Eerie Florida by Mark Muncy & Kari Schultz

Author:Mark Muncy & Kari Schultz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2017-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

MERMAIDS

Weeki Wachee

There is a town on the Gulf coast of Florida just an hour north of Tampa. The town is as quirky as its name, Weeki Wachee. The city has a population of around two dozen people. The current mayor is proud to state that she is a former mermaid from Weeki Wachee Springs, one of the oldest roadside attractions in Florida.

Weeki Wachee was named by the native Seminole Indians, calling it the equivalent of “Little River Spring.” The spring here bubbles up over one hundred million gallons of fresh water from subterranean caves that have only recently been attempted to be mapped. No one has ever found how deep they truly go, but in 2007, the Karst Underwater Research Team was able to send divers down as the springs had dropped their output sufficiently to map the caves some. They found over two miles of caves in an average depth of over 250 feet with lukewarm water averaging around seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit. The maximum depth they could map was over four hundred fathoms. This makes Weeki Wachee the deepest naturally formed springs in the United States of America.

In 1946, a former World War II SEAL named Newton Perry was looking for a new site to start a potential business. He found the town of Weeki Wachee on then fledgling two-lane road U.S. 19 just north of Tampa Bay. The springs here were filled with refuse, including old automobiles and refrigerators. He began the process of cleaning them out and developed a method of pumping oxygen in a hose into the spring to allow for breathing under water without the need for a diving tank or external gear. Suddenly, he realized it could look like people were thriving under water in these clear springs where you could see for hundreds of feet. He began to build a theater six feet under water and then began to seek out beautiful young women whom he could train to be his mermaids.

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