Souvenir Felt Pennant, Silver Springs. As football became a popular college sport during the early 1900s the production of felt pennants soared. Early pennants featured a school or team name and were popular with college students (likely displayed on the walls of dorms across the country). Several decades later the fad caught on with tourist destinations and most customers were kids wanting a memento of their summer trip. Carl Ray and “Shorty” Davidson who managed Silver Springs from 1924 to 1962 aggressively promoted the attraction with an ad campaign designed to make the park known across the country. Countless Silver Springs pennants went home with visitors from near and far. It was not to last. Starting in the 1970s, the arrival of new attractions like Disney, Sea World and Universal Studies in Orlando, slowly led to fewer tourists visiting Silver Springs (SRM2009-2-426).
