were missing when Gonzmart bought them). And Humpty Dumpty? Well, let’s simply say he fulfilled his destiny. And the aforementioned handless horseman for Cinderella’s carriage? If Gonzmart doesn’t get it restored by October, perhaps downtown’s The Vault can use it for their Elegant Evening of Fear.

The restoration, though, is well underway, even if it’s taking longer than everyone had hoped. Artist Jason Hulfish has already restored the three little pigs and started putting Humpty Dumpty back together again. The two remaining pig houses, though, suffered a setback when someone broke into them and caused more damage, Gonzmart says. Once Hulfish finishes those, he’ll move on to Jack and his beanstalk, and when the exhibit at the Tampa Bay History Center ends in late May, those three scenes will come to Ulele: the Three Little Pigs (though the original wolf didn’t make an appearance at the auction, Hulfish will recreate him, Gonzmart says), Jack and the Beanstalk and Humpty Dumpty. “I want to put Humpty Dumpty on the roof of Ulele,” Gonzmart says. “He’s really big and I thought it would be a great way to showcase these figurines.”
 

“This is all motivated by my youth, of going to Plant Park with my grandfather,” Gonzmart says. “It brings back memories for me, and I think it will create memories for generations.” Like his grandfather took him to Plant Park, he took his 7-year-old granddaughter, Amelia, to see the Fairyland characters at the workshop. “Pop-Pop, those are so cool,” she said, and begged him to return two more times.

The restoration, he admits, might take some time. “It won’t happen overnight — the weight and the size of the beanstalk has taken more time than imagined,” he says, but then allows: “It’s been how many years since they’ve been in place?” When people see them, he says “they’ll have no clue” how decrepit they looked when he bid on them in January.

He says he wants to revive history, inspire kids to read and make dreams come true. How much does making dreams come true cost? Or, more to the point, how much has it cost so far? “I don’t know, and it’s the God’s honest answer,” he says, laughing. “How can you put a price on memories? I’m not worried about it. It’s artwork; it’s history, I believe it’s a good investment. I’m not your average person, either.”