Saturday, May 15, 2010

Weeki Wachee Mermaids 1952

Continuing a quick exploration of Florida by visitng the fun tourist spot Weeki Wachee Springs. The springs have crystal clear water and a US Navy World War 2 veteran decided to promote the clarity by having cute young ladies swim and act out skits under water. The attraction became world famous, especially after ABC purchased it in 1959. Then as tourists stopped coming to the area, the springs were almost sold and closed. Luckily the springs still exist as a tourist attraction and the mermaids still swim and perform in the crystal clear water after the State of Florida took it over as a State Park. A new book Weeki Wachee, City of Mermaids: A History of One of Florida's Oldest Roadside Attraction was recently published and looks amazing.

This post is in honor of my mermaid friends.

6 comments:

Major Pepperidge said...

These are great, I have some slides from here but mine are all really REALLY blue. These have some color at least!

Snow White Archive said...

Nice post. Hadn't heard of the Weeki Wachee Springs before.

Jerome Dunk said...

Cool! We just saw a feature on Weeki Wachee on the "Incredible Mr. Limpett" DVD! The world premiere was underwater at Weeki Wachee!

Annie said...

this is a really cool post! didn't know those types of attractions still existed. Thanks for posting! :)

Matt said...

Amazingly enough there was an Alice in Wonderland show, I have some items posted here.

Unknown said...

OMG - this is such a blast for me---think I was there in 1967. Have a Weekie Watchie coin still in my 'collectible' case!