Remembering Paradise Park: Tourism and Segregation at Silver Springs

Paradise Park was the
colored only
counterpart to Silver Springs, a central Florida tourist attraction famous for its crystal-clear water and glass bottom boats. From 1949 to 1969, boats passed each other on the Silver River - blacks on one side, whites on the other. Though the patrons of both parks shared the same river, they never crossed the invisible line in the water.

Full of vivid photographs, vintage advertisements, and interviews with employees and patrons, Remembering Paradise Park portrays a place of delight and leisure during the painful era of Jim Crow. Racial violence was at its height in Florida - the famous Groveland rape case happened right as Paradise Park opened - and many African Americans saw the park as a safe place for families. It was a popular vacation spot for the area’s strong black community, which outnumbered the white community as early as the Civil War and had become one of the most cohesive and prosperous black populations in the South.

This book compares the park to other tourist destinations set aside for African Americans in the state and across the country. Though Silver Springs was Florida’s only attraction to operate a parallel facility for African Americans, Paradise Park has been just a whisper in the story of Florida tourism until now.