Silver Springs State Park in Marion County, Florida

Photograph: Silver Springs State Park, kayakers in Silver Springs.jpg by Mjrmtg · CC0 · Restored from the credited Wikimedia Commons file, normalized to the consistent attraction-card frame and converted to WebP by 1stFlorida.com. Portrait originals retain their complete composition over a softly blurred extension of the same photograph.

Marion County attraction

Silver Springs State Park

Marion County · Central Florida

About five thousand acres around a first-magnitude spring system discharging over five hundred and fifty million gallons a day, east of Ocala.

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ABOUT THIS PLACE

Glass bottom boats have run on this water since the 1870s, which makes them the oldest continuously operating attraction of their kind in the state, and they still leave from the head spring. Silver Springs was the first major tourist draw in Florida, decades ahead of anything in Orlando, and film crews used it heavily: early Tarzan pictures were shot here and the television series Sea Hunt was made here between 1958 and 1961. The rhesus macaques living along the river are not left over from Tarzan, whatever the story says. A boat operator released a colony in 1938 to improve his jungle cruise, they swam, and their descendants are still in the trees. The Silver River runs four and a half miles east from the spring to the Ocklawaha. On October 1, 2013, the state took over the head spring area and merged it with the existing Silver River State Park. There are ten cabins, a fifty-nine site campground, fifteen miles of trail and kayak launches. Gates open at eight and close at sundown

GETTING THERE

Get Directions ↗Official place website ↗

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