A1A Florida state road with national status

 

By Jane Feehan

Officially designated a state road in 1945, A-1-A or Atlantic 1 Alternate extends from Fernandina Beach to Key West, Florida. Numbering of the original roads included in this highway were replaced by the A-1-A designation in 1946. The longest highway it replaced was State Road 140.

Though not a continuous road, A-1-A runs parallel and close to much of state’s Atlantic seaboard, providing one of its most scenic vistas. A portion of it—from Ponte Vedra Beach to Flagler Beach—is among 15 roads in the contiguous 48 states designated by the federal government as a Scenic and Historic Coastal Byway. Florida can boast two such designations with the Big Bend Scenic Highway along the Gulf Coast as the other. State A-1-A includes some of the first paved road along Florida's east coast – Dixie Highway completed in 1915. ( A search on this blog will show a post on this topic) 

The Florida Department of Transportation established the Florida Scenic Highways Program in 1996 to showcase its roads to “enhance the overall travel experience in Florida.” Currently, it lists 27 state-designated scenic highways, six of them federally National Scenic Byways and two—the A-1-A segment mentioned above and the Florida Keys Scenic Highway—designated All-American Roads.

A1A (Atlantic Boulevard) circa 1960
Florida State Archives

State Road A-1-A runs through much of Florida’s east coast barrier islands; many of the bridges it crosses to these islands were built after World War II. This scenic road goes through Palm Beach island offering views of its renowned beachside mansions. It runs for 32 miles in Broward County, miles with unobstructed beach views in Fort Lauderdale. In Miami Beach A-1-A is also Collins Avenue.

 

 Copyright © 2022. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

New York Times, Dec. 14, 1986

Orlando Sentinel, Feb. 20, 2000

Florida Department of Transportation

Scenic and Historic A1A

Florida Scenic Highways

Federal Highway Administration

 

 

Tags: Florida transportation, Florida tourism, Florida roads, Florida history

Florida: a state of superlatives and high hopes in 1921 ... and today?

 

Baggage at Florida East Coast Railway Depot 1921
Florida State Archives

Newspapers played a big part in promoting Florida during the boom days of the early 1920s.  The Miami Metropolis was no exception. In 1921 stories about building and farming splashed across its pages:

• Few realize the extent of Great Reclamation Project at Back Door of Miami

• Vast Area in Everglades Now Being Farmed

• Miami Leads Entire State in Building

Miami 1921
Florida State Archives

Among the stories of the day was a summary of Florida superlatives. Time, no doubt, has altered Florida’s first place status in some. Many of these firsts were in agriculture. Others became realties a few decades later and remain so today.

Florida has first place:

In diversity of food products

In value per acre of farm products

In untilled area that is tillable

In number of growing days

In phosphate mining

In fishing industries

In Fuller’s earth output

In variety of trees
In area of standing timber

In length of coastline

In variety of birds
In winter-grown truck products

In coconuts
In camphor

In variety of hay crops
In sisal

Florida is:

The orchardist’s lotus-land

The trucker’s opportunity
The farmer's three chances a year

The fisherman’s Galilee

The lumberman’s last stand

The beeman's land of milk and honey

The dairyman’s flowing bowl

The filmmaker’s dream

The home seeker’s goal

The citizen’s cornucopia

The manufacturer's future

What's Florida first in today? 

Freedom

Boating from Belle Glade to Fort Lauderdale 1921
Florida State Archives

Source:

Miami Daily Metropolis, Oct, 25, 1921

Tags: Florida history, Florida in the 1920s, Florida boom, Florida boom times, 1920s South Florida , Florida boom, film researcher

Yes, Florida has a history of earthquakes

By Jane Feehan


Though Florida ties North Dakota for fewest earthquakes in the nation, they do occur in the Sunshine State. Also, several significant out-of-state quakes have affected Floridians including a 5.9 intraplate quake in the eastern Gulf of Mexico in 2006.

Florida does not sit within tectonic boundaries. It falls outside the Caribbean tectonic plate. But according to a 2000 news story, University of Florida geologist Doug Smith reported there have been about 500 quakes during the past 200 years in the state.

The first recorded tremor of significance occurred near Pensacola in 1780 but scientists seem to agree that the strongest recorded Florida quake occurred Jan. 12, 1879. Two tremors, 30 seconds each, “possibly centered in the Palatka area” were felt in Cedar Key (where someone shot off a gun after running outside), Gainesville, Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Tallahassee.

The southern boundary of the shaking was Punta Rassa to Daytona Beach; the northern area affected was Tallahassee to Savannah, Ga. The tremor was classified a 6 to 8 (I’m not sure if that was on the Richter magnitude scale or the modified Mercalli scale but they are not far apart and I’m not a scientist).

Palatka
By Arkyan - "My own work, based on
public domain information"*.

Two notable quakes were not centered in but affected Florida:

Jan. 22, 1880 - A Cuba-centered quake sent shockwaves to Key West with an estimated intensity of 8.

Aug. 31, 1886 - One of the nation’s most significant earthquakes rattled a wide swath of the nation from Milwaukee, Chicago, Boston, south to New Orleans and Florida. Known as the Great Charleston Earthquake, it killed up to 60 and caused millions of dollars in damage. Some reports indicate a “tidal wave” generated by this quake hit Florida, pushing water up the St. Johns River. Severe aftershocks were felt in Jacksonville days and months following the August 1886 event. South Carolina sits within the interior of the North American plate, away from any plate boundary. Little is known about the cause of such an intraplate earthquake. (As of this writing, March 2022, a swarm of small quakes have some sitting on edge in South Carolina.)

