"A magnificent event": thousands at opening of Fort Lauderdale High School, 1915

FLHS circa 1940s
State Archives of Florida

By Jane Feehan

The opening of Fort Lauderdale Central High School* on Sept. 17, 1915 was a big deal. So much so, keynoter Governor Park Trammell told his audience dressed in holiday garb he would forego political chat for the day in honor of its dedication.

It was reported thousands came on horse, mule and foot from near and far to participate in opening ceremonies, a “magnificent event,” which included the raising of a flag to the roof of the school, a speech by the governor, patriotic music and a roster of city notables. Many local businesses closed for all or part of the day. A parade commenced at 2:30 p.m. from the “city square” to the school built on property donated by the Stranahan family.

The Patriotic Order of Sons of America took place of honor at attention by the entrance and inside a large room decorated with flags for the event. Also on hand was presenter Col. Robert J. Reed, president of the city’s Board of Trade, Rev. Dr. Usleman from the M.E. Church, James Rickards, principal of the high school, the Fort Lauderdale Woman’s Club, retiring County School Superintendent R.E. Hall and the man to follow him, James Holding.

In his dedication speech, Gov. Trammell said “today may well be recorded in the annals of Fort Lauderdale … a live and wide-awake town.” In a patriotic setting punctuated with martial music, Principal James Rickards pledged students would be true to the principles of the flag. “I pray with you that war may never descend upon us, for peace has done as much for the flag as has the bloody battlefield … boys and girls of the school will be patriots in war as in peace.”

Festivities, including music and singing continued into night in anticipation of the doors opening three days later. Enrollment at opening was reported at about 75. By January 1916, the end of the school’s first semester, music could be heard, courtesy of its new choral group, throughout the new $50,000 building.** Also, the newly chartered Literary Society established its debate club, a collection of the “efficiently speaking.” The close of that month marked the end of the first 16-week semester and the first final exams of Fort Lauderdale Central High School.

Broward County had been established April 30 that year and Fort Lauderdale was, indeed,to quote the governor, “a wide-awake town.”

*Later named Fort Lauderdale High School

** Original building demolished 1970. Fort Lauderdale High School relocated to NE 4^th Avenue in the 1960s

Sources:

Miami Metropolis, Sept. 17, 1915

Miami Metropolis, Jan. 21, 1916

Tags: history of Fort Lauderdale High School. Fort Lauderdale history, Broward County history, Florida history, Jane Feehan

Celebrated Graf Zeppelin lands in Miami with big plans

Graf Zeppelin arriving at Opa-Locka naval base
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

By Jane Feehan

The German-built airship, the Graf Zeppelin, achieved world-wide celebrity status in 1928. It made the first commercial-passenger dirigible flight across the Atlantic, landing Oct. 15 that year in Lakehurst, New Jersey. It was also the largest one built up to that time—800 feet— and its commander, Dr. Hugo Eckener (1868-1954) was considered a leading expert in dirigible flight. In 1929 he successfully flew the airship around the world, chalking up another first.

Enthusiasm for commercial dirigible flight surged across the U.S. after the Graf Zeppelin’s trans-oceanic trip in 1928. The U.S. military was already using rigid-construction (frame) airships to support search and coastal operations but visions of passengers and goods traveling across the Atlantic fueled dreams of expanded commerce. According to news accounts, Miami officials, excited by the prospects of such travel, set aside hundreds of acres and spent $40,000 for a dirigible docking port at the Opa-Locka Naval Reserve Base, dedicating it Jan. 13, 1930. Some news sources claimed it was the only such port in the world municipally owned.

Miami officials were eager to see the Graf Zeppelin up close after the commander accepted their invitation to visit Miami. Dr. Eckener scheduled a trip from Friedrichshafen, Germany to Miami in 1933 before heading to Goodyear headquarters in Akron. Floridians were also caught up in airship fever. Seaboard Air Line advertised discounted two-day, round-trip rail service from Bartow, Winter Haven, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood to see the famous zeppelin in Opa-Locka.

On Oct. 23, 1933, the Graf Zeppelin, with its 98-foot gondola, coasted 1,000 feet over Miami. It was escorted by a plane to the Opa-Locka naval air station, where beefed-up security was deployed to guard the dirigible against possible violence. Protests were predicted (but did not occur) against the new German regime headed by Hitler who grabbed power in January 1933.

Commander Hugo Eckener was accompanied by a representative from the German Air Ministry, an editor from a French aeronautical magazine, Hearst reporter, Lady Grace-Drummond-Hay and a few private citizen passengers. Miami Mayor E.G. Sewell, Miami commissioners, Opa-Locka officials, and other notables, soon whisked the visitors to the McAllister Hotel and then to a luncheon at the Old Heidelberg restaurant.

