Weeki Wachee, City of Mermaids: A History of One of Florida's Oldest Roadside Attractions (Florida History and Culture)... |
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Weeki Wachee, City of Mermaids: A History of One of Florida's Oldest Roadside Attractions (Florida History and Culture)...
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by Lu Vickers
Sales Rank: 88788
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Discount: 27 %
$19.93
At Amazon
on 6-18-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 320 pages
Published by: University Press of Florida; First edition May 27, 2007
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0813030412
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0813030418
Book Dimensions:
10.3 x 7.2 x 1.1 inches
Weighs: 2.4 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
When swimsuit-clad young women cavorted in the freshwater springs of Weeki Wachee, Fla., in October 1947, it seemed so fantastic, many visitors couldn't believe the performers were actually underwater. In this era before scuba, people were expected to drown if they stayed under for more than a few minutes. They certainly didn't dance ballet or eat bananas and drink soda pop underwater, like the Weeki Wachee mermaids did. For the next three decades, an ever-renewing roster of mermaids entertained growing crowds of roadside travelers and celebrity guests (Elvis himself hugged and kissed those mermaids). If Disney hadn't opened Magic Kingdom, and overdevelopment hadn't threatened the aquifer, Weeki Wachee might still be going strong today. But thanks to writer Vickers and designer Dionne, readers have backstage access to this classic American roadside attraction. From Vickers's interviews with retired "mermaids" and other employees, and Dionne's illustrative materials (over 200 publicity photos, advertising cards and other ephemera), readers get a feeling for the homegrown quality of this whole wonderfully quirky enterprise. While detail on their technological innovations and business decision making is interesting, what lingers with readers is a sense of how simply Americans amused themselves on the road, before all the franchises and theme parks took over. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Product Description
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. Founded in 1947 by Walton Hall Smith and Newt Perry, Weeki Wachee and its featured attraction, mermaids, combined the allure of pinup girls with the wholesome talents of variety entertainers to create a daily schedule of underwater acts ranging from eating bananas and performing ballet to staging underwater musicals. For nearly sixty years, these mermaids with their underwater talents have attracted crowds of vacationers, film crews, and celebrities. Drawing on extensive archival research as well as interviews with dozens of mermaids and other park employees, Vickers traces the park’s rise to prominence. Combined with Dionne’s arrangement of 250 photos, the resulting work shows what it was like to be a mermaid at Weeki Wachee in its heyday. Weeki Wachee, City of Mermaids also explores the enduring appeal of the attraction. Once people get past Weeki Wachee’s once crumbling, recently restored exterior, they continue to be just as genuinely awed by the mermaids as Elvis was.
Reader Reviews
American ingenuity can change a place of natural beauty into a roadside attraction, like Mount Rushmore. Florida didn't have mountains to carve, but it had alligators to put on farms for tourists to see, or Cyprus Gardens for those who want to watch acrobatic waterskiing, or various monkey or ostrich farms. It also had beautiful springs of water so clear it was almost invisible. You could get perfect views of turtles swimming below, or fossils of mastodon teeth on the bottom, but for entrepreneurs, that was not enough. And so, the clear springs near the west coast of Florida became infested with mermaids. In _Weeki Wachee, City of Mermaids: A History of One of Florida's Oldest Roadside Attractions_ (University Press of Florida), Lu Vickers has lovingly told the story of a longstanding example of tourist kitsch, accompanied by the photographs compiled by Sara Dionne, who also did research for the book. There are hundreds of photographs here in a lush-looking volume, stills from movies made at the springs, and reproductions of advertisements and brochures. The authors have looked at a wacky place seriously, and told the story of the mermaids with affection and with a larger view to the history and devotion to travel entertainment of the region. The natural beauty of the springs was appreciated by the ancient Timucua Indians, and by visitors like John Audubon, but commercialism started when the St. Petersburg Springs Corporation bought the land. Newt "The Human Fish" Perry, was the attraction's guiding entrepreneur for decades, putting in an underwater theater, a submerged boxcar-looking room with seats in it and the windows giving a view into the waters. They could see fish, and turtles, but Perry knew they needed entertainment. Somehow, everyday activities became imbued with magic when they were performed underwater. People were amazed to see the swimmers simply eat and drink within the depths. There were an underwater brass band, underwater track meets, an underwater wedding, an underwater fashion show, an underwater beauty contest, and lots of other stunts. The water was so clear that some observers of films of the shows thought that the performers were simply held aloft on wires; bringing fish in didn't work, since the fish would go hide, so bubbles had to be prominent in the pictures. There were landlubber stars who made their mark at Weeki Wachee. _Tarzan_ with Johnny Weissmuller was filmed in part there. So was _Creature from the Black Lagoon_, taking advantage of local talent and clear waters. Bob Hope, Howard Hughes, and Esther Williams (naturally) all showed up to see the show. So did Elvis, who saw a special show featuring a mermaid holding a placard that read "Elvis Presley's Underwater Fan Club." Introduced to the mermaids afterwards, he was awed by being with the swimmers; he held the hand of one of them, who said afterwards, "I thought he was going to rub my knuckle off, he was so nervous." Times change, and so do fashions, and so do attention spans. The springs have had ecological difficulties. The shows started before a lot of the Florida development boom, before the lawns and fertilizers, which have made algae bloom, making the water murky at times, and leaving a brown scum on the sands of the bottom. Draining a lake nearby caused silty water to enter the springs, clouding them. The resourceful mermaids dreamed up a new show, _The London Fog Mystery with Sherlock Holmes_ and performed close to the glass, until the waters cleared again. The biggest obstacle for the springs has been Disneyworld, whose powerful draw has shut down plenty of other small Florida attractions. Weeki Wachee has barely gotten by at times. It has added and subtracted different attractions, like alligators and birds of prey, and even in 2003 was going to retire the mermaids, who were only putting on irregular shows anyway. That resulted in the successful "Save Our Tails" campaign. Vice President Dick Cheney made a campaign visit there in 2000, and in 2005 the attraction showed up on a list of potential terror targets. There are more important institutions, and more important histories, but the mermaids have provided lots of goofy, touristy fun for decades, and for all its footnotes and references, _Weeki Wachee: City of Mermaids_ delivers curiously oddball entertainment, too.
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Weeki Wachee, City of Mermaids: A History of One of Florida's Oldest Roadside Attractions (Florida History and Culture)...
Available from Amazon
Price: $19.93
Updated on 6-18-2008.
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