Swampy's Florida

Tommy Bartlett’s Deer Ranch was a fixture next to Silver Springs from the early 1960’s to the early 1970’s. The focus was deer and, of all things, Santa Claus. A tourist could feed deer and visit the South Pole at the same time. A dispute developed between Bartlett and ABC/Paramount, who had purchased Silver Springs in 1963. ABC wanted Bartlett out and sued him to get him gone (Wonder if it had to do with Bartlett’s connection with CBS?). In 1965 the suit ended with Bartlett and manager of the Deer Ranch packing and moving on to continue to run Bartlett’s water ski show in his native Wisconsin.