A Mid-Century Roadside Attraction Restored as a State Park
In the late 1800s, you traveled to Rainbow Springs by steamboat to see the clear water and the surrounding gardens. By the 1930s, it had grown into a full roadside attraction, complete with landscaped gardens, waterfalls, a small zoo, and glass-bottom boats. By the 1970s, the springs had been left behind by changing tourism patterns and closed for nearly two decades. And then in 1990, Florida bought the property and brought it back as a state park. The America250 initiative is a good moment to consider that long arc. At Rainbow Springs, a proud part of the Adventures Unbound family, we operate at a spring that has now had three or four distinct lives, and is still going.
The History
Rainbow Springs State Park is in Marion County, Florida, and protects the fourth-largest freshwater spring in Florida, which feeds the Rainbow River. Archaeological evidence shows that people have lived near Rainbow Springs for over 10,000 years, with Indigenous groups using the spring for fishing, water supply, and settlement. The Seminole knew the area as Wekiwa Creek, sometimes called Blue Run.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Rainbow Springs became a popular tourist destination when visitors arrived by steamboat along the Rainbow River to see the clear water and gardens. During the 1930s, the area was developed into a fully realized roadside attraction, with landscaped gardens, waterfalls, a small zoo, and glass-bottom boat tours that became a regional signature. The attraction remained popular through the 1950s and 1960s, the high era of mid-century Florida tourism, but visitorship declined in the 1970s as Interstate travel pulled tourists toward newer destinations. The park eventually closed as a private attraction, and the gardens went quiet.
In 1990, the State of Florida purchased the property and officially reopened it as Rainbow Springs State Park, preserving the spring ecosystem and the historic garden features that had defined the property’s mid-century identity. Today, visitors can still walk among the same plantings and waterfalls that drew crowds in the 1930s and 1950s, alongside swimming and tubing in spring water that holds steady at 72 degrees year-round. Local historians have documented the property’s transition from roadside attraction back to state park and continue to share photos and memories that capture how much, and how little, has changed.
The Connection
Rainbow Springs sits within the homeland of the Apalachee and Seminole peoples, alongside other Indigenous groups whose 10,000-year presence at the spring is the foundation everything else rests on. The Seminole name for the area, Wekiwa Creek, is a reminder that the long human history of these waters didn’t start with steamboats.
A morning at Rainbow Springs is a chance to feel multiple eras at once. The gardens carry the 1930s, the spring carries the prehistoric, and the modern state park carries the 1990s revival of an attraction that almost slipped away. The tubing is great. The history is better.
For more America250 stories from across our properties, visit Adventures Unbound’s America250 page.
