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A GUIDE TO THE SOUTHERNMOST STATE

Compiled and Written by the Federal Writers' Project

of the Work Projects Administration

for the State of Florida

AMERICAN GUIDE SERIES

ILLUSTRATED

Sponsored by State of Florida Department of Public Instruction

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK

FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY
WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION

F. C. HARRINGTON, Commissioner

FLORENCE KERR, Assistant Commissioner

ROY SCHRODER, State Administrator

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

All rights are reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or parts
thereof in any form.

Foreword

FLORIDA, the southernmost State, is frequently referred to as the last
American frontier. Four centuries of varying culture under five flags may
be noted as one is guided, through the pages of this book, from quaint old
St.Augustine to' metropolitan Miami, or from the exclusiveness of ante hel-
ium Tallahassee to the exclusiveness of modern Palm Beach. For the many
Floridians who may wish to read a comprehensive story of their land, as
well as the million or more visitors who come to us each year, the Florida
Guide will be a source of pleasurable information.

JOHN J. TIGERT, President
University of Florida

7356163

KANSAS CITY (IK.) PUBLIC LF

Preface

So many individuals and agencies have contributed to this State guide for
Florida that it may properly be described as a co-operative product. The
Federal Writers' Project acted both as a clearing-house for information
and as a creative group. After extensive and adequate files of Floridiana
had been accumulated, our work became that of selecting, compiling, writ-
ing, and editing the book.

More than 400 experts on special topics served as consultants. Statis-
tical and factual data came from many sources, particularly from histor-
ical societies, civic groups, newspaper files, the State and local chambers of
commerce; rail, auto, and air transportation companies; governmental
and private agencies, colleges, libraries, and churches. All branches of the
Florida WPA lent their assistance. Perhaps the most significant aspect of
the work has been the general awakening of interest in many phases of
Florida life heretofore treated only in technical publications. This com-
mon interest promises rich educational returns.

The Federal Writers' Project wishes to thank the many specialists listed
in the bibliography for their valuable additions to the guide material. As
indicated in the list of illustrations the Florida Federal Art Project sup-
plied all sketches and the American Philosophical Society granted per-
mission for use of certain archeological material. Our thanks are also due
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., for permission to reprint the lines from Wallace
Steven's Harmonium, found in the essay on literature.

CARITA DOGGETT CORSE, State Director

Contents

FOREWORD, By John J. Tigert V

PREFACE vii

GENERAL INFORMATION xix

CALENDAR OF ANNUAL EVENTS

Par 1 1. Florida's Background

CONTEMPORARY SCENE 3

NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 10

ARCHEOLOGY AND INDIANS 36

HISTORY . 48

TRANSPORTATION 68

AGRICULTURE 78

INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE 87

LABOR 94

EDUCATION 99

PUBLIC HEALTH AND SOCIAL WELFARE 105

SPORTS AND RECREATION 1 13

NEWSPAPERS AND RADIO 1 20

FOLKLORE 128

LITERATURE 136

Music AND THEATER 149

ART 157

ARCHITECTURE 163

Part II. Principal Cities

DAYTONA BEACH 177

JACKSONVILLE 183

KEY WEST 195

GREATER MIAMI 207

ORLANDO 222

PALM BEACH 227

PENSACOLA 235

ST.AUGUSTINE 245

X CONTENTS

ST.PETERSBURG
SARASOTA
TALLAHASSEE
TAMPA

Part III. The Florida Loop

TotJR I (Waycross, Georgia) Jacksonville Daytona Beach Fort Pierce

Miami Key West [US i, State 4^]
Section a. Georgia Line to Jacksonville
Section b. Jacksonville to Daytona Beach
Section c. Daytona Beach to Fort Pierce
Section d. Fort Pierce to Miami
Section e. Miami to Key West

TOUR I A Jacksonville Jacksonville Beach St. Augustine Ormond Beach
Daytona Beach [State 78, State 140]

TOUR IB Titusville Canaveral Peninsula Merritt Island Melbourne [State
119, State 2 19]

258
268
274
283

2Q7
297
299

303
310

323

336

343

TOUR 2 (Brunswick, Georgia) Jacksonville DeLand Haines City Punta

Gorda [US 17] 347

Section a. Georgia Line to Jacksonville 347

Section b, Jacksonville to DeLand 3 50

Section c. DeLand to Haines City 358

Section d. Haines City to Punta Gorda 367

TOUR 3 Fernandina Baldwin Starke Gainesville Cedar Keys [State 13] 372

Section a. Fernandina to Baldwin 372

Section b. Baldwin to Gainesville 376

Section c. Gainesville to Cedar Keys 382

TOTTR 4 (Valdosta, Georgia) Lake CityHigh Springs Williston Floral
City Brooksville -Tampa Bradenton Sarasota Punta

Gorda Fort Myers Naples [US 41] 385

Section a. Georgia Line to Williston 385

Section b. Williston to Tampa 387

Section c. Tampa to Fort Myers 391

Section d. Fort Myers to Naples 400

TOUR. 4A Tampa Ruskin Palmetto [US 541] 402

TOUR 5 Miami Naples [US 94] 406

TOUR 6 (Thomasville, Georgia) Monticello Williston Brooksville Tar-
pon Springs Clearwater St.Petersburg [US 19] 412
Section a. Georgia Line to Williston 413
Section b. Brooksville to St.Petersburg 420

CONTENTS XI

TOUR 7 Jacksonville Lake City Tallahassee Marianna Pensacola

(Mobile, Alabama) [US 90] 428

Section a. Jacksonville to Lake City 428

Section b. Lake City to Tallahassee 433

Section c. Tallahassee to Marianna 440

Section d. Marianna to Alabama Line 444

TOUR 8 Daytona Beach Eustis Leesburg Groveland Lakeland [State

2 1, State 2] 449

Section a. Daytona Beach to Leesburg 450

Section b. Leesburg to Lakeland 452

TOUR 9 Indian River City Orlando Groveland Floral City [State 22] 454

TOUR IO Melbourne Kissimmee [US 192] 460

TOUR 1 1 Vero Beach Lake Wales Bartow [State 30, State 79] 463

TOUR 1 2 Fort Pierce Okeechobee Childs Arcadia Manatee Bradenton

[State 8, State 18, State 161] 467

TOUR 13 West Palm Beach Fort Myers Punta Rassa [State 25] 472

TOUR 14 (Thomasville, Georgia) Tallahassee Apalachicola Port St. Joe-
Panama City Pensacola [US 3 19, US 98, State 53] 484
Section a. Georgia Line to Apalachicola 484
Section b. Apalachicola to Pensacola 491

TOUR I 5 Haines City Lake Wales Childs Junction with State 25 [State 8,

State 6 7] 496

TOUR 1 6 (Brewton, Alabama) Pensacola [US 29] 503

TOUR 1 7 (Dothan, Alabama) Campbellton Youngstown Panama City
[US 231]

TOUR 1 8 Junction with US 231 Marianna Blountstown Port St. Joe

[State 6] 508

TOUR 1 9 Watertown S tarke Palatka Bunnell [State 28] 511

TOUR 20 Haines City Lakeland Plant City Tampa Clearwater [US 92,

State 17] 5*3

TOUR 21 High Springs Gainesville Ocala Belleview Leesburg Orlando

[US 441] 523

TOUR 22 Waldo Ocala Belleview Webster Plant City [State 31, US 441,

State 23] 533

Xil CONTENTS

Par t IV. Appendices

CHRONOLOGY 541

BIBLIOGRAPHY 553

LIST OF CONSULTANTS 566

INDEX 569

Illustrations

NATURAL SETTING

Suwannee River

The Countryside, near Lake
Okeechobee

Highway, near Palm Beach

Sugar Cane Fields in the Ever-
glades

Beach Scene near the Jetties,
Jacksonville

Between 38 and 39
Spanish Moss
Orange Blossoms
Tung Blossoms
The Land-Builder Mangrove

Tree

Royal Palms
The Old Road, Miami
Ibis

INDUSTRY
Trans-Shipment of Bananas,

Tampa

Railroad Terminal, Jacksonville
Commercial Fishing Fleet at Key

West Dock
Air View of Commercial Docks,

Miami
Citrus Packing Plant, Fort

Pierce
Rolling Handmade Cigars in a

Tampa Factory

Between 100 and 101

Inspecting Sponges, Key West
In a Bean Canning Factory,

Dania

Phosphate Mine, Polk County
Pulp Mill, Fernandina
Turpentine Plant, near Mari-

anna
Pan American Airways Office,

Miami

RECREATION

Along the Atlantic, Miami Beach

Venetian Pool, Coral Gables

In the Gulf Stream, off Palm

Beach

Hunters in the Everglades
Fishing in St. John's River
Trailer Camp, Miami
Golf Course, Pasadena, St.

Petersburg

Between 162 and 163

Hollywood Beach

Start of the Race, Greyhound

Track, Jacksonville
Race Track, Hialeah
Lawn Bowling, St.Petersburg
Chess Games, St.Petersburg
Feeding a Porpoise, Marine

Studios, near StAugustine
Regatta, Palm Beach

xiv ILLUSTRATIONS
CITIES I

Via Mizner, Palm Beach

The Old Slave Market, St.Augus-
tine

Patio, Old Spanish Treasury,
St.Augustine

The Cathedral (1793), St.Augus-
tine

'Viscaya,' the Deering Estate,
Miami

Between 224 and 225

Miami

A Palm Beach Residence

Daytona Beach

Downtown Section, Jacksonville

Key West Duval Street, from
the Atlantic to the Gulf

Moat, Fort Marion, St.Augus-
tine

CITIES II

Fishing from Municipal Pier,
St.Petersburg

The Green Benches, St.Peters-
burg

A Parachute Jump, Pensacola

Camp Scene, Spanish American
War, Tampa (1898)

Winter Haven

St.Petersburg

Tampa

Between 254 and 255
Interior of Tampa Theater
University of Tampa (formerly

Tampa Bay Hotel)
State Capitol, Tallahassee
Agricultural Building, University

of Florida, Gainesville
Rehearsal Circus Winter Quar-
ters, Sarasota
Ringling Art Museum, Sarasota

AGRICULTURE

Citrus Grove, near Winter Haven
Picking Grapefruit
Dusting Cotton, North Florida
Planting Celery, near Sanford
Strawberry Pickers, Starke
Transporting Sugar Cane from

Fields, in the Everglades
Bean Pickers, Homestead

Between 348 and 349

Strawberry Pickers Returning

from the Field

4-H Club Boys Milking Goat
In the Potato Field, Dade County
Farm House

Farmer's Market, Miami
Cutting Palmettos
Tung Tree

ALONG THE HIGHWAY I

Fisherman

Sponge Boats, Tarpon Springs

A Day's Catch of Sharks, Key

West

Turtle Hunting on the Keys
Migratory Workers 7 Camp near

Belle Glade

Migratory Workers' Family
Street Scene, Belle Glade
Gandy Bridge, connecting St.

Petersburg and Tampa

Between 410 and 411
Overseas Highway to Key West
Memorial to 1935 Hurricane

Victims, Matecumbe Key
Skidding Logs with High Wheels

and Oxen, Choctawhatchee

National Forest
Jacksonville, St.Augustine &

Halifax River Railway in the

i88o's

ALONG THE HIGHWAY II

Singing Tower, Mountain Lake

Sanctuary
After the Bear Hunt
Alligator Farm, St.Augustine
Pelicans and Gulls
White Egret, a Native of the

Everglades
Seminoles
Seminole Indian in Dugout

Canoe, the Everglades

ILLUSTRATIONS XV

Between 472 and 473
Seminole Indian Home, near

Lake Okeechobee
Typical Pioneer Dwelling
Judah P. Benjamin Memorial

(Gamble Mansion), Bradenton
The Southernmost House in the

United States, Key West
Home of the Late John D.

Rockefeller, Ormond Beach
Street Scene, Bartow

Pen-and-ink sketches by Robert Delson, Florida Art Project.

Maps

TOUR MAP

JACKSONVILLE

KEY WEST

MIAMI

PALM BEACH

PENSACOLA

ST.AUGUSTINE

ST.PETERSBURG

TALLAHASSEE

TAMPA

front end paper

190-191

202-203

217

233

243

251

265

279

General Information

Railroads: Atlantic Coast Line R.R., Florida East Coast Ry., Georgia
Southern & Florida Ry., Louisville & Nashville R.R., Seaboard Air Line
Ry., St.Louis, San Francisco Ry., Georgia & Florida R.R. Other lines
have less than 100 miles of track each. The ACL and FEC penetrate the
Everglades, meeting at Lake Harbor, south of Lake Okeechobee.

Bus Lines: Florida Motor Lines, Atlantic Greyhound Lines, Southeastern
Greyhound Lines, Pan-American Bus Lines, Union Bus Co^ Lesser lines
offer intrastate service.

Highways: Fifteen Federal highways, eight having international connec-
tions. State highway patrol. State gasoline tax 7^.

Passenger Steamship Lines: Clark Steamship Co. (Miami) to Jamaica;
Clyde-Mallory Line (Jacksonville, Miami) to New York, Charleston, and
Galveston; Merchants & Miners Transportation Co. (Jacksonville, Mi-
ami) to Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk, and Savannah; Mobile
Oceanic Line (Tampa) to Europe; Munson Lines (Miami) to New York,
Nassau, and Havana; Pan- Atlantic Co. (Tampa) to New York and New
Orleans; Peninsula & Occidental Co. (Port Tampa, Key West, Miami) to
Havana; Waterman Line (Tampa) to Mobile, New Orleans, and Puerto
Rico.

Air Lines: Eastern Air Lines (Miami to New York and Chicago) stops at
West Palm Beach, Vero Beach, Daytona Beach, Orlando, Tampa, and
Jacksonville. National Airlines (New Orleans to Jacksonville) stops at
Pensacola, Marianna, and Tallahassee; National Airlines (Daytona Beach
to Miami) stops at Orlando, Lakeland, Fort Myers, Sarasota, Tampa, and
St.Petersburg. Pan American Airways connects Miami with the West In-
dies and South and Central America.

Accommodations: Acceptable living quarteirs and meals for transients in
all sections of Florida. Prices generally higher in winter.

xvii

GENERAL INFORMATION

Recreational Areas: Main year-round resorts are in south and central Flor-
ida, along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. Summer resorts on the upper Gulf
and Atlantic coasts. Adequate amusement facilities. (See Sports and Rec-
reation.}

Fishing Laws'. Fresh-water game fish are defined as black bass, bream,
jack, redbreast, shellcracker, speckled perch, and warmouth perch. There
are more than 40 leading varieties of salt-water game fish.

Open Season: Open throughout year, except where closed by county
commissioners or by special laws.

Licenses: Required of all persons over 15 and under 65 years of age
when fishing in fresh water; no license required for salt-water fishing.
Resident, $2.25; nonresident, $5.50; nonresident 3-day continuous,
$1.75. Issued by county judges.

t Limits (daily): Black bass (not less than 12 in. in length), 12; speck-
led perch (7 in.), 30; shellcracker s, 30; warmouth perch, 30; red-
breast, 30; jack, 15; pike, 30; mixed string, 40.
Prohibited: Sale of black bass. Use of nets, baskets, traps, gigs, dyna-
mite or other deleterious substances, in fresh water.

Hunting Laws: Game birds are defined as brant, coot, doves, ducks, geese,
jacksnipe, marsh hens, quail, wild turkey; game animals are alligator,
bear, deer (bucks only), fox, muskrat, opossum, otter, panther, rabbit,
skunk, squirrel, wildcat.

Open Season (dates inclusive): Deer, Nov. 2o-Dec. 31, except where
altered by special county laws. Quail, squirrel, wild turkey, doves,
Nov. 2o-Feb. 15. Ducks, geese, brant, jacksnipe, coot, Nov. so-
Dee. 19. Raccoon, muskrat, otter, Dec. i-Mar. i. Skunk, fox, bear,
panther, opossum, open year round.

Licenses: Resident home county, $2.25. Resident other than home
county, $3.25. Resident State, $5.50. Nonresident State, $25.50. Non-
resident lo-day continuous, $10.50. Issued by county judges.
Limits: Deer (bucks only), i; quail, 15; squirrel, 15; wild turkey, 2;
doves, 20; ducks, 10; geese, brant, 4; marsh hens, jacksnipe, 15. Pos-
session of game prohibited during closed season, except 5 days im-
mediately following the open season. Possession of more than 2-day
bag limit prohibited at all times.

Prohibited: Sale of game prohibited, except reindeer meat imported
and sold as such. Shooting of migratory game birds over baited areas,
, and the use of live decoys. Unlawful to shoot game birds between

GENERAL INFORMATION XIX

4:00 p.m. and 7 :oo a.m. Only shotguns permitted in taking migratory
game birds; if automatic loading or hand-operated repeating gun, it
must be reduced to 3 -shell capacity by plug that cannot be removed.
Unlawful to hunt wild turkeys with dogs, or kill quail on ground. Un-
lawful to molest or kill deer while swimming.

Note: Hunting and fishing laws are altered frequently and many
counties have special laws. Tourists are cautioned to procure from
county judges the latest digest of laws available before hunting or
fishing in any county.

Climate and Equipment: Weather usually warm from April to November
and variable from December to March. There are periods of cold weather,
seldom lasting more than three days, during winter months. June, July,
August, and September are the months of heaviest rainfall, and the dry
season comes in winter. Ocean breezes over all parts of the peninsula. Sep-
tember is the month when hurricanes may be expected. Topcoats are often
needed in winter, while sport clothes and light linens are suitable for
the rest of the year.

Information for the Motorist: Nonresident owners or operators of motor-
cars have the full use of Florida highways. Florida registration laws ex-
tend reciprocal privileges to the motorist of any other State; but the mo-
torist must purchase a license plate immediately upon becoming gainfully
employed, engaging in any trade or profession, or placing children in
school. License tags can be purchased at county courthouses, or branch
license bureaus in various cities. The registration authority for the State
is Commissioner, Motor Vehicle Dept., Tallahassee. Driver's license 50^.
Legal Speeds: 15 m.p.h. in business districts, 25 m.p.h. in residential
districts, and 45 m.p.h. elsewhere. Motorists habitually drive faster
than 45 m.p.h. on the open road when traffic and road conditions are
satisfactory. In addition to State highway police, most counties have
highway patrols.

