Tarzan at Silver Springs: When Hollywood Found Its Jungle in Florida
Long before theme parks, one of Florida’s biggest stars was a crystal-clear spring that doubled as an African jungle. Starting in the late 1930s, Hollywood discovered that the lush, glassy waters of Silver Springs were the perfect place to film the Tarzan movies, and a legend was born.
Silver Springs, near Ocala, had everything the filmmakers needed. Its water was so astonishingly clear that cameras could capture vivid underwater scenes, and its banks were thick with subtropical greenery that looked convincingly like the jungles of the Tarzan stories. MGM shot Tarzan Finds a Son! here in 1939, with Johnny Weissmuller as the ape man and the springs standing in for Africa. The next one, Tarzan’s Secret Treasure (1941), went to Wakulla Springs near Tallahassee.
The clear water made for unforgettable swimming and diving sequences, and the springs’ famous glass-bottom boats had already made the spot a tourist sensation. Hollywood glamour only added to its fame.
Other movies and television shows filmed here too, cementing Silver Springs as one of Florida’s earliest and most enchanting film locations.
Today Silver Springs is a state park, its water as clear as ever. Glide over it in a glass-bottom boat and it is easy to imagine Tarzan swinging through the trees, in the Florida spring that once played the jungles of the world.
