When Aquamaids Reigned

Spring Lake has attracted humans for millennia, its plentiful fresh water providing relief for indigenous Clovis people, Spanish explorers, and Texas cattle drovers. But most people wouldn’t know about the San Marcos natural treasure if not for a more recent chapter in the lake’s history, when mermaids, clowns, and a swimming pig named Ralph frolicked there.

Spring Lake transformed during the heyday of Aquarena Springs, an amusement park that operated there from 1950 to 1996. The park’s underwater theater has since been removed, along with the fiberglass volcano that served as a dressing room for performers, the tic-tac-toeplaying chicken, the soaring