General Rules of the Road: The first rule of the Florida road is for the
motorist to exercise caution when approaching livestock, particularly
cattle, which roam most of the State's principal highways. In case of
injury or death to livestock, Florida law enables the owner to collect
damages from the motorist equal to the value of the livestock. Pass-
ing another motorist on a hill is illegal. There are prohibitions against
parking on highways, coasting in neutral, passing stopped streetcars,
and the use of windshield stickers. Some municipalities have or-

XX GENERAL INFORMATION

dinances governing hitch-hiking. The use of spotlights is permitted.
The motorist is required to use a rear reflector, and to dim his head-
lights when passing another motorist on the highway. There are local
ordinances against driving under the influence of intoxicating li-
quors, driving with muffler open, and using sirens.

Caution to Tourists: Do not enter bushes at sides of highway in rural dis-
tricts; snakes and redbugs usually infest such places. Do not eat tung
nuts; they are poisonous. Do not eat green pecans; in the immature stages
the skins have a white film containing arsenic.

Calendar of Annual Events

('nfd' means no fixed date)

January

i
i
6
10 to Mar. 10

17-22
3 1

nfd
nfd
nfd

nfd
nfd

February
7-10

10-12
ii

12-13
14-16

14-19

22-26

Miami

St.Petersburg
Fort Myers
Tarpon Springs
Leesburg

Winter Haven
Tampa

Bowling Green

Miami

Eustis

West Palm Beach
Daytona Beach

Miami
St.Petersburg

Fort Myers
Lake Wales
New Smyrna
St.Petersburg

Orlando
Tampa

Ormond Beach

Orange Bowl Football Game
Kumquat Bowl Football Game
New Year's Regatta
Greek Epiphany Ceremony
National Fresh- Water Bass

Tournament

Florida Orange Festival (

South Florida Fair and Gasparilla

Carnival

Hardee County Strawberry Festival
All- American Air Maneuvers
Winter Vandalia Trap-Shooting

Tournament
Sailfish Derby
American Motorcycle Races

Midwinter Trap-Shooting

Tournament
State Shuffleboard Association

Tournament
Edison Day
Ste.Anne Pilgrimage
Winter Regatta
StPetersburg Trap-Shooting

Tournament

Central Florida Exposition
Cigar City Special Trap-Shooting

Tournament
South Atlantic Women's Golf

Tournament
xxi

CALENDAR OF ANNUAL EVENTS

24 Key West El Grito de Yara (Cuban

Independence Day)

26-27 Belleair West Coast Open Golf Tournament

26-27 Clearwater International Snipe Boat Races

nfd Orlando State and International Lawn

Bowling Tournament

nfd Orlando National Shuffleboard Tournament

nfd Mount Dora Yacht Club Regattas

nfd Winter Park Animated Magazine (Founders'

Week)

nfd Palm Beach Yacht Club Regatta

nfd Palm Beach Romany Chorus

nfd Palm Beach Flower Show

nfd Fort Myers Southwest Florida Fair

nfd St.Petersburg International Midwinter Lawn

Bowling Tournament

nfd Sanibel Island Sea Shell Fair

nfd Key West La Semana Alegre (Week of Joy)

nfd Miami International Miami-Nassau Yacht

Race

nfd Lakeland Outboard Motor Regatta

nfd Palatka Azalea Festival

March

1-5 Plant City Strawberry Festival

8-10 Tampa National Midwinter Pistol Meet

10-12 Tampa Verbena del Tobaco Fiesta

nfd Sarasota Pageant of Sara de Soto and Sarasota

County Fair

nfd Ruskin Florida Tomato Festival

nfd S t. Augustine A Day in Old Spain

nfd Tampa Horse Show

nfd Miami Midwinter Sailing Regatta

nfd St.Petersburg Festival of States and Outdoor

Bridge Tournament
nfd St.Petersburg Sunshine Rifle and Pistol Club State

and National Tournament

nfd Pensacola Camellia Show

nfd Daytona Beach Stock Car Races

CALENDAR OF ANNUAL EVENTS XX1U

nfd

nfd
nfd

April

nfd

Easter

Low Sunday

Daytona Beach

Miami
Miami

Tampa

Cypress Gardens

Orlando

St.Petersburg

Miami

Jacksonville

Jacksonville,

Tampa, and

Miami
St.Augustine

International Senior Golf

Tournament

Sir Thomas Lipton Cup Race
Florida Year-Round Club Golf

Tournament

Greater Miami Fishing Tournament
Miami-St.Petersburg Yacht Race

Florida High School Music Festival

Gardenia Festival

Orlando Yacht Club Regatta

St.Petersburg-Havana Yacht Race

Pan-American Day

Jacksonville Outboard Club Regatta

Sunrise Services

Pilgrimage to Shrine of Nuestra
SenoradelaLeche

May

i Tallahassee

i Fort Ogden

May to Aug. Sarasota

May to Sept. Tampa

May Day Celebration

May Day Picnic

International Tarpon Tournament

Hillsborough Fish and Game

Protective Association Tarpon

Tournament

June

June to Aug. St. Petersburg

July

4
4
August

Pensacola
La Belle

Quincy and
Live Oak

Tarpon Roundup

Southern Yachting Association

Regatta
Rodeo

Tobacco Festivals

XXIV CALENDAR OP ANNUAL EVENTS

October

nfd

November
nfd

nfd

Masaryktown Chechoslovakian Independence Day

Tampa Old Timers' Picnic

Gainesville Homecoming Day, University of

Florida
Dade City Tin Can Tourists 7 Homecoming

Celebration

December
12-24

i5~Feb. 15
iS-Apr. 15

nfd
nfd

Arcadia Tin Can Tourists' Yuletide

Celebration

Clearwater Fresh- Water Bass Tournament

Mountain Lake Bok Tower Carillon Recitals. Special

recitals on the Eves of Easter,

Christmas, and New Year's
Miami Miami-Biltmore Open Golf

Tournament
Orlando Florida Field Trials

PART I
Florida* s Background

Contemporary Scene

& CROSS the wide strip of its upper area, from the Atlantic to within

/JL a short distance of the Mississippi border, Florida is at once a con-
JL JLtinuation of the Deep South and the beginning of a new realm in
which the system of two-party politics reasserts itself. Narrowing abruptly
to a peninsula, it drops through five degreeslf latitude and a constantly
accentuated tropical setting, until the tip of its long Roman nose pokes
very nearly into the confines and atmosphere of Latin America. Equato-
rial waters move up from the south along its coasts, to temper its climate
and confuse its seasons; every winter a tidal wave of tourists moves down
from the north, to affect its culture, its economy, its physical appearance.
Throughout more than four centuries, from Ponce de Leon in his caravels
to the latest Pennsylvanian in his Buick, Florida has been invaded by
seekers of gold or of sunshine; yet it has retained an identity and a charac-
ter distinctive to itself. The result of all this is a material and immaterial
pattern of infinite variety, replete with contrasts, paradoxes, confusions,
and inconsistencies.

Politically and socially, Florida has its own North and South, but its
northern area is strictly southern and its southern area definitely northern.
In summer the State is predominantly southern by birth and adoptions,
and in winter it is northern by invasion. At all seasons it is divided into
Old and New Florida, separated by the Suwannee River. The political
thought that controls it originates in a united minority above the Suwan-
nee and reaches down into the more populous peninsula to impose the di-
minishing theory that Florida should be preserved for Floridians rather
than exploited for visitors.

Religious intolerance marked the conquest and early settlement of Flor-
ida, but the State has long since embraced practically all cults and reli-
gions, and licenses the occult and the supernatural. Yet its melting pot is a
brew of conflicting ideas, which enables the native to dictate State policies
and politics. And so the Florida Cracker runs the courthouse and assesses,
collects, and spends the tax money.

The background traditions of Florida are of the Old South; and though
the Republican Party regularly appears on the ballot, only once since Re-

4 FLORIDA

construction days has the State switched from its Democratic allegiance.
In 1928, when prohibition and religion confused the issues, the electorate
supported Herbert Hoover.

To the visitor, Florida is at once a pageant of extravagance and a land
of pastoral simplicity, a flood-lighted stage of frivolity and a behind-the-
scenes struggle for existence. For the person with a house car it is a succes-
sion of trailer camps and a vagabond social life. For the Palm Beach pa-
tron it is a wintertime Newport made up of the same society, servants, and
pastimes. For migratory agricultural labor it means several months of
winter employment in the open under pleasant skies; and for the Negro
turpentine worker, an unvarying job in the pine woods.

The derivation of the name Florida has not been overlooked in publicity
literature, the rhetoric of which has lent itself to a major misconception.
Nature, though lavish, has not been flamboyant enough to make the great
variety of native flowers and plants notably obvious except to naturalists,
scientists, and botanists. Spectacular settings have been devised by man,
but since Florida remains primitive in many respects these splashes of
color are comparatively isolated and, in some cases, hidden. Swamps
and jungles have been enclosed and converted into Japanese, cypress,
Oriental, and many other kinds of gardens, to which an admission fee is
charged. Here have been assembled extensive collections of native and ex-
otic plants.

On the other hand, florid rhetoric has not exaggerated the State's much
publicized scent the perfume from a half-million-acre bouquet of citrus
groves. A border region of localized smells, however, suggests that all is
not fragrance in the land of flowers. From sponge and shrimp fleets, men-
haden fertilizer factories, and the stacks of paper mills drift malodorous
fumes that lade the sea breezes with unsung vapors. A neutralizing in-
cense, the aromatic smoke from burning pine woods, has steadily lessened
with the expansion of forest-fire control, but occasionally there is a pall as
well as a moon over Miami from Everglades muck fires.

Attempts to romanticize Florida's playground features have resulted in
an elaborate painting of the lily. Coast resorts have been strung into a be-
jeweled necklace that sparkles on the bosom of a voluptuous sea; all is
glamour and superficiality. This superimposed glitter diverts attention
from Florida's more characteristic native life.

The pioneer settler came from the same stock as the Appalachian moun-
tain dweller, and long existence in the flat pine woods tended to perpet-
uate his original pattern of thought. He knew little of life beyond his own
small clearing and saw only a few infrequent visitors, until a network of

CONTEMPORARY SCENE 5

highways left him exposed to many persons in motorcars. This traffic af-
fected his economy and aroused his instinct to profit. He set up a roadside
vegetable display, then installed gasoline pumps and a barbecue stand,
and finally with the addition of overnight cabins he was in the tourist busi-
ness.

The highways even mechanized his mountain music. To attract patron-
age, he installed a ' jook organ 7 that would dispense Bronx-composed rec-
ords of hillbilly laments at the drop of a nickel. Real hillbilly bands, that
regularly come to Florida, scorn the rural areas and become street min-
strels in the larger towns or play in bars and night clubs for collections. To
their music is added a sidewalk overtone from guitars, zithers, accordions,
and harmonicas played by mendicants who follow the tourist crowds.

Ten thousand miles of roads that crisscross the State have streaked it
with what might be described as roadside culture and commerce, with each
section revealing a characteristic quality. In the staid plantation territory
of northern Florida, placards on gate posts chastely admit, ' Guests Ac-
cepted/ and tourist camps offer ' Cabins for Travelei'fyQnly.' Everywhere
are t dine and dance ' places, which, as the highways e^end southward into
the established tourist belt, more and more resemble midways. Vegetable
stands add citrus fruit, and then about everything likely to catch the mo-
torist's eye: carved coconuts, polished conch shells, marine birds made of
wood or plaster, cypress ' knees,' pottery, bouquets made from tinted sea-
shells or dyed sea oats, and an endless assortment of other native and im-
ported handicraft. Agrarian preoccupations turn from corn, cotton, and
tobacco to alligator and lion farms, reptile ranches, botanical gardens, and
Indian villages. Here and there are the ' pitches ' of palm readers and as-
trologers; but, to maintain the contrast, long stretches of uninhabited pine
woods intervene with warning signs, 'Open Range Beware of Cows and
Hogs.'

In one notable instance, where the United States Army and a hundred
years of persuasion failed, a highway has succeeded. The Seminole Indians
surrendered to the Tamiami Trail. From the Everglades the remnants of
this race emerged, soon after the trail was built, to set up their palm-
thatched villages along the road and to hoist tribal flags as a lure to pass-
ing motorists. Like their white brethren, they sell articles of handicraft
and for a nominal fee will pose for photographs.

This concentration of the Seminole, however, by no means represents
the extent of their influence. Seminole names are more numerous and
widespread in Florida than are the living members of the race. Such names
were even more plentiful before the railroads interceded in behalf of traits

6 FLORIDA

callers as one example among many, the ' jawbreaker 7 Ichepuckesassa was
changed to Plant City. The Indians themselves have made the most of one
profitable name. Since they discovered that the story of Osceola is popular
among tourists, that fiery war chief has acquired many descendants, and
most of the present-day Osceolas display their names along the Tamiami
Trail.

Although signboards ruin many beautiful stretches of country, they are,
in fact, a significant part of the Florida scene. In rural upper Florida one
sees crude notices of patent medicines or of ' Mules for Sale. 7 In the vicin-
ity of St.Augustine a great deal of early history is presented on roadside
signs, and farther south the flora and fauna are similarly publicized for
commercial purposes. Nearly everywhere gastronomy and distance are
combined in directional markers that announce i u miles to Guava Paste'
or ' 13 miles to Tupelo Honey. 7 The name of a popular brand of malaria
medicine appears on tin signs attached to thousands of trees, but the
manufacturer complains that business has been ' terrible 7 since mosquito
control became effcenive.

The signboard plays an important role in that it introduces the Yankee
to the Cracker and quickly establishes the fact that the two have much in
common although their customs differ. The native Floridian may offer
specious replies to what he considers oversimple questions, but he is likely
to be puzzled at the abysmal ignorance that causes the Yankee to refer to
orange groves as ' orchards, 7 sandspurs as 'sandburs, 7 and sandflies as
'sandfleas. 7 Neither does he see any reason to exclaim over a bullfrog
chorus in February or the call of the whippoorwill at twilight in early
March. In his own behalf he is fluently persuasive on the virtues of his
particular locality; but the Yankee in Florida has become a roving visitor
determined to see the entire State regardless of regional blandishments,

The first- time visitor is primarily a sightseer. He is the principal cus-
tomer for the admission places along the road. He learns very soon how far
Florida is supposed to project from the Old South by the discovery that a
turpentine still with its Negro quarters has been turned into a tourist at-
traction and advertised as a survival of bygone plantation days.

Clockwise and counterclockwise the sightseeing newcomer makes the
circuit of the State, filling the highways with a stream of two-way traffic.
If traveling southward by the Gulf coast route, he stops to partake of a
Spanish dinner in the Latin quarter of Tampa, to sit on the green benches
of St.Petersburg, to view the Singling Circus animals and art museum at
Sarasota, to admire the royal palms at Fort Myers. Thence he follows the
Tamiami Trail through the ghostly scrub cypress and primitive silence of

CONTEMPORARY SCENE 7

the Everglades, to encounter at last the theatrical sophistication of Miami.
As a side trip from the latter city, he may proceed down the long overseas
highway to Key West, once the State's most populous city and an impor-
tant defense base, but since its recent rehabilitation by the Federal Gov-
ernment something of a public curiosity, a place favored by artists and
writers, and noted for its green-turtle steaks.

On his return up the Atlantic coast, the traveler may concede that pub-
licity word-pictures of the resorts from Miami Beach northward have not
been greatly exaggerated, but he is impressed by the long intervening
stretches of woodland, suggesting that Florida is still very largely an
empty State. From Palm Beach, which has long been the earthly Valhalla
of financial achievement, he may detour inland to discover the hidden
winter-vegetable kingdom on the muck lands along the southern shore of
Lake Okeechobee, where Negro workers harvest thousands of carloads of
beans and other fresh food supplies; or farther north he may swing inland
by way of Orlando, through the great citrus groves of the hilly lake region
and the thriving strawberry country around Plant City; then up to Ocala,
where he can look through the glass bottoms of boats at water life in the
depths of crystal-clear springs. Returning to the east coast, he inspects the
far-famed natural speedway at Daytona Beach and the old Spanish fort at
StAugustine before he reaches the northern terminal city of Jacksonville.
Frequently at the end of the tour, the visitor announces that he is never
coming back.

His second excursion into Florida is somewhat different. On his first
trip, unconsciously or deliberately, he had selected a spot where he thought
later on he might want to live and play, and when he comes again he usu-
ally returns to that chosen place for a season. Ultimately, in many cases,
he buys or builds a home there and becomes by slow degrees a citizen and
a critic.

The evolution of a tourist into a permanent resident consists of a strug-
gle to harmonize misconceptions and preconceptions of Florida with real-
ity. An initial diversion is to mail northward snapshots of himself reclining
under a coconut palm or a beach umbrella, with the hope that they will be
delivered in the midst of a blizzard. At the same time, the tourist checks
weather reports from the North, and if his home community is having a
mild winter he feels that his Florida trip has been in part a swindle. Noth-
ing short of ten-foot snowdrifts and burst waterpipes at home can make
his stay in the southland happy and complete. On the other hand, he is
firmly convinced that with his departure in the spring the State folds up
and the inhabitants sizzle under a pitiless sun until he gets back, official

8 PL ORID A

weather reports and chamber-of-commerce protests to the contrary,
Eventually he takes a chance on a Florida summer and makes the discov-
ery that the average summer temperature in Florida is lower than in the
North; he tries to tell about it at home, and for his pains receives a round
of Bronx cheers. He is now in the agonies of transition, suspected by
friends and shunned by strangers. His visits to Florida thereafter shift to
visits back home, and these latter become less frequent; but 'back home'
has left an indelible imprint, which he proposes to stamp on Florida.

