Richmond Hill, Georgia -
Dixie Jungle - Gone

My aunt and uncle owned Dixie Jungle, located in Richmond Hill, near Savannah. I am from Savannah. As a kid, my family and I often drove to Richmond Hill to visit for the day, but when school was out I got to spend a week or two during summer vacation visiting my cousin. We were in our early teens -- her job was to feed and water the animals and my job was to help as long as I was there, monkeys, snakes, alligators, hyenas, peacocks, you name it.

They even sold baby alligators for pets. My parents would never allow me to have one, no matter how much I begged.

My Aunt sold the place after her husband Barney passed away; she moved back to Savannah. I've been told the Dixie Jungle is no longer there. [Katherine Stewart, 08/21/2010]

"Dixie Jungle" was actually south of Savannah, Ga. Had animals and alligators. "Reptileland" was in Florida. [Conrad Hartz, 09/24/2009]

I'm wondering if anyone might remember a place that was probably somewhere near Jacksonsville, FL, called "Dixie Jungle". It must have been on a main U.S. highway (U.S. 1? U.S. 17?) near Jacksonville. As a boy, around the early to mid-1960's during the summers, I would travel with my father who was an over-the-road truck driver. When in northeast Florida, you would see the large billboards for miles along the highways advertising "Dixie Jungle." Seems like a caricatured monkey hanging from a tree limb was the logo on the billboards for Dixie Jungle. The billboards would also breathlessly announce the number of miles to Dixie Jungle. I would badger my father every mile that we HAD to stop at Dixie Jungle (or else suffer the verbal consequences doled out by a bratty 10-year old confined in the passenger seat of an 18-wheeler), and he would invariably relent. The main attractions, as I recall, was a big concrete pit filled with alligators (alligators in Florida - big surprise, huh?). [Walt Blanton, 03/31/2002]