{"id":1680,"slug":"paradise-park-silver-river-ocala-florida","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["For twenty years, a beach on the Silver River about a mile downstream from Silver Springs ran as Florida's separate-but-not-equal counterpart: Paradise Park, opened on Emancipation Day, May 20, 1949, for the African American visitors whom whites-only Silver Springs excluded from its famous glass-bottom boats. Silver Springs co-owners Carl Ray and W. M. 'Shorty' Davidson created the park and hired longtime boat captain Eddie Vereen to build and manage it."]},{"heading":"Documented history","paragraphs":["Vereen and his family hand-planted the palms and azaleas, added a soda fountain and café, a jukebox dance pavilion, a gift shop, picnic grounds, and a white-sand beach with lifeguards; glass-bottom boats, a reptile exhibit associated with Ross Allen, and swim lessons came with the arrangement. By 1953 the park drew on the order of 100,000 to 150,000 visitors a year — Ebony called it 'the newest and largest recreational facility for Negroes in the South' — with church buses arriving from as far as New York and California for baptisms, spelling bees, Labor Day beauty pageants, and Christmas boat parades.","Attendance softened in the late 1960s as the parks changed corporate hands, and when Silver Springs desegregated, the reason for Paradise Park disappeared with the barrier. It closed in 1969 and was later demolished; the state now files it as a lost community institution, and no supernatural claim attaches to the record — the dark history here is entirely documented."]}],"name":"Paradise Park (Silver River)","aliases":[],"type":"FORMER_AMUSEMENT_PARK","type_label":"Former Amusement Park","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","DEMOLISHED_SITE"],"groups":["dark-history","ghost-towns"],"desc":"Former Black recreation destination documenting segregation and a lost community landmark.","full_desc":"Paradise Park (Silver River) is a former amusement park in Ocala, Florida. Former Black recreation destination documenting segregation and a lost community landmark. Opened in 1949 on the Silver River for Black visitors excluded by segregation. Managed by Eddie Vereen, it was closed in 1969 and subsequently demolished.","address":null,"city":"Ocala","county":null,"state":"Florida","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":29.17751,"lon":-82.151025,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"DEMOLISHED","access":"UNKNOWN","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":1949,"year_closed":1969,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Documented for segregation and loss of a community institution; no supernatural claim. Exact former attraction boundary and current access need site-specific verification.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":55,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":null,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[],"history":[{"description":"Opened in 1949 on the Silver River for Black visitors excluded by segregation. Managed by Eddie Vereen, it was closed in 1969 and subsequently demolished. A documented history gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that spine. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. The record appears in 'Paradise Park: Ocala'. Documented ground is what separates this file from pure legend — this is part of it.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Paradise Park: Ocala","url":"https://dos.fl.gov/historical/preservation/florida-main-street/ask-the-locals/paradise-park-ocala/","publisher":"Florida Division of Historical Resources","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access details are unverified; research before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Paradise Park: Ocala","url":"https://dos.fl.gov/historical/preservation/florida-main-street/ask-the-locals/paradise-park-ocala/","publisher":"Florida Division of Historical Resources","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":0,"history":1,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":1}}