No quakes above an intensity of 3.0 were recorded from 2010-2015. However, most since then—particularly in 2019—have occurred near the Alabama-Florida border and measured as 3 or lower.

Copyright © 2022 All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

*Based on similar map
concepts by Ixnayonthetimmay, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2687687

Sources:

University Of Florida news - Jan. 11, 2000

University of Florida Digital Collection, History of Florida Geology, Jan. 26, 2019

Tallahassee Democrat, April 5, 1964

Miami Herald, Jan. 24, 1994

South Carolina Emergency Management Division

U.S. Geological Survey

Tags: Florida earthquakes, Florida history

Everglades birds slaughtered for fashion, spur Audubon societies and the conservation movement

Black-crowned night heron 

on Santa Fe Lake Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

By Jane Feehan

In the late 19^th century, the plume trade in the U.S. and Europe grew at the expense of hundreds of thousands of Florida birds. Their feathers, used to adorn women’s hats, were worth about 75 cents apiece in New York. The American egret and the snowy egret were targeted, along with other wading birds, in rookeries (breeding places) just south of Okeechobee in the Everglades. 

Wood Stork

Hunters came into the swampy area and clubbed and scalped birds by night. The young offspring of Everglades birds were orphaned and starved to death or fell prey to other animals. The Florida legislature passed a law prohibiting the slaughter in 1877, but it was ignored. In just four years all rookeries south of Okeechobee were destroyed.

In protest, people against the decimation of birds for their feathers established Audubon societies across the nation in the 1890s, launching what was probably the first modern American conservation movement.

For more on the founding of the Audubon Society see: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-two-women-ended-the-deadly-feather-trade-23187277/


Copyright © 2010, 2021. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:
www.audubonmagazine.org/features0412/hats.html

     Douglas, Marjory Stoneman, The Everglades, River of Grass. Banyan Books,1978.

Wood Storks

Tags: Florida birds, Florida bird slaughter, Florida history, Everglades

How Florida got its name: something to do with a holiday

Most with an acquaintance of the Spanish language know "Florida" translates into English as flowers. But the state was not named for flowers.

In 1513, a few days after Easter Sunday, the Spanish "conquistador" Juan Ponce de Leon  (1474-1521) and his contingent landed in an area assumed to be near present day Cape Canaveral, an area not known for flowers.

Spanish historian Antonio de Herrera Tordesillas (1559-1625) wrote: "And thinking that this land was an island they named it 'La Florida' because they discovered it in the time of the flowery festival." 

That festival is/was known as Pascua Florida or "flowery Easter." And so, Florida was named for when it was discovered, not for flowers that may or may not have been part of that 16th-century vista.

Copyright © All rights reserved. 


Sources:
The Everglades, River of Grass, by Marjory Stoneman Douglas (Banyan Books, 1978)
Also: The Catholic Encyclopedia online at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07296a.htm

Cuba Missile Crisis - JFK response and Florida

 

JFK (right) delivering ultimatum to USSR  10/22/62
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

By Jane Feehan

The extent of U.S. military buildup in response to the Cuba Missile Crisis (Oct. 16-28, 1962) wasn’t revealed to the world until President John F. Kennedy paid a personal call to the forward area set up in Florida and still in place a month later.

Kennedy visited Homestead Air Force Base Nov. 26 where a war room had been established to coordinate military operations. There, the Tactical Air Command (TAC) made available to the press an account of its response.

Nike-Hercules supersonic ground-to-air missiles were placed in South Dade farmlands. They could hurl atomic warheads 100 miles to counter Russian IL-28 bombers, called “Beagles.” Beagles had a range of 1,100-1,200 miles but only if deployed on a suicide mission. Otherwise, they couldn’t shoot more than a range of 500 miles.

One thousand fast-flying jet fighters and other planes were deployed to Homestead, Boca Chica Naval Air Station in Key West and other areas in the Southeast. TAC revealed that its planes flew combat air patrols as cover for daily reconnaissance missions over Cuban waters. The F-104s and
F-8Us, which could fly 1,000 mph, were ready to deploy if the missions encountered trouble.

Hundreds of Navy planes aboard eight carriers assisted in the blockade or “quarantine” of Castro’s island stronghold. Kennedy flew into Key West and drove past the ships to pay his respects after his stop at the Homestead base.

Seven thousand troops were deployed and still arriving in Florida during early November. They were quartered in ball parks, race tracks, and motels from Fort Lauderdale to Key West. Though the blockade officially ended Nov. 20, 1962, American weapons were not deactivated until September, 1963.

To mark the 50-year anniversary of the crisis, a neutralized 41-foot Nike Hercules missile was placed at the Nike Missile Base in Everglades National Park in 2012. The missile was delivered on the back of a flatbed truck that traveled down I-95 to George T. Baker Aviation School in Miami. There, students refurbished the Cuba Missile Crisis relic for display.

The Nike Hercules missile site was listed on the United States Department of the Interior Register of Historic Places on July 27, 2004 as a Historic District.

Nike Hercules Missile - photo from
Redstone Arsenal Historical Info.

