Destin, Florida: Museum of the Sea and Indian (Gone)

Visited this place once in the early 1980s. It was the perfect old Florida roadside attraction: home-made displays (with a lot of fairly well-researched information, actually); a live alligator in a very tiny pen; and a gift shop selling kitschy shell tchotchkes that are darned near impossible to find nowadays. Sorry to hear it's gone.

The Museum of the Sea and Indian is no longer here. It was destroyed in Hurricane Opal in 1995. I live here, so remember most of what was in it disappeared in the storm.

I have made several rewarding trips to Museum of the Sea and Indian on Hwy. 98 in Destin. I can't verify that it's still there, because my last visit was in 1992.

MOSI contained numerous Indian artifacts from various tribes, and also a lot of shells, embalmed sea creatures, and assorted oddities. Dazed visitors could roam the un-air-conditioned sheds, carrying a tape player that played warbly narration, and peer through the filmy glass at dusty displays labeled with crude typed labels.

Out back there was a "haunted house" -- a small, rotting wooden structure with uneven floor. A few placards with holes for faces and painted with Indian headdresses gave visitors fun, goofy photo ops.

After the attractions were thoroughly explored, the gift shop gave souvenir hunters a chance to buy cheap cowrie shells, sharks' teeth, dried sea urchins, rubber-headed tom-toms, cheesy toy tomahawks, leather sandals, pencilcase kits, peace pipes, faded post cards, etc.

I went there three or four times with my son and nieces, and each visit was marvelous.

Museum of the Sea & Indian: This is a place I visited in 1993, and is located a little east of Destin, Florida. It has been there for many years, and was for sale by its tired-looking owner at that time. Some features: Many dusty dioramas with mounted animals, free-roaming flocks of peafowl ( most of the displays are open to the outdoors), a pitch-dark dilapidated maze of undetermined purpose, Indian artifacts of all kinds, a tumble-down zoo with enough empty cages to make you vaguely apprehensive, and a huge, ill-tempered alligator in a much-too-small concrete pool. All of these things are wonderful in a way that only those who grew up in the Fifties can understand -- simple, low-tech, and real. I hope that a buyer was found who appreciated and preserved this little shrine.