An expansive mood is one of the most familiar and sometimes costly
first responses to a Florida winter sun. The person noted for taciturnity in
his home community often becomes loquacious, determined that those
about him shall know that he is a man of substance. This frequently makes
him an easy prey to ancient confidence games; sometimes leads to unpre-,
meditated matrimony; and almost inevitably results in the acquisition of
superfluous building lots.

Already something of a solipsist, he becomes an incurable nonconform-
ist, vigorously defending his adopted State and indignantly decrying it by
turns. He refutes the tradition that life in the South is a lackadaisical exist-
ence adapted to an enervating climate. He comes here to play and to re-
lax but at the slightest provocation he resumes his business or profession,
if for no other reason than to demonstrate that the sound economic prac-
tices of his home State will pull Florida out of the doldrums he perceives it
to be in. If he opens a shop, the back-home instinct is likely to reassert itself
in choosing a name, so that Florida abounds in Michigan groceries, Mary-
land restaurants, Ohio dry-cleaners, Indiana laundries, and New York
shoe shops.

Along with business and professional theories, the Northerner brings to
Florida a great deal of his local architectural tradition. This assures a
structural variant to the repetitious designs of filling stations at the four
corners of all the crossroad villages and of chain stores along the main
streets in the larger towns.

While Florida's tourist population is drawn to the State largely by the
prospect of play and recreation in a beneficent climate, the distribution of
its population is influenced to a great extent by personal inclination. The
newcomer usually gravitates to the locality where his individual prefer-
ences can best be realized, and in so doing he helps to identify these pref-
erences with his adopted community. This tends to emphasize the strik-
ingly diverse characteristics of Florida's cities. For example, there is the
commercial metropolis of Jacksonville, with its converging railroads and
northern bustle; and, close by, antique St.Augustine, with its historical

CONTEMPORARY SCENE 9

background and buildings and its horse-drawn sightseeing conveyances;
St.Petersburg with its clublike foregathering of elderly folk, where fire and
police lines are sometimes needed to handle the throngs of Sunday morn-
ing worshipers; and Miami, where employees in public establishments are
fingerprinted as a police precaution to safeguard the crowds that fill its
hotels, race tracks, and night clubs.

Regardless of individual circumstance and preference, one desire seems
to be common to all the desire to improve Florida. But man's subduing
efforts seldom extend much beyond the cities or penetrate very far from
the highways; and if those efforts were relaxed for a generation, much of
Florida would become primeval territory again. In combating nature and
in trying to reconcile divergent ideas, the citizen performs a public service,
and if the climate, as advertised, adds ten years to his life, the dispensa-
tion is utilized to the advantage of the State.

Natural Setting and Conservation

FLORIDA is bounded on the north by Georgia and Alabama, and on
all other sides by the salt waters of the Atlantic Ocean, the Straits
of Florida, and the Gulf of Mexico, except for about 50 miles on the
west where the Perdido River forms a boundary between this State and
lowei^Alabama. The State's tidal shore line including the Ten Thousand
Islands off the west coast, and all bays, estuaries, and other tidal reaches
extends 3,751 statute miles from the northern boundary on the Atlantic to
the western boundary on the Gulf. Florida's area of 58,666 square miles, of
which 3,805 are water surface, is more than large enough to contain Maine,
Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Jacksonville,
in northeast Florida, is in the same latitude as Cairo, Egypt, and Shang-
hai, China, and the entire peninsula lies hundreds of miles nearer than
Rome to the equator.

Viewed from the air, with its broken coast line and its innumerable
lakes, canals, and rivers, Florida looks like a frayed and perforated green
mat spread upon a blue sea. Inland the mat develops a ridge composed
of round-shouldered limestone hills, that tapers off from the north into the
prairie region above Lake Okeechobee. Below the lake appear the Ever-
glades, a half-submerged waste of sawgrass studded with cypress ham-
mocks and oasislike palm islands. In profile, as seen from offshore, the land
of Florida becomes a soft pastel line separating sky and water.

The Atlantic coast sweeps in an even curve to the end of the peninsula,
where it breaks into segments; from there the Florida Keys extend like
coral steppingstones into southern waters. The Gulf coast, deeply marked
with bays and bordered with rank growths of hardwood, makes a great
arching swing southward, and finally crumbles into the Ten Thousand Is-
lands, a labyrinth of uncharted waterways.

Geographically, the State can be divided into four sections: the east-
coast strip, bordering the Atlantic from Fernandina to Key West; the lake
or central-ridge district; the west-coast area, of which Tampa is the hub;
and the panhandle of west Florida, which includes the rolling country
along the north shore of the Gulf.

The east coast is protected from the open sea by a ribbon of sand bars

NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION II

and islands, on which have been built many leading tourist towns, notably
Ormond, Daytona Beach, Palm Beach, and Miami Beach. Although the
business districts are often on the mainland, the resort sections lie beyond
salt-water lagoons on barrier beaches. Inland from the coast, a wedge-
shaped area of pine and palmetto flatwoods reaches from the Georgia bor-
der on the north to a point between the Everglades and the Atlantic on
the southern tip of the peninsula.

The Everglades until 1842 an unexplored, mysterious region known
only to the Seminole who found sanctuary there from invading whites
form a vast area, much of which is under water throughout the year, and
nearly all during the rainy summer season.

Big Cypress Swamp, that portion of the Everglades nearest the west
coast, has considerably less surface water than the eastern half of the re-
gion. Its northern section, known as Okaloacoochee Slough, has been used
as pasture for open-range cattle since the War between the States. The
Tamiami Trail, running east and west, bisects the Everglades and skirts
the southern part of the Big Cypress Swamp.

Fringing the lower Gulf coast are the Ten Thousand Islands, a group of
mangrove-covered islets divided, and often submerged, by swift-running
tidal channels. No railways or highways link these keys, and because of
their inaccessibility they have been the refuge of many picaresque char-
acters since the late i88o's. North of the Ten Thousand Islands the coast
is blanketed with pine forests and hardwood hammocks. Several drowned
river valleys and the absence of reefs, except along its upper reaches, indi-
cate that this section is probably older than the east coast.

The topography of much of northwest Florida has little to differentiate
it from the red clay hills of Georgia and Alabama across the border, but
along the Gulf coast great swamps cut deep into the land, and tourist re-
sorts of this section are built on bay fronts or islands overlooking the
Gulf.

The lake or central-ridge section is rolling land pitted with lakes and
springs. Le Heup Hill, 4 miles south of Dade City, with an elevation of
330 feet, is one of the highest measured points in the State. The estimated
30,000 lakes scattered throughout Florida range in depth from 2 to 27 feet,
and in size from ponds of a few acres' extent to Lake Okeechobee, with an
area of 717 square miles, the second-largest body of fresh water lying
wholly within the United States. Free-running artesian wells are found
chiefly along the coast and in central Florida, but in the lake district the
water supply is obtained by pumping. North of Lake Okeechobee the
Kissimmee Prairies, covered with grass and patches of palmetto, and in-

12 FLORIDA

terspersed with scattered hammocks, represent the State's largest cattle
ranges.

The major part of Florida's shallow surface soil is underlaid by a deep
limestone foundation. Sinks or potholes, varying in size from one to hun-
dreds of acres, occur where the crust is broken. The huge Florida springs,
the lakes, and many of the surface streams also result from breaks in the
limestone. Underground watercourses often cause the earth's surface to
cave in, exposing streams such as the one at Falmouth Spring, the Santa
Fe and Alapaha Rivers, and Bear Creek, which disappear only to reappear
miles beyond. The disappearance of lakes is also a familiar occurrence. One
explanation of this phenomenon is that logs, stumps of trees, and other
refuse clog openings in the limestone bottoms of the lakes. In time the de-
bris rots and the water escapes into subterranean channels, but suction
from escaping water draws other floating refuse and sediment to plug the
holes again, and allow the lakes to refill. Lake lamonia, north of Tallahas-
see, has gone through this process several times within the past century.
Lake Neff, in Hernando County, has disappeared and returned three times
since 1917.

Florida's 27 major springs range in flow from about 14,000 to 800,000,000
gallons per day. Silver Springs, southeast of Ocala; Rainbow Springs, near
Dunnellon; and Itchetucknee Springs, south of Lake City, in the order
named, are the largest. Wakulla Spring has the largest volume from a
single fissure in the earth. Some rivers the Suwannee, the Withlacoochee,
and the St. Johns rise in swampy ground and are later swelled by the flow
from springs. Rivers west of the Suwannee have their sources in the hills of
Georgia and Alabama and become deeper after receiving the inflow from
west Florida springs. Among these, the Apalachicola, Escambia, and
Choctawhatch.ee Rivers were important trade routes before the develop-
ment of highways and railroads connecting the ante-bellum plantations of
south Georgia and Florida with the Gulf of Mexico.

The largest and most important river in the State, the St. Johns, flows
northward, parallel to the east coast, and empties into the Atlantic Ocean
east of Jacksonville. Dredging has opened the river to navigation by ocean
liners as far as Jacksonville, a distance of 26 miles, but since 1841 small
steamers have been plying the river as far south as Sanford, 200 miles from
the sea.

Projecting into subtropical water, the Florida Peninsula enjoys a mild
atmospheric drift from the Atlantic to the Gulf, and its climate in conse-
quence is unusually pleasant and uniform. Below-freezing temperatures are
rare, and snowfall is a subject for historians. Temperatures in January, the

NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 13

coldest month, average about 58.7 F., and in the warmest months, July
and August, about 81 F. ; the average for the year is 69.4. In central and
south Florida the average extreme range lies between 90 and 43, while in
north Florida the mercury sometimes drops below 32 for short periods. In
summer the salt waters of Florida become lukewarm, and in winter their
temperature is about the same as that of the north Atlantic in summer.
But atmospheric warmth above Florida waters in the winter months is, of
course, less than that above northern waters in summer, and at times win-
ter sun bathing on Florida beaches is a somewhat chilly pastime.

Evaporation from the thousands of lakes and the encircling waters con-
tributes to an annual average rainfall of 58 inches. Much of this precipita-
tion occurs from April to November, usually when it is most needed to in-
sure good crops and lower summer temperatures. The peninsula has a
daily average of sunshine in excess of six hours.

The warm Gulf Stream curves around the peninsula's southern tip and
flows north along the Atlantic coast. This factor, however, is not as impor-
tant to Florida's climate as was once believed; geographers explain that
the general marine influence and latitudinal position of the State would
assure mild temperatures, apart from the proximity of the Gulf Stream.
For short intervals each winter cold waves invade the State, bringing
frost, delaying maturity of crops, and sometimes damaging fruit trees. The
winds bearing this cold come overland from the northwest, and are not
tempered by the Gulf Stream.

Florida and other South Atlantic States lie in the general path of tropi-
cal hurricanes, arising mostly in the Caribbean Sea in the fall of the year;
but many of these storms blow themselves out before reaching land, or
they come ashore with their destructive forces greatly spent. For the most
part they describe a clockwise arc into the Gulf or up the Atlantic coast,
although sometimes they reverse themselves. These atmospheric disturb-
ances, caused by wind rushing toward a low-pressure area, take the form
of a huge doughnut, with high wind revolving around a calm center or
core. Because of this formation, the storm passes through three stages at
any given spot in its path: first a furious gale in one direction, then a dead
calm during the passage of the core, and finally a wind equal in velocity to
the first but in the opposite direction. It is during the period of calm that
inhabitants unfamiliar with the structure of the storm often leave their
shelters, and are caught in the last stage. Buildings weakened by strain
during the first wind are frequently wrecked by the second blast. Torren-
tial rains usually accompany a hurricane, and water blown into unroofed
buildings accounts for much property damage. Loss of life in the past has

14 FLORIDA

been chiefly because of poor housing and unpreparedness; one storm
struck in the Everglades before Lake Okeechobee was diked, forcing that
body of water over a wide territory to the south, where many laborers
housed in flimsy shacks were drowned.

Government weather stations now chart the approximate path of all
disturbances, and newspapers and radios give ample warning. Though the
revolving wind may exceed 100 miles an hour in velocity, the forward
movement of a hurricane seldom exceeds 20 miles, and this leaves plenty
of time for those in danger to board up buildings or vacate the territory.

GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY

The far-reaching Floridian Plateau includes not only the State but an even
greater surrounding area that lies less than fifty fathoms beneath the At-
lantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Primarily an offspring of the sea and
bearing the marks of its marine parentage, the plateau was built up largely
during the most recent of the five geologic eras; it is the youngest part of
the United States, a land infant but 45,000,000 years old.

During the convulsive age of mountain building the Floridian Plateau
remained comparatively calm, only rising and falling in a rolling motion,
with a down dip into the Gulf of Mexico. This process still continues; in
the last 25,000 years the plateau, tipping on an axis that runs obliquely up
the peninsula from Key West to a point below Fernandina, has lifted 6 feet
at Miami and dropped 30 feet at Pensacola.

In the Paleozoic era of earth history, the area that is now the Mississippi
Valley was a vast sea, and east of this, in the Appalachian region, lay the
land mass to which is now attached the Floridian Plateau. But the hills of
Florida are not a part of the Appalachian Mountains; they stand out prin-
cipally because surrounding material has settled or eroded away. The crys-
talline rock that outcrops in Georgia is not found in Florida, except for
deeply buried fragments. Neither do the subsurface waters that feed the
State's springs and artesian wells originate in the Appalachian Mountains.
Nor is the peninsula a great coral reef, as was once believed. Less than one
per cent of its structure is coral.

Although the foundation rocks of Florida are covered with a stone blan-
ket of marine deposit at least 4,000 feet deep, geologists surmise that they
are probably folded and wrinkled in much the same way as are similar
rocks in the Piedmont Plateau, which extends from the Hudson River to
Alabama. The layers of marine sediment that rest upon the basement
rocks were formed when the entire section was beneath the sea, and are

NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 15

composed for the most part of the skeletons of microscopic sea animals.
During the Triassic, Jurassic, and Lower Cretaceous periods of the Meso-
zoic era, the State area was above the waters, but was submerged many
times during the Cenozoic (Recent), the age of mammals. At no time, so
far as can be learned, did the land ever rise very high above sea level, or
did the sea ever cover the land to any great depth.

The warm shallow seas that repeatedly covered the area were ideally
suited to foraminifera. These tiny marine animals, some too small to be
seen by the naked eye, lived and died by the millions in tropic waters.
While alive they were protected by shells of lime; when they died the shells
sank to the floor of the ocean to form layers of limestone, each hundreds of
feet thick. During the Eocene and Oligocene epochs the strata were com-
posed almost entirely of this matter, and the formations of these periods
are nearly pure limestone. During the Miocene, however, fine sand was
washed down from the mountains of Georgia and Alabama and was de-
posited on the Floridian Plateau to form sandy limestone; and later much
clay drifted south to settle over the State area and complete its stratified
layers. Thus the foundation rocks are separated from the earliest exposed
strata by a mass of limestone 4,000 feet thick and by layers of red, white,
and black clay.

A gentle up-arching of the Eocene and older rocks had begun before the
last of these deposits was made, and this doming finally gave the structure
a list which, despite torrential rains that battered and slashed to beat it
down, left it 150 feet above sea level to form an island around present
Ocala. Eventually, when the Suwannee Strait to the north closed, this be-
came a peninsula less than half the size of the Floridian Plateau, and part
of the North American land mass.

The tip of the peninsula extended at one time only to the lower rim of
Lake Okeechobee, but far to the south of that point another formation
emerged from the up-building of live coral on submerged oolitic rock.
Gradually wind and waves rolled up barriers along the Atlantic and Gulf
coasts, extending the peninsula toward the coral reefs and eventually
forming dunes that shut out the sea. The enclosed area, rank with marine
plant life, became a fresh- water basin, and its decaying vegetation through
the centuries turned into the peatlands that now comprise the Everglades.

A survey made along the Florida Reef in 1846 by Timothy Abbott Con-
rad, and followed by Louis Agassiz, gave original ground for the belief that
the entire peninsula of Florida was of coral formation; and this theory was
incorporated by Joseph LeConte in his excellent textbook, Elements of Ge-
ology, in 1878. This belief continued until 1886, when Angelo Heilprin de-

l6 FLORIDA

termined that the progressive growth of the peninsula as far south as Lake
Okeechobee was due to a combination of sedimentation and upheaval.

Geologically, Florida's strata date back only to the Tertiary or later
periods of the Cenozoic era, embracing the Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene,
and Pliocene epochs. Under familiar names these layers supply an inex-
haustible source of road material, give Florida its lucrative phosphate in-
dustry, account for its pitted topography, and provide underground reser-
voirs that assure to all sections an independent supply of fresh water from
local rainfall.

Ocala limestone, of the Eocene epoch, the oldest exposed sediment in
the State, outcrops over a large section around Ocala, reaching north to
the Suwannee River and south to the Withlacoochee River. This lime-
stone underlies the entire State except for the extreme western portion. It
is a pure-white to cream-colored granular rock, varying in thickness from
50 to 500 feet, and consists almost entirely of carbonate of lime. Chiefly
composed of foraminifera, as are the older strata upon which it rests, it
also contains fossil coral, sea urchins, molluscs, and occasionally a verte-
brate sea mammal known as Zeuglodon, an early ancestor of the whale.

Marianna and Glendon limestones and Byram marl rest on the Ocala
limestone, and belong to the Oligocene epoch. They correspond to the
strata known as the Vicksburg group in Mississippi and Alabama, and ap-
pear in Florida only in the vicinity of Marianna, with the exception of a
curved strip of the Glendon stone on either side of the Suwannee River
near Ellaville. The Marianna limestone, a soft white rock, weathers to a
dirty gray; Glendon limestone is hard, and its color runs from yellow to a
pinkish hue; Byram marl consists of soft, fine-grained, sandy yellow lime-
stone. The first two, quarried on a small scale, are used in the construction
of chimneys.

The era of mountain building in the western part of North America,
during the Miocene epoch, brought few changes in the contour and general
outline of Florida. Six different layers of limestone, sand, and marl were
then deposited: the Tampa limestone, widespread, but missing in many
areas; the Shoal River formation; the Chipola formation; the Oak Grove
sands in the northwestern part of the State; the Choctawhatch.ee forma-
tion, found both in the panhandle and inland from Charlotte Harbor; and
the Hawthorn formation, also widespread, but thin, and much of it eroded
away.

