Weeki Wachee Springs: the mermaid show has been running since 1947

There is a theater built into the side of a spring on Cortez Boulevard where the audience sits below the waterline and watches performers breathe from air hoses while they do a show. It opened in 1947. It is still running. Almost nothing else from that era of Florida roadside attractions survived, and the ones that did mostly became something else.

The spring itself

Weeki Wachee is a first magnitude spring, meaning it discharges an enormous volume of water every day, and it holds close to 74 degrees year round regardless of the season. The cave system feeding it is one of the deepest known freshwater cave systems in the United States, and divers exploring it have repeatedly pushed further without reaching a definitive end.

That constant temperature is the practical fact worth knowing. In August, 74 degrees is a relief. In January, when the air is colder than the water, it is the reason manatees move up into the river.

It is a state park now

Weeki Wachee became a Florida State Park in 2008, which is why the attraction and the natural spring are managed together rather than in tension. The site also includes Buccaneer Bay, a small waterpark fed by the spring, and a riverboat ride.

The mermaids are real performers

The underwater performers train for the job. Breathing from a free flowing air hose while holding position against a current is a skill, and the smiling is the hard part. Former performers have kept an alumni association going for decades, and reunion shows bring back women who first performed in the 1950s and 1960s.

It is easy to be cynical about a mermaid show. It is harder once you are sitting in the theater watching someone hold a note of stillness in moving water.

Cover photo: Leonard J. DeFrancisci / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0). Source.