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Don Boyd | all galleries >> Memories of Old Hialeah, Old Miami and Old South Florida Photo Galleries - largest non-Facebook collection on the internet >> Miami Area Tourist and Local ATTRACTIONS Historical Photos Gallery - All Years - click on image to view >> 1930's - 1951: Lost Lake Caverns and Tropical Aboretum, Rock Garden, Glass Bottom Boats and Wild Duck Show > 1954 - Lost Lake Caves dynamited by the cops because of juveniles hanging out there
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11-APR-1954 Miami News Archives

1954 - Lost Lake Caves dynamited by the cops because of juveniles hanging out there

SW 73rd Avenue and 43rd Street, Miami, Florida


The former tourist attraction was abandoned after the large gift shop burned down in 1951 and juvenile gangs and homeless people took over the caves and caverns. The county police were fed up with the crimes and had the caves dynamited to eliminate the problem.


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Larry Gladsden 26-Jul-2011 03:21
My folks moved into a new home at 82nd and 44 st in 1953. I was one year old in 1954 and I remember the blasts (lol, not really, not consciously anyway, though I imagine it must have startled me). My dad was a doctor, and it was going to take Southern Bell six months to install a new phone line (remember, it was a monopoly). My dad needed the use of a phone as a physician, so they agreed to install a pay phone on the corner - ours was the corner house. On evening my dad comes home, cop cars all over. Seems an unprincipled tout was watching the races with binoculars and using the new pay-phone to place bets with a bookie before the results were public.
Aardvark 15-Jul-2011 15:20
I remember the "caves" from the early 1950's. All that was left of the old tourist attraction was a series of passages, which were obviously machine dug, containing small alcoves with steel barred doors created to house the animals on display.
The roof of the passages had obviously been replaced with rock studded concrete after the trenches were dug to simulate a natural cavern. Interestingly, the air vent shafts, built of oolite rock, were capped with old wire spoke auto wheels as a grating.
No evidence of any natural caverns existed at this time.

Actually, some of the roofs of the tunnels were beginning to collapse at this time
(1950-1952) and our intrepid band of explorers stopped frequenting the "caves" out of concern for our safety. There were no ilicit activites going on at the time but we did not want to get "squashed".