Today I visited the oldest wax museum in America, tucked inside one of the most historic buildings in St. Augustine—the Old Drugstore, a two-story wood-frame structure built in 1886.
Before it became a wax museum in 1949, this building served as the Speissegger Drugstore, a place where generations of local schoolchildren came after class to buy penny candy. But its history goes back even further. This site once marked the fortified lines of colonial St. Augustine, later becoming a Tolomato Indian mission village, then a Catholic cemetery.
Now it’s home to Potter’s Wax Museum, where history, art, and legend all blur together. Each wax figure is handcrafted on site and can take nearly a year to complete. The museum features icons like Ponce de León, Pedro Menendez de Avila, Walt Disney, Henry Flagler, and Ernest Hemingway alongside more unexpected faces: the Creature from the Black Lagoon (Florida’s unofficial monster mascot), villains like James Oglethorpe, and eerie tableaus drawn from St. Augustine’s blood-soaked past.
But for me, the crown jewel was Osceola. It’s not every day you come face to face with your hero!
The figure is stunning, hauntingly lifelike, with features that match his portraits and death mask. Even his subtle, defiant half-smile is captured perfectly. As a work of art and remembrance, it’s lovingly detailed and moving.
If you’re a Florida history lover like I am, this little gem is worth the stop. Hidden inside one of the oldest buildings in the oldest city, it reminds you that the past is never far away.
Leave a Reply