jamie@strangeinheritance.com. and just face it, you can't take it with you. ♪ >> it's the circus, downsized. [ crowd cheering ] >> he's got the big top, the sideshow, the menagerie. >> and you can almost smell the popcorn and sawdust. >> made by a master whittler. >> he never used a jigsaw. he never used a lathe. it was always a pocketknife. >> boy, this knife has some mileage on it. >> but it comes with a jumbo-sized burden. >> he would usually cry and he'd say, "barbara, i don't know what to do."i didn't know what to do either. >> and now the big reveal. >> are you ready? okay, here we go. >> wow. ♪

[ bird squawks ] >> i'm jamie colby, on my way to see a family who wrote in about their strange inheritance. we're meeting in baraboo, wisconsin, which, not coincidentally, was once the winter headquarters of the famed ringling bros. circus. >> my name's barbara dickey. my father-in-law loved the circus, and he left me something that's had me jumping through hoops. >> barbara. i'm jamie. >> hi. it's so nice to meet you. >> so nice to meet you, too. you wrote me about this? >> i did. this is a miniature circus, hand-carved with a pocketknife by my father-in-law. >> a true 1-inch scale reproduction of a 1920s circus, to be precise, each piece painstakingly handcrafted by barbara's late father-in-law, william dickey. the detail is fascinating.

you can almost hear them playing their instruments. is there more? >> absolutely. >> how many pieces total? >> approximately 62,157 pieces. [ laughs ] it was his passion. it was his love. so it was just a lifelong work. >> a lifelong work that begins in the early 1900s, when the circus comes to bristol, virginia. in attendance, an artistic teenager, william t. dickey. >> the first time he went to the circus, he fell in love and he wanted to be there every time he had an opportunity. >> what do you think the thrill of it was for him? >> he loved the clowns, the popcorn and the cotton candy, and the music, and just the whole atmosphere. >> it's no surprise william is captivated. >> ladies and gentlemen... >> this is, after all, the golden era of the circus. >> it was a really huge event.

i mean, schools would shut down. businesses shut down. >> joe colossa, former ringling bros. trainmaster. [ whistle blows ] it was the great american family outing. >> absolutely. >> tight-wire act. >> i mean, disney world didn't exist back then, so, in a sense, disney world came to them. >> this fascination with the big top sparks a curious hobby with a small-but-avid following -- circus model building. enthusiasts even start their own >> the circus model builders association of america. >> with five members? >> oh, more than that. several hundred. >> really? including joe himself. yes, the circus model builders association of america still meets today. >> there's miniature circuses that are around the country. >> there are? >> there are. there's a group of folks that -- actually, that's their love. they build miniatures of the circus. >> it's that same love that

drives william dickey to create his own miniature big top. his grandson, clayton dickey, says it all starts with a pocketknife. a pocketknife? >> yes, ma'am. >> he never used a jigsaw. he never used a lathe or any kind of turning tools. it was always a pocketknife. >> boy, this knife has some mileage on it. william takes that pocketknife and puts it to a block of wood. did he see a drawing of something? did he have a blueprint? >> well, my dad always said that his dad always said was, "you carve away everything that's not >> and you're left with a horse? >> and then you're left with a horse. >> if only it's that simple. >> it took him years and years of practice to learn how to do everything right. >> by his late teens, william's creating detailed, intricate pieces. >> the man was a brilliant wood-carver. >> johnny trapino, another card-carrying member of the circus model builders association of america.

he says every circus model builder worth his penknife appreciates dickey's work. >> mr. dickey did all that with a single pocketknife, and that's absolutely amazing. >> william's circus grows to include hundreds of wooden animals... clowns... ringmasters, musicians... and delighted customers. then he adds even more tricks to his toolbox. >> his uncle was a blacksmith, and he made him an anvil. and he learned how to fashion metal. >> that metalwork becomes animal cages, chains, ladders, and even musical instruments. ♪ now he has enough pieces to set up an entire display. he calls it dickey's circus.

