Port Orange, Florida: Ruins of Bongoland

The Dunlawton Plantation Sugar Mill Ruins, once a highly functional sugar mill, were built during the uprisings of the Native Americans in the early 19th century. This 17 acre historic site contains the ruins of a the highly functional sugar mill, as well as other buildings. This rare collection also includes the gear mechanisms of the rolling sugar cane press, iron boiling kettles, steam furnace, and pistons. These were used in operating the press employed to process sugar, molasses, and rum. The site was destroyed during the war between the Seminole Indians and the United States. The Sugar Mill Ruins evoke a time long ago when the Seminole Indians fought the settlers, ending the area's molasses and sugar industries. On August 12, 1970, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

We visited Sugar Mills Botanical gardens to see the Bongoland Dinosaurs and were pleasantly surprised to find 5 concrete survivors.

The Dimetrodon is small, maybe only 2 or 3 feet high and 5 or 6 feet long. The T-Rex tall and positioned right across from Stegosaurus. The fact that the trees and plants have grown up around them only makes them better in my opinion. As Florida roadside relics go, this one is first rate.

Visited it many times since my youth. It was created by a local physician, Perry Sperber, MD. Dr. Sperber was ahead of his time in many ways. He was a dermatologist and allergist long before these were recognized medical subspecialties. He was often regarded as a "quack" due to his radical therapies; but in retrospect, he was just ahead of his time. He pioneered "dermabrasion" and other therapies. Sugar Mill Gardens (with its concrete dinosaurs) was a theme park long before Disney defined the theme park. Dr. Sperber (he once addressed himself to me as "your Uncle Perry") was a deacon at the First Baptist Church in Daytona Beach, FL. But he had a wilder side: he wrote a book titled "Sex and the Dinosaur", in which he described life as birth, orgasm, and death! His widow, a prominent socialite, died recently, and they are sorely missed.

I have lived in the neighborhood around Bongoland my whole life. We just call it the Sugar Mill Gardens. There are still concrete dinosaurs, but no Bongo the Baboon. There is free access and is was turned into a garden run on volunteer time and money. It is a nice place to visit and see historical things, but it small and there is only a tour once a month, so I would not go out of my way to go there.

My fiancee and I visited in October 2001, and I can recall only 2 of the concrete creatures - the Triceratops, and the Giant Ground Sloth (which has a stoned-looking grin on it's face.....).

It offered a pleasant afternoon's wandering in the woods, and it had been recommended to us as a botanic garden rather than a faded theme park. Wildlife was abundant, being Florida, frogs everywhere, dragonflies, giant red ants -- not to mention hordes of mosquitoes in the shade, which really gave me a savaging. Now that West Nile Virus is established in this skeeter heaven, I'd recommend visitors here douse themselves liberally in repellent!