Eckener told hosts about his plans to expand Graf Zeppelin’s trans-oceanic service: a route from Seville, Spain to Rio de Janeiro with a stop in Miami during the winter, and a summer route to Lakehurst or Washington, D.C. The commander thought the service could begin in two years. Dr. Eckener also hoped for service from the U.S. to Egypt via Europe.

The Graf Zeppelin, its crew and passengers departed Opa-Locka for Akron about 16 hours later. It proved to be a short visit with a long list of possibilities that did not come to fruition. Later, Eckener thought traveling across the Atlantic on a more southern route would be easier. The airship continued to operate but under clouds of pending war in Europe. Its nine-year successful run came to an end the day after the Hindenburg disaster May 6, 1937 in New Jersey when 36 died in its fire. In 1940, parts from the grounded Graf Zeppelin were taken for use in German war-bound winged aircraft.

Dr. Eckener, no fan of the Nazis (nor they of him) criticized the regime for cutting costs in operating dirigibles; he endorsed the use of helium rather than the explosive hydrogen in landings. Helium, a by-product of mined mineral gas, was controlled by the U.S. starting in 1925; regulation drove up its costs. The German government opted for use of the cheaper hydrogen. Some experts later surmised a spark ignited hydrogen, causing the devasting Hindenburg fire that occurred just 200 feet above ground. The Hindenburg disaster spelled doom for dirigible flight. Airplane travel was about to take over, further diminishing prospects for such ships as the Graf Zeppelin.

The L-27 Graf Zeppelin, the one that stopped in Miami, proved to be the most successful of zeppelins. It made 590 flights, racked up more than a million miles and carried more than 34,000 passengers without a single injury. It also conducted one scientific mission to the North Pole.

Between 1912-1930, there were 13 airship flights (NOT the Graf Zeppelin) involving 275 fatalities. There were more fatal accidents both before and after that time span; a comprehensive list is difficult to find. In spite of safety concerns, the glamour of dirigible flying was never matched by the more efficient common carrier airplanes, the flying buses that replaced them.

Copyright © 2021, 2022 All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

Miami News, Oct. 11, 1928

Miami News, Oct. 16, 1928

Miami News, Jan. 13, 1930

Miami News, April 4, 1933

Miami News, Sept. 28, 1933

Miami News, Oct. 21, 1933

Miami News, Oct 23, 1933

Airships.net

Tags: Miami history, Opa-Locka, dirigibles, Graf Zeppelin, Jane Feehan, dirigibles, air travel, aviation history 

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

The last of Fort Lauderdale's Las Olas isles to be developed was ...

Las Olas canals 1961
Archives of the State of Florida/Rubel, A. 1961

By Jane Feehan 

In October 1957, about 150 Fort Lauderdale area realtors boarded the Jungle Queen III for a presentation and cruise to the last of the “Las Olas district” isles to be developed. Most who consider what would be the last of those manmade isles would typically assign it to the Las Olas Boulevard area.

In fact, this last developed isle was Sunrise Key (formerly Wells Island) at the intersection of NE 19^th Avenue and NE 6^th Court. It sat along the Middle River, directly north of Nurmi Drive and about 1,000 ft. from the Intracoastal Waterway. A bridge was built for the new development over the Karen Canal at that intersection (some will remember the Karen Club Apartments, now Gateway Terrace Apartments nearby). The key was comprised of separated islands that were filled in for a road, royal palms, utilities and 82 lots.  

Purchased by Eastern Properties from St. Luke’s Presbyterian Hospital Chicago, the 35-acre key was connected at that time to Hendricks Isle; the two keys were separated by dredging during development of this new community, soon to be site of “$100,000-class” homes, a hefty price in the late 1950s.

Eastern Properties promoted this project in 1957 by offering an all-expenses paid trip to Cuba or Nassau (or equivalent) to each buyer of a lot sold through October that year. By March 1959, 35 of the 82 lots had been sold. Development of Sunrise Key was completed late 1959. The first completed dwelling (1959), designed by John O’Neill, was a 5,000 sq. ft. home with three bedrooms and five bathrooms.

Before Sunrise Key, Eastern Properties, headed by Charles Hoy, A.T. Manno and R.L. Gordon, developed Lake Estates and Golf Estates in Fort Lauderdale. By that time, they had also developed Eastern Shores in North Miami Beach and several communities in Clearwater and St. Petersburg on Florida’s west coast.

