Florida's Lost Tourist Attractions

Palace Saloon and Theatre

The Palace was the main live performance venue in Six Gun Territory, home to the saloon show that has become the stock in trade of all western theme parks (including Disney's Frontierlands). Pretty saloon girls strutted their stuff in the can-can, while singers, comics, and variety acts rounded out the program with (always) corny jokes and old standard songs. (Note the authentic wild west air conditioning vent in the upper left corner of the back wall.)

The Palace saw other kinds of entertainment, too, along with Six Gun's other theater, The Red Dog Saloon, which operated in busy times. Country music shows were tried, as well as old fashioned melodramas like The Drunkard and True Love Triumphant.

Since Six Gun Territory didn't have many rides, the live entertainment pretty much made the park. Between the gunfights on the street, the indian shows, and the shows in the Palace, that was most of what there was to see here. You certainly didn't come here for the shopping or the food.

Unfortunately, live entertainment can be expensive to produce, and it doesn't scale back easily in the lean times. It costs the same to produce a show for fifty people as for five, but five admissions in a pay one price park just won't meet the bills. When attendance began to lag shows had to be cut back -- meaning there was less to attract more attendance, which led to another round of cutbacks. When the spiral hit bottom, the doors of the Palace swung shut forever.

Back to the map.

On to the Indian Village.

Return To Florida's Lost Tourist Attractions

Postcard image from the author's collection.

Copyright 1997-2006 by Robert H. Brown.