Welcome to the Farewell to Finder’s Fest geo-art, brought to you by the Forest Minions! This series celebrates weird and unusual things throughout the Sunshine State. Please do not go to the posted locations. Rather, solve the challenging quiz found at the bottom of each page, for the final location. For the letterbox caches, please leave the stamp in the cache. They are not trade items. For the discerning traveler, we’ve included the GPS coordinates for these bizarre locations, when we were able to establish them.
Opa-locka Baghdad - Location 25.9059, -80.2533
Developer Glen H. Curtiss, along with his partner James Bright, purchased 220,000 acres of Dade County. Florida was experiencing a boom in new houses back in 1920 when Glen Curtis contracted with architect Bernard Muller to design a town that looked like it was straight-out of “Arabian Nights.” This was the beginning of the city of Opa-locka which Curtis incorporated in 1926 as an “Arabian Fantasy.”
The inspiration for the weird development came from the 1924 film “The Thief of Baghdad” which starred Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. Between 1925 and 1928, Curtis constructed 105 structures, including a train station and city hall, all with spiral staircases, onion-shaped domes, minarets and towers that would have pleased any sheik. The individual homes, each with its own minaret, were 1000 square foot bungalows that sold for about 1300 dollars in 1927. The streets were laid out with Arabian names like Sesame, Shakar, Ali Baba, Cairo, Harem, and Sharazad which was shortened from Schekerezade because no one could pronounce it. When it was finished in 1928, this Baghdad of Dade County boasted the largest collection of Moorish architecture in the United States. The only thing missing were camels and a desert. When Florida governor, John Martin visited in 1927 he was welcomed at the train station by city officials wearing turbans and dressed like sheiks and mounted on white horses.
Here is the super duper, way challenging, really hard trivia question, which, if solved properly, will lead you to the final coordinates:
Question: According to Russian law, where must a homeless person be, after 10 PM?
A: Mordor = N29° 26.833' W81° 46.547'
B: Hogwarts = N29° 26.833' W81° 46.537'
C: At home = N29° 26.833' W81° 46.527'