Copyright © 2013 , 2021 All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

Miami News, Nov. 11, 1962

Miami News, Nov. 26, 1962

Sun-Sentinel, Aug. 21, 2012

Tags: Cuba Missile Crisis, military buildup in Florida during missile crisis, 50 year anniversary of Cuba Missile Crisis, Nike Hercules missiles in Florida, IL-28 Beagles, film industry researcher

"The American Shooting Season" of WWII: HMS Tanker "Eclipse" torpedoed off Florida

HMS Eclipse (Creative Commons)

By Jane Feehan       

German U-Boats were not an uncommon sight off Florida's coast during World War II, especially during early 1942. That was before  residents were required to turn off lights, pull shades closed or partially tape car headlights to lower odds of being targeted by the enemy. Germans discovered much of the U.S. coastline illuminated early that year, calling it the "American Shooting Season."

For the same reason, Allied ships sailed the Atlantic with a blackout policy. For protection they traveled in convoys as did British steam tanker Eclipse (9,767 tons). The tanker separated from its convoy in the Bahamas May 3, 1942 to continue to Port Arthur, Texas. The next day, in broad daylight, German U-Boat 564 (Type VII sub) sighted the tanker off Florida’s coast between Boynton Beach and Fort Lauderdale and torpedoed it, killing two. The stern of the Eclipse settled in shallow waters but the ship was salvageable and was later towed to Port Everglades.

What’s interesting about this incident is crew members reported the torpedo coming from between the tanker and land; the Eclipse was only a mile and a half to two miles from the coast, well within U.S. territorial waters.

Considering the record of U-Boat 564 - 18 ships sunk, one war ship sunk and four damaged – the Eclipse fared well. Considering the proximity of enemy ships to the coast, South Floridians fared even better.

Temporarily repaired, the Eclipse was towed to Mobile for more maintenance and re-entered service December, 1942. U-564 was sunk by British aircraft June 14, 1943.

_______

Sources:

Weidling, Philip and Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1966.

Palm Beach County

UBoat.net

Tags: Florida in WWII, Fort Lauderdale history, South Florida during WWII, U-boats off Florida coast, German U-Boats

Realtors in 1950s: move to Florida, it's safer from A-bomb

By Jane Feehan

A building boom hit Fort Lauderdale after World War II. According to realtors in 1951, the growth was fueled by American fears of an enemy A-bomb hitting the industrial Northeast.  South Florida wasn’t important enough to attract military interest, some realtors suggested, so investments would be safer here.

While that notion could be debated, the economic boom was at full throttle. Investors would buy a piece of property and within a week were offered considerably more than what they paid. Most sought improved parcels – lots with buildings—to avoid high war-time taxes on vacant property. If such lots were unavailable, investors poured foundations or partially constructed buildings before a deal was closed. Mindful of the war-driven materials shortage that caused a post-war housing crisis throughout the U.S., investors began construction with what was available. Lots with nothing but foundations were a common sight in 1950-51 Fort Lauderdale.

Conventional military wisdom of the day: South Florida wasn’t necessarily safe from an enemy incursion. The state’s coastline provided plenty of strike opportunities but an attack would most likely occur north of Cape Canaveral to avoid the Bahamas and its dangerous shoal waters. In such an event, South Florida would be isolated and its hotels likely filled with the enemy.

South Florida growth exploded during the 1950s but A-bomb fears could not be credited. For the real reasons behind the boom, see:

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/07/three-big-reasons-for-floridas-growth.html

For info about the fallout shelter craze, see:
https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/06/fallout-shelters-miami-growth-biz-in.html

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Jan. 1951.


Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale in the 1950s. Post war Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale boom,  historical researcher

Florida tent camps, tourism and housing shortages

Florida tourist camp 1928
 Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

By Jane Feehan


Florida tent cities served as lodging for workers, refugees, survivors of storms, and criminals in the past but they also housed tourists who wanted to vacation on or close to the beach or who couldn’t find a hotel room. 

Hotels (and housing) were scarce in early 20th century South Florida, but locals wanted tourists’ business and encouraged them to stay at tent camps in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and other communities. 

Frank Stranahan constructed a tent camp near his trading post on Fort Lauderdale's New River. His camp provided housing made of "palmetto constructed homes" for visitors in 1925. Another Fort Lauderdale camp housed 700 during that winter. Las Olas Inn across from the ocean provided "luxurious" tents for guests when rooms were were filled.

Below is a description of a popular tourist camp in Miami.

Tent City Gainesville, 1922 
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

Miami Beach boasts a “tent city” second to none. This “city” is located on the oceanfront between Smith’s Casino* and the government reservation. There are 20 tents or more, all well floored and comfortable.

Between 40 and 50 persons – men, women and children – compose this happy little community, where ceremony and etiquette has been abandoned and all live as one great, big family, enjoying life in all its fullness. All these people are tourists and all amply able to afford the luxuries of hotel life, but they prefer to spend their vacation in a tent by the seashore.

Last Saturday night these people chartered one of the ferry boats and enjoyed a moonlight ride to Cape Florida and return. Light refreshments were served and music indulged in.

But camps were also constructed to cope with a housing shortage. In July of 1925, a proposal was voted in by Fort Lauderdale to set aside an area in Progresso for 150 camp lots. Another camp was approved near "the Dixie" [highway] for  construction workers. 

People came to Florida and stayed at camps for various reasons. Some stayed while they looked for work or opportunity. When one visitor was asked in 1926 why he came to Florida and stayed at a camp, he answered "because this is where the money is." 

Most however, stayed at camps for inexpensive vacation lodging. Today, we call these RV parks.

---
* Smith's Casino was a popular beach side pool in the 1920s that sat on the south end of Biscayne Boulevard. 

