This episode includes stories of domestic violence.

Listener discretion is advised.

Death rarely stops a showman.

Quite the opposite sometimes.

It actually encourages them.

You've heard about a few sideshow stars who were put on stage after they died, like

Jumbo the Elephant, or Julia Pastrana and her child. But recently,

it was some of the smallest oddities that caused a big scandal.

Pickled punks, as they were known, had long been a

side show standard, but by the 1970s, people were reconsidering the attraction of formaldehyde suspended fetuses

in a jar.

The times were changing, you see.

A cultural shift was happening.

And you only had to look toward Gibson Town, Florida for proof.

Side show performers had been flocking to Gibbtown, as they call it, for decades.

It had been a small bit of coastal town southeast of Tampa, home to fishermen and a small

lumber company.

Grace and Eddie LeMay were the first carnival folk to visit in 1924, a trip spent camping and

fishing.

They told their friends, a lot of them, actually, and by 1945 the town had grown by hundreds

of residents, many of which were from the sideshow.

These new arrivals would change the DNA of the town.

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