Marco Polo Boulevard is a road off Interstate 95 that runs between Jacksonville and Daytona. It leads to Plantation Bay, a neat community of country clubs and golf. well-kept lawns. streets that are quiet. The kind of place where nothing out of the ordinary ever seems to occur. The majority of locals are aware that the name has something to do with an old attraction that once stood on this property, but very few are aware of the complete story. This is unfortunate because it’s one of the stranger failures in Florida’s lengthy and sometimes absurd history of unfulfilled dreams.
Located off Exit 278 on I-95, Marco Polo Park was established in the early 1970s on approximately 5,000 acres close to the Flagler-Volusia County boundary. For its time, the idea was truly ambitious—possibly even visionary. The park’s “four worlds”—pavilions that symbolized Turkey, India, China, Japan, and Venice—were created by the park’s designers with the intention of taking guests to the far-off places that the real Marco Polo had traveled through on his fabled voyage east. Throughout the day, there were theatrical productions, decorative gardens, and tiny canals you could float through. It must have felt like something to stand in the middle of the Florida scrub pines, surrounded by Turkish arches and pagodas. It might have seemed like a lot.
Although no one could have predicted how bad things would get, the trouble began almost immediately. When Walt Disney World first opened in Orlando in October 1971, the attraction was strong and instantaneous. Families traveling to Florida were staying at Disney instead of dividing their time between local attractions. In a matter of months, small parks throughout the state, including Marco Polo, started to sense it. The level of attendance decreased. The financial strain gradually increased, as it always does before something goes wrong.
Then 1973 arrived. Road trips were the first casualty of the OPEC oil embargo, which severely affected American families. When gas was rationed and the economy was clearly faltering, no one was crammed into a station wagon for a long drive to a mid-sized theme park in Bunnell. There is a certain depressing irony in the fact that a park designed with long, exciting travel in mind was destroyed, partly due to people’s inability to pay for the trip.
Next were the fires. The Japanese Village area of the park was completely destroyed in February 1975 when two distinct fires started just eight days apart. There was a suspicion of arson. The original Marco Polo idea was essentially completed when the damage was judged to be too costly to fix. The park was bought and reopened as Passport to Fun World, with a 40-horse carousel and an American bandstand taking the place of the Oriental pavilions. This was a short-lived, haphazard rebranding. In 1976, it permanently closed. In 1978, the remaining rides and equipment were put up for auction.
There’s a sense that Marco Polo Park was doomed from about the time it opened when you watch its arc. Conceived in 1967, constructed through the early 1970s, and fully operational just as Disney was engulfing the state, the timing was truly disastrous. There was a recession. Next, fire. Then there was quiet. Pagodas were eventually replaced by a residential golf community after the land was completely redeveloped.
All that remains is a street name. Marco Polo Boulevard. It’s hard to tell if the people who turn onto it every morning consider what it once stood for: the aspiration, the bizarre optimism of creating an Asian-themed wonderland in the Florida pines, and the spectacular and complete collapse of it all. Most likely not. However, the name remains, which is more than most unfulfilled dreams can claim.