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale Sentinel, Jan. 6, 1925

Fort Lauderdale Sentinel, July 23, 1925

Miami Metropolis, Feb. 7, 1920

Fort Lauderdale Sentinel, Feb. 7, 1925

Fort Lauderdale News, Feb. 23, 1926

Tags: early Florida tourism, early tourism in Miami, Florida tourism in the 1900s,
film researcher

About that name Publix ... and its link to Paramount Studios

 

By Jane Feehan

George Jenkins opened Publix Food Store in Winter Haven, Florida Sept. 6, 1930. In 1940 he launched Publix Super Market; the rest is history and part of everyday life for the millions of us who shop there. But the provenance of the name Publix goes back to Dec. 21, 1925 and it’s linked to show business.

That’s the year the two largest movie theater groups in the world—Famous Players Lasky and Balban and Katz Theatres of Chicago and the Middle West—merged to form Publix Theatres, Inc., an affiliate of Paramount Studios (formed 1912 and led by Adolph Zukor). From that date, Sam Katz president and Harold B. Franklin, vice president, oversaw operations of 700 theaters throughout the nation, including those in St. Petersburg, Tampa, West Palm Beach, Jacksonville and a list of others in Florida.

The film industry was an expanding and relatively new form of entertainment in the 1920s, especially after the first “talkie” with Al Jolson in the Jazz Singer released in 1927. There was still an attachment to live theater or vaudeville, so it was common to see a movie paired up with an extravagant live revue before a film started (much like latter day Radio City Music Hall).  

Revues included scores of entertainers. One newspaper in Buffalo claimed $2 million was spent to provide for “the greatest in picture and mammoth stage production.” Publix Theatres built a reputation for operating lavish theaters with plush carpeting and luxurious seating. Their reputation also included maintaining a well-trained staff.

The Buffalo Times exclaimed Publix Theatres entertained on a “scale so elaborate that no single theatre could afford it.”  The New York Daily News billed one of the Publix Theatres, the Paramount in the Paramount Building in Times Square, as “New York’s Newest Wonder.” A reporter for The Middletown Times Herald in New York state wrote “as Publix goes, so goes the rest of the show business. Expect everything in a Publix Theatre because you won’t be disappointed.”

The stock market crash of 1929 changed the course of Publix Theaters, Inc. Debt piled up. Bills went unpaid. The company restructured in 1930 but filed for bankruptcy and went into receivership in 1933. By 1935 the company reorganized as Paramount Studios.

The Publix theaters were failing so George Jenkins "borrowed" the name. He liked the name for his new business; its reputation was tops – and remains so to this day--though for a different business with a much longer history.

 

Sources:

Yonkers Herald, Dec. 21, 1925

Buffalo Times, Jan. 14, 1926

Buffalo Times, May 27, 1926

Yonkers Herald, Sept. 21, 1926

New York Daily News, Nov. 28, 1926

Middletown Times Herald, June 10, 1930

New York Daily News, July 20, 1933

Library of Congress

Florida State Archives/ Florida Memory: https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/321985

Tags: Movie theaters, Florida in the 1920s, Paramount Studios, Publix Theatres, Inc.

Seminole Chief Billy Bowlegs: King of Florida, buried treasure, a harem or ... ?

 

Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

A few modern-day Seminoles have taken the name Billy Bowlegs in honor of Chief Billy Bowlegs of the second and third Seminole Wars (from about 1835 to 1842). Over the years, truth and myth serve as canvas and paint brush for today’s portrait of this colorful character.

Holatta-Micco, as he was known to his people, assumed leadership of the Seminoles after other chiefs lost power or died. At the end of the Second Seminole War, the U.S. government informally agreed with Chief Billy Bowlegs that his people stay south of the Peace River (south of Charlotte Harbor in west Florida) and maintain harmony with white settlers.

It was a tough agreement to follow, especially when it seems the government was intent on moving Florida’s Seminoles to Oklahoma and Arkansas. Seminoles were blamed for murders of settlers in the years following the end of the war. Negotiations to remove the Indians continued.

One attempt at persuading the Seminoles included a trip to Washington to carry on discussions. “Mr. William B. Legs,” as the chief was registered in hotels along the way, ordered and was given, a pair of pants, a pair of half-sewed boots, one handkerchief, six bottles of French brandy, six bottles claret and one tumbler. Discussions were for naught; Chief Billy Bowlegs disappeared into the Everglades upon his return.

In 1858, baffled by the “energetic efforts of our army to effect their subjugation and removal,” Secretary of War Jefferson Davis approved payment to the Seminoles. Bowlegs was offered $6,500, four lesser chiefs $1,000, warriors $500 a piece and women and children $100 each. About 160 Seminoles set sail for New Orleans on their way to be resettled in the west. One warrior committed suicide on the trip.

The money Bowlegs and his people received is probably basis for a myth that he left treasure - piles of coin and jewels – near Santa Rosa Sound. Myth also claims Bowlegs set himself up with a harem and declared himself king of Florida in 1810. What is known is that he died not long after resettlement, perhaps 1858, chief of his exiled people.

Bowlegs and his band of 160 were not the last of the Seminoles. About 200 remained, deep in the recesses of the Everglades. The Seminoles, today a Federally Recognized Indian Tribe, never signed a peace treaty, the only tribe never to do so.

