"Paradise Park was the "colored only'" counterpart to Silver Springs, a central Florida tourist attraction famous for its crystal-clear water and glass bottom boats. Together the two parks formed one of the biggest recreational facilities in the country before Disney World. From 1949 to 1969, boats passed each other on the Silver River--blacks on one side, whites on the other. Though the patrons of both parks shared the same river, they seldom crossed the invisible line in the water"--Jacket.

A Land Remembered has become Florida's favorite novel. Now this Student Edition in two volumes makes this rich, rugged story of the American pioneer spirit more accessible to young readers. Patrick Smith tells of three generations of the MacIveys, a Florida family battling the hardships of the frontier. The story opens in 1858, when Tobias and Emma MacIvey arrive in the Florida wilderness with their son, Zech, to start a new life, and ends in 1968 with Solomon MacIvey, who realizes that his wealth has not been worth the cost to the land. Between is a sweeping story rich in Florida history with a cast of memorable characters who battle wild animals, rustlers, Confederate deserters, mosquitoes, starvation, hurricanes, and freezes to carve a kingdom out of the Florida swamp. In this volume, meet young Zech MacIvey, who learns to ride like the wind through the Florida scrub on Ishmael, his marshtackie horse, his dogs, Nip and Tuck, at this side. His parents, Tobias and Emma, scratch a living from the land, gathering wild cows from the swamp and herding them across the state to market. Zech learns the ways of the land from the Seminoles, with whom his life becomes entwined as he grows into manhood. Next in series > > See all of the books in this series

Cypress Gardens was Florida's original theme park where movie stars, water-ski champions, and Southern belles created magic. To someone weathering a New England winter, Dick Pope's Cypress Gardens looked exotic. The images coming out of his promotional powerhouse appeared in magazines, newspapers, newsreels, and movies depicting everything from bathing beauties aquaplaning through walls of fire to Southern belles relaxing beneath huge tropical plants, from Don Ameche proposing to Betty Grable under moss-hung cypress trees to Esther Williams performing a water ballet in a Florida-shaped pool. It was all happening in sleepy Winter Haven, where one real estate maverick turned tourism tycoon was out to sell "100,000 [visitors] 25 cents worth of Florida." This book reveals the empire Pope built from a remote swampland to its heyday as a famous water-sports destination and playground for such stars as Joan Crawford, Johnny Carson, and Carol Burnett, as well as royalty from the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to King Hussein of Jordan. It also discusses the park's decline following the construction of Walt Disney World, changes in management, the evolving interests and vacationing habits of the nation, as well as its outlook for the future as a part of LEGOLAND Florida.

A focus on the photography and photographers that made Weeki Wachee Springs an iconic tourist destination of Florida.

Provides an entertaining history of one of Florida's oldest roadside attractions, Weeki Wachee Spring and its performing mermaids, that ranges from its development in 1947 to the present day, bringing together extensive archival research and interviews with dozens of mermaids and other park employees with 250 black-and-white and color photographs.

A colorful look at a forgotten era of Florida tourism Filled with rare photographs, vintage postcards and advertisements, and fascinating writing from over 100 years ago, Florida's Healing Waters spotlights a little-known time in Florida history when tourists poured into the state in search of good health. Rick Kilby explores the Victorian belief that water caused healing and rehabilitation, tracing the history of "taking the waters" from its origins in the era of Enlightenment. Nineteenth-century Americans traveled from afar to bathe in the outdoors and soak up the warm climate of Florida. Here, with more than 1,000 freshwater springs, 1,300 miles of coastline, and 30,000 lakes, water was an abundant resource. Through the wealth of images in this book, Kilby shows how Florida's natural wonders were promoted and developed as restorative destinations for America's emerging upper class. The rapid growth in tourism infrastructure that began during the Gilded Age lasted well into the twentieth century, and Kilby explains how these now-lost resorts helped boost the economy of modern Florida. Today, these splendid health spas and elaborate bathing facilities have been lost, replaced by recreational amenities for a culture more about sun and fun than physical renewal. In this book, Kilby emphasizes the value of honoring and preserving the natural features of the state in the face of continual development. He reminds us that Florida's water is still a life-giving treasure.

"Dive into the colorful past of Florida's natural wonders! In this visual tour of the state's five largest springs, collector-extraordinaire Tim Hollis brings together postcards, advertisements, brochures, signs, flyers, and souvenirs from the early days of these popular roadside attractions. Since tourists first started visiting the Sunshine State, they were drawn to these liquid gems: Silver Springs, Wakulla Springs, Rainbow Springs, Weeki Wachee Spring, and Homosassa Springs. Today the springs are protected as state parks and continue to lure tourists and nature lovers alike. Sit back and enjoy the eye-catching scenes of the mermaids, alligators, underwater mountains, and glass bottom and submarine boats that helped these unique parts of the natural landscape become must-see destinations"--

Winner of the 2005 New Jersey Author Award for Scholarly Non-Fiction from the New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance Long before Bruce Springsteen picked up a guitar; before Danny DeVito drove a taxi; before Jack Nicholson flew over the cuckoo's nest, Asbury Park was a seashore Shangri-La filled with shimmering odes to civic greatness, world-renowned baby parades, temples of retail, and atmospheric movie palaces. It was a magnet for tourists, a summer vacation mecca-to some degree New Jersey's own Coney Island. In Asbury Park's Glory Days, award-winning author Helen-Chantal Pike chronicles the city's heyday-the ninety-year period between 1890 and 1980. Pike illuminates the historical conditions contributing to the town's cycle of booms and recessions. She investigates the factors that influenced these peaks, such as location, lodging, dining, nightlife, merchandising, and immigration, and how and why millions of people spent their leisure time within this one-square-mile boundary on the northern coast of the state. Pike also includes an epilogue describing recent attempts to resurrect this once-vibrant city.

Calvin Whitfield, born and raised on the outskirts of NYC in New Rochelle, has written a raw and inspirational story about a suburban paradise, and the social influences that perpetrated its destruction. Whitfield gives a unique and compelling perspective into the life of his childhood while growing up in an environment that reflects the values of a utopian community. By contrast, he gives powerful insight into the social issues of drug use, domestic violence, disappearing fathers, and the system of welfare, that would eventually transform his life, those of his community, and forever change their way of living.

A restless child of the 1960s, Marilyn yearns for love, hippiedom, and escape from her mother's control. At 14, she runs nearly a thousand miles away to Vancouver, British Columbia, eventually landing herself in a Catholic home for troubled girls. At 16, she's emancipated, navigating adulthood without a high school diploma, and craving a soulmate. When she falls in love with Jack, the grad student living next door, life finally seems perfect. The two embark on a cross-continental bicycle trip, headed for South America, but before they reach Mexico, Jack dies. Utterly shattered, Marilyn does the hardest thing she can imagine: a solo bicycle trip, part tribute, part life test. She conquers her fears but goes wildly off course, chasing her heart as she falls into a series of tragicomic rebounds. Two itinerant years later, a chain of events in Montana's Bitterroot Mountains leads to a peace she never expected to find. Reminiscent of "Wild" and "Travelling with Ghosts," Marilyn's journey portrays a life unmoored by grief, brought to shore again."Paradise Road" was selected as the International Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Club's International Book of the Month for March 2021.