Ostrich Farm and The Dixieland Park

Ostrich Farm

Downtown, at perched on the edge of the St. Johns River, in the area now occupied by the Crowne Plaza Hotel and Treaty Oak Park, was Dixieland Amusement Park and Ostrich Farm, which opened in 1907.

From the Collection of Larry Bryant, early 1900s postcards of the Ostrich Farm in Jacksonville, Florida

Margaret Tullman 1906 Charles Parker B1906 Marry Armstrong 1906 Telfair Stockton 1907

NewPort , Rhode Island Hendersonville, North Carolina

Effie Lake 1909 Jane Kern 1909 1909 W. Howard Coffey1911 Nina Eaton Weldin 1911

Nantucket Massachusetts Romney, West Virginia Little Falls, New York Pittsburg, Pennsylvania

Ella Kline 1912

Reading, Pennsylvania Warren, Ohio

Billed as the “Coney Island of the South,” Dixieland featured amusements not seen anywhere else in the region and drew thousands of visitors daily. Favorite features were the 160-foot wooden roller coaster, hot air balloon rides, parachute jumps, a toboggan and the Flying Jenny, a large merry-go-round that boasted 56 brilliantly painted wooden animals. Spectacular shows included lion wrestling, comedy acrobatic and high-wire performances, vaudeville acts, alligator, dog and pony shows and ostrich races. Famous bandleader John Phillips Sousa entertained crowds and silent filmmakers shot many of their movies at Dixieland, including jungle pictures which added elephants, tigers, camels and horses to the menagerie of animals. Thousands of sports fans turned out to watch Babe Ruth play an exhibition baseball game. And park goers sunned on

Dixieland’s bathing beaches and cooled off in its swimming pools – all for a 10-cent admission fee, affordable even for the day.Dixieland land closed in 1916. Much of its collection of exotic animals found a new home at the Jacksonville Zoo, which opened in the Springfield neighborhood in 1914. Today, nothing of Dixieland remains, save for one beautiful remnant – a massive 70-foot tall, 25-foot wide Live Oak tree dubbed “Treaty Oak.”

The Dixieland Park

Alma Privatt 1907 N.B. Ward

Seville, Florida Charleston, West Virginia