Who are the Seminoles' heroes? Among them are Seminoles Sam Jones, who never left Florida, and warrior Osceola, who was captured and sent to South Carolina (d. 1838).
____________
Sources:
Douglas, Marjory Stoneman. The Everglades: River of Grass. Miami: Banyan Books, 1978.
Miami News, Jan. 12, 1923
Palm Beach Post, April 14, 1946
The Seminole Tribe: http://www.semtribe.com

www.wikipedia.com

Tags: Florida history, Jane Feehan film researcher, Seminole history, Seminole Wars

Traveling in Florida before highways: age of the stern wheel

 

Lillie and the Roseada
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

Canals, lakes, and rivers comprised key transportation networks throughout South Florida in the early 1900s. The North New River Canal facilitated commerce and leisure travel from Fort Lauderdale to Lake Okeechobee and on to Fort Myers.

Several stern-wheel boats, including the Lillie, Napoleon Broward, and Suwanee, operated from Fort Lauderdale carrying winter vegetables, supplies and passengers to the lake. Leaving Fort Lauderdale late in the afternoon, excursion passengers could look forward to reaching Lake Okeechobee by the next morning. 

A trip to Fort Myers was more complicated. A traveler would start in Fort Lauderdale on the North New River Canal, cross Lake Okeechobee, take the Three Mile Canal to Lake Hicpochee, then the Caloosahatchee River to Fort Myers – a trip of several days. Today, car travel from Fort Lauderdale to Lake Okeechobee would take about two hours; from Fort Lauderdale to Fort Myers, about two and a half.

Elements of the great plan to drain the Everglades, the canals. could get very low in dry winter seasons. Cargo boats would sit in mud for a week at times. When they finally made their destinations, shippers would sell vegetable cargoes for whatever they could get - or sell their boats. Everglades travel made shipping an unpredictable business but leisure travelers took in a world of wildlife we’ll never see.

Drawing of the Lillie, circa 1900
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

Florida transporation, Florida History
_______
For Lake Worth travel, see: 

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2021/01/lake-worth-lagoon-early-florida.html

For Intracoastal as tollway see: 

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/12/intracoastal-waterway-toll-days.html

Tags: stern wheel travel, Florida in the 1900s, early Florida tourism, transportation

Sources:
Weidling, Philip J., Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press (1966)
Weekly Miami Metropolis, Sept. 8, 1916
Miami News, Jan. 11, 1922

A gift from an 1884 exposition chokes Florida waterways for decades

 

Water Hyacinth 

                                               

By Jane Feehan

Once called “America’s most deadly flower,” the water lily or water hyacinth was introduced to Florida before 1900.

According to some, the Japanese government imported the plants from Venezuela to give away as favors at the International Cotton Exposition in New Orleans in 1884. Also known as Eichhorinia crassipies, it bears an attractive lavender flower.

One plant was taken by a “Mrs. Fuller” to her home on the St. John’s River in North Florida. She placed it in her pond where it took over (one plant can generate 3,000 in 50 days). In clearing the growth, Fuller threw plants into the St. John’s River.

A couple of years later, a farmer brought them from the St. John’s to his farm near the Kissimmee River to feed his cattle; mostly water, the plants were abandoned as a source of nutrition. Within a few years, this free-floating plant that can grow up to three feet in height was choking waterways of South Florida.

August. 1954

In some places hyacinth covered water so thickly people could walk across canals on them. The attractive plant accelerates evaporation and depletes water of nutrients for wildlife. Over the years, millions of dollars and a number of solutions have been employed to get rid of the nuisance: underwater mowing, feeding them to manatees, fire, explosives, arsenic and finally, chemicals.

Water hyacinth have not disappeared but are now under control in South Florida. The plant has also caused problems in Louisiana, Egypt, the Congo, the Lake Victoria region of Kenya, Australia and Asia

.____ 

Sources:

McIver, Stuart. Glimpses of South Florida History. Miami: Florida Flair Books, 1988.

www.columbia.edu

Miami News, Aug. 11, 1954

Prohibition: Daring women of the rum-running empire

 

Miami liquor raid 1925
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

Women played a part (or tried to) in rum-running from the Bahamas to South Florida during Prohibition (1920-1933).

Gloria de Cesares, 29, reportedly born in Argentina and educated in England, founded the Gloria Steamship Company to run her illicit enterprise. An accomplished navigator, she bought a British five-masted schooner, the General Serret, and loaded it with liquor for a trip to the Bahamas.  She didn’t get far. The cargo of the General Serret was discovered, perhaps by a tip from its unhappy captain, before the ship left port, ending de Cesares’ rum-running career.

“Spanish Marie” Waites was far more successful; she headed up a “rum-running empire” after her husband was killed during one murky mission. Some say he was shot, others say he drowned after Marie pushed him overboard.

The tall, darkly attractive woman “strutted with a revolver strapped to her waist, a big knife stuck in her belt and a red bandana tied round her head.”  Spanish Marie commanded a fleet of 15 to 20 radio-equipped speed boats that outran U.S. Coast Guard vessels for years. She delivered rum from the Florida Keys to Palm Beach. In 1928 she was caught unloading liquor with the help of her crew in Coconut Grove. A $500 bail was posted then raised to $3,000 when she failed to appear in court. She disappeared leaving no other traces to history.

By Oscar E Cesare, Puck Magazine 1915
Criticizing alliance of women's suffragettes 
and Prohibition advocates

Gertrude Lythgoe, a Californian who went to New York and then worked for a London liquor distributor, became known as the “Bahama Queen” for her efforts. At the behest of her employer, she set up shop in Nassau where she became the only woman to hold a wholesale liquor license.  Lythgoe’s reputation as a comely, well-read, tough (she threatened to shoot one of her critics), liquor distributor grew. She later wrote about her exploits in Bahama Queen: the Autobiography of Gertrude “Cleo” Lythgoe. Copyright © 2011. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Tags: Prohibition, women's history, Florida history

Sources:

Behr, Edward. Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America. New York: Arcade Publishing, 1996.