The most important Miocene strata are the cream-to-white colored
limestones of the Tampa and the Hawthorn formations, both exposed over
large areas. The former is essentially a marine and estuarine formation;

NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 17

the latter, chiefly a land deposit. Tampa limestone is used in the manufac-
ture of cement, and both are used for making quicklime. The Hawthorn
contains commercial deposits of fuller's earth.

Pliocene deposits are divided into Caloosahatchee marl, the Citronelle
formation, Bone Valley gravel, and the Alachua formation. The first of
these, consisting of fine sand, lime ooze, and shells, was laid down in shal-
low salt water when the State was submerged by a calm sea. The Citro-
nelle formation appears to have been deposited as a large delta, and the
Bone Valley gravel similarly from an estuarine source. The Bone Valley
and Alachua formations contain a great number of land-animal bones
and phosphatic material from the Hawthorn decayed-phosphate depos-
its, such as calcium phosphate, calcium carbonate, and other minerals, de-
rived from the fossil remains of extinct land and water animals. The Ala-
chua deposits, mined in the Dunnellon region, supply hard rock phosphate,
while from the Bone Valley gravel, in the Bartow region, conies pebble
phosphate. Phosphate was discovered on Peace River in 1884 by J.Francis
LeBaron, but was not commercially developed until 1887, when Colonel
T.S.Moorehead managed to raise capital where LeBaron had failed.

The Pleistocene, first epoch of the Quaternary period of the Cenozoic
era, and also known as the age of man, saw the formation of both land and
water deposits. Muck, peat, alluvium, and wind-blown sand were laid
down away from the ocean; while in the sea were built up shell marl, the
coquina that furnished the early Spaniards with an easily worked building
stone, soft oolitic rock, and coral-reef limestone. The greater part of the
population of Florida occupies the Pensacola terrace, a formation of Pleis-
tocene origin. On this terrace are the cities of Fernandina, St.Augustine,
Jacksonville, Miami, Fort Myers, Bradenton, Tampa, St.Petersburg, and
Pensacola.

Florida has its share of geological mysteries. One that gave rise to much
speculation was a column of smoke and a red glare that appeared in the
sky above the impenetrable Wakulla Swamp in August 1886 and that dis-
appeared immediately after the Charleston earthquake. Geologists infer
that it was caused by the ignition of escaping natural gas by lightning, and
that the earthquake sealed the vent and thus extinguished the flames.

More difficult to explain, though unspectacular, is a row of round holes
a few miles north of Brooksville, each about 36 inches in diameter and
filled almost to the top with drifted sand and decayed vegetation. These
'chimneys,' as they are locally named, are blackened around the top, but
show no indication of volcanic heat.

At Ballast Point near Tampa, geodes are frequently uncovered. These

l8 FLORIDA

are little knots of stone with quartzlike interiors, running from light agate
tints to jet black. The geode is a detached formation, and its accidental
presence in the silex beds at Ballast Point is attributed to a tendency of
nature to form concretions out of whatever substance is at hand. The only
known similar specimens are found in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas.

During the first two periods of the Tertiary era the only living creatures
in Florida were marine animals, although the Tertiary produced in other
parts of the continent the dinosaurs that are associated with prehistoric
life. The Florida area was submerged at this time, and the corresponding
formation Ocala limestone contains evidence of but one mammal, a
whalelike sea monster known as Basilosaurus.

Formations of the last two periods of the Tertiary (Miocene and Plio-
cene) contain evidence that the State was then inhabited by strange beasts
that found their way to the peninsula from many parts of the world. In the
Alum Bluff beds of the Hawthorn formation in Leon, Gadsden, and Ala-
chua Counties have been found the bones and teeth of deer, three-toed
horses, camels, giant pigs, and rhinoceroses. These were not predatory
types, however, and had man inhabited the State at this time he would
have feared but one carnivorous animal, a prowling beast akin to both the
modern wolf and the dog.

A number of significant plant fossils have been found in the Alum Bluff
bed between the Chipola and Choctawhatchee formations. Among the
thirteen species positively identified are fan palm, breadfruit, satinwood,
ironwood, camphor, buckthorn, elm, and persimmon, all of which are
adapted to the present habitat of the region. The species indicate that the
flora was predominantly tropical, with additions from a temperate cli-
mate.

The Miocene three-toed horse, known as Parahippus, can be traced
through several varieties to the Hipparion, the three-toed horse of the Pli-
ocene. Hipparion, however, was not in the direct line that led to the de-
velopment of the modern horse, but a branch that has since disappeared.
It is not until the Pleistocene that fossils of Equus, the prehistoric one-
toed horse that is often called the 'homo sapiens 3 of the horse family, ap-
pear in Florida deposits.

The Pliocene deposits, following in point of geological time directly after
the Miocene, contain an even greater abundance of fossil animal remains.
The phosphate mines of Alachua, Levy, and Polk Counties have yielded
rich stores to the Florida paleontologist. The fauna of this age differs
greatly from that of modern times. It was in the Pliocene that the masto-
dons made their way from the Old World by way of Asia; even at the very

NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 19

beginning of the age they were firmly established on the peninsula. The
serrate-toothed mastodon, a great elephantlike creature with a short trunk
and four tusks, wandered from India halfway around the world before
reaching Florida.

With the Pleistocene era there came such a multitude of both great and
small animals as will probably never be found in one region again. The
great ice sheet at this time was advancing south from the North Pole; and
covering the northern part of the United States and all of Canada was a
glacial mass that destroyed vegetation and drove animal life before it.
Herbivorous beasts sought green pastures in the warmer territories to the
south, and countless thousands invaded Florida. Camels, horses, mam-
moths, huge sloths, armadillos, and peccaries roamed the State, cropping
grass and stripping leaves from the Pleistocene trees. After them came the
beasts of prey saber-toothed tigers, wolves, and lions which made life
precarious for the vegetarians. Many of these animals bear a resemblance
to the modern fauna of South America and Africa, and students of ancient
life present this as evidence for the theory that camels originated in Amer-
ica and later made their way to the Old World long before man, possibly
following the animal trail, found his way to the New World.

The most important deposits of the Pleistocene era in the State are the
Melbourne bone beds, a series of patches along the east coast containing
the bones of extinct animals just as they were buried thousands of years
ago beneath beds of shifting sand. Investigation of these beds has been
carried on from time to time, but the deposits are so rich that it will be
many years before all the material can be assembled and classified.

Geological information on Florida is not to be obtained from mountains,
where outcroppings can be studied with comparatively little effort and ex-
pense, but from strata thousands of feet below the surface. Usually the ex-
pense of such operations has made geological research in the State an inci-
dent of commercial enterprise, as in the deep-well borings of Marion
County. Thus only intermittently have geologists been able to study
that part of the earth's history written in the rocks, soils, and waters
of Florida.

THE ISLE OF FLOWERS

Florida, regarded by Ponce de Leon as ' the Isle of Flowers/ is entirely
within the temperate zone but is influenced by subtropical waters. As a
result, most of its tropical plants bloom in summer and many of the tem-
perate zone varieties bloom in winter a reversal of the usual order. This,

20 FLORIDA

together with the State's four distinct growing seasons, produces an un-
usual mingling of vegetation.

High and low ' hammocks/ fresh and salt marshes, sand and clay hills,
and rich muck beds are well suited to both native and imported plant life,
but the distribution of the many species is greatly influenced by topogra-
phy. Native plants are especially sensitive to elevation. In the flat pine
woods a shallow depression reaching water level usually results in the ap-
pearance of a cypress dome; a rise of from six to eight feet frequently
means a change from pine to scrub blackjack oak.

Mark Catesby, an English naturalist, collected specimens of Florida
plant life as early as 1731, and published prints of many that he found. In
the last quarter of the eighteenth century, William Bartram, son of John
Bartram, botanist to the King of England, created something of a sensa-
tion both here and abroad by his published description of Florida plants.
Only recently a rare bulbous plant described by him, the blue ixia, was re-
discovered growing on the roadside between Jacksonville and St.Augus-
tine. Andre Michaux, who was sent to Florida by the French Government
to gather botanical specimens, arrived in 1788; part of his herbarium is
now in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Dr. Henry Perrine, a distinguished
pioneer in the study of subtropical plants, met his death on Indian Key at
the hands of Indians in 1840. Dr. Alvan Wentworth Chapman of Apalachi-
cola narrowly escaped capture by Indians while he was searching near
St.Marks for the feathery blooms of the titi, a native tree. His Flora of the
Southern United States, published in 1860, is still a standard work. As a re-
sult of studies by these and many other distinguished botanists, more than
3,000 varieties of indigenous flowering plants have been identified, ranging
in size from the magnolia to the delicate terrestrial orchid, and in many
cases found nowhere else in North America. Together with thousands of
imported tropical or subtropical plants, they make Florida a favorite field
for the botanist and the amateur flower lover.

In general, Florida vegetation is distributed among seven more or less
distinct habitats flatwoods, scrub lands, grassy swamps, savannas, salt
marshes, hammocks or hardwood forests, and high pinelands. Collectively,
these contain about half of the tree species found north of Mexico, and
more varieties of native trees than any similar region in America north of
the Tropic of Cancer. Yet only five oak, pine, cypress, palm, and man-
grove are the familiar trees of Florida.

Flatwoods, common throughout the State, consist of poorly drained
level areas, with a sour boggy soil. Although open forests constitute their
chief vegetation, they contain an abundance of flowers that bloom many

NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 21

months of the year. Most noteworthy in the low and wet fields of lower
Florida are the terrestrial orchids, of which there are 64 varieties. Here
also are the insect catcheis pitcher plants, sundews, and yellow and pur-
ple Pinguicula together with red lilies and several species of milkwort.
Among the more showy native species are the liatris, commonly called the
blazing star, whose nodding purple spikes decorate the landscape in late
summer and fall, and the gray-leaved, pale-blue lupine that covers the hills
and roadsides as early as February.

The scrub lands, identified by small sand pines, include much of the
ridge district in the central part of the peninsula, together with the sand
dunes along the coasts. The ridge area, abounding in lakes and springs, is
characterized by dense growths of saw palmetto, evergreen, live oaks,
blackjack, and water oaks, interspersed with varieties of evergreen shrubs,
hollies, and such members of the heath family as huckleberries, sparkle-
berries, and fetter-bush. Many species of cactus are common. Throughout
the central and lower east-coast section grows a cycad, the coontie of the
genus Zamia, roots of which provide a kind of arrowroot. From these roots
the Indians often made bread during the Seminole Wars, when they could
not remain in one locality long enough to raise corn. Most of this region is
fragrant from early March to June with the blossoms of commercially
grown grapefruit, tangerine, and orange trees. (The orange blossom is of
interest not only to citrus growers and wedding parties it has been cho-
sen as the State flower.) During the same season, fields of t white and red
morning-glories, sunflowers, and black-eyed Susans are conspicuous.

In the savannas of central Florida, water lettuce forms a heavy aquatic
growth, and spectacular displays of the yellow American lotus may be
seen on several of the fresh-water marshes. The major marine grasses are
the turtle, eel, and manatee varieties. The cabbage palm predominates in
palm savannas over the State. Floating water hyacinths cover many small
lakes and streams, often growing thickly enough to impede navigation. On
the east coast, and for a distance along the lower Gulf coast, are flourishing
growths of Spanish bayonets, seagrapes, lantanas, and blue verbena (Ver-
bena maritima).

The larger plant growth in north Florida is longleaf and other pines,
cypresses, magnolias, bays, gums, and oaks. Two trees native to the north-
west area, Tumion cedar and Floridian yew, grow only along the Apa-
lachicola River. Chapman's rhododendron is found exclusively in the
sandy pinelands of west Florida.

Near the coast in lower Bade County and extending to the western
edge of Homestead, an area of 500 square miles, is a region of pineland

22 FLORIDA

without a close counterpart elsewhere in the world. In the absence of suffi-
cient topsoil, the trees take root directly in the soft honeycombed lime
rock that outcrops here. Much of the native vegetation of southern Flor-
ida (which is free from severe frosts) occurs nowhere else in the United
States. Here cypresses, mangroves, mahoganies, ferns, lianas, and aerial
plant growths flourish, as well as several of the State's most decorative
palms.

Of a half-dozen varieties of oak, the laurel, water, and live oaks (the lat-
ter an evergreen species) attain great size. Many of the State's towns and
villages may be recognized immediately as older settlements by the water
oaks, with their straight trunks and high branches, that shade the streets.
It has been said of the live oak that a man can always rest his hand on a
lower bough. The trunk is short and thick, and the spread of the tree is
often greater than its height. Some of the moss-hung live oaks in Florida
today were standing when America was discovered.

Although the palm is Florida's much exploited emblem, the pine is its
commonest tree. From the stunted sand variety to the tall open-crown
longleaf type, the pine ranges over the peninsula on upland and plain, and
masses luxuriantly in the flatwoods. The quick-growing slash is the crop
pine, and with the loblolly supplies raw material to Florida's paper mills.

Florida has but 15 native palms, among which only the cabbage pal-
metto grows naturally throughout the State; but to these more than a
hundred species have been added from every palm-growing country in the
world. The majority of the Datives, which include four palmettoes, are pal-
mate or fan-flared; and only two, the royal and the coconut, bear pinnate
or feather leaves. The royal palm, now largely transplanted, grows wild on
the muck lands near the lower Gulf coast. The coconut palm, also trans-
planted, is widespread on the Florida Keys, extending to Key West; its
presence here is attributed to the buoyancy of its fruit, which drifted up
from the American tropics and took root on the island reef. Other palms,
small and mostly of the thatch varieties, grow on the reef.

The palmettoes, with their recumbent trunks and enormous root sys-
tems, form impenetrable mats that blanket the dry waste spaces through-
out the State. They are usually of a yellow-green color; but one variety of
saw palmetto takes on a startling glaucous blue on the high dunes along
the Atlantic coast.

The royal is the sovereign palm for ornamental planting, but in cooler
central Florida it abdicates in favor of a plumy palm, popularly miscalled
Cocos plumosa, a hardy feather-leaf importation from Brazil. The Wash-
ingtonian palm, from Mexico, is another much used for street planting; it

NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 23

attains great height but does not shed its fronds, and unless trimmed it
disports a gray 'hula' skirt of dried leaves that reaches nearly to the
ground. Among the curious importations is the traveler's palm, an appar-
ently two-dimensional fan-shaped tree, the fronds of which are said to
point naturally north and south. It can be tapped for drinking water, and
therefore serves both as a font and a compass for the wayfarer in desert
countries.

Dense thickets of red, white, and black mangroves cover the greater
portion of Florida's lower coast. Mangroves grow from floating seeds
shaped somewhat like elephant tusks that anchor themselves in shallow
places. These strange trees rise from tide-washed sand flats where, with
their exposed perpendicular roots, they give the impression of a forest
marching on stilts. The mangrove is a land builder; its aerial roots collect
quantities of drifting earth and debris, and gradually the shore line back of
the trees is extended. The greatest of mangrove forests are those on the
Ten Thousand Islands, a wild and partly submerged region south of
Marco on the Gulf coast.

The largest swamp and savanna area of the State is the Everglades, a
section occupying nearly all the southern interior of the peninsula and cov-
ered for the most part with tall grasses and sedges, the most common be-
ing a tawny sawgrass. On elevations and islands are patches of live oak
surrounded by fringes of coco plum. The custard apple, a species of the
Annona, often forms dense thickets here; but where the land is low, cy-
press is the common tree. The Big Cypress Swamp of Collier County, em-
bracing 2,400 square miles west of the Everglades, is the largest of its kind
in Florida. The buttressed trunk of the cypress spreads wide at its base for
greater support, and projecting into the air, sometimes at a considerable
distance from the roots, are ' knees,' believed to be of use in aerating the
tree. Known to manufacturers as the 'wood eternal,' the cypress dates
back to the ice age; specimens excavated from ancient rock strata were
neither decayed nor petrified. Known also as the oldest living thing on the
earth, attaining an age of 6,000 years, the cypress grows slowly, adding
"but an inch to its radius in 30 years. The living patriarch of these trees in
Florida is 'Old Senator' at Longwood, estimated to be 3,500 years old.
Duckweed, floating heart, sagittaria, bonnets, and bladderwort grow lux-
uriously in the shallow water, and air plants thrive among the tree tops.
The Tillandsia or Spanish moss, of the pineapple family, is the most
conspicuous of the epiphytic or air-growing plants.

Contrasting vividly with the fresh green of new cypress foliage are the
spider orchid, with fragrant, narrow-petaled, large white flowers; the shell

24 FLORIDA

orchid, with its showy larkspurlike spike; and the chintz orchid, bearing
odd-looking mo f tied flowers. Great orchids (Cyrtopodium punctatum),
some of them almost unbelievably huge, have been found in the Ever-
glades. Expeditions from the New York Botanical Gardens have reported
specimens with as many as a thousand blossoms, and one, estimated to be
500 years old, so large that four men were needed to lift it.

Hammocks are denned by J.K.Small, the botanist, as dense growths of
trees and shrubs, mostly broad-leaved, sometimes occupying whole cir-
cumscribed portions of a geological formation, or occurring as 'islands'
surrounded by pine woods or prairie. Hammock soil is rich in humus and is
arable when cleared. In the hardwood hammocks of northern Florida,
looping vines of rattan, wild grape, and Spanish moss festoon cabbage
palms, magnolias, and oaks.

Florida's jungles are made up mostly of hardwood growths oaks,
gums, bays, and magnolias intertwined with tenacious creepers, hostile
vines, and bristling plants that bar passage. One of the latter is the thorny
Cerus pentagonus, of which Charles Torrey Simpson, the naturalist, has
written : I have abused it elsewhere but it is sufficiently villainous to call
for more condemnation. I cannot conceive how it would be possible to de-
vise a more devilish plant. Not frequently it almost fills the vacant space
in the forest, thrusting its long, lithe stems through the thickest growth
and appearing in the most unexpected places. Its stems may be three or
five angled, and each is lined with terrific spines an inch or more in length.
They are so sharp and strong that they easily pierce the heaviest leather.
The explorer may be ever so alert but he is certain to run into dozens of
them. He is equally sure to carry away a fine collection of its thorns, which
have a vicious way of breaking off in the body.'

