Savannah, Georgia - Dixie Jungle - Gone

"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]