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 1, 1957

Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 19, 1957

Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 26, 1957

Fort Lauderdale News, April 13, 1958

Fort Lauderdale News, March 28, 1959

Tags: Fort Lauderdale in the 1950s, Las Olas isles, manmade islands, Fort Lauderdale developments, Jane Feehan, Fort Lauderdale history

Broward County's Female Firsts

By Jane Feehan

Broward County can boast about a few female firsts. Below are several of these "first women" who made significant contributions to our local history. Lifespan dates are included when found. Also, some milestone dates vary in different sources but do not impact the significance of their contributions.

Eva Oliver or Mrs. Frank Oliver (1883-1964) – Eva Bryan and Frank Oliver were married in 1902, making theirs, according to some news accounts, the first wedding in the settlement of Fort Lauderdale. They stood in a rowboat while Capt. William Valentine read vows from the bank of the New River. A number of firsts can be attributed to her: first woman to drive a car in Fort Lauderdale; among the first to be baptized in the New River. A suffragette, Eva was active in town civic activities. She was the first president of the Woman’s Civic Improvement Society, the predecessor to the Woman’s Club of Fort Lauderdale.

Eula Gandy Johnson (1906-2001) - The first woman president of the Fort Lauderdale NAACP (1959-1967), this Georgia native moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1935. She owned a grocery store and two gas stations on Sistrunk Boulevard. Johnson was known for her fight to defeat Jim Crow laws, including those that kept Fort Lauderdale beaches segregated. Johnson, along with Dr. Von D. Mizell supported the first of 200 swim-ins the summer of 1961 that led to equal access by Blacks to the city's beaches.

Margaret Linardy (1903-1986) – First female mayor in Florida. She was elected mayor of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea in 1947 when the town was incorporated for the second time (the first time was in 1933). She served one term.

Easter Lily (or Lilly) Gates  (1889-1985) - The first female school bus driver in Broward County. Her husband died shortly after the 1926 hurricane; Gates took up bus driving to support her family. A hat maker by trade (and later known for appearing in many of her over-the-top-millinery creations), Gates was elected Broward County Supervisor of Voting Registration in 1928 (some say 1929), making her the first woman elected to office in Broward County. She was tapped the first female president of the State Supervisors of Elections in 1938. While serving Broward County, Ms. Gates registered the first Black and Seminole Indian voters. She held office for 40 years.

Katherine Rawls (1917-1982) – First woman to win four national swimming championships at a single meet (1932); winner of 33 national diving and swimming titles. Katy  brought home bronze and silver medals from the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. In 1937, the Associated Press named Rawls the “Number One Athlete of the Year” among female competitors. Rawls was the first person, the first woman, to be inducted into the Swimming Hall of Fame in 1965. (See index for more on Rawls)

Bette Mae Tiger Jumper (1923-2011) also known as "Potackee," was the first and only woman  elected to chair of the Seminole Tribe of Florida (1967). A woman of several firsts, Jumper was the first Seminole to earn a high school diploma. She was also the Tribe's first Health Director. She was one of two women appointed by President Richard Nixon to the National Congress of Indian Opportunity.

Lillian M. Smith – the first woman tax collector in Florida, this Fort Lauderdale resident was tapped as Broward County Tax Collector in 1925. She replaced Mr. W.O. Berryhill who resigned because of his health. It was also said he wanted to work in the real estate business, a booming sector that year.

Alice Guy Blaché (1873- 1968) – Though not from Fort Lauderdale, this French-born filmmaker was one of the first women to write, direct and produce a film. She brought a crew from her New Jersey studio to Fort Lauderdale in 1917 to make Spring of the Year. Blaché chose the city for its tropical, swampy environment. She is also considered by some to be the first in the industry to develop narrative films. For more, use search box.

Louise Virginia Kirk – A Hollywood resident, she was the first woman inmate of the newly constructed jail cells for women in Hallandale. She was arrested Feb. 6, 1960 for an alleged traffic violation that escalated to disorderly conduct. Ms. Kirk looked at the bright side of her incarceration, however, and claimed she’d as soon stay in jail than face house cleaning the next day. No doubt she  prefigured the women’s movement of the following decade ...  😊

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 16, 1925

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 13, 1928

Fort Lauderdale News, Sept. 8, 1937

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 30, 1950

Fort Lauderdale News, Feb. 6, 1960

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 22, 1978

https://flwomenshalloffame.org/

SoFla Times

Roots web genealogy

Broward.org

Copyright © 2019. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

Tags: Female firsts of Broward County, Fort Lauderdale history, Broward County history, women's history, African American History, Seminole history

Fort Lauderdale 1970s: Celebrities flock to Le Club International

Lloyd Bridges at Le Club 1973
 State of Florida Archives

Le Club International Yacht and Tennis Club

Once located at 2900 NE 9 St., Fort Lauderdale

By Jane Feehan

Le Club, as we called it then, opened early in 1969 and took off like its sponsored Formula 1 car that was to race in a Monaco Grand Prix.  

Once site of the Everglades Yacht and Tennis Club, just south of the Sunrise bridge, the property underwent a $175,000 renovation in 1968 as a venture of Atlanta hotelier and Miami resident, Carling Dinkler. The renovation was considered the first phase of a project that was to eventually include a 17-story condominium.

The condo, planned intermittently over the next decade as a 14- or 32-story project, didn’t materialize, but the club thrived. It was known as a celebrity and swinging nouveau riche magnet, thanks to the efforts of country club impresario and consultant Paul Holm. 

Holm and brother Lambert had been involved in country club launches in Georgia and elsewhere before the Fort Lauderdale endeavor.

Paul Holm, then 36-year-old general manager and secretary-treasurer of Le Club, planned to hold a charity event about once a month. He and Lambert (referred to in some accounts as publicist), knew how to line up celebrities. Dinah Shore appeared at their Pro-Celebrity Tennis Classic in 1970. That was the year Elke Sommer, Barbara Marx (widow of Harpo), and a host of other Hollywood notables joined in the fun and also discovered Fort Lauderdale. 

The list of celebrities visiting Le Club over the years was a very long one and included Johnny Carson, Ed McMahon, Bobby Riggs, Burt Bacharach, George Peppard, Liza Minelli, Red Buttons, James Franciscus, Charlton Heston, Lloyd Bridges, Bill Cosby, Pat Boone, Kentucky governor and one-time Kentucky Fried Chicken magnate John Y. Brown, jockey Eddie Arcaro and Revlon heir Peter Revson.

Other than high-profile yearly tennis tourneys, high-stakes card games and sponsorship of Formula 1 racing, Le Club was involved in off-shore boat racing and hot air balloon events. Always thinking big, Paul Holm produced the movie, the Great Balloon Race in 1977. He bought the entire first-class section of a 747 jet for club members to attend the movie’s premier at the Canne Film Festival that year.

No doubt Le Club was the place to be for “nouveaus” during the 1970s. The food was excellent, service top-notch and the setting glamorous—if not a bit naughty. A few classified ads pointed to the mindset of the place—and times. Some ads indicated Le Club was looking for an “alert young lady 27-35” to assist an interior design firm at the club. Others stated management was looking for a single, 30-34 social director; others ads were for an “attractive young lady” for another job, etc. One can laugh looking at the ads through today’s lens but knowing the club at that time, many would say the ads seemed perfectly normal.

Tides turned by the end of the 1970s. The club was first sold to John Y. Brown and then in 1981 to Texas oil man James Keenan, also a member, who had plans for renovating the club and building a 14-story condo. Times weren’t right for the project or the club. Tax laws changed during the Reagan administration restricting business write-offs, and it curtailed club business. 

In 1985 the Romani Corporation was listed as owner. They also had big plans for Le Club, but it finally closed February 1986. The building was torn down in 1990. Today, a 16-story condominium, Le Club International, sits there. (No connection to the yacht and tennis club.) 

L to R: Lambert Holm, Carling Dinkler, Paul Holm
State of Floridaa Archives/Florida Memory

Paul Holm moved to Las Vegas, married and had children. He died there in 2007 at age 74 (obituary below) after years contributing his expertise to local charity events. Carling Dinkler, who built Miami’s Palm Bay Club and Tower, died in 2005 in Morgantown, West Virginia, home town of his second wife; he was 85.

The long gone Le Club International will not be forgotten by those who participated in its legacy of well-known, untold, outrageous or sometimes notorious stories.  

More on Paul Holm:

 

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/lvrj/name/paul-holm-obituary?pid=142140829

Sources:

Atlanta Constitution Journal, July 26, 1965

Fort Lauderdale News, Aug. 8, 1968

Fort Lauderdale News, Aug. 23,1968

Fort Lauderdale News, Sept 22, 1968

Fort Lauderdale News, Nov. 16, 1968

Fort Lauderdale News, May 19, 1969

Fort Lauderdale News, June 10, 1969

Fort Lauderdale News, Aug.31, 1969

Fort Lauderdale News, Feb. 11, 1970

Fort Lauderdale News, July 12, 1970

Fort Lauderdale News, Nov. 13, 1982

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 4, 1985

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, June 3, 1990

Las Vegas Review, May 30, 2007

Atlanta Constitution Journal, May 25, 2005

Tags: Fort Lauderdale clubs of the 1970s, Fort Lauderdale in the 1970s, Paul Holm, Carling Dinkler, Le Club International tennis tournaments in Fort Lauderdale, Great Balloon Race, Fort Lauderdale history

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