>> mr. dickey always said, when it was set up it had to sit on a platform at least 75 feet long by 14 feet wide. >> that's about as long as a tennis court. the grounds include 15 tents, highlighted by a 25-foot-wide big top with 10,000 seats. venture outside, and you'll find the menagerie, with lions, giraffes, hippos, snakes, zebras, camels, and elephants. continue your journey past a freak sideshow and a parade. >> it's every little, intricate piece of an entire circus. >> and you can almost smell the popcorn and sawdust. ♪ >> dickey spends more than a decade of his youth on his masterpiece, but will anyone outside his small virginia town see it?

more than he ever imagines. next stops, atlantic city, manhattan, paris, and... >> it traveled to the >> the world's fair. >> yes. >> here's a"strange inheritance" quiz question. the answer after the break. -i've seen lots of homes helping new customers bundle and save big, but now it's time to find my dream abode. -right away, i could tell his priorities were a little unorthodox. -keep going. stop. a little bit down. stop. back up again. is this adequate sunlight for a komodo dragon? -yeah. -sure, i want that discount on car insurance just for owning a home, but i'm not compromising. -you're taking a shower? -water pressure's crucial, scott! it's like they say -- location, location, koi pond.

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♪ >> so, circus lore holds that which is bad luck? it's "c." stagehands communicated by whistling. an extra tweet could be mistaken for a cue and cause an accident. >> by the 1930s, william dickey has spent more than a decade hand-carving this incredible

1-inch scale model he calls dickey's circus. what did mr. dickey bring to life? >> he's got everything -- the big top, the sideshow, where you'd see the freaks, and the menagerie, the midway. it's a piece of art, really. >> when dickey's circus goes on display around bristol, virginia, it catches the eye of pete moore, a wealthy circus-loving businessman. >> who apparently had the financial means to help my grandfather get some places that he wouldn't have been able to get on his own. >> turns out mr. moore has some good connections. he begins promoting dickey's circus, and, in 1933, the businessman's able to book a monumental gig, the world's fair. the world's fair. chicago world's fair. >> that's incredible. >> yes. >> nearly 40 million people visit the chicago world's fair,

enjoying exhibits such as dickey's circus and a futuristic sky ride. the little big top then heads across the atlantic for another huge booking, the famed paris exposition. it goes on to be shown at the museum of the city of new york and along the boardwalk in atlantic city, new jersey. the little circus that could. >> yes. but it's not so little. >> william dickey himself is no showman and usually stays back in virginia. by now, he's married, raising two boys, and making a living as a mechanical engineer. one of those boys, bill, grows up and marries barbara, who discovers that the model circus is a great way to connect with her new father-in-law. what do you think it meant to him that you took in interest in his circus? >> he loved the circus and he loved for everybody else to love the circus, and that caused me to feel like i was a part of the family.

>> over the years, mr. dickey keeps adding to and improving his miniature big top. you think he was a perfectionist when it came to this project? >> absolutely, he was. if there was anything wrong with a piece, he would not fix it or paint over it. he would throw it away and start over. >> you have any idea how many hours he worked on this? >> it's above 10,000. >> did mrs. dickey ever say, "come in here and spend time with the family"? >> she may have felt that way from time to time, but she also valued the circus and appreciated it and was supportive. >> william retires to florida in the 1960s and begins the search for just the right place to put his signature achievement on permanent display. did you ever see him stressing out about where to house the circus? >> i know that he spent long hours writing to people, and, a lot of times, he got word back that circuses are a dime a dozen. and he would say, "they just don't know what we have." >> did mr. dickey ever try to

sell it? >> not really. he always told us that he felt like it was worth quite a lot. >> $10,000? >> he said $100,000 at the time, and i think he insured it for that at one time. >> in 1972, william finally finds a place to pitch his tent. a tourist attraction in new hampshire called circus towne agrees to indefinitely showcase his miniature big top. >> he was totally happy and totally excited it was gonna have its permanent home in new hampshire. >> what was your reaction? >> i was so thrilled. >> sadly, just days after the contract is signed, william dickey has a heart attack and dies at age 69. he never gets to see his circus in all its glory at circus towne, nor, as it turns out, will many others. >> i used to talk to my husband about it, and he would usually cry. and he'd say, "barbara, i don't know what to do." and i didn't know what to do either.

