Weeki Wachee Springs State Park

Hernando County · Gulf Coast

A spring pushing out 117 million gallons a day, and an underwater theater sunk 16 feet into the limestone where mermaids have performed since 1947.

QUESTIONS THAT NAME THIS PLACE

Where Can You Paddleboard in Florida?

ABOUT THIS PLACE

Newton Perry, who had trained Navy frogmen, worked out how to breathe underwater from a free-flowing air hose instead of a tank, and in 1947 he built a theater into the limestone six feet below the surface with eighteen seats in it. The first show ran on October 13 that year. The name comes from the Seminole and means little spring, or winding river. The spring puts out more than 117 million gallons of clear 74-degree water a day from caverns nobody has found the bottom of, and the underground current runs about five miles an hour at 16 to 20 feet down. The Weeki Wachee River carries that water twelve miles to the Gulf. ABC bought the park in 1959 and built the theater in use today, 400 seats and 16 feet below the surface, and staged underwater productions of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz. Through the 1960s as many as half a million people came in a year, Elvis Presley and Esther Williams among them, with 35 mermaids working eight shows a day. Buccaneer Bay, the water park and beach, opened in 1982, and shows by former mermaids began in 1997

GETTING THERE

Get Directions ↗Official place website ↗

MOVING TO HERNANDO COUNTY?Fourteen services. One business each.

Attorneys, movers, insurance, title companies, roofers and nine more — one listed business per service in Hernando County.

See local help in Hernando County →

Keep comparing

Return to the Things to Do choices in Hernando County.

Back to Hernando County