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.

*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

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

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/Florida Memory

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

Coontie: Florida's money crop before tomatoes

Seminole making coontie,  1960 
Courtesy of  State Archives of  Florida, Florida Memory

By Jane Feehan

One of the earliest industries in South Florida involved “Coontie,”  also known as Florida arrowroot.  Botanists know it as Zamia Floridana, a cycad, one of the oldest forms of plant life.

Seminoles named it coontie.  They gathered the fern-like plant, which grew wild in the area, and pounded its root into a starch to bake their version of bread or biscuits. White settlers to South Florida followed suit, collecting and milling the plant to use as food, or to exchange for provisions in Miami.  

Early Fort Lauderdale resident William Colee (or Cooley) was considered a prosperous coontie farmer near New River before his family was killed by Seminoles in 1836. The tradition of growing and milling Florida arrowroot continued with others - at least into the early 20th-century.

News accounts in 1913 report a land purchase of 2,500 acres by two Coloradans for the purpose of growing the edible starch. Other stories detail the demand, milling and marketing of coontie at the time. Competing crops of vegetables - particularly tomatoes - and fruits would soon dethrone Florida arrowroot.  World War I gave the industry its last shot when it was reported that soldiers who were gassed managed to drink a thin gruel of coontie. The business of milling this edible tropical starch is long gone but its place in South Florida history remains firm; coontie was an integral part of Seminole and settler life.

Courtesy of  State Archives of  Florida, Florida Memory

_______

Sources:

• Miami News, June 14, 1913, p. 10.
• Miami News, March 6, 1956, p. 15.
• Miami News, Dec. 6, 1953, p. 29.

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, early South Florida agriculture

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

This hurricane remains the most intense to hit US; it's not Camille, Andrew or ...

Searching for bodies in
Upper Matecumbe Key, 1935
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

For many today, Hurricane Katrina established a reference point, a certain consciousness about extremes in weather. With all its notoriety, Katrina holds top place on the list of hurricanes recorded since 1851 in one National Hurricane Center category*: the costliest to hit the U.S. with recovery expenses surpassing $120 billion.

The most intense storm to make U.S. landfall is the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. With a pressure of 892 mbar, this storm's winds were recorded as high as 200 mph in pockets. A 2012 recalculation officially upped winds from 160 mph to 185 mph at landfall, close to those estimated of Hurricane Camille (900-909 mbar); winds were estimated because recording equipment was destroyed.  (Hurricane Dorian in 2019 hit the Bahamas with a low pressure of 913 mbar.)

Weather observers in Miami and Havana tracked a storm nearing Andros Island in the Bahamas on Sunday, September 1, 1935. Forecasters did not expect it to strengthen above 75 miles mph on a path between Cuba and Key West. Weather predicting was a primitive science then. 

The next day it developed into a vicious Category 5 and headed for the middle Keys, the Matecumbes, where hundreds of World War I vets were encamped in flimsy tents and shacks. They were building the Overseas Highway to Key West as part of a work program during the Depression. Because of the holiday, many laborers were already gone but about 200 remained. 

Warnings went out about 2:30 p.m. September 2, but there was little anyone could do except send a rescue train owned by the Florida East Coast railroad. The train, Engine 447, driven by a very brave J.J. Haycraft reached the camps at about 8 p.m., the height of the storm. Frightened men, women and children struggled to board in the dark.  Within minutes after all were safely inside, a wave reaching an estimated 18-20 feet swept over the train, knocking it off tracks and filling coaches with water. Most thought they were about to die.

Train overturned by 20-ft wave
State of Florida Archives

Miraculously, no one was seriously hurt on Engine 447 but 414 vets and residents living in the Matecumbes lost their lives that day. Some say the death toll was closer to 600. Writer Ernest Hemmingway, living in Key West at the time, was a member of the first rescue party; his description of the hurricane’s aftermath is graphic, sickening. 

A very small storm, the eye of the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane was estimated to be eight miles in diameter with bands extending 30 miles across. Barometric pressure, the measure of intensity, was recorded at 26.35 inches or 892 millibars after it hit land. Hurricane Camille’s (1969) pressure was 26.84 inches or 909 millibars when it struck Mississippi. Katrina ranks just below Camille with a pressure of 27.17 or 920 millibars. 

Wilma in 2005 dropped to 882 mb, lowest recorded in the Atlantic Basin, but before reaching land its pressure rose giving it a Cat 3 status. Other storms may have had lower pressure scores but also while at sea before land fall.  

Also of interest: The 1935 storm, as did Hurricane Andrew in 1992, occurred in a year of below-average activity. Andrew’s official  pressure was 27.23 inches or 922 millibars.

The deadliest storm to hit the U.S. was the Galveston hurricane of 1900 that took about 8,000 lives.

* NHC categorizes deadliest, costliest and most intense (strongest). See report below.
Copyright © 2012, 2020. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan. 

______ 

Sources:

NOAA. The Deadliest, Costliest, and Most Intense United States Tropical Cyclones From 1851 TO 2010 (and other Frequently Requested Hurricane Facts) at:  http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/nws-nhc-6.pdf

Standiford, Les. The Last Train to Paradise. New York: Crown Publishers (2002)

Miami News, Sept. 3, 1935

Miami News, Sept. 4, 1935

Tags: Florida hurricanes, most intense hurricane, strongest hurricane, hurricane history, the 1935 Labor Day hurricane, Overseas Highway, category 5 hurricane, film researcher