Florida Before Disney

Mermaids and a "Singing Tower" are highlights of the old-time attractions that carry on with quirky flair in the state's center.

January 22, 2012|By Jill Schensul, THE RECORD (HACKENSACK, N.J.)
  • Weeki Wachee is now a state park offering animal demonstrations and wilderness boat rides as well as the performing mermaids. "Back in the 1950s and '60s, there used to be lines like you see now at Disney," says an executive. "The mermaids were like superstars." The appeal faded as newer attractions became established.

I'd been casting about for a Florida travel story to pursue. And when I asked my husband for ideas, he blurted, "Weeki Wachee!" without hesitation. Weeki Wachee was where the mermaids performed, underwater, twice daily.

Paul had heard ads for this magical place as a little boy but never did make it there. Weeki Wachee has remained one of Paul's obscure objects of desire. So how could I not check it out and at least provide vicarious closure for my mermaid-deprived husband?

And so, using WW as a must-see, I began looking for other attractions and places to visit along the way.

Story continues below.

It turned out that the central Florida landscape I'd be going through included lakes and gardens and swamps, just the sort of natural attractions that brought tourists to Florida in the first place. It seems there was life - and tourism - in Florida way before Disney did Orlando in 1971. Starting in the late 19th century, tourism entrepreneurs began packaging nature - from springs to rivers to wildlife - as the first incarnation of theme parks.

When tourists started arriving in droves by the late 1920s, they often traveled along a few major routes, and flashier roadside attractions, accompanied by unique signs and come-ons, began flanking the highways. While some survive today, the majority of the homespun roadside attractions no longer exist.

But we found a few survivors of those earlier times - not just Weeki Wachee, which dates to 1947, but also the 1929 Bok "Singing Tower" and gardens in Lake Wales, which some say was the first real tourist attraction in Florida.

These and several other offbeat, interesting, or just plain kitschy attractions happened to be either on our route or close enough for a detour.

We would have two days to be Florida tourists, the old-fashioned way.

Unfortunately, we were bringing the trappings of the digital age with us, which led to a curse-fest in the front seat of our rental car. I am cursing because I need to do all these modern mobile-journalism things, like blog and tweet about my trip, and I can't transmit so much as a chirp from my laptop. My friend Lisa is cursing because we are relying on our GPS device to lead us to a cellphone store. The GPS has chosen to drive us crazy rather than to the promised destination.

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