Weeki Wachee, City of Mermaids: A History of One of Florida's Oldest Roadside Attractions
by Lu Vickers. Hardcover, 320 pgs, 97 color and 123 black and white photos. University Press of Florida, 2007.
In the postwar explosion of domestic tourism, Weeki Wachee spring offered the quintessential vacation fantasy, a city of colorful mermaids in a natural crystal spring right off the West Coast highway in a sparsely inhabited Florida. In those early days, the mermaids had to stand alongside the highway to flag travelers down, but once word of their charms got out, travelers headed south to playgrounds in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and Tampa found Weeki Wachee a tantalizing detour from the grueling two-lane road connecting vacationland with the work-a-day world to the north. Vickers and Dionne show how that local novelty became a stellar international attraction.
by Lu Vickers. Hardcover, 320 pgs, 97 color and 123 black and white photos. University Press of Florida, 2007.
In the postwar explosion of domestic tourism, Weeki Wachee spring offered the quintessential vacation fantasy, a city of colorful mermaids in a natural crystal spring right off the West Coast highway in a sparsely inhabited Florida. In those early days, the mermaids had to stand alongside the highway to flag travelers down, but once word of their charms got out, travelers headed south to playgrounds in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and Tampa found Weeki Wachee a tantalizing detour from the grueling two-lane road connecting vacationland with the work-a-day world to the north. Vickers and Dionne show how that local novelty became a stellar international attraction.
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