The Miami Serpentarium was an early Florida roadside tourist attraction that operated on this site from 1946 to 1984 and drew as many as 50,000 annual visitors. Founder Bill Haast presented five shows a day in a white lab coat, extracting venom to sell for scientific experiments. Calling himself the "poster boy for the benefits of venom," he briefly operated a bona fide cancer research laboratory on the property and, before the invention of the Salk vaccine, pursued a cobra venom treatment for polio. Having developed immunity from 172 poisonous snakebites, the "snake man" donated blood to many snakebite victims. Haast died at the age of 100 in 2011.