Waldo Sexton, co-founder of McKee’s Jungle Garden, frolics with monkeys collected from Africa. Animals were incorporated into the nursery-turned-jungle landscape to provide tourists with an exciting jungle adventure. Arthur G. McKee, a Vero Beach businessman, organized the tourist attraction with Sexton in the late 1920s, where they went to work stocking the 80 acre area with over 2,500 varieties of rare plants and flowers. Tourist’s appeal foundered when World War II began; the U.S. Navy elected to train pilots in the art of jungle survival in the area during the lull. Visitors never returned in force, however, and the garden was closed in 1976. After being listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998, a portion of the garden was saved and opened as the McKee Botanical Garden in 2001.
Visit McKee Botanical Garden.
Visit McKee Botanical Garden.
