St. Augustine Alligator Farm
St. Augustine, Florida
St. Augustine Alligator Farm began in the 1880s, by accident, with a few gators set out to lure tourists to an attraction named the Burning Springs Museum. "The owners," reads a historical marker outside the Farm, "soon discovered the public's fascination with the reptiles." The Springs were eventually closed (they were fake anyway) and the attraction opened under its current name in 1893.
St. Augustine Alligator Farm was the first to learn the simple trick of throwing 20 or 30 gators into a pit together, increasing the odds that at least one of the notoriously lethargic animals would be moving for the customers. Feeding shows were added; a zip line over the gators was introduced in 2011.
But St. Augustine Alligator Farm prides itself in not going too far. It has no gator wrestling, no gator-jumping feeding shows. Perhaps this lack of activity was what allowed Gomek, the Farm's largest crocodile, to grow to 18 feet and almost 2,000 pounds. When he died in 1997, he was stuffed and is now part of the Farm's permanent "Gomek Forever" exhibit. The reigning champ, Maximo, is over 15 feet long.