Florida Scavenger Hunt

Florida has always been a frontier of imagination. Long before theme parks dotted its center and condominiums claimed its coasts, this sun-soaked peninsula was a canvas for explorers, utopians, entrepreneurs, and eccentrics. From the Spanish quests for eternal youth to the steamboat serenades of the Suwannee River, from pioneer cattle trails to pastel-painted Art Deco dreams, Florida’s story has never followed a straight line—but it has always shimmered in the heat.

What unites Florida’s seemingly endless oddities and architectural marvels is a shared sense of possibility. Here, coral castles rise from rock, mermaids perform beneath spring-fed waters, and roadside giants beckon with giant scoops of soft serve. The state’s history is as much about invention as it is about endurance—weathering hurricanes, frosts, and booms both economic and botanical.

This scavenger hunt honors 250 years of that history—through swamps and spaceports, citrus towers and castle walls. It is a tour of invention and reinvention, told in rhymed riddles and whimsical clues, touching every corner of a land both unmistakably American and defiantly Floridian.

 What city hall looks like a set piece from The Thief of Baghdad? Solved. How did Frank Lloyd Wright come to design an entire Florida college campus? Mystery solved. The smallest of America’s 31,322 post offices? Identified. The only Florida building remaining to be a movie studio in the silent film era? Revealed.

On Iron Mountain where breezes blow wide,
Olmsted and Bok set their visions with pride.
A carillon tower to sing to the trees,
Reflections that shimmer in lakeside ease.
Where beauty blooms under Floridian sun,
And birdsong and bells blend sweetly as

On Iron Mountain where breezes blow wide,
Olmsted and Bok set their visions with pride.
A carillon tower to sing to the trees,
Reflections that shimmer in lakeside ease.
Where beauty blooms under Floridian sun,
And birdsong and bells blend sweetly as one.

Where Dodgers once trained on a Navy base lot,
And Rickey brought baseball to Florida hot.
Though Brooklyn is gone, the legend lives on,
Where Jackie’s first game is forever drawn.
From March to mid-April the rookies still roam—
At Dodgertown fields,

Where Dodgers once trained on a Navy base lot,
And Rickey brought baseball to Florida hot.
Though Brooklyn is gone, the legend lives on,
Where Jackie’s first game is forever drawn.
From March to mid-April the rookies still roam—
At Dodgertown fields, where the Dodgers found home.

A salvager built it, but fame had to wait,
Till Hemingway typed there in literary state.
From bullfights to wars, he wrote tales that enthrall,
While polydactyl cats ruled the gardens and hall.
Though Papa moved on, his legend holds fast—
A house ful

A salvager built it, but fame had to wait,
Till Hemingway typed there in literary state.
From bullfights to wars, he wrote tales that enthrall,
While polydactyl cats ruled the gardens and hall.
Though Papa moved on, his legend holds fast—
A house full of stories, bold, brash, and vast.

Geronimo came not by choice to this sand,
A prisoner trapped by a government’s hand.
The fort, once abandoned, now crowded with eyes,
Watched warriors pace ‘neath Florida skies.
Where cannon once guarded the coast from attack,
Now tourists remember w

Geronimo came not by choice to this sand,
A prisoner trapped by a government’s hand.
The fort, once abandoned, now crowded with eyes,
Watched warriors pace ‘neath Florida skies.
Where cannon once guarded the coast from attack,
Now tourists remember who never came back.

With flamingos in flight and the finest of turf,
This racetrack once ruled all the horse-loving earth.
Where dog races ran and jai alai flew,
And Widener’s dreams bloomed in royal-palm hue.
Though thoroughbreds left, the flamingos still preen,
In a t

With flamingos in flight and the finest of turf,
This racetrack once ruled all the horse-loving earth.
Where dog races ran and jai alai flew,
And Widener’s dreams bloomed in royal-palm hue.
Though thoroughbreds left, the flamingos still preen,
In a track turned casino of storied old sheen.

No horse ever started from here on the run,
But motorists sure did when cars met the sun.
A rock marks the dream of a coast-to-coast way,
With “Spanish” in name but new-fangled in play.
It started in St. Aug and rolled out with zeal—
The open-road ro

No horse ever started from here on the run,
But motorists sure did when cars met the sun.
A rock marks the dream of a coast-to-coast way,
With “Spanish” in name but new-fangled in play.
It started in St. Aug and rolled out with zeal—
The open-road romance that felt almost real.