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>> so, which famous actor worked as a lion tamer? it's christopher walken, who, as a teen, performed in a traveling circus with a lioness named sheba. >> over the course of his life, william dickey hand-carves a 62,000-piece model circus. he dies in 1972. the miniature big top is willed to his son bill and daughter-in-law, barbara. was it an honor? >> it was an honor, yes, to have that as a part of the family heritage. >> but in 1975, circus towne, the tourist attraction where dickey's circus is on display, goes out of business. so the family packs it all away into a storage facility, thinking, "just for a little while." it needs a home. >> absolutely. we just felt like it needed to be seen. that's what it was created for. >> did you feel like you were

personally disappointing him if you didn't find a place for it? >> we did. >> it really shouldn't take that long, right? after all, the circus was once valued at $100,000. yet, the couple has zero luck finding anyone interested in displaying their strange inheritance. >> i used to talk to my husband about it, and he would usually cry. and he'd say, "barbara, i don't know what to do." and i didn't know what to do either. so we simply put out some feelers and waited. >> and waited. and waited. for how long? >> around 20 years. >> wait a minute. >> [ laughs ] >> you paid for storage for 20 years to store a model circus? >> wasn't that a burden? >> it became more so through time, because the rental price kept going up. >> so barbara and bill moved the circus into the family garage. another five years pass. when her husband, bill, dies, in

2002, barbara becomes the sole heir to her father-in-law's pride and joy, spread out across her garage. why didn't you call the salvation army and just say, "come and take my circus. i'll get a deduction." >> absolutely not. [ laughs ] we just love the circus too much to just let it go that way. >> in 2009, an eager buyer finally materializes. they'll take the entire circus for 25,000 bucks. that's a low-ball bid, says johnny trapino of the circus model builders association of america. >> a full display such as the dickey's circus or those of that size generally run about $40,000, $50,000, $60,000. these were built by master craftsmen. you have to find the right buyer for it, but the price usually holds. >> of course, finding the right buyer is always the catch. barbara, now a 62-year-old widow, has been looking for one

for 34 years! and the circus is packed up in her garage and ready to go. so she turns down the offer. would have been a good price, don't you think? >> we did not think so. we feel like it's an antique. we feel like it's one of a kind. we feel like it's a work of art. and we just couldn't let it go for that. >> soon, barbara's kids join in the quest to find the circus a permanent home. they've never actually seen the 60,000-plus pieces set up. so for them, it's about more than money, says her son, clayton. >> i feel like it's our responsibility to carry on the legacy of the people who have gone before us, and this is really all i have of my grandfather is the circus. this was his lifeblood. >> with the search now entering its fourth decade, the family redoubles their efforts. >> we started reaching out to many people, but everything just kinda fell through. >> was there pressure on all of

you to do something? >> yes, but we just didn't have the means or know how, and there wasn't any way for us to meet anybody to get it set up. >> then someone discovers the internet. >> what was the dickey's reaction when you said, "i live in the ringling mansion"? what's your "strange inheritance" story? we'd love to tell it. send me an e-mail or go to our website, strangeinheritance.com. hi, kids! i'm carl and i'm a broker. do you offer $4.95 online equity trades? great question. see, for a full service brokerage like ours, that's tough to do. schwab does it. next question. do you offer a satisfaction guarantee? a what now? a satisfaction guarantee. like schwab does. man: (scoffing) what are you teaching these kids? ask your broker if they offer award-winning full service and low costs, backed by a satisfaction guarantee. if you don't like their answer, ask again at schwab.

