The History of the King Richard's Faire and the Bristol Renaissance Fair in Bristol, Wisconsin.

Founded as the "King Richard's Faire" in 1973 by rock concert promoter Richard Shapiro and his wife, Bonnie (Harris) Shapiro, first produced a small event in a cornfield near Chicago, Illinois. This early Faire (1973-1975) included a "slave market" concept where volunteer participants were "sold" to patron bidders to lug their packages or fetch their food. 

1975 and 1976, the Faire was located next to the Midlane Country Club on Delany Road in Gurnee, Illinois. 

In 1977, Greathall, Dick Shapiro's Faire production company, leased the property north of State Line Road, at the same site of the future Bristol Renaissance Faires are held.

In 1977 and 1978, the early equestrian Jousts were performed by a southside Chicago group named "Knights of the Silver Sword." The Hanlon-Lees Action Theatre was hired to joust after 1979 and continued, except for the Bristol Renaissance Faire take-over.

In 1986, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter (at the suggestion of his delighted daughter Amy) paid a visit to the King Richard's Faire in Kenosha, Wisconsin, with his wife, former First Lady Roslyn Carter. What amused the former President the most were the antics of one of King Richard's Faire's leading attractions, the Muddy Beggars, who would really eat anything!

In 1988 the name was changed when the Shapiros sold the fair to Renaissance Entertainment Corporation, having already created a second incarnation of the King Richard's Faire in Carver, Massachusetts. 

Shapiro's original King Richard's Faire was re-opened that year as the "Bristol Renaissance Faire." The Bristol Renaissance Faire is held in the village of Bristol, Wisconsin. Its 30-acre site runs along the Wisconsin-Illinois state line west of Interstate 94.

The reigning monarch became Queen Elizabeth I rather than the fictional "King Richard," set in the English port city of Bristol in the year 1574.

Her Highness Queen Elizabeth I, actress Mary Kababik.
Kababik has played Queen Elizabeth for 16 years at the Bristol Renaissance Faire. "I love history, and I'm fascinated by it," she said during a rare and brief moment out of character. "This doesn't teach it; it shows it. It's as close as you can get to a time machine to allow us to travel back. It might not be perfect, but I hope this brings it alive better than a book or a movie because I can actually touch you."
On a personal note, I saw Queen Elizabeth later in the day. She was on foot. As I passed, I bowed, and the Queen held out her hand for a kiss. I did not disappoint the Queen.

 

Renaissance Faire staples include jousting tournaments, historical reenactments, stage shows, time-period, non-mechanical kiddie rides, and entertainment. The Annual Renaissance Festival Awarded the Mud Show and Dirk & Guido; The Swordsmen and Moonie the Magnificent.

Dirk & Guido; The Swordsmen and Moonie the Magnificent.

Journalist Neil Steinberg said of the Bristol Renaissance Faire: "If theme parks, with their pasteboard main streets, reek of a bland, safe, homogenized, whitebread America, the Renaissance Faire is at the other end of the social spectrum. A whiff of the occult, a flash of danger, and a hint of the erotic. Here, they let you throw axes. Here are more beers and bosoms than you'll find in all of Disney World."

A Renaissance Faire Serving Wench.

In 2004 at the Faire was scalding hot, sunny, and felt like 110% humidity. I know you won't believe me, but I was not the only one to see this. Two Klingons—in full dress and amazing face/head makeup, which slid down their faces in the heat. From then on, I always brought my camera.

My first stop at the Faire, no matter the time of day, was to get a large order of the Garlic Butter Mushrooms.

On the way out, I would always take home two ½ gallon containers of the most delicious Garlic Butter Mushrooms I've ever eaten.

The Real Bristol Renaissance Faire Garlic Butter Mushrooms recipe; portioned for at-home cooks.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Balsa wood gliders and rubber-band-powered airplanes have endured as a favorite for kids and adults for 95 years.

There’s an interesting story behind the creation of balsa wood model airplanes. The first official aircraft flight by Orville and Wilbur Wright occurred in 1903.