Ling, Sally J. Run the Rum In: South Florida During Prohibition. Charleston: History Press, 2007

Willoughby, Malcom F. Rum War at Sea. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964.

Dark days of Florida's convict lease system and a North Dakota man's death

Convicts leased to harvest lumber
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

The convict lease system emerged in the South after slavery was abolished in 1865. Some lawmen helped farmers cope with the workforce shortage by arresting African Americans, and later white men, on trumped up charges and renting them out for labor.  Sentiment raged for decades against leasing convicts but Florida and Alabama were the last two states to pass laws against the system in 1923.

The case of Martin Tabert, a young North Dakota resident arrested for hopping a train near Leon County  brought an end to this dark chapter in Florida’s history. 

Sentenced to labor, he was rented out to a lumber company operating in the Panhandle. Soon after, Tabert was flogged when he became too ill to work. Within hours of the beating, he died.  His parents brought suit against the lumber company more than a year later after they were informed of the circumstances of their son’s death. They were awarded $20,000 in a court battle that grabbed national headlines. Subsequent to the trial, Florida Governor Cary Hardee introduced legislation that outlawed flogging and abolished the convict lease system in 1923.

Miami Metropolis, Nov, 28, 1923

 Copyright © 2020, 2023. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

Sources:

http://www.dc.state.fl.us/oth/timeline/1921.html

Estabrook, Barry. Tomatoland. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2011

Miami Metropolis, March 28, 1910, p. 9

Miami Metropolis, July 12, 1911, p. 4

Tags: Florida history, labor history, African-American history, convict lease, flogging, film research

Hamilton Disston and an early attempt to drain the Everglades

Disston dredge Saint Cloud Canal circa 1890
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory 

By Jane Feehan

Draining the Everglades, a project often associated with Broward County’s namesake and former Governor Napoleon Broward, was launched by Philadelphia millionaire Hamilton Disston in 1881. Disston, overshadowed by railroad barons Henry Flagler and Henry Plant in Florida history, played a significant role in the development of the state.

The son of the nation’s largest saw manufacturer, Disston first visited Florida in 1877. Florida, as other states in the South, struggled financially after the Civil War.  The Internal Improvement Fund of the State of Florida, holder of 14,000,000 acres, was in receivership. In 1881, 37-year-old Disston bought 4,000,000 acres for 25 cents per acre, making him the nation’s largest individual landowner. He saved the state from insolvency. With the purchase, Disston entered into a contract to drain and reclaim acreage in the Everglades at his own expense. Compensation was to be half the lands he managed to drain.

  

Disston set up headquarters for his work at a small trading post named Allendale. Later named Kissimmee, the site was also used by the new land tycoon to build steamboats for canal travel. The first canals, from three to nine miles long, were dredged off Lake Okeechobee, one to Lake Hicpochee.

The success of the drainage work depended on lowering Lake Okeechobee water levels; ultimately Disston was unable to accomplish this. His drainage operations ended in 1889.  Disston is also credited with establishing the state’s first sugar plantation near Kissimmee, leading to the founding of St. Cloud. 

Disston died suddenly in 1896 at 51. Some say he committed suicide because of financial difficulties; an obituary in The New York Times claimed he died of heart disease. The same obituary also said his $1 million dollar life insurance policy was the second largest on an individual in the nation at the time.

Unsuccessful in draining the Everglades, Disston ignited dreams of those who saw agricultural promise in its mucky earth. Perhaps his attempts to tame Florida encouraged Henry Plant and Henry Flagler to build their Florida railroad empires. 

Sources:

Palm Beach Post, Nov. 30, 1919, pg. 4

Miami News, March 10, 1923, pg. 6

Miami News, Oct. 20, 1962, pg. 17

New York Times, May 1, 1896

Tags: Florida history, Everglades drainage, Napoleon Broward, Florida canals, Florida steamboats

Mandatory Americanism vs. Communism classes in Florida after Castro takes office

 1962 -Superintendant of Public Instruction Thomas Bailey
examining a book on Communism.
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

By Jane Feehan

With a wary eye cast south to Fidel Castro’s communist encampment in Cuba, Florida’s state legislature passed a law in 1961 that made it mandatory for public schools to teach an anti-communist course. The course, “Americanism versus Communism,” was taught to high school seniors beginning in 1962.

Florida law stated:

The course shall lay particular emphasis upon the dangers of communism, the ways to fight communism, the evils of communism, the fallacies of communism, and the false doctrines of communism.

Also:

The course … shall emphasize the free enterprise – competitive economy of the United States of America as the one which produces higher wages, higher standards of living, greater personal freedom and liberty than any other system of the economies on earth.

Castro (right) with fellow revolutionary 
Camilo Cienfuegos entering
 Havana on January 8, 1959.
Photo courtesy of Luis Korda

A new course subject brought the usual questions about textbooks, but administrators were also concerned about who would serve as authoritative sources. They worked through the uncertainties and published a 62-page teacher’s guide that dictated the points to be covered as well as a list of 50 publications for outside reading.

Teachers didn’t protest but there was keen national interest in the law because never had a state legislature spelled out exactly what should be taught in schools. The 800-pound guerilla in teacher’s lounges was the possibility that governments could be just as explicit in the teaching of American history, economics and more.

