Weeki Wachee: Recalling the city of mermaids

In the late ‘40s, long before the Magic Kingdom, stunt swimmer and attraction promoter Newt Perry spearheaded the development of one of Florida’s oldest and most beloved roadside attractions: Weeki Wachee Springs, the city of mermaids.

Take a trip to the park with award-winning author and historian Dr. Lucinda Vickers at 7 p.m., Tuesday, June 6 in Rose History Auditorium.

Dr. Vickers’s lecture, complete with vintage photos and videos from Weeki Wachee’s past, is sure to spark your imagination, if only for an evening.

Located about 45 miles north of Tampa, Weeki Wachee started out as a swimming hole, a natural spring 117 feet deep that feeds the seven-mile-long Weeki Wachee River. Perry built a theater into the spring’s bedrock with viewing windows below the surface of the water and submerged a system of air hoses and airlocks so that mermaids, highly trained swimmers and divers, could perform 20 feet down without surfacing for air.

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