Paul K. Guillow

Balsa wood airplanes began in 1926 when former WWI US Navy aviator Paul K. Guillow (pronounced Gill-Low) started a company the "Nu Craft Toys" in 1926. Guillow’s first line of WWI military airplane models was the Thomas Morse Scout, Fokker D.VII, and Sopwith Camel made out of balsa wood. Guillow sold his kits for 10¢ apiece.

In 1927 when Charles A. Lindbergh flew from New York to Paris, the nation’s interest in aviation soared. As a result, Guillow’s model airplane kits were in such demand that Guillow had to move his toy company out of his family's suburban Boston barn to a larger place, and again to an even larger one in 1933, to the present location at 40 New Salem Street in Wakefield, Massachusetts. The name of the company was changed to Paul K. Guillow, Inc., and is still in business today.

The first product line of balsa wood airplanes was of WWI biplane fighters that sold very well right up to the mid-1940s. During WWII, balsa wood was harder to get since it was being used to produce life rafts and life jackets for the war. Model builders were forced to use paper cardboard and pine, though not always successfully. Post-war, plastic models became popular, which caused a decline in the simpler planes. But the 1950s saw a renewed interest in balsa wood airplanes—an interest that continues today.

The Guillow company added Spitfires, Messerschmitts, Zeros, Piper Cubs, and Cessnas.  For years, Guillow was able to make a living by designing and producing such kits (most of which the company continues to make, despite a dwindling market for them), but it was the introduction of his ready-to-fly gliders and rubber-band-powered toy airplanes that made the business take off. Sold all over the world, they are now the company’s bread and butter. 

Over the decades, Guillow’s company produced many different models. Among the most popular:

• JetFire – Balsa Wood Glider
• Sky Streak – sports a rubber band powered propeller
• Balsa Twin Biplanes – features Sopwith Camel and Fokker D.II. (WWI fighter planes)
• Balsa Flying Machine – 17″ version of the classic balsa airplane; can take off from a flat surface

Company president Alson Earl Smith, started at Guillow’s in the 1930s as a model designer, eventually taking over the day-to-day management of the company after the death of Paul Guillow in 1951. Al Smith, Alson's son, was named president in 1990.

Guillow’s now makes more than $5 million a year, Smith says and has bought out its domestic competitors, Comet of Chicago and Tiger in Los Angeles. It has expanded its product line but never strayed from its core business: flying models and toys. The Guillow family still retains ownership, and the company retains the atmosphere of a mom-and-pop operation. Nestled in low-slung buildings in an industrial section of Wakefield, the company makes its products pretty much the way it always has. The balsa is shipped from farms in Ecuador, then milled and cut into small strips. Most of the manufacturing is still done with 1940s-era machinery. It’s labor-intensive, admits Smith, who oversees about 60 employees, many of whom have worked for the company for decades.

Because it is lightweight, balsa is perfect for flying, but it is also fragile, as many a disappointed youngster has learned. Take Robert Higgins, age unknown, who wrote the company in 1959 after his Guillow airplane was destroyed by crashing to earth:

“I have bought one of your fifty-cent planes, and it broke as soon as it left the ground. If you don’t make your rotten fifty-cent plane better, my friends & I won’t buy your planes anymore. I think you have the lousiest planes from the lousiest wood (please take this as an insult), drop dead.”  —Robert Higgins

To Robert Higgins, wherever he is now, Smith answers that the company tried to address the durability issue. One employee tried shellacking the wings to temper them. The wings didn’t break, but the airplane didn’t fly—too heavy. The company has also experimented with Styrofoam and expanded polystyrene, and even looked at vacuum-formed kits. But these solutions added greatly to the cost, and the aircraft ended up breaking as often as balsa did.

Despite the frustrations of Higgins and others, despite the onslaught of video games, computers, and whatever the latest toy fad happens to be, Guillow’s airplanes have found a niche. 

As the company celebrated its 95th anniversary, Smith described the enduring appeal of these simple toys: “My father used the term ‘a yearning for flight.’ That feeling at an airport where you just stop by a window and pause to watch the planes take off. It’s just something inside you.”

Guillow also makes radio-controlled kits.

How To Modify and Fly a Tethered Rubber Power Model

How about you? Do you remember these classic retro toys? When’s the last time you sent a balsa airplane into the sky?

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.