We all survived. I remember taking the course in school via the Educational TV station broadcasting out of Miami. Florida repealed the law mandating the anti-communist course in 1983 and replaced it with a requirement for an economics class. Times have changed and fear has strangely evaporated about the state dictating school curriculum. 

Given today's hard left turn, perhaps it's time* to bring this class back or the highly useful class about how our government works, civics.

* Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill June 22, 2021 to introduce a similar course curriculum to Florida schools.

Copyright © 2020, 2021. 

Sources:

Miami News, Mar 18, 1962

Miami News, April 15, 1983

Tags: Florida history, Florida in the 1960s, Florida legislature 1960s, Castro and Florida, Florida schools in the 60s, film industry researcher

Seminole factions: Miccosukee Tribe emerges and two nations are recognized

 

Seminoles 1913, near Miami
State of Florida Archives

By Jane Feehan

A federal initiative to integrate the American Indian population with mainstream America was conducted between the end of Franklin Roosevelt’s era to the beginning of John F. Kennedy’s presidency. Laws were enacted to terminate the government’s trusteeship of Indian lands and to relocate them to cities where it was believed they would have more education and employment opportunities.

The Florida Seminoles, the only Indian tribe never to sign a peace treaty with the U.S. government, were not happy about integration efforts. President Eisenhower granted them their freedom but in a letter to the “great White Father,” the Seminoles rejected the plan. Through their attorneys they stated: “Request action giving us our freedom be reconsidered as we, members of the Seminole tribe, realize our limitations and know that we still need supervision and assistance in our affairs.”

Seminoles and Miccosukee in Tallahasse 1976
 State of Florida Archives/Florida Memory

All was not settled among the Indians who numbered about 900 during the 1950s. Two factions emerged in the debate about their independence. Buffalo Tiger, leader of the smaller Miccosukee group, wanted gradual withdrawal from federal jurisdiction. He wanted lands to be preserved on the Big Cypress and Brighton reservations where they raised beef herds.

Michael Osceola, leader of the other Seminole faction, said the Indians had to face the fact that the government couldn’t be their guardian forever. The two groups did agree on a few parts of the new law. One was the allowing Seminole women to have their babies in area hospitals. Neither faction was concerned about lifting the restriction of whiskey sales to Indians. It was never enforced anyway.

The two groups went their separate ways. The Seminole Tribe was recognized by the U.S. government in 1957. The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians was recognized as a nation in 1962 ... after leader Buffalo Tiger flew to Havana to meet with Fidel Castro. Both nations live within several reservations in South Florida and each depend on sustainable use of the Everglades for agriculture and the raising of livestock.

The U.S. government abandoned the policy to integrate American Indians when it was recognized that there were distinct differences between Indian and Anglo-European cultures (and nationally, among tribal cultures). Today, in addition to the agricultural endeavors of each tribe, the Miccosukees run a large casino on their lands 30 miles west of Miami; the Seminoles run casinos throughout South Florida. Their separation is political, not cultural. They are self sufficent and self governing.

 

Sources:

Palm Beach Post, Aug. 30, 1953

Semtribe.com

miccosukee.com/tribe

Educational Resources Information Center

 Tags: Florida history, Seminole nation, Miccosukee nation

 

An American story: the remarkable Edward Bok, man behind Bok Tower Gardens, Lake Wales

By Jane Feehan

Bok Tower Gardens, north of Lake Wales in Florida, has drawn about 23 million visitors since it was dedicated by President Coolidge in 1929. Its gardens, bird sanctuary, and Singing Tower was among the state’s earliest tourist attractions. A stop there includes an introduction to Edward Bok (1863-1930), the man who conceived of and financed the landmark, but his biography—and impact on American culture—is even more significant.

His is an inspiring story, a testament to the possibilities America held for immigrants at the time. Born Eduard Willem Gerard Cesar Hidde Bok in the Netherlands, he emigrated to the United States with his parents and brother in 1870. The very poor family settled in Brooklyn and first sold pieces of coal found on the street to pay for food. When he was 10, Bok sold ice water to passengers of a trolley line. At 13, Eduard, or Edward as he became known, took a job washing windows at a bakery for 50 cents a week.

He also had a knack for writing though he never had more than six years of school. Invited to a birthday party, he wrote up the affair, knowing it would please the hostess to see it published in the newspaper. He pitched this idea to the editor of the Brooklyn Eagle and was offered $2.50 per social function to write about attendees who wanted to see their names in print—the real hook. Enterprising.

At 15, Bok went to work at Western Union where he served as office boy. Here’s where it gets interesting—no, remarkable. During this time, he bought a copy of the Encyclopedia of American Biography. He was enthralled by the American experience and the Americans who defined it. Bok started writing letters to the giants he read about, asking for more information. They answered him. Bok actually met with many, a who’s who of the era: James A. Garfield as he ran for president, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendall Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Mary Todd Lincoln, Louisa May Alcott, General William T. Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant, who invited Bok to dinner.

He started writing biographies for money. He was offered $10 a piece but had so many requests from a publisher he had to enlist the help of reporters whom he paid $5 per biography, keeping the remaining $5. Bok learned shorthand, so was sent by the Brooklyn paper to watch and report on speeches, including that of President Rutherford B. Hayes with whom he remained friends until his death. At 19 he purchased a publication, naming it the Brooklyn Magazine; for it he established the first women’s page of U.S. publications.