Two native rubber trees of the jungles are the so-called strangling or
strangler fig, and a shortleaf variety which resembles the banyan of India.
The strangling fig derives its name from the fact that it often germinates
on trunks and branches of other trees, sending down root stems that en-
circle and eventually strangle the host tree.

More than a hundred ferns and plants closely related to ferns are found
in the State. Fronds of the largest tropical varieties are from 10 to 18 feet
in length. Of the two great fern areas in Florida, one is in the west-central
lime sink region, the other in the extreme southern portion of the State.

An immense variety of rare, odd, and beautiful plants has been intro-
duced by the U.S. Plant Introduction Garden at Cocoanut Grove, Miami,
by numerous private nurseries, and by owners of large private estates.
Purple and magenta bougainvillea and the golden bignonia, or flame vine,,

NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 2$

embellish walls and gateways. Hedges and clusters of flowering oleander,
Turk's-cap, and hibiscus are seen everywhere. The rapid-growing Austra-
lian pine is not a true pine, but belongs to the same group as the European
paradise plant. Although not so sturdy as the native pine, the tree thrives
in dry sandy soil, and is seldom damaged by salt spray. It is tall, symmet-
rical, and pointed, an importation of recent years used for windbreaks
and street planting. Exotic fruits, silk oaks, the feathery bamboo, the jac-
aranda, the poinsettia, and the variegated crotons are favorites among the
cultivated trees and plants.

ANIMAL LIFE

Pioneers and explorers recorded centuries ago that Florida was immensely
rich in animal life. Today much of the State retains its early wilderness
character and, in a great variety of natural habitats, affords refuge and re-
treat for numerous species. Moderate winters and ample sunshine have
helped to produce a particularly abundant aquatic life.

Eighty-four species of land mammals are found in Florida. Black bear,
deer, gray fox, wildcat, bay lynx, and puma inhabit the extensive areas of
swamp and forest. The puma, or Florida panther, leads an isolated life in
the Big Cypress country of lower Florida, more than a thousand miles
from its nearest relative, the mountain lion, or western cougar. The Flor-
ida species is slightly smaller than the mountain lion.

The majority of the small animals are those common to all Southern
States, but they are particularly numerous here: squirrels, cottontail rab-
bits, raccoons, and opossums. An unusual type is the marsh rabbit, a rela-
tive of the woods rabbit of Central and South America, which is known lo-
cally as the 'pontoon.' It is somewhat smaller than the cottontail and may
be distinguished by its smaller ears, shorter hind legs, and nearly unlcol-
ored tail. Except for the swamp rabbit, this is the only species of rabbit
that will take to the water. The small rodent oddly termed ' salamander' is
actually the pocket gopher, while the so-called 'Florida gopher' is a land
turtle. The salamander builds the countless little white mounds of sand
that are a familiar sight in Florida. The mounds appear mysteriously over-
night, but the industrious creatures that build them are seldom seen. The
manatee, or sea cow, is another rarity, a marine mammal that was once
particularly abundant along the Indian and Manatee Rivers. Otter and
mink, once plentiful, have been greatly reduced by trapping.

The wild razorback hog, though still present and untamed, has been
abolished by law; an act of the 1937 legislature declared the wild razor-

26 FLORIDA

back legally nonexistent in order to do away with a common defense in
cases of hog theft that the culprit thought the filched beast was wild and
therefore ownerless.

More than 400 species and subspecies of birds have been recorded,
counting the numerous migrants that winter in Florida. The mockingbird
was chosen Florida's State bird by a vote of the school children, and made
officially so in 1927 by an act of the legislature. An old argument as to the
relative singing ability of the mockingbird and the European nightingale
was settled in 1931 at Bok Tower, near Lake Wales, when imported night-
ingales demonstrated their talent in competition with mockingbirds of the
neighborhood. The latter at once appropriated the song of the nightingales
and made it a part of their own repertoire.

Among the common land birds nesting in Florida, the bald eagle and the
turkey buzzard are the largest. Woodlands abound in titmice, catbirds,
kingbirds, and butcher birds; tiny humming birds; gnatcatchers and
chickadees; colorful orchard orioles, cardinals, summer tanagers, brown
thrashers, blue birds and painted buntings; a multitude of warblers, in-
cluding the pine warbler, the bark-creeping black and white warbler, the
parula, palm and myrtle varieties. Common blue jays, Florida wrens and
English sparrows are familiar to every householder. The blackbirds are:
the redwing, the Florida grackles, common and fish crows, and the purple
martin a member of the swallow family, whose color is very nearly black.
At night appear ' chuck will's widow J and his less numerous cousin, the
northern whippoorwill; the swooping bull bat; barred, and screech owls.
The most common of woodpeckers are the redheaded, redbellied, flicker
and downy species. The almost extinct ivory-billed woodpecker is known
to exist in tropical jungles, and the rare pileated woodpecker is occasion-
ally seen in various parts of the State.

Quail, doves, and other game birds are plentiful. Wild turkeys, now pro-
tected between hunting seasons, have increased, and can be found in re-
mote swamps and hammocks. More than 35 species of duck have been
noted.

The savannas and marshes are inhabited by redwings, rails, gallinules,
ibises, and several species of heron and egret. The handsome white egret,
once nearly extinct, is now protected and, with the little blue and Louisi-
ana herons, again ranges the State in large numbers. The great white
heron, a Florida native, nests on the keys and coral reefs near Cape Sable.
The sandhill crane, often four feet tall, is the only true crane here, and be-
cause of its loud cry is sometimes mistaken for the whooping crane, a type
no longer found. The white ibis, or Spanish curlew, habitant of the man-

NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 27

grove swamps, the central lake regions, and the fresh-water marshes of the
upper St. Johns River, is becoming increasingly numerous. Two other spec-
tacular birds, once abundant, are the roseate spoonbill, which is almost ex-
tinct, and the scarlet flamingo, now to be found in the State only in cap-
tivity. A strange and fascinating kind of aquatic bird is the limpkin, with
its hobbling gait and the wailing cry of a maniac.

Along the coasts and salt marshes, gulls, pelicans, cormorants, and par-
ticularly ospreys, or fish hawks, are common. A visitor to the southern
part of the State is the magnificent frigate, or man-o'-war bird, which
nests in the Bahamas and West Indies. This creature sails gracefully over
its hunting ground on outspread motionless wings, waiting for a chance to
descend on gulls, terns, pelicans, and other fishing birds. A migratory bird
of unusual range is the Arctic tern, which journeys between a summer
home in the Arctic and a winter home in the Antarctic, an annual round
trip of 22,000 miles, with stops both ways in Florida.

A diurnal burrowing owl inhabits the dry prairie regions of the penin-
sula, where it nests in the soil. This species is closely related to a similar
bird found on the western plains, and has aroused much controversy
among ornithologists on the circumstances of its separation from the west-
ern type. Another unusual species, found chiefly in the scrub-oak belt, is
the Florida, or t scrub ' jay, a cousin of the blue jay and distinguished from
the latter by its uncrested head. This attractive bird is surprisingly easy to
tame. Audubon's caracara, a migrant from South America, ranges north
as far as the prairies of south central Florida. Somewhat intermediate be-
tween the hawk and the vulture, the caracara spends much of its time on
the ground capturing turtles and small rodents.

Among the State's finest natural rookeries are those around Lake Okee-
chobee, in the marshes of the upper St. Johns, the Kissimrnee Prairie, the
Florida Keys, Big Cypress Swamp, and the Shark River region. Among
the rarest of Florida birds are the Everglades kite, the latest Audubon
Society count showing only about 30 remaining. A similar census indicates
only 100 roseate spoonbills, 500 burrowing owls, and 600 great white her-
ons. Other birds, some rare, some grotesque, but all attractive, include
white pelicans, white, glossy and wood ibises, snowy and American egrets,
Audubon's caracaras, black-necked stilts, little blue and Louisiana her-
ons, Caspian terns, herring and laughing gulls and cormorants.

In the reptile family, the alligator and the crocodile are often popularly
confused. The alligator is widespread and fairly numerous, while the croc-
odile ranges only through the brackish coastal inlets from Biscayne Bay to
Cape Sable. The alligator is black with a yellowish beUy; it has a broad

28 FLORIDA

snout, heavy body, prominent eyes, and raised articulations along the
spine. Its diet includes several species of turtle that are destructive to val-
uable game fish, and for this reason the alligator's presence is regarded as
desirable. An unmolested alligator seldom attacks men, but the active and
savage crocodile will readily charge a human foe. The crocodile has a long
narrow snout, double-hinged jaws (unlike those of the alligator), a slender
greenish-gray body splotched with black, and a light gray belly.

Snakes, frogs, and toads are abundant. Only four of the snakes com-
monly found in Florida are poisonous: the diamondback rattler, the cot-
tonmouth moccasin, the harlequin or coral snake, and the pigmy rattler,
usually called ' ground rattler.' The pigmy rattler's bite is seldom deadly.
The poisonous copperhead is occasionally found in Jackson County. Ven-
omous reptiles are becoming less numerous in the more settled districts,
especially in counties where bounties are paid for their destruction. Rat-
tlesnakes are easily killed; an injury to their spine or overexposure to in-
tense sunlight causes death. The hog is the natural enemy of snakes and,
where permitted to roam, is very effective in eliminating rattlers. Canned
rattlesnake meat recently has been accepted as a delicacy for human con-
sumption. Water snakes, often resembling the dangerous cottonmouth,
are numerous, but nine out of ten are harmless. The nonpoisonous king
snake, one of the most conspicuous reptiles, and the formidable 9- to 10-
foot indigo, or gopher snake, feed largely on other snakes and are credited
with keeping down the number of rattlesnakes. About 40 species of snakes
inhabit Florida.

Of the true and edible frogs, the strictly aquatic Florida bullfrog is most
common. The familiar frog choruses, however, usually come from tree
frogs small, emerald-green amphibians that climb by means of tiny suc-
tion cups on the tips of their toes. Curiosities are the sapo, or Cuban toad,
a nocturnal nonhibernating creature, and the spade-footed toad that bur-
rows underground with its horny feet.

Turtles found in Florida are the common alligator snapper, the logger-
head, the soft-shell, the mud turtles, and a land terrapin which is pe-
culiar to the State. Green and loggerhead turtles are captured in large
nets for the market. In Key West is a ' turtle crawl' a fenced-in
corral where turtles most of them caught off the coast of Central
America by natives of Grand Cayman are confined for shipment alive
to various markets, or await conversion into canned meat and soup.
A marine turtle weighs from 100 to 500 pounds, and during mating
season lays several batches of one hundred or more eggs on outlying
dunes and isolated beaches.

NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 29

Several species of lizard abound in the State. The common green lizard,
miscalled the l chameleon/ is capable of changing its color to a dull brown
and thus adapting itself to its environment. Another lizard is the so-called
' grass' or ' glass' snake. Several of the brighter-colored lizards, sometimes
termed c scorpions/ are erroneously considered to be poisonous, but no
Florida variety need be feared on that account.

Spiders and insects are comparatively numerous, particularly butter-
flies, moths, katydids, dragonflies, grasshoppers, and beetles. More than
300 native butterflies have been identified, a number increased to approxi-
mately 700 by migrants and foreign species. Butterflies frequently seen are
monarchs, Gulf fritillaries, cloudless sulphurs, viceroys, buckeyes, zebras,
great southern whites, painted ladies, minute skippers; commas, which
bear the Greek question mark in silver color; '88's/ also named for their
wing decorations; blue morphoes, imported from South America and said
to be the bluest things in nature ; and orange dogs, which are citrus pests.
A butterfly farm in Pensacola has introduced a number of foreign varie-
ties. The day-flying pink variety is one of the more common moths. Some
of the spiders are unbelievably large and brilliantly marked. The black
widow, so-narned because of its shining blackness and the female's habit of
devouring its mate, is the only Florida spider considered capable of inflict-
ing a fatally poisonous bite. It is fairly large in size and distinguished by
reddish markings, shaped like an hourglass, upon the belly. The black
widow lives in rubbish, in lumber piles, and around unkempt human habi-
tations.

Florida nuisances are tiny sandflies that are felt rather than seen on
windless summer days; redbugs, encountered in underbrush; and scor-
pions, whose sting is more painful than that of a wasp* Municipal, State,
and Federal Governments have sponsored drainage and irrigation projects
for the purpose of combating the once formidable mosquito menace, but
this insect continues to be a nuisance over wide areas during the summer.

More than 700 species of fish have been identified in the lakes, rivers,
and coastal waters of Florida. According to Barton W. Evermann, ichthy-
ologist and author of The Fishes of North and Middle America (1896-1900) ,
Florida has more kinds of fish than any other part of the country, with 300
species along the Gulf coast, 174 along the east coast, and 290 in Key West
waters. One hundred of these are edible, more than twice the number IE
any other region in the United States.

Commercial fishing, one of the State's largest industries, concerns itsel
principally with mullet, red snapper, Spanish mackerel, speckled trout
and grouper. The small menhaden is used in the manufacture of lubricat

30 FLORIDA

ing oil, chicken feeds, and fertilizer. Leading salt-water food fishes are pom-
pano, bluefish, and flounder, favored by epicureans; and bass, sheepshead,
and kingfish. The mullet is the only variety, it is said, that fishermen re-
gard highly enough to use for a steady diet.

In the big-game group are tarpon, i silver kings ' of the sporting world;
marlin, swordfish, sailfish, sawfish, dolphin, and the savage sharp-toothed
barracuda. Smaller salt-water game fish include snook, bluefish, bonefish,
mackerel, and speckled trout. Fresh-water fighters are the much-sought,
yet plentiful, large-mouthed and small-mouthed black bass; record speci-
mens of both have been taken from Florida lakes and rivers. The small-
mouthed bass is an importation whose size increased rapidly when placed
in the State's waters. Despite the natural abundance of fish, State
hatcheries are maintained for the propagation of bass, bream, crappie, and
shad, and the breeding of tropical fish for study and observation. Many
privately operated hatcheries supply rare tropical fish to aquariums
throughout the country.

Other salt-water fish are grunts, snappers, trunkfish, and porkfish; angel-
fish in blue, black, and yellow varieties; French rock beauties, amber jack,
and wahoo. Colorful tropical fish are cow pilots or sergeant majors (yel-
lowish-green banded with indigo) ; four-eyed blue and brown squirrelfish,
turquoise-blue parrotfish, red goatfish, black pilots, muttonfish, lanes,
mangroves, and red mahoganies. And there are queen triggerfish, com-
monly called ' old wenches * because of shrewish wrinkles etched in blue on
the background of their yellow faces; ' flying robins' that walk on their
ventral fins; sea porcupines, or hedgehog fish; and schoolmasters flash-
ing silver, red, orange, yellow, black, green, and blue. A native ' Conch 7 of
Key West, acting as guide for a scientist, disdainfully disposed of tropical
fish: Them's no 'count. I'd rather hev one good sheepshead than all the
painted rubbage from Largo to the Markees. 3

The broad flat-bodied rays are encountered in shallow water along the
coast; in some varieties the long thin tail is equipped with a sting. The
giant devilfish or manta, a deep-sea nightmare, is a ferocious fighter when
harpooned and often tows a boat for miles. A specimen weighing a ton and
a half was captured in 1936 after a prolonged battle off Mayport, near
Jacksonville. The gar is a predatory fresh-water fish that dates back to the
Silurian period.

Chief of Florida crustaceans are shrimp, crabs in many varieties king,
horseshoe, stone, hermit, land, and fiddler and Key West crawfish,
known in the market as 'Florida lobster.' Shrimp are perhaps the most
commercially valuable inhabitants of coastal waters. Molluscs are repre-

NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 31

sented by oysters, clams, scallops, and conchs, whose hard shells were once
used by the Indians as cutting tools. The donax, or coquina a tiny edible
clam is found on sandy beaches in tremendous numbers.

Growing coral reefs, found nowhere else in the United States, lie in clear
shallow water for 200 miles along the southern tip of the peninsula. Under
a microscope these living polyps are revealed^^pragile creatures, yet then-
skeletons form vast reefs that often resemble^fubmerged castles. The reef
at Elliott Key is exquisite in its structure; and reefs equally beautiful oc-
cur at Virginia and Biscayne Keys. The brain coral, fashioned like a lime-
stone model of the human brain, and the pepper coral that stings the hand
are common types. The brain coral is valued as a voodoo charm.

Inhabiting the reefs are black porcupine sea urchins, with long vicious
quills that can penetrate a man's shoe. Sea fans and plumes, or gorgo-
nians, wave in graceful wands of tan and purple.

Marine worms, flowerlike organisms of the sea anemone family, sprout
from interstices of the reefs and trap minute animals in their tentacles.
Valuable sheepswool sponges, as well as grass and wire varieties, are taken
from the deep water of the Gulf north and west of Tarpon Springs and,
in smaller quantities, from shallow beds in the vicinity of Key West.

CONSERVATION

An unforeseen consequence of the conquest of the Florida wilderness
largely achieved within the present generation is the serious depletion of
natural resources. The State today is faced with several pressing conserva-
tion problems, chief of which is reforestation. A population, tripled since
1900, has required the destruction of vast timber tracts in the develop-
ment of housing facilities and industry. Because of ceaseless timber cut-
ting, forest fires, and evasion of conservation laws, the peninsula retains
but one-fourth of its original supply of merchantable lumber. About eight
million acres of submarginal land, more suitable for reforestation than any
other purpose, were tax-delinquent and idle in 1938. The State planning
board recommended to the 1937 legislature an act to permit reclamation
of this land, but it was not passed.

Many forest conservation agencies operate in the State. The Florida
Forest Service, under the supervision of the State board of forestry, ad-
ministers five State forests, totaling 30,142 acres, and co-operates with
landowners and counties in the control of fires on approximately 3,128,000
acres. Adding to this total the public forest lands under the jurisdiction of
the U.S. Forest Service, the Farm Security Administration, and the U.S.

