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.

"Dixie Jungle" was actually south of Savannah, Ga. Had animals and alligators. "Reptileland" was in Florida.

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?).