A man on the move, Edward Bok got a high-profile, professional break with publisher Charles Scribner’s Sons where he rose to advertising manager. At 26 and with bona fides well established, Bok joined the popular Ladies Home Journal in 1889 in Philadelphia, where he remained until he retired at 56 in 1919. He increased circulation of the magazine from 600,000 to more than two million subscribers. In 1896, he married Mary Louise Curtis, the daughter of the magazine’s publisher, Cyrus W. Curtis, a publishing industry tycoon and one of America’s richest men.

Bok died in Lake Wales, where he wintered, in 1930 at age 66. He died a rich man worth about $24 million, some inherited from father-in-law Curtis. Edward Bok’s contributions to the American story are many; some, but not all, are listed below:

• Bok won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography in 1920 for his Americanization of Edward Bok.
• Bok fought for pure food laws that we benefit from today.
• He refused to take advertising in the Ladies Home Journal from the patent-medicine frauds, popular in the day.
• He hired architects to draw up plans for affordable housing, the first such plans in the U.S. and was praised by President Teddie Roosevelt as having changed architecture in the U.S.
• Bok changed the stuffy Victorian description of the room known as the parlor to the term used today, the living room.
• Bok campaigned against unsightly, unsanitary city dumps, suggesting they be consigned far away from inhabitants.
• He also campaigned for the removal of large highway signs that remain an unattractive form of advertising today.
• He planted flower bulbs from Holland along roads and at rail stations for a beautification initiative.
• Bok donated $100,000 for a plan for the U.S. to coordinate activities to attain world peace.
• Bok conceived of, paid for and constructed the Bok Tower Gardens (architect Frederick Law Olmstead, Jr.)  as bird refuge, a place to study southern planting and a garden to enjoy quiet contemplation. The Singing Tower (architect Milton B. Medary), is famous for its carillon—bells—and houses the largest carillon library in the world. The Bok Tower Gardens with its Singing Tower was added to the National Registry of Historical Places in 1972 and designated a National Historical Landmark in 1993.

 Sources:

Edmonton Journal, Jan. 10, 1930

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jan. 12, 1930

The Gazette, Nov 2, 1931

Arizona Republic, Jan. 7, 1940

Orlando Sentinel Aug. 13, 1950

Star Press, Sept. 18, 1938

https://boktowergardens.org/tower-gardens/

Tags: Lake Wales, Bok Tower Gardens, Singing Tower, Edward Bok, carillon, bells, Jane Feehan, famous Americans

Florida cattle: 500-year history, big biz in Sunshine State

"A lot of bull"
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

Having recently read Patrick D. Smith’s A Land Remembered, a tale of early settlers and cattle ranchers in Florida, I was eager to research the genesis and current status of the beef business in the Sunshine State. It’s big, but often takes a back seat to citrus endeavors.

According to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (see https://www.freshfromflorida.com), the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon brought the first cattle and horses to America in 1521. Mortally wounded in a skirmish with Indians in southwest Florida, Ponce de Leon most likely left the expedition’s livestock and horses there before returning to Cuba where he died. Another Spanish group left cattle and horses in the Pensacola area in 1540 after failing to meet up with explorer Hernando de Soto.

By the late 1800s, the shipping of cattle to Key West and Cuba was a thriving business in several areas of the state with much of it developed by William H. Towles. In 1870 this Perry, FL cattle rancher moved to the Fort Meyers area seeking new opportunities. 

After a brief stint in retail with James E. Hendry, Sr., Towles returned to what he knew best: cattle. His business, which included a lodge for drivers, and passengers on his schooner was centered in Punta Rassa (part of today’s Fort Myers-Cape Coral area). Captain Billy, as he became known, is considered the first pioneer cattleman in southern Florida.

His decision to return to the cattle biz was a good one. Towles Company expanded trade to Cuba where herds had been diminished by decades of warfare. The company also shipped cattle to northern states. By 1916, Towles modernized the beef industry with improved feeding. He cultivated grasses planted in Moore Haven (southern tip of Lake Okeechobee) that supported three or four head per acre instead of the 10 acres required per cow in western states. (Today 1.8 acres is rule of thumb.) Thereafter, a fattened steer was expected to fetch $80-$100—a considerable increase from the usual $18 before then.

Today, more Florida farms are dedicated to  raising beef than to growing citrus. According to the Florida Cattleman’s Association, the beef business generates $2.1 billion annually and provides about 17,000 jobs. Most of the industry here involves cow-calf operations. Calves born in Florida are generally shipped to other states for grain feeding and processing.

More interesting facts from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services:

• Florida is home to five of the top ten largest cow/calf operations in the US (2009). • Florida was ranked 10th in the nation in number of beef cows in 2011. • Nearly one-half of all Florida Agricultural land is involved in cattle production.

And it all started in Florida ...

For more on today’s cattle market (prices) and other commodities, see  www.agriculture.com

For more on Punta Rassa history and William H. Towles, see:

floridacrackercrumbs.wordpress.com/2008/05/31/cracker-cowmen-the-history-of-punta-rassa/

For more on Ponce de Leon and Florida, see: The Everglades: A River of Grass by Marjory Stoneman Douglas (1947).

Other sources:

Florida Star, Feb. 16, 1900

Ocala Evening Star, Sept. 29, 1900

News-Press (Fort Myers), May 8, 1916

News-Press (Fort Myers), Aug. 1, 1970

floridacattleranch.org

Tags: Florida beef industry, Florida cattle, southwestern Florida, William H. Towles, Fort Myers, Punta Rassa, Jane Feehan