32 FLORIDA

Biological Survey, more than 5,400,000 acres were under protection in
1938. A State nursery is maintained at Olustee, but the reforestation of
private lands depends largely on the number of persons who pay for seed-
ling stock. The general effectiveness of the board of forestry is limited like-
wise by the number of forest owners co-operating with conservation agen-
cies.

The U.S. Forest Service is custodian of four national forests in the State,
totaling more than one million acres, where it maintains reforestation and
fire control service. The National Park Service co-operates with the State
park service in the development of State parks, seven of which have been
designated, and in the acquisition of a portion of the Everglades as a na-
tional park. The Civilian Conservation Corps, during 1936, operated 24
camps in Florida. A total of 4,776 workers aided in the fight against forest
destruction by building firebreaks, patrolling the forests, planting seedling
stock, and checking erosion.

A forestry project of the Works Progress Administration carries on an
intensive educational program, particularly within the schools, that
stresses the advantages of protection as compared to the annual losses
from forest fires. As another effective method of fire prevention, the WPA
employs men to patrol their neighborhoods in the various timber sections.
These men strive to demonstrate to cattle owners the waste and folly of
burning forest lands, widely practiced in Florida for the purpose of creat-
ing new pasturage. They point out that the valuable Bermuda grass is
killed, and that only weeds and worthless wire grass grow back. WPA la-
bor is held constantly in readiness to assist in fire fighting.

Methods used in the past by the naval-stores industry also contributed
to the depletion of forests. In scraping pine trees for turpentine gums, it
was frequently the practice to scrape away the bark over too great an area
and as a consequence the trees were greatly injured. Many trees were
scraped, or 'bled/ while too young, and left unprotected against fire. Too
few were spared for seed purposes. Today the operators are usually scien-
tific and careful in their work. Instruction by the U.S. Forest Service has
eliminated much of the excessive ' bleeding 3 of trees and other injurious
practices. Fire protection is more generally understood and effectively un-
dertaken. The results are increased yields and higher qualities of resins
over longer periods of production. Related to the general forestry problem
is the diminishing supply of wild life, caused by destructive methods of
hunting and trapping, and the willful burning of forests.

Another conservation problem is the safeguarding of Florida's abundant
supply of salt- and fresh-water fish, one of the State's main assets both

NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 33

from a commercial and recreational standpoint. This is in charge of the
State board of conservation, which maintains a division of shellfish, a di-
vision of salt-water fish, and a division of geology. The board also adminis-
ters all conservation measures relating to the shrimp and sponge indus-
tries, crawfish, crabs, the manatee, and some varieties of turtles and terra-
pins. The board sponsors radio broadcasts, lectures, fair exhibits, and a
monthly magazine. Acting upon the recommendation of the board, the
1935 legislature passed a law requiring a conservation course to be in-
cluded in the curricula of high schools in the State.

A separate commission of game and fresh- water fish, created in 1935,
administers all laws pertaining to game and nongame birds and animals
and fresh-water fish. Its division of more than a hundred conservation offi-
cers is active throughout the year in enforcing regulations, and in protect-
ing the State breeding grounds and wild-life refuges. These sanctuaries,
comprising three million acres, are closed to hunting at all times.

The Federal Government has expended millions of dollars to save Flor-
ida resources, largely in co-operation with State conservation agencies.
Steps have been taken to eradicate the oyster leech from the valuable
Apalachicola oyster beds; new oyster beds have been planted along the
coast, the sponge industry has been regulated, a crawfish and stone-crab
hatchery established in Key West, and three large fresh-water fish hatch-
eries put into operation at Welaka, Winter Haven, and Wewahitchka. The
hatcheries replenish the supply of black bass, bream, and shad. In 1935
the State prohibited the sale of black bass, and in 1937 provided a closed
season on this game fish during its spawning time.
. The agricultural ' mining ' of arable land, by which the soil is deprived
of the minerals needed for plant growth, is a matter of increasing serious-
ness. Although less than 10 per cent of the State's 30 million acres of farm-
land is under cultivation, there is a growing need for scientific farming and
soil conservation of the cultivated acres. Such measures are largely di-
rected by the school of agriculture and the U.S. experiment station at the
University of Florida. These agencies offer free advice and bulletin service
to farmers on up-to-date soil protection methods. By means of radio pro-
grams, literature, demonstrations, club work, and county fairs, they ad-
vance scientific farming methods in all communities. The school of agri-
culture is teaching Florida's future farmers the importance of improved
techniques.

Underground waters, utilized in the form of artesian wells, are Florida's
main source of a potable water supply and are also used extensively in
farming. These wells are made possible by an abundant rainfall, Florida

34 FLORIDA

having more than most other States, an average of 52,8 inches annually.
This insures a permanent and adequate water supply. Geologists state
that rain seeps through Florida's surface soil to an under layer of lime-
stone, where it is absorbed and held in cell-like pockets, just as water is
held when it soaks into a porous brick. The downward seepage of water
creates the pressure needed for artesian wells. When the land is drained of
an unusual quantity of water by surface streams, natural springs, and
wells, the pressure of the run-off is often reduced, but only in the immedi-
ate area. Engineers have estimated that only about one-tenth of Florida's
rainfall finds an outlet in springs, rivers, and wells. The remainder seeps
through the limestone and into the ocean by way of crevices in the under-
water portions of the Floridian Plateau. When opponents of the National
Gulf -Atlantic Ship Canal contended that its construction would lower the
water table throughout the State, U.S. army engineers investigated
the problem and reported that the canal would reduce water pressure only
in the immediate vicinity of the cut. It was also pointed out in this survey
that the canal would not pierce the main body of limestone substratum.

In co-operation with the National Resources Committee, the Florida
State planning board conducted a comprehensive survey of Florida's wa-
ter resources during the latter part of 1936. This survey contained recom-
mendations for conserving the water supply, and pointed the way for fur-
ther investigation of the underground and surface waters of the State.

Too rapid drainage of the peatlike Everglades has created another local-
ized conservation problem. Spontaneous combustion and brushwood fires
have caused the burning and loss of large areas of valuable soil that, before
artificial drainage, were normally under water. Various agencies, includ-
ing the State forest service and local fire departments, co-operate in guard-
ing this immensely fertile region against destructive ground fires. Air-
planes often spot and report fires while en route across the 'Glades.

The question of erosion is of minor importance, principally because the
State has an abundant natural flora and a gentle topography. According
to U.S. Department of Agriculture records, eastern and southern Florida
are the largest areas in the Nation that are virtually free from soil erosion.
A fringe along the northwestern boundary of the State is the only region
where the loss of soil is serious. The 1937 legislature passed a bill authoriz-
ing the State's co-operation with the Federal Government in a national
erosion program.

A last but vital conservation problem has resulted from the exploitation
of mineral resources, particularly of phosphate. About 60 per cent of the
world's supply of phosphate is mined here, chiefly for foreign consump-

NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 35

tion. A recent report of the National Resources Committee concludes that
America cannot afford to waste or export its precious phosphate rock, but
conservation of this material and other minerals is a problem linked with
the future regulation of mining. Florida ranked twenty-fifth among the
States in income from mining activities in 1928; although most of its min-
erals are comparatively low in value, their utility is great. The principal
minerals are fuller's earth, phosphate, kaolin, titanium oxide, diatomite
(or infusorial earth), silica, limestone, and coral rock. A State-sponsored
geological survey, established in 1907 and operating as a division of the
State board of conservation, conducts annual geological surveys, locates
mineral deposits, and assists in the development of private mineral indus-
tries.

The State planning board in 1939 was in the preliminary stage of mak-
ing an inventory of the State's conservation problems and requirements,
including a detailed record and classification of natural resources.

Archeology and Indians

IN THE last decade of the nineteenth century an extensive investiga-
tion of the shell and sand mounds of Florida was financed and directed
by the archeologist, Clarence Bloomfield Moore. Prior to this time
there had been little but amateur investigation of Florida's rich archeo-
logical remains. Relics had been carried off as souvenirs, shell mounds used
to build road foundations, and bones and pottery scattered by plows and
harrows. But thousands of mounds and earthworks in relatively inacces-
sible places have been preserved. Earthworks stand in swamps or on off-
shore islands in west Florida; along the southwest coast, burial mounds
and heaps of shell, thrown up by the ancient Calusa to form dwelling plat-
forms, are in mosquito- and snake-infested portions of the Ten Thousand
Islands; sand and shell heaps remain unexcavated in the depths of the
Everglades.

The work of Moore and the investigations (1895-96) of F.H.Cushing of
the Federal Bureau of Ethnology gave the first authoritative information
on Florida's pre-Columbian tribes. Moore found that the existing mounds
were built of sand or shell and were of four types: ceremonial, foundation,
kitchen midden (refuse), and burial. Contents of refuse mounds reveal the
varieties of food, methods of cooking, and a number of the implements
and weapons used by the tribe. The size and number of mounds in some
sections along the coast indicate that at certain seasons of the year the
aborigines consumed extraordinary quantities of shellfish. The unusually
heavy bone structure of the Florida aborigines is attributed by Dr.Ales
Hrdlicka, curator of the National Museum of Anthropology, to the pre-
dominance of sea food in their diet.

Moore's initial investigations were in the sand mounds in the pan-
handle section. Some of the mounds in west Florida, between the Perdido
River and Tallahassee, were 80 feet across the base and 8 feet in height,
and contained as many as 100 burials. Most of the skeletal material was
fairly complete. Many bodies were orientated with the heads towards the
center of the mound; some were flexed, lying on one side with the folded
legs at right angles to the vertebrae; others were extended, and lay either
on one side or face upwards. The absence of some bones in many of the

ARCHEOLOGY AND INDIANS 37

skeletons tends to support the theory that these Indians removed the
flesh from bodies before interment, leaving only the sinews to hold the
bones together. This was done either by exposure to the weather or by
cooking. This custom may have given rise to the early belief, now doubted
by most authorities, that the Florida Indians were cannibals.

Implements found in west Florida were few and in many cases crude, but
there were some ornaments and weapon points fashioned of bone, chert, or
slate that were finely worked. These, together with the small pieces of
copper found with them, may have been brought from northern sections
where the Indians had gained greater proficiency.

The mounds of this section yielded ornamented clay vessels, similar to
those described by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, who in 1528 stated that
the Indians of west Florida were very poor, but c before their houses were
many clay pitchers of water/ Some of those found were elaborate, having
as many as five compartments, built up into the form of a human body or
an animal, and fashioned so that the head protruded and served as a
handle. The majority were ornamented on the outer wall with incised or
printed lines, whorls, and dots to form a geometric design or formalized
drawing of some bird or animal; and in many cases the lines were filled
with an unidentified white substance in order to bring out the designs
more sharply.

Receptacles here indicated a definite change in religious ideas over a
period of time. An early custom was to break a hole in the bottom of a vase
that was to be buried with the dead, and thus 'kill' the vessel so that its
soul might escape and join that of the deceased. Pots thus destroyed were
found with many burials, sometimes placed over the skull, sometimes
buried in caches. Later it became the thrifty custom to construct for
funeral purposes an artistic reproduction of the utilitarian vessels, with
ready-made holes as part of the design. Among these the best portrait
vases are found.

Moore's investigations in the northeast portion of the State, particu-
larly in the vicinity of the St. Johns River, were not as productive as those
in the northwest. The sand mounds excavated here yielded artifacts, pot-
tery, and skeletal material, but in small amounts and in poor condition.
The results of the exploration seemed to show that the works were built
before contact with the whites, but in some places articles of European
manufacture were found, indicating possibly that the historic Indians had
used an early mound to include later burials. Notable finds were a number
of conch shells with holes bored at the base for the insertion of handles.
The conclusion reached was that such a shell was used as a domestic tool

38 FLORIDA

rather than as a weapon, for the hole would not admit a handle of suffi-
cient size to permit the striking of a heavy blow without the handle's
breaking.

The earth and shell mounds of the southwest and southeast coasts, in-
vestigated by Moore, Gushing, Hrdlicka, and later archeologists, were in-
teresting more because of their form and manner of construction than for
their content. Most heaps yielded few or no remains, and seem to have
been built mainly for dwelling platforms above the high-water mark of a
swampy country. Artifacts were crude, most of them constructed of shell,
while pottery was simple and without elaborate decoration. Living on and
by the sea, the natives built an elaborate system of canals and basins to
transport their canoes between dwelling platforms and the open water.
Breakwaters and causeways surrounded and connected village sites. An
interesting custom noted here was the decoration of the bases of some
mounds with a low wall of conch shells. These shell walls gave rise to early
stories of aboriginal stone structures on the keys.

Some burials in this section were found embedded in a solidified matrix
of sand and shell, and at first it was believed that the remains were of
great age; now it is thought that the matrix was hardened quickly by the
Infiltration of water carrying minerals in solution, and that the deposits
are of no greater age than those found in higher and drier burials.

Perhaps the greatest find in this section was the collection of carved
wooden objects unearthed by Gushing in 1895 in the muck of Key Largo.
These, probably made of cypress, of good workmanship, are thought to
have been used for ceremonial purposes. In 1921 a wooden idol and two
flat carved objects of wood called ' altar slabs' were plowed up in the muck
in reclaimed land north of Lake Okeechobee.

J.S.Fewkes in 1924 excavated a group of mounds at Weeden Island in
Tampa Bay. The pottery here seemed to show a level of culture higher
than that found in most parts of the section and resembled in design the
claywork of northwest Florida. Fewkes reported that he found three levels
of culture; the lowest, Antillean; the middle, Muskhogean; and the upper
layer, modern. There was no evidence of European influence, although
Spanish trading beads were uncovered.

In 1928 Henry B. Collinsjr., of the National Museum, explored
mounds south and west of Lake Okeechobee, doing the most extensive ex-
cavation in the shell and sand heaps on Captiva Island, south of Charlotte
Harbor. A burial mound on this island, although destroyed in part by
early treasure seekers, yielded more than 70 skulls. Some of these, in the
bottom of the mound, had been cemented together by a mixture of muck

Setting

Photograph by courtesy of Respess Engraving Company

SUWANNEE BIVER

Photograph Jby courtesy of Farm Security Administration
THE COUNTRYSIDE. NEAR LAKE OKEECHOBEE

HIGHWAY, NEAR PALM BEACH
Photograph by courtesy of Farm Security Administration '

WiA*$$&$

fffi^mViVrt ' - VSlNlA/'IrM .'!

Photograph by courtesy of United States Sugar Corporation
SUGAR CANE FIELDS IN THE EVERGLADES

jBEACH SCENE NEAR THE JETTIES, JACKSONVILLE

SPANISH MOSS

Photograph by courtesy of Tampa Chamber of Commem

photograph. by courtesy of Burgert Brothers
ORANGE BLOSSOMS

TUNG BLOSSOMS

TOE LAND-BUILDER '-- MANGROVE TREE

Phonograph fay G. W. Roraer

ROYAL PALMS

Photograph by Darel McConkey

Photograph by G. W. Homer
THE OLD ROAD, MIAMI

IBIS

Photograph by Ebbetts\

ARCHEOLOGY AND INDIANS 39

and water and were well preserved; others, lying in the loose sand at the
surface of the mound, considered to be secondary burials, were in poor
condition.

A large oval mound with three projecting arms 40, 100, and 300 feet
long respectively, and somewhat resembling the effigy mounds of the
Northern States, was also reported by Collins, east of Fort Myers near
Citrus Center. It was partly inclosed by an embankment. Beginning less
than a mile away and extending westward for more than a mile and a half
was a canal of aboriginal construction that apparently had some connec-
tion with the mound. Excavation produced nothing more than a few
potsherds.

The Smithsonian archeological projects, conducted in 1934 under the
Federal Emergency Relief Administration, investigated mounds in south-
east and southwest Florida. Excavations in the vicinity of Belle Glade, on
the shore of Lake Okeechobee, revealed the same culture at all levels.
Shell and bone implements as well as muck pottery were abundant. Sev-
eral carved bird heads of wood and parts of two wooden plaques were
found deep in the sand. Since 1935 some remarkable effigy carvings in
fine-grained sandstone have been discovered.

The native population of Florida at the time of the Spanish conquest
comprised approximately 10,000 Indians, divided into four major tribes
who lived in the four quarters of this region. The Calusa in the southwest
were mariners and fishermen who sailed their canoes as far as Cuba and
Hispaniola and lived on the abundant oysters and fish along the coast.
It is possible that they were of Carib stock and had crossed from the is-
lands to make a new home in Florida long before the coming of the white
men. Attempts to land in their territories were fiercely resisted, and.it
was from a wound inflicted by one of their arrows that Ponce de Leon died
after returning to Cuba from the west coast of Florida. Because of their
attacks, no Spanish colony or mission ever succeeded in long holding a
foothold in this part of the State.

East of the Calusa and south of Cape Canaveral dwelt the Tegesta, a
people as hostile to the white man as their neighbors, although not as
warlike. Spanish missions were established among them, and many
claimed to have been converted to the new faith, yet the Tegesta were
long a source of trouble. They protested friendship for the Spanish settlers,
but there were continual reports of shipwreck victims being murdered
while attempting to make their way up the coast to St Augustine. Letters
from that city to Spain tell of cruelty and breach of faith, and beg that the
Indians be enslaved and sent away, in order to insure safety in the future.

40 FLORIDA

The Timucuan, who lived in central and northeast Florida, had reached
a stage of civilization superior to that of the southern Indians. They culti-
vated extensive cornfields, constructed substantial houses, and traded
with the tribes to the north. More is known of the Timucuan than of other
early Florida tribes. Because their language was understood in all parts
of the peninsula, it was used as a sort of lingua franca by the Spanish mis-
sionaries who needed a general dialect to carry on their work. Catechisms
and texts were published in Timucuan to simplify the instruction of the
different tribes, and the language became a medium of communication in
most of Florida.

In 1564 the French artist LeMoyne accompanied the Huguenots who
built Fort Caroline. He made pictures of the native villages and customs,
and his drawings, supplemented by the narrative written by leaders in
the colony, are today a valuable source of information of this extinct
tribe. Added to these are the works of Father Pareja, a missionary who
lived among these Indians for many years, and left behind him books
rated among the earliest and most valuable of Americana.

