Jungle Island, Monkey Jungle and a Coral Castle in Miami
Posted by admin - Categorized under: TravelIf you’re a fan of the unique and unusual, if you would prefer to stay in a boutique Miami hotel , rather than a standard issue motel chain, then Florida may be the state in which you want to spend your next vacation. Not because of Sea World or Disneyland or any traditional theme parks, but for the more creative places to see, such as the World’s Smallest Police Station in Carrabelle or the Southernmost Purple Martin House in the Continental USA in Florida City. For instance, in addition to an Iwo Jima statue in Cape Coral, there’s a Barefoot Mailman Statue in Hillsboro Beach. In Miami, you’ll find three places of particular note: Jungle Island, Monkey Jungle, and the Coral Castle Museum.
Jungle Island was originally named Miami’s Parrot Jungle, and was created by a man named Franz Scheer who came to America from Austria in 1911. Twenty-five years later, he began what is now known as Jungle Island, building an attraction where birds would fly free, after working in construction and a feed and supply store in Homestead, Florida. His family thought he would fail, because surely the bird would fly away, but Franz had faith and the 25 Macaws remained, adapting to their new home, and the attraction was born when about a hundred visitors paid 25 cents admission in 1936 to hear Franz talk about the birds, trees, and flowers.
Monkey Jungle was created by Joseph DuMond, an animal behaviorist, whose dream, believe it or not, was to establish the first colony of free-ranging monkeys in North America. He released six monkeys into a dense south Florida hammock in 1933. That began the start of a 30 acre reserve with about 4,000 primates, with Java monkeys foraging through the jungle for natural foods. Java monkeys, apparently, even skin dive, collecting crabs and shellfish in the rivers and swamps.
Edward Leedskalnin, born in Latvia in 1887, had another kind of dream entirely. His remarkable accomplishment was constructed from a broken heart. He had arranged to marry Agnes Scuffs when he was 26 years old. The girl, ten years younger, canceled the wedding one day before the ceremony. It caused Edward to create one of the strangest and mysterious monuments to lost love, the Coral Castle.
The Coral Castle was built without any assistance or large machinery, and consists of 1,100 tons of coral rock, carved and sculpted. He had worked in lumber camps and was from a family of stonemasons, and it was with this knowledge that he built the castle, despite the fact he weighed a hundred pounds and was five feet tall.
Any one of these destinations would make for an intriguing day out, as you experience for a few hours in Florida the achievement of three different dreamers.
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- Days with the Marco Island Nature
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- Alternate Things to Do in Ibiza
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