Genuine Florida

Gatorland in Orange County has gone through many changes over the years. One is above. That is the entire facility circa 1961 along South Orange Blossom Trail. Today it is more than three times as large. Another is that the admission was a donation in 1961. Today there is a charge and you get a ton more for your money.

Gatorland seems not to have faltered as an attraction,  as most of Florida’s other mid-size attractions have dealt with to one degree or the other. It has maintained itself and the business has stayed in the family, a trait that long standing healthy businesses can be traced back to.

I never met Gatorland’s creator, Owen Godwin. Learn more about him and Gatorland by clicking here. I did have many opportunities to talk to his brother Charlie and his wife. Charlie shared many stories of Gatorland. He and his wife were great folks.

Here’s an interesting item from the collections: A giant Silver Springs matchbook. These images are actual size. Above is one side of the outside. Below is the otherside.

Below is the interior of the matchbook. It’s a wonderful illustration of Silver Springs across the matches. Also look at that map! Pre-75, pre-95, pre-interstate 4. Look at the balance of cities. It’s all fairly balanced, as it should be. All communities are important.

Here Swampy visits the Mulberry Phosphate Museum. Mulberry is in south Polk County, nearly 20 miles sould of Lakeland. To the north of the main building is a giant bucket from the enormousmachines that dig out the phosphate you find in your toothpaste.

Here we travel back to 1957 to an official Florida ‘Vacation Guide’. Here is the fabulous Rainbow Springs at that time. Since the park transformed into an amusement type park to a Florida State Park. Today you are not able to swim around the waterfall that still exists there today.

Here Swampy is in the underwater tank that all can go to while visiting Homosassa Springs. Click here to learn more about Homosassa Springs. Above the very rare manatee swims by and below a few snook come by.

Here’s Swampy (Shirtless) with the glass-bottom boats at Silver Springs. The boats still run and you can still experience the depths of the springs of the Silver River along with seeing some of the former sets of films made beneath the waters.

Certainly one of the most magnificent stops in Florida is to Florida Caverns State Park. Take a tour and view the wonders of the caverns that you can walk through here. There are more than a dozen caverns within the park in addition to the show cave, many serving as bat nurseries and roosts and one called Tunnel Cave that you can walk right through on the Caverns Trail System that starts at the opposite end of the same parking area for the show cave. The park also features a river sink and rise of the Chipola River, and Blue Sink, a sinkhole that is used as a swimming area.