The Apalachee in northwest Florida were as civilized as the Timucuan
and more powerful because their chiefs were united in a strong league.
'Keep on, robbers and traitors/ the southern Indians warned the soldiers
of De Soto, f in Apalache you will receive the chastisement your cruelty
deserves.' The Apalachee area was reputed to be the richest country in
Florida.

All these tribes were sun worshipers. On the dawn of a certain day every
spring a stag's head, garlanded with flowers, was set upon a pole facing
east. As the first rays of light touched the an tiered head, the tribe bowed
in, prayer. If the crops were not plentiful, first-born children and captives
were often sacrificed to appease the sun god.

Moon and sun worship were analogous. The moon was associated with
moisture and the Indians 3 water worship included many rites. For ex-
ample, when the people wished to overcome illness, they bathed three
times in clear running water, and sometimes, as in the case of measles,
this treatment resulted in appalling fatalities.

Descent among these tribes was through the mother, so that a chief was
succeeded by his sister's son, rather than by his own. Likewise, when a
man said he was going home he meant that he was going to his mother's
house. There were also instances where women ruled the tribes, as in the
case of Dona Maria, the chieftainess who ruled Nombre de Dios near
St. Augustine in 1592.

What clothes these early Floridians wore were for ornament; men wore

ARCHEOLOGY AND INDIANS 4!

brilliant feathered mantles, metal breastplates, and leather breechclouts.
The typical brave wore inflated fish bladders, dyed red, in his ears, and
his long hair was piled high in a knot at the top of his head. Fingernails
and toenails were worn long. Elaborate tattooing covered the warrior's
body, and his neck, arms, and legs were strung with beads and rattles.

An Indian woman wore a moss skirt and mantle, and her hair was un-
bound. Upon the death of her husband her hair was cut short, and she was
not permitted to remarry until it covered her shoulders again.

Many of these people became Christians through the heroic efforts of
Spanish missionaries. During the seventeenth century, Indian villages in
Florida presented a remarkable picture of civilized community life. Indian
children learned to read and write, and adults went to church dressed in
European fashion. No white people except the priests were allowed to
live near these villages, and trade in firearms and liquor was unlawful.

The progress of Indian civilization was rudely interrupted in the be-
ginning of the eighteenth century. The Creek of Georgia sided with the
English against the Spanish, and, beginning in 1702, made raids into
Florida as far south as the Everglades, carrying thousands of cattle and
Indian captives to Charleston. The Spanish Indians were sold as slaves
in New England and the West Indies, where they were highly valued for
their training. Those who escaped fled to the protection of the French at
Mobile, or to the Spanish forts at St.Marks and St. Augustine. By 1706,
the towns of the Spanish trail across north Florida wer$ almost deserted.

Slave-raiding parties from the north were usually composed of a few
hundred Creek led by a small band of their British friends. As the land
was laid waste and the natives were carried off, the Creek invaders took
over the fields and settled here. When Florida became a British Territory,
the English colonists who replaced the Spanish found their old Indian
allies from Georgia firmly established in the State and banded together
in a strong confederation. They had broken with their old nation in the
north and were now known as the Seminole or ' Runaways.'

After the Revolution, when Georgia became a part of the United
States and Florida again became a Spanish possession in 1783, the ranks
of the Seminole were continually being swelled by fugitive Negro slaves
who found refuge and freedom among the Indians, to whom they paid
tribute in corn. Attempts by planters of Georgia to recapture the run-
aways resulted in friction between Florida and the United States, and
Seminole animosity against the Americans was inspired by the British.
These continuing disturbances culminated in the short Florida campaigns
of Andrew Jackson in 1814 and 1818, the latter known as the First Semi-

42 FLORIDA

nole War. Four years later, when Florida became a part of the United
States, the Government realized that measures were necessary to check
the hostilities between Seminole and white settlers, and a movement was
started to send the Indians to reservations west of the Mississippi.

In 1832 a delegation of chiefs traveled to the western reservation to in-
spect the land. They were persuaded to sign a treaty that committed their
tribe to immigration, but the Seminole disavowed the treaty. Attempts to
move the Indians by force and the seizure of Osceola ? s wife as a fugitive
slave were among the incidents that precipitated the Second Seminole
War, a seven-year struggle (1835-42) involving great losses in life and
property.

The principal figure in this war was Osceola, or, more correctly, As-se-
he-ho-lar, a name meaning Black Drink, which was bestowed because of
his prowess in drinking a ceremonial brew. Osceola was the stepson of
William Powell, a white trader; his mother was an Indian woman of the
Red Stick tribe, a branch of the Creek. His white blood came from a
Scotch grandfather. In 1808, when the second secession from the Creek
occurred, Osceola, at that time about four years old, came to Florida with
his mother and finally settled on Peace Creek. When he appeared at
Fort King shortly before the Seminole War, he had reached manhood.

The young quarter-breed was tall and erect, with an expressive coun-
tenance. His light eyes showed his mixed parentage. In his dealings with
the whites he was proud to the point of arrogance. Osceola was not a chief
and, according to Indian custom, had no voice in the councils of his tribe;
but his natural talent for leadership soon asserted itself, for the nominal
chief, Micanope, an irresolute and phlegmatic man, soon fell under the in-
fluence of this spirited, more determined warrior.

The unfair treatment accorded Che-cho-ter (Morning Dew), Osceola's
wife, was one of the chief causes for his open hostility towards the whites.
Although Che-cho-ter had been married long enough to bear Osceola four
children, a trace of Negro blood gave white settlers an excuse to carry her
off as a slave. Osceola never forgave what he considered a blood insult to
his people and himself.

During the first half of the Second Seminole War, Osceola was the real,
if not the nominal, leader of the Indians. The spirit of his leadership is
well expressed in a message which he sent to General Clinch. 'You have
guns, so have we. You have powder and lead, and so have we. Your men
will fight, and so will ours till the last drop of Seminole blood has mois-
tened the dust of his hunting ground.'

In 1837, at a council with General Hernandez, Osceola and his friends

ARCHEOLOGY AND INDIANS 43

were surrounded and taken as prisoners to St.Augustine, but were later
removed to Fort Moultrie, South Carolina. Here Osceola, although suffer-
ing from quinsy, to which he succumbed soon afterwards, posed for a por-
trait by Catlin. His last wish was that he should die as a Seminole brave in
the war dress of his tribe,

Coacoochee (Wild Cat), one of the chiefs imprisoned with Osceola at
Fort Marion, escaped and became the most influential leader of the latter
half of the war. General William J. Worth finally won the friendship of
this chief in 1841, and through him persuaded about 500 Seminole and
their Negroes to emigrate.

The majority of the Seminole were transported west, where they formed
one of the Five Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma, but about 150 fled to the
unexplored wilderness of the Everglades.

The Seminole in Florida today are divided into two tribes: the Musco-
gee, numbering about 140, who live north and east of Lake Okeechobee,
and the 446 Micosukee, who occupy the region south of the lake and the
Big Cypress swamp on the west. Customs and habits vary, but to the
casual observer there is little except dialect to- distinguish the tribes.

The center of the modern Seminole encampment is the ' fireplace' built
of eight or ten dry logs arranged like the spokes of a wheel. The fire is built
at the hub, and as the innermost ends are consumed, the logs are moved
toward the blaze. In this manner the Indian gathers enough wood at one
time to last several days; this does away with the necessity of chopping
and splitting large logs, and, incidentally, by making use of the unburned
ends of the wood, provides the entire family with convenient seats near
the hearth at mealtime and in the evening.

If the camp is being set up for any length of time, the Indian erects over
his fire a ro'of thatched with palmetto leaves supported by four uprights
set in the ground. In addition to protecting the fire, these structures serve
as kitchen house and shelter in bad weather. Rafters form convenient rails
on which the family pots and pans are hung when not in use, and smoke
from the campfire tends to preserve and dry the meat and herbs suspended
from the ridgepole. The mortar, hollowed from the head of a large log, and
the wooden pestle, used for hashing dry venison and pounding corn, have
an important part in domestic economy. Living quarters are* grouped
about the hearth.

The Seminole hut, known as a chikee, is built in the same manner as the
kitchen shelter, except for a platform of saplings elevated a few feet above
the ground upon which occupants sleep. A blanket serves as mattress and
covering. There is practically no furniture, but few establishments are

44 FLORIDA

without a hand-operated sewing machine so necessary for the making of
clothing. The first machines were introduced about 50 years ago by an
enterprising salesman, whose wife, Minnie Moore Wilson, accompanied
him on his travels and gathered material for her books on the modern
Seminole.

The Indians live well. They are not held subject to the hunting and
fishing laws of the State, but civilization has made inroads on their game
supply. Turkeys, curlews, herons, gophers, and venison find their way into
the Seminole kettle, but the staple food is sofkee, a mush made of ground
corn meal. From the jungles come coontie and chinabrier, from which a
flour is made. Com, sweet potatoes, squash, melons, and cowpeas are
raised on cleared ground near permanent settlements; coco-plums, sea-
grapes, gopher apples, and sour oranges grow wild and are gathered
throughout the year. The bud of the cabbage palm, eaten raw or cooked,
is a delicacy. For sweetening, the Indian depends upon syrup obtained
from his small patch of sugar cane. The time of cane boiling is observed
as a minor nonreligious fiesta, and the entire community joins in harvest-
ing the crop, extracting the juice, and tending the kettles. There are no
fixed meal hours; the sofkee pot is on the fire all day, to be dipped into
whenever a member of the family is hungry.

The present Seminole clothing was adopted around 1900; it is both dis-
tinctive and colorful, and tedious to make. Material for women's garments
is composed of hundreds of patches of cloth pieced into strips which, when
sewed together, form horizontal varicolored bands that reach from the
waist to the ground. The upper part of the body is covered by a bolero
with long sleeves that is slipped over the head and falls loosely from the
shoulders to the top of the skirt. Sometimes the jacket and skirt do not
meet by an inch or two, allowing the copper-colored skin to show at the
waistline. The freedom and comfort of these simple garments, however,
are offset by a weight of constricting necklaces. A Seminole girl is given a
string of colored glass beads when she reaches the age of puberty. On
birthdays strings are added for acts of virtue, or as gifts in times of finan-
cial prosperity, until her neck up to the chin is buried deep beneath a
gorget of many strands. After a woman has passed middle life, the neck-
laces are removed strand by strand until the first present is reached. This
- first and last ornament is worn to the grave. A woman's hair is never cov-
ered; but a large 'rat,' after the mode of the early 1900'$, is used to bolster
her pompadour,

Seminole men wear a tunic composed of colored strips, which falls to
the knees and is caught in at the waist by a belt, or, less frequently, by

ARCHEOLOGY AND INDIANS 45

a bright red sash. The old, close-fitting deerskin leggings, with their
fringed seams and cuffs, are rapidly giving way to store-bought blue denim
or serge trousers. The turban, once the customary headdress of every
Seminole brave, has been replaced in many cases by the 'ten-gallon'
Stetson. The old turban was built up of numerous bandannas wrapped
around the head. Originally it was fastened with a pointed bone, later
with an ornamental clasp made of a hammered-out silver coin; but since
the advent of the dime stores, these have been supplanted by garish, be-
jeweled pins. Most Seminole men today, when not dressed for tourist
exhibition purposes, go bareheaded.

Hunting and trapping are still the Indian's principal source of revenue;
hides of otter, coon, skunk, and alligator find a ready market, and the
tanned skins of deer sometimes bring as high as $2 a pound. Added to this
is the money that comes in during the hunting season, for the Serninole's
knowledge of the best hunting grounds and his ability to follow trails
through the Everglades make him an excellent guide.

Some families gather in camps' in Miami, West Palm Beach, and at
points along the Tamiami Trail, where they live during the winter months,
charging admission to visitors and making extra money through the sale
of handmade ornaments, dolls, and souvenirs. These funds are usually
spent for guns, ammunition, cotton cloth, sewing machines, second-hand
cars, beads, and tobacco.

The Seminole differ from other North American tribes in their treat-
ment of women. No severe agricultural labor is imposed upon them and
they are shown great consideration. Marriage laws are regarded as sacred,
and divorces are permitted only in case of incompatibility. Either party
may remarry, but the marriage must be approved by the tribal leaders.

The Seminole have a dual conception of God. Ishtoholo is the Indian's
symbol of God as the embodiment of greatness, purity, goodness, and the
love of the 'Great Spirit.' The other god is Yo-He-Wah,' whose name is
never mentioned in common speech, but is chanted around the sacred
fires of religious festivals. This god is believed to command demons, pro-
nounce curses, and bring on pestilences and calamities, and he can be
placated only by rites, sacrifices, and ceremonials.

To appease Yo-He-Wah, the Seminole make sin offerings twice a year,
and hold the Shot Cay Taw (Green Corn Dance) on the first day after
the appearance of the first new moon of the vernal equinox, the beginning
of their New Year. The sin offering of the hunt is the rite of burning the
first deer killed in a new season in the woods where it fell, an act which
it is believed will bring health to any ailing member of the hunter's family,

46 FLORIDA

as well as forgiveness for Ms sins. Another sacrifice is the custom of burn-
ing a small portion of every deer slain on or near the campgrounds, before
the meat is prepared for a stew. When the stew is made, the Indians dip
their middle fingers into the broth and sprinkle it over the graves of the
women and children in the burial ground to ward off evil spirits. All adult
males are interred in the depths of the jungle.

The Cypress and Okeechobee clans hold separate Green Corn Dances
on a schedule permitting the tribes to attend both ceremonies. However,
only 60 per cent of the Indians have the time or interest to attend the
annual celebrations, and comparatively few join in any of the dances.

All tribal matters are heard and adjusted during the Green Corn Festi-
val. Judicial powers within the reservation are in the hands of a council of
medicine men, which decrees penalties for violations of its rules. Banish-
ment from the tribe is considered the worst form of punishment. The
death penalty among the Seminole is extremely rare and has been im-
posed only twice since 1886.

The last case of this sort occurred during the spring of 1938 and was
widely publicized by the press. A young Indian man was killed by John
Osceola, one of the six chiefs of the Seminole Nation. According to news-
paper accounts, a council of chiefs had previously commanded the slaying,
because of the Indian's criminal record. The execution occurred off the
reservation, and Osceola was exonerated by a Miami coroner's jury. When
Osceola faced trial a second time at the Seminole Green Corn Dance in
May 19385 the Indians officially approved his action.

Today the Green Corn Dance is conducted much as it was a hundred
years ago, and all events having to do with the Seminole existence are de-
picted in its many dances. Indian families gather far in advance of the
opening and await the coming of the medicine men, who open the sacred
festival with the ceremony of the ' black drink.' This concoction, made
from ilex cassine, acts as an emetic and cleanses the persons who are to
take part in the events to follow. After the black drink is administered the
medicine men open the dance, which continues for five nights. The second
day is one of feasting for the males, who are served with a variety of foods
carefully prepared by the women and deposited near the eating house.
The women then withdraw, for they are not permitted to remain within
sight of the feasting braves. The day after the banquet is one of fasting.
In the autumn the Indians conduct a Hunting Dance similar in character
to their Green Corn Dance.

The Florida legislature has concerned itself with the Seminole only to
the extent of setting aside reservations for his use. He is tried in civil

ARCHEOLOGY AND INDIANS 47

courts but shown the utmost leniency in his transgressions. There is a
tacit understanding with Federal authorities that Indian tribal law shall
prevail on the reservation. The U.S. Seminole Agency, located at Dania
since 1926, protects the Indians in their property and political rights. A
truce between the Seminole and the United States Government was signed
in 1934, publicized as bringing to a close the longest war in history. An-
other such treaty was signed in 1937. A story has it that one of the Indians
present on this occasion kept muttering a word that no one understood
until an interpreter translated it: 'He say "lotta bull."'

History

AD believing that this land was an island, they named it La
Florida, because it has a very beautiful view of many cool wood-
lands, and it was level and uniform; and because, moreover, they
discovered it in the time of the Feast of Flowers.'
4 So wrote Antonio de Herrera, royal historiographer of Spain, of the day
in March 1513, when Juan Ponce de Leon first sighted the shores of Flor-
ida from the deck of his flimsy caravel. Ponce de Leon, companion of Co-
lumbus on his second voyage to the New World, had listened to a story by
the Puerto Rican Indians of a wonderful land to the northwest, rich in
gold and having a magic fountain that restored youth. The West Indians
had believed this story and had even explored and named sections of the
coast. Many times they left Puerto Rico in canoes to search for the fabled
spring on the mainland. Some were lost, but others reached southeastern
Florida and were allowed by the natives to settle there. Andreas the
Bearded, a West Indian, told the Spanish historian, Peter Martyr, that
his father had found the spring in Florida and had returned home, restored
to health and vigor.

Ponce de Leon, at this time a robust man of fifty and ambitious to add
to his reputation, received a royal patent to explore and colonize 'Bimini'
(the Indian word used to designate the land to the northwest of the Ba-
hamas). On March 5, 1513, he set sail with three ships from Puerto Rico
and after three weeks of leisurely journeying came within sight of Florida
on March 28. On April 2, he took his bearings off the coast a little north of
St. Augustine, and the next morning landed to claim the country for Spain.
He sought a harbor and stayed six days in the vicinity, finally sailing
southward along the coast. As he passed among the Florida Keys he
named them 'The Martyrs/ because they looked like men suffering. He
continued up the coast, probably as far as Apalachicola. After a six
months' vain quest for gold and the fountain, he returned to Puerto Rico,
on the way making the valuable discovery of the Bahama channel, later
used by fleets plying between the Colonies and Spain.

Belief in the island persisted until 1519, after which the name Florida
was applied by Spanish historians not only to the peninsula but to the un-

HISTORY 49

known coastal region extending northward and eastward. The words Terra
Florida appear on a map attributed to Leonardo da Vinci (^.1515). Barto-
lome de Las Casas, in his account of the New World, wrote in 1540: 'The
name Florida is applied to all the coast from the great cape which he
(Ponce de Leon) discovered, as far as Bacallaos or Labrador. 7 Other
powers did not acknowledge Spanish claims, except to those parts actually
settled. The ensuing contests for possession of the Atlantic coastal region
formed an important part of Florida's history.

