Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum - St. Augustine, FL
N 29° 53.961 W 081° 18.820
17R E 469716 N 3307673
The original Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum is located in St. Augustine, Florida. It was likely a popular attraction for OST travelers during the last 10 years of the OST's heyday, and a hotel stop for them prior to 1950.
Waymark Code: WMR3FE
Location: Florida, United States
Date Posted: 05/07/2016
Views: 7
"Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum offers fun for all ages. Experience the thrill of adventure while you explore more than 800 exhibits. You'll laugh one moment and gasp the next! You will be amazed and wonder why...is it real or is it a fake? See the unusual, the unorthodox, and the exotic, collected from the far corners of the world. Join us for a journey from the past to the present...or is it the future?
Seeing is Believing! In the first half of the 20th Century, Robert Ripley was one of the most famous people in the world. His Believe it or Not! cartoon featured tales that were too incredible to believe, but he claimed they were all true.
Ripley's notoriety was so widespread that his fame has carried into the 21st Century, more than 50 years after his death. The St. Augustine Ripley's is located in Castle Warden, an historic Moorish Revival style mansion built in 1887. Built as a winter home for Millionaire William Warden, Castle Warden later served as a fashionable hotel owned by Norton Baskin and his wife, Pulitzer prize-winning novelist, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of The Yearling, Cross Creek and South Moon Under.
While a hotel, Robert Ripley was a frequent visitor to the hotel and had commented on numerous occasions that Castle Warden would be an ideal location to showcase his collection of unbelievable curiosities.
Mr. Ripley attempted to purchase the building several times, but was not successful in his lifetime. After his death in 1949, his heirs managed the purchase of the building and in December of 1950, the museum opened."
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