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>> now back to "strange inheritance." ♪ >> it's a 100-year-old masterwork of whittling that toured the world. but for almost 40 years, the 62,000-piece dickey's circus has sat in storage. it's the strange inheritance of the artist's devoted daughter-in-law, barbara dickey, whose son, clayton, has joined her quest to find someone, somewhere, to display it. >> i feel as if the circus is a brother, and i know that it

would be a dishonor to my family for me to allow anything bad to happen to it. >> so clayton sets up a facebook page to help promote the model big top. what happened? >> nothing for a long time. >> six years, in fact. then, in 2016, former ringling trainmaster joe colossa stumbles across the page. >> they had mentioned that they were looking for a home for the dickey's circus. >> did you have a home that could accommodate it? >> i think we do, yes. >> why? where do you live? >> the al ringling mansion. >> turns out joe is also the new co-owner of the al ringling mansion, right here in baraboo, wisconsin, which was once the winter home of the famous circus. joe's looking for new exhibits for his tourist attraction, like miniature circuses. what was the dickeys' reaction when you said, "i have the

space, i have the expertise, and i live in the ringling mansion"? >> i think they were a little apprehensive at first. "you're what? you're where?" >> [ laughs ] >> and, of course, i was standoffish, because it's ours and it's our baby. >> you feel that strongly? >> absolutely. >> joe wins over the dickeys, who agree to loan out the circus for three years. in october 2017, just months after the real ringling bros. circus has its final show after 146 years in business, the tents of dickey's circus are pitched for the first time in four decades. >> it was overwhelming. just an unbelievable amount of parts. it was about five days of intensive work. >> when fully set up, the circus takes up most of the ballroom. and, today, barbara finally gets to see her strange inheritance assembled as her father-in-law

intended. are you ready? >> uh...yes. >> [ laughs ] >> okay, here we go. and, remember, clayton has never seen his grandfather's complete masterpiece... >> wow. >> ...arrayed across a proper fairgrounds. it's overwhelming, right, barbara? come here and take a look at this. this is your legacy, your inheritance. >> this is glorious. >> i mean, it's something, my whole life, that i've thought about and heard about, you know? and it's real. it's not just in pictures and in boxes, and now it's a little overwhelming. ♪ >> the dickeys have really done something incredible. something incredible that will now delight thousands of others, as the century-old circus opens to the public once again. you think william knows that it's all together again? >> [ laughs ] we'd like to think so. and we know he'd be so excited to think that it's at the

ringling mansion. that's great, too, yeah. ♪ >> a boy falls in love with the magic of the circus, spends his life whittling his very own version of the big top, only to carve out his own place in circus history. >> it's an amazing work of art by a man with no formal training, a boy in the mountains who loved the circus. ♪ >> there's a bit of lore about young william dickey that his family says is true. when he was 10, the story goes, the curious boy wandered into the menagerie tent, opened a cage of dosing lions, and fell asleep with them. when the keeper returned, he screamed, provoking a feline uproar. little william awoke from his slumber and walked out of the cage without a scratch. close call or tall tale? you decide.

i'm jamie colby. thanks so much for watching "strange inheritance." and remember -- you can't take it with you. [ crowd cheering ] >> i'm bob massi. for 35 years, i've been practicing law and living in las vegas, ground zero for the american real-estate crisis. but it wasn't just vegas that was hit hard. lives were destroyed from coast to coast as the economy tanked. now it's a different story. the american dream is back, and nowhere is that more clear than the grand canyon state of arizona. so we headed from the strip to the desert to show you how to explore the new landscape and live the american dream. i'm gonna help real people who are facing some major problems, explain the bold plans that are changing how americans live, and take you behind the gates of properties you have to see to believe.