There are so many abandoned places in Florida! This is a list of the top three abandoned places in Florida. Browse through all abandoned places in Florida
Being a Disney fan it is disappointing to write about one of Walt Disney’s popular parts, Discovery Island, which is now an abandoned place. Once a popular attraction of Walt Disney, located in the city of Bay Lake, Florida, today Discovery Island is a private Island. Earlier Disney’s Discovery Island was a famous observatory for exotic birds and animals. It was it peaks when the park was running successfully but due to some unwanted reason, that occurred the park get closed forever.
The Island was earlier known as Raz Island, it was named after the family who used to live there. Later in 1930, they sold the island for $800 to a man named Delmar ”Radio Nick” Nicholson. Succeeding Nicholson change the name of the Island to “Idle Bay Isle”. He lived there for 20 years with his family. In 1965 Disney bought this island and made it a part of the Walt Disney World Record. And in 1974 the island started as Treasure Island on April 8. The name Discovery Island was given when the island was recognized as a zoological park.
The island was the home for the last Dusky Seaside Sparrow bird, which became extinct in July 1987. The main attractions of this park were Parrots Perch, Avian Way, Alligator Pool, Eagle’s Watch, etc. The Discovery Island was also used for filming and shooting, the most remarkable shooting of this island was the climax of Treasure of Matecumbe (1976).
In 1989 Disney was accused of mistreating birds and after an investigation, it was proved that the accusation was true. 16 animals were died due to animal cruelty by the employees of Walt Disney. After these unfortunate incidents happened within a few years the Island was closed in 1999. The Discovery Island was closed almost after 25 years of its opening.
But Disney never confirmed the real reason for closing the park. There was another reason to close this park was its high maintenance cost and poor visitors number. The opening of Disney’s new attraction, Disney’s Animal Kingdom was also a reason to close the park.
After the closing of Discovery Island, the whole place was isolated till today, there’s no sign of development. Due to no maintenance and natural disasters, all the buildings and attractions are got damaged. After seeing today’s condition of the island no one would believe that there’s a famous beautiful park in its early days. But in 2021 Disney get the initiative to turn this island into a replica of the titular island from the video game Myst. So the visitors will come and solve puzzles and also they can explore them.
Planned to be the largest airport in the world, Dade-Collier Airport is situated in the heart of the Florida Everglades, Miami, in Collier County, Florida. This place was completely abandoned from modern civilization. Dade-Collier was operated by the Miami-Dade Aviation Department and owned by Miami-Dade County. It could be the world's largest airport but today it has become nothing more than an airstrip in the middle of nowhere.
Today’s Dade-Collier Airport known as Everglades Jetport or Big Cypress Jetport was started in 1968. It was planned to be five times bigger than the size of New York JFK. It was planned to be the largest airport in the world. It covers 24,960 acres along with six runways and also connected both the Gulf of Mexico and Central Miami.
During the time of this airport’s construction, this place was chosen as a good halt for Boeing 2707, which was an American superjet project. But the construction of this airport was never complete, due to some environmental concerns. Later in the year 1970. The Boeing project was also canceled.
In 1970 it was planned to build a 1000 foot wide road and a rail corridor but there was soon started to arise several natural disasters, and due to this reason the construction of the airport was stopped, only one out of six runways were completed. And after the fall of the project Boeing superjet, this airport was slowly abandoned and later closed.
Despite the Dade-Collier’s abandonment and unfinished structure, it is still used by the local government as a public airport and also for training purposes. This airport is mostly used for Pan Am and Eastern Airlines for training purposes.
Today the airports are used more frequently for training flights and because of their huge space and also rigged with new instrument landing systems. This airport is helpful for pilots for landing with low cloud ceilings and also poor visibility. In the future the authorities try to introduce flight simulators, this could make the training flights low cost. But now the airport is also open for civil aviation.
Dade-Collier airport is also used for High-speed automobiles events as the runways are too long for holding this kind of event. In 2009 oil exploration on this airport site was not pursued due to refusal from the Conservation group.Another event “Miami International Air Show” is also held regularly in Dade-Collier Airport, as suggested by Carlos Gimenez.
Miami Marine Stadium is a historical iconic stadium situated on Virginia Key, Miami, Florida. It is the first marine stadium in Florida. The stadium was built and opened in 1963. The whole construction of the stadium was done by the Millman Construction Company of Miami. And the land where the stadium is now located was donated by one of the rich families of Miami named the Matheson Family
A 28-year-old young man named Hilario Candela designed the structure of this historical Miami Marine Stadium. He was an immigrant from Cuba. This marine stadium cost approximately 2$ million and it covers 240 acres of area.
Dedicated to Ralph Monroe, it was the longest span of cantillate concrete on earth. The stadium consisted of 6,566 seats. There was a mishap that happened on the opening day of the stadium, one of the boat racers named James Tapp was assassinated. Even after that, the event includes many activities like motorboat events and also this function featured many great people like Mith Miller, Sammy Davis, and U.S President Richard Nixon.
From the opening of the marine stadium, it has run almost 30 years smoothly. The stadium was used for many purposes like water sports, concerts, sporting events like boxing, etc. It also hosted many national and international events like Unlimited Hydroplane, inboard, outboard, performance craft as well as special events.
Due to several issues like political pressure, new restrictions, and lack of promoting such events the stadium saw a deterioration in events from the year the 1980s. Later in the year 1987, the stadium saw its last major race of the 20th Annual Hydroplane National Championship. Until the 1990s the stadium was fully contaminated.
Another devastating event that destroyed most of the stadium was 1992's Hurricane Andrew, which struck South Florida. After the storm engineers inspected this iconic stadium and found cracks in the foundation and it needs to be refurbished which cost around 2$ million.
After the Stadium was shut off, it faced environmental damages, as the stadium was situated near the sea it faces several natural catastrophes and that was the main reason for this place's deterioration. Another hazardous thing is this place is mostly covered with extensive graffiti. The stadium was nearly closed for 30 years till now and is deteriorating. The city doesn't take any strong steps for the redevelopment of this old Marine stadium.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation was listed on America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places and as a National Treasure in March 2012. In 2008 a group was formed to restore Miami Marine Stadium and return to its operation.
For the last few years, the old stadium has been used for special events. In 2012 this age-old marine stadium enlisted on the Florida Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, under the chapter of Florida Architecture: 100 years.100 places by the name Ralph Middleton Munroe Miami Marine Stadium.