Weeki Wachee: Florida’s Live Mermaid Show Has Been Running Since 1947

In 1947, a former Navy frogman named Newton Perry had an idea that sounds like a fever dream: teach young women to breathe underwater through air hoses and perform synchronized routines in a natural spring. Nearly eight decades later, the mermaids of Weeki Wachee are still at it.

From Navy Frogman to Mermaid Impresario

Newton Perry developed underwater breathing techniques during World War II, training Navy combat swimmers at nearby springs. After the war, he bought a stretch of land along U.S. 19 in Hernando County where a massive freshwater spring pumped 117 million gallons of water daily. He carved out an 18-seat theater in the limestone rock below the waterline, hired local women willing to learn his air hose technique, and opened the attraction on October 13, 1947. The original performers earned $35 a week.

The Golden Age and the Rescue

By the 1960s, Weeki Wachee was one of Florida’s biggest roadside draws, pulling in over a million visitors a year. ABC bought the park and built the current 400-seat underwater theater, sunk 16 feet into the spring. Elvis visited. Don Knotts filmed a movie there. The mermaids appeared on TV variety shows and toured internationally. When theme park giants like Disney and Universal arrived, attendance dropped. The state of Florida stepped in and made Weeki Wachee a state park in 2008. For years it was also the only city in America that doubled as a state park, a town of roughly a dozen residents, until the city voted itself out of existence in 2020.

Plan Your Visit

Weeki Wachee Springs State Park is at 6131 Commercial Way in Spring Hill, about an hour north of Tampa. Mermaid shows run daily, with performances of classics like “The Little Mermaid” and original routines. Between shows, you can swim in the spring, kayak the Weeki Wachee River, or hit Buccaneer Bay, the park’s spring-fed water park. Admission is $13 for adults and $8 for kids 6 to 12. The water holds steady at 74 degrees year-round, so the mermaids never get a snow day.

Official page: Weeki Wachee Springs State Park