Unauthorized raids, to obtain slaves for labor in the West Indies, spread
hatred of Europeans among the Indians of Florida. Although Ponce de
Leon protested officially against these infringements of his patent, it was
eight years before he could assert the exclusive right to settle the land he
had discovered. In 1521, he sailed with two shiploads of colonists, cattle,
and seeds, landing finally in the vicinity of Charlotte Harbor. The colony
lasted but five months, because of illness and constant clashes with the In-
dians. When Ponce de Leon received a wound so serious that he departed
for Cuba to obtain treatment, the whole colony returned with him. He
died soon after reaching the island, and his heirs lost claim to Florida
through their failure to settle.

In a determined effort to hold Florida, the Spanish sent two other
great expeditions to the west coast, but Indian resistance defeated them.
Panfilo de Narvaez organized an expedition in 1528, landing in the vicin-
ity of Tampa Bay and marching north in search of rich cities. A third of
his 300 soldiers perished before the force reached the site of St.Marks on
the Gulf coast, and the rest clamored to return to their ships. They built
crude rafts and attempted to sail along the shore, but a storm scattered
them, and Narvaez and most of his followers were drowned.

One of the survivors, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, with two other
Spaniards and a Negro slave, wandered for eight years among the Indian
tribes of the interior. When he returned to Spain, he told a wonderful tale
of his adventures, which had taken him as far as the Gulf of California.
His story probably heightened the interest of the next explorers, who came
under the leadership of Hernando de Soto.

On May 30, 1539, De Soto landed in the Tampa area with 600 foot sol-
diers and more than 100 cavaliers, marching north and west in search of
the golden cities. Four years later the remnants of the army reached Mex-
ico with news of the death of its commander on May 21, 1542. The soldiers
had buried De Soto's body in the Mississippi River to save it from the In-
dians.

After the failure of two similar expeditions, under Fray Luis Cancer in

50 FLORIDA

1549 and Tristan de Luna in 1559, the King of Spain abandoned the idea
of Florida settlement and by advice of the Council of Indies refused to
grant any more patents for that purpose.

Other nations had watched with envious eyes, however, the riches pour-
ing out of Mexico and South America into Spain. So numerous became the
English and French corsairs who preyed on this trade that convoys were
organized to escort treasure ships sailing twice a year by a route through
the Bahama channel and along the Florida coast.

Failure to guard this coast brought complications. When word reached
Spain in 1563 that in the previous year a French Huguenot colony had been
planted by Jean Ribaut on what is now the South Carolina seaboard,
Philip II of Spain protested to Catherine de Medici, Queen Mother of
France. He said that in Pope Alexander's Bull of Demarcation, in 1493,
the New World fell within the territory given to Spain. France had offi-
cially sanctioned the Ribaut colony, but at this time did not dare to chal-
lenge openly the Pope's authority. Catherine protested that, while colo-
nists would go to the Newfoundland fishing banks of the Bretons, they
would not go to Florida. The Ribaut venture was a failure, but in 1564 an-
other Huguenot colony was started even nearer the route of Spanish trade,
on the St Johns River. Any thought that 'Lutherans' should convert In-
dians and control the country so close to the arteries of Spanish trade dis-
quieted the richest, most powerful, and most devout monarch of Europe
and stirred his uncompromising resistance.

Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles, Captain General of the Spanish treas-
ure fleets, undertaking to rid Florida of the French, presented plans for
fortifying the coast and converting the Indians. King Philip commissioned
Menendez to equip the expedition, practically at his own expense, as was
customary at that time. Before Menendez could attack, Rene de Laudon-
niere, the French commander, had spent a year strengthening Fort Caro-
line, his defense on the St. Johns River, and Ribaut brought further rein-
forcements in September 1565. When part of the Spanish fleet, under Me-
nendez, reached the St. Johns River, they found the French united and
prepared to fight. The Spanish retreated to St.Augustine to await the ar-
rival of the remainder of their forces, and as they were unloading stores
from Menendez' ship, the French fleet drew up to give battle.

Menendez probably escaped capture only because a low tide prevented
the Frenchmen from following him into the harbor. Before the tide turned,
a great storm arose and drove the French vessels southward to Cape Ca-
naveral, where they were shipwrecked. On September 20, however, Me-
nendez captured Fort Caroline by a surprise attack, killing nearly all the

HISTORY 51

occupants except the women and children; afterwards he found and exe-
cuted all but a few of the survivors of the shipwrecked French fleet. His
action was the subject of much criticism by the Protestant nations.

During the seven years Menendez spent in Florida, he founded St.Au-
gustine (1565), the first permanent white settlement, established a line of
posts from Tampa Bay to what is now Port Royal, South Carolina, and
explored the interior of a large part of the present North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Florida. In 1567, he returned to Spain and was received as a
hero. During his absence from Florida, an expedition of revenge for the de-
struction of Fort Caroline was undertaken by the French under Domi-
nique de Gourgues, who executed everyone in the Spanish garrison on the
St. Johns River. Menendez, on his return from Spain, however, ruthlessly
suppressed French efforts to secure another foothold in Florida. That this
was a political as well as a religious issue is shown by the fact that, 17
years after Fort Caroline fell, a group of English Catholics was banned
from Florida as emphatically as were the French Huguenots.

Menendez was untiring in his efforts to convert the Indians, a task in
which he showed tact and patience. At first obliged to use soldiers as
teachers, he persuaded Philip, in 1566, to send three Jesuit priests. One
was killed, but the other two were established at Tampa Bay and Char-
lotte Harbor. Menendez traveled as far north as the Potomac River in
1571, to avenge the massacre of the priests he had sent to establish a mis-
sion not far below what is now Washington. He left Florida for the third
and last time in 1572, and died two years later.

Within the next few years, English depredations upon Spain's New
World empire surpassed the previous exploits of the French Huguenots.
When Francis Drake returned in 1580 from his trip around the world,
bringing booty worth 1,500,000 from Spanish settlements, he was
knighted by Queen Elizabeth on board his flagship at Deptford. From
then on, England's course was officially to deny hostility toward Spain
but to press English colonization in America in the face of Spanish claims.
Sir Walter Raleigh was granted the right to colonize what he called Vir-
ginia, and sent over colonists in 1585, 1586, and 1587. In 1586, Sir Francis
Drake again raided the Spanish towns of the West Indies and burned
St.Augustine. Hailed as a hero in England, he went on to greater glory in
England's supreme effort of 1588, when she crippled the 'Invincible Ar-
mada' of Spain.

With the defeat of the Armada, the mastery of the ocean passed gradu-
ally to England, making possible the advance of English colonies on the
Atlantic seaboard during the next century. But the Spanish stubbornly

52 FLORIDA

disputed this seizure of what they considered their property. Santa Elena,
a Spanish fort at the present site of Hilton Head, South Carolina, estab-
lished by Menendez in 1566, was rebuilt in 1577, and other Spanish de-
fenses were erected at strategic points farther south on the coast to resist
encroachments by other European nations.

With increasing assurance England ignored Spain's protests. An unsuc-
cessful attempt to settle in New England was made in 1607, but in the
same year, with the settlement of Jamestown by another English com-
pany, the permanent occupation of Virginia began. In 1629-30, Charles I
of England gave one of his ministers, Sir Robert Heath, a patent to the re-
gion between Albemarle Sound and the St. Johns River in Florida (lat.
36 to 31 N.). Heath made no use of this grant, but Virginians reached
out in 1653, and some New Englanders in 1662, into what is now North
Carolina.

In 1663, Charles II of England made another proprietary grant of the
Heath territory. To it the new proprietors, the Earl of Clarendon and
seven others, gave the name Carolina. In 1665, their grant was enlarged
and extended south to latitude 29 N. and westward to the Pacific, thus
including Georgia and the northern half of the peninsula of Florida.

Spain could do little to resist the encroachment on its Florida domain,
for its hold on the Atlantic coastal region had weakened considerably in
the century since Menendez 7 time. St. Augustine, in 1665, was described as
a place where 200 Spaniards and Indians ' were in hiding. 3 Spanish defenses
in the region became so weak that by the terms of a treaty in 1670, Spain
for the first time acknowledged the right of England to a portion of North
America. An immediate result was the establishment in 1670-71 of the
English colony of Charleston.

The French began closing in on the west, and in 1699 Pierre le Moyne
Sieur dTberville succeeded in planting a French colony at Biloxi on the
Gulf. At this time relations between the French and Spanish were cordial,
because of their common fear of English colonial power, though there were
occasional conflicts between the French of Mobile and the Spanish of Pen-
sacola. The treaty of 1670 did not restrain the English long in their south-
ward advance. In 1733, Savannah was built south of the treaty line.
Steady inroads of French on the west and English on the north cut deeply
into Spanish territory, until Spanish Florida was confined to the peninsula.

The defense of St.Augustine and Pensacola became increasingly diffi-
cult. San Marcos, a great stone fort at St.Augustine begun in 1672, with-
stood three major attacks of the English. At Pensacola, Fort San Carlos,
built in 1698, was destroyed by the French in 1719; possession of the site

HISTORY 53

was disputed by the French and Spanish until 1723, when it was returned
to Spain.

During the seventeenth century much of Spain's energy for colonization
went into conversion of the Indians. Mission towns flourished along the
east coast, south from St. Catherine's Island as far as the present site of
Miami, and across the northern border of Florida from St.Augustine to
the present site of Tallahassee. The greatest number of Florida missions
were located along a westerly trail from St.Augustine to the Gulf. The trail
crossed the St. Johns River at Picolata where two forts guarded the river
pass; skirting the shore of Santa Fe Lake, it turned northwest to the
present Monticello, then north at Tallahassee, where stood Fort San
Luis. After the destruction of this fort in 1704, the trail was continued to
Fort San Marcos de Apalache, erected on the Gulf in 1718.

No Spaniard was allowed to live in the mission towns except the resi-
dent priest, who not only instructed his charges in Christian doctrine but
taught them to herd cattle and plant crops. He drew a soldier's pay from
the Spanish Crown and commanded the Indians in the defense of their ter-
ritory. But this defense was made difficult by the refusal of Spain to give
firearms to the Indians, and a number of successful raids were made by
both the French and English.

James Moore, Governor of the Council of South Carolina, laid siege to
St.Augustine in 1702, but withdrew after three months, unable to take it.
He carried away many Florida Indian slaves, however, who were sold in
the Charleston markets, and the success of this enterprise caused Moore
and other Carolinians to repeat their raids, which carried them from the
Tallahassee area as far south as Lake Okeechobee. Palmer in 1728 and
Oglethorpe in 1740 likewise devastated north Florida and also laid unsuc-
cessful siege to St.Augustine. Many of the Indians of Georgia accom-
panied these raiders and settled in the villages that had been despoiled of
their inhabitants.

The rule of Spain in Florida was slowly dying because of her lack of sea
power, and English freebooters harried the Spanish treasure fleets. One of
these, a buccaneer called Davis, sacked St.Augustine in 1668. Spanish
holdings were finally reduced to a few Indian towns under the protection
of the forts at St.Augustine, St.Marks on the Gulf, and Pensacola. But
Florida was still a thorn in the side of the British colonies. Slaves from the
Carolina plantations, escaping to Florida, were protected by the Spanish
governor and allowed to man Fort Moosa, an outpost of St.Augustine. In
1762, Havana fell before a British attack, and by the Treaty of Paris
(February 10, 1763) Spain agreed to trade Florida for the Cuban capital.

54 FLORIDA

English financiers took up vast grants of land and offered inducements
to settlers. In 1767, the largest colony ever brought in one body to British
America was established by Dr. Andrew Turnbull, a Scotchman, who set-
tled at New Smyrna with 1,500 colonists from Italy, Greece, and the
island of Minorca. The New Smyrna colony lasted nine years and was
finally broken up as a result of a quarrel, personal and political, be-
tween Turnbull and Governor Tonyn of Florida.

In 1765, Denys Rolle, Member of Parliament, started a settlement on the
St. Johns River (see Tour 26) after the plan of Oglethorpe's Georgia colony.
In the same year the Kings Road was built from New Smyrna, through
StAugustine, to the Georgia line, thus establishing overland communica-
tion with the other English colonists. Famous travel writers and bota-
nists, among them John and William Bartram, came to Florida to explore
and describe the new territory. The English had little trouble with the In-
dians because the Seminole, as the Creek tribes from Georgia were called,
were now dominant among the Florida natives. The Creek had always
been allies of England and were favored under the British administration.

Under English rule the first serious effort was made to define the actual
limits of Florida, and the territory was divided for administrative pur-
poses into two units, East and West Florida. East Florida's northern
boundary extended from the mouth of the St.Marys River westward to
the junction of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers; the western bound-
ary was the Apalachicola River, and the eastern was the Atlantic Ocean
from the mouth of the St.Marys to Dartmouth Inlet (now Miami Inlet)
at Cape Florida. These lines were established by William Gerard de Brahm,
His Majesty's surveyor. West Florida included the area west of the Apa-
lachicola River to the Mississippi and as far north as 32 28'. After the
purchase of Florida by the United States, the western boundary of the
State was set at the Perdido River.

The American Revolution added to East Florida's prosperity. Some of
the leading Tory families of the South came in small coastal vessels or high
piled wagons to the last loyal British province south of Canada. St. Augus-
tine was thronged with refugees, and feeling against the Revolutionists
waxed high. Captain F.G.Mulcaster, a half-brother of George III, was
stationed there as army engineer. After the fall of Charleston, 61 leaders
of the Revolution, including Middleton, Rutledge, and Heyward, signers
of the Declaration of Independence, were sent to the old city as prisoners
of war. General Robert Howe invaded Florida in 1778 with an army of
3,000 Americans. The British, aided by Florida woodsmen and Indians,
repulsed them with 1,210 men, mostly British regulars.

HISTORY 55

West Florida was attacked by Spain in 1779 and captured in 1781.
After the English departed, Pensacola was almost deserted, for few Span-
ish colonists returned. But East Florida continued to flourish until it be-
came impossible for England to hold the colony between the hostile new
United States on the north, the Spanish strongholds on the south, and the
French and Spanish on the west. So, in 1783, it was ceded back to Spain,
whereupon more than 15,000 English moved to the West Indies, leaving
most of the plantations to Indians, robbers, and the quick-growing tropi-
cal jungles.

Spain found little but trouble during her second tenure of Florida. In an
effort to resettle the plantations left by the English, inducements were of-
fered to Americans, and they poured over the border, literally conquering
the country by colonization. Clashes with Spanish officials soon developed,
for many of these turbulent new settlers were descendants of English
frontiersmen who had invaded Florida under Oglethorpe. The United
States lent moral support to American pioneers on the border who urged
the purchase of Florida from Spain. In 1812, a Republic of Florida was or-
ganized by these settlers with the aid of American troops. Finally an agree-
ment was made with the Spanish authorities granting local self-govern-
ment to northeast Florida. Spain, weakened by the spread of revolu-
tions in her American colonies, had little strength left for the defense of
Florida. The Seminole Indians held aloof from Spanish authority, hoping
for a return of English rule, and buccaneering adventurers, among them
William Bowles, incited the natives against the American and Spanish set-
tlements. Finally the pretense of Spanish authority was shattered by
General Andrew Jackson's two invasions of the peninsula at a time of ten-
sion between England and the United States. The English, threatening
New Orleans in 1814, used the Spanish Pensacola harbor as a base for
their ships and drilled Seminole Indians in the public square. Jackson took
the city by storm. In 1818, Jackson made another punitive expedition into
Florida, operating largely in the region between Pensacola and the Suwan-
nee River. He burned many Indian towns, seized Fort St.Marks on the
Gulf, and executed two English traders accused of inciting the Indians
against American settlements. At Pensacola, Jackson removed the Span-
ish civil authorities and substituted Americans who remained in control
for several months.

By the treaty of February 22, 1819, Spain unable to police the region
effectively sold Florida to the United States for $5,000,000 and a rectifi-
cation, in Spain's favor, of the boundary between Spain and the United
States in the southwest. No money was paid, however, the United States

56 FLORIDA

simply assuming the indemnities owed to American property owners in
Florida for damages incurred during the unsettled times following the es-
tablishment of the Republic of Florida. This transfer to the United States
ended a 3oo-year period in which Florida was an international pawn
among nations striving for control of the Gulf of Mexico.

On March 3, 1821, the two Florida provinces were formed into one ter-
ritory with General Andrew Jackson as military commander. He took
charge upon the change of flags in July 182 1, The Territory of Florida was
created and civil government was established by the act of March 30,
1822. William P. Duval was appointed first Territorial Governor and
Joseph M. Hernandez the first delegate to Congress. In 1824, Tallahassee
was selected as the site of the new capital.

The Seminole Indians were the first great problem of American settlers
who moved to Florida. Placated for years by the English and Spanish
authorities, the Indians occupied the best lands in the interior of the State
and viewed the Americans with hatred and fear. Both settlers and Indians
made efforts to keep the peace, but outrages committed by some of the
white men were promptly avenged by the Indians. Attempts to claim as
slaves Negroes living with the Indians added bitterness to the dispute.
Clashes with the Indians spread until Florida was plunged into the long
ruinous Seminole Wars, 1835-42, which cost the United States the lives of
1,500 soldiers and of many settlers and more than $40,000,000 in expendi-
tures and property damage. Sporadic outbreaks continued until 1858.

A spirit of optimism was evident among the new settlers, and develop-
ment of the Territory was rapid. Beginning in 1828, banks and insurance
companies were chartered with little restriction of the power of directors.
The Territory issued bonds for the Union Bank of Tallahassee to the
amount of $3,000,000, and these were sold in the North and abroad.
Money flowed freely until the panic of 1837 when a decline in cotton
prices, the prolonged Seminole War, and a frost which destroyed the citrus
crop contributed to the downfall of credit. Many banks failed, including
the Union Bank, and so widespread was the reaction that the constitution
was amended, making it unlawful for the