Flamingos at a 1950s Florida Roadside Attraction

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Flamingos at a 1950s Florida Roadside Attraction — Archive & Atlas

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Flamingos at a 1950s Florida Roadside Attraction — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-576A44

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Two pink flamingos stand on manicured lawn in front of what appears to be a small Florida tourist attraction, the kind of modest, hand-painted zoo or wildlife park that dotted the state's highways in the 1950s. Behind them sits a turquoise-and-white building with the cheerful, slightly ramshackle charm of a family-run operation—the sort of place that advertised itself on Burma-Shave signs for fifty miles in either direction. The blue chain-link fence, the portable office shed, and the modest pond suggest this was someone's attempt to capitalize on post-war Americans' newfound appetite for novelty roadside stops, the theory being that a pair of exotic birds could hold a family's attention for an afternoon. The birds themselves, probably imported specifically for this purpose, stand with the patient resignation of animals who had learned that posing for photographs was now their primary job. What the proprietor saw as a thriving business venture, we now see as evidence of a vanished American tourism: the small, proprietor-owned curiosity that survived only as long as the highway traffic remained abundant.

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