Kissimmee follow-up

This weekend I returned to the site of some older posts to see what had changed since my initial observations. First I went to the site of the shuffleboard courts of the Kissimmee All State Tourist Club in downtown Kissimmee. The courts were long gone and a new picnic pavilion is almost completed in its place. Part of a larger plan for a new lakeside park, the shuffleboard complex was booted after decades of good times next to the Monument of States. I was surprised to see the area still closed off about a year and a half after my previous visit, with very little lake access remaining for the public. I'm not sure what happened to the members of the KAST club, but it seems like a rather disappointing situation as the park seems stuck in limbo.

In some cases, the neglect of the lakefront park has yielded beautiful results

Next I drove down 192, the tourist corridor leading to Disney. On my previous visit it was easy to see the effects of the recession and Disney's strategy to keep all of their guests on Disney property in Disney hotels. Boarded up businesses were frequent, ugly scars on this busy Osceola County roadway. This weekend I found even more businesses had fallen by the wayside and was surprised that some that some of them appeared to very recently built. In fact, a year and a half ago I noted a brand new A&W Drive-In across from the former location of Xanadu House of the Future. It appears that the Drive-In was one of the victims of the 192 recession and it too now sits vacant.

I found it fascinating that in some places the natural landscape was consuming man made structures. I pulled over at a closed miniature golf course and found it so overgrown that no part of the course was visible from the road. Next door, the Viking Motel, appearing freshly painted, sat empty as its swimming pool area flooded and and the roadside signage disintegrated. While I feel empathy for the business owners and the their former employees, it is kind of nice to see nature making her own land grab, even if it is only temporary.

This is actually the walkway to the pool area

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This sign on U.S. 441, sits in front of an overgrown empty lot, pointing at nothing but sky.

In the grand roadside tradition: big stuff in Kissimmee

Merchants along the highway discovered a long time ago that one way to get speeding motorists to stop was to erect something large, bright and eye-catching in front of their businesses. Immediately coming to mind are the roadside icons along Route 66 like the recently restored Twin Arrows in Arizona. That tradition continues along US 192 in Kissimmee with several eye-catching roadside icons.


The Paradise Inn in Kissimmee is a family owned and operated hotel offering comfortable hospitality at a price you can afford and giant red, white and blue roadside missiles. The missiles, (or maybe they're external fuel tanks from airplanes), lead your eye to the sign and I have to wonder what missiles have to do with paradise?


Further up 192 a giant Shell World sign, at least 60 feet high, frames an enormous conch shell. While not as large as the shell at the Shell Factory near Ft. Myers, it appears to be in much better shape. And once you pull in the parking lot the real eye candy is apparent. First, there's an old VW bug entirely encrusted with shells. While in need of some repairs, it exhibits the same kind of creative entrepenurialistic folk artisanship that has created so many of our country's roadside treasures. Closer to the entrance is an entire golf cart encased in shells, including the golf bag and clubs. Tacki-licious! Because I was there before it opened, I couldn't go inside and I missed out on 12,000 square feet of "the most whimsical seashell creatures" from the sea. Apparently they also have a Seashell Museum, which I will have to experience on another visit.

Continuing up the road one cannot miss another gift shop with a giant wizard on top of the facade. This gift shop was open and it has the usual Florida tourist trinkets that can be found throughout the state, so if you need to get your fix of beach towels and tee shirts made in China, this place is an option.


A gift shop further up the road is a gift shop selling slightly more unique items. Orange World is a roadside icon difficult to miss; it is the world's largest orange (according to the owners.) At 92' wide, 60' high, 35,000 lbs, this family-owned gift shop has been pulling them in for more than 40 years. It is one of the finest examples of mimetic architecture in the state.

At the entrance you are offered free samples of fresh Florida citrus and encouraged to take some home at a reasonable price. Inside, amid some of the usual tourist stuff, are several rows of items unique to Central Florida including the candies and preserves of Davidson of Dundee. In addition to shipping citrus, the Davidson folks manufacture all natural citrus candies, coconut patties, citrus marmalades, citrus jellies butters and orange blossom honeys. Craving Tangelo butter? They have it! The 32-year old business located in nearby Polk County, offers free tours, with lots of free samples, so expect another post on the subject in the future.

Lost Attractions: Jungleland Zoo

Just down the road from Xanadu sits a giant alligator in the middle of a motel parking lot, marking the site of the former roadside attraction called Jungleland Zoo. It hasn't been closed very long; it's not on the Lost Parks website, and some websites still show it open. According to Roadside America, it was originally called Alligator Safari Zoo.

As Jungleland Zoo, the attraction had a history of issues with the state for taking proper care of their animals, in fact in 1997 the attraction made headlines when one of its lions briefly escaped. It appears they closed their doors for good in 2002. So now the giant alligator, second in size only to Swampy the Giant in Christmas, Florida, sits in a pond of cement between a motel and Mexican restaurant, a giant symbol of another one of Florida's lost attractions.

The remnants of these former "tourist traps" are inspiration for me to visit the out-of-the-way, slightly cheesy attractions throughout the state. Once plentiful, they may all become history in the not too distant future, and that chapter of Florida's colorful cultural history may close forever...

This image, taken in the pre-digital age, shows elephants and gorillas at the base of the alligator.

Note the cement critters are now gone.

Former entrance to Jungleland Zoo

This is my TtV (Through the Viewfinder) image of the gator. It was created by shooting the image on the viewfinder of my old Argus camera.

Lost Attractions: Xanadu Home of the Future

The list of roadside attractions that have lived and died in Florida is a long one; and in the current economic crisis it will be interesting to see if some of the small mom and pop attractions can survive. Cypress Gardens, whose Dick Pope, Jr. wrote the book on attraction promotion, closed last week. Also recently making the news is the story that the building formerly housing Dolly Parton's closed Orlando attraction, Dixie Stampede, is now being utilized as a flea market and home of the world's largest pizza parlor.

Yesterday I drove down 192 in Kissimmee, the road that leads right to Disney. It's not a pretty road, as it exemplifies the rapid, unplanned development that came to Central Florida as entrepreneurs tried to cash in on the boom that occurred when Disney came to town. Cheap motels, gift shops, strip malls and minor attractions like Old Town, Medieval Times, Water Mania and Arabian Nights, line both sides of the roadway. I noticed that the further one got from Disney, the more likely businesses were to be closed or to be transitioning to new ownership.

I was surprised to find remnants of one roadside attraction that was torn down 6 years ago; Xanadu Home of the Future. The strange, organic structure that used to be a roadside attraction on 192 was one of 3; the other 2 were in Gatlinburg, TN and the Wisconsin Dells. The house in Kissimmee was the work of Roy Mason, the founding member of something called the World Future Society. The 6,000 sq. ft house opened in 1983, a year after the opening of EPCOT. According to the wikipedia post, the intent of the house was to change the way people viewed houses their homes so that they saw them as more organic, intelligent spaces. The round polyurethane walls were about 6 inches thick. I remember seeing it and thinking it looked like a big blob of shaving cream next to the side of the road. There is a great account on Roadside America of what it was like to visit.

Images from the State Archives of Florida

Today the electronic sign is all that remains of the futuristic attraction. The footprint of the building is completely grown over and the Key Motel next door looks to be valiantly trying to avoid the same ending as its neighbor. Ironically enough, directly across the street from where the home of the future once stood is a brand new A&W Root Beer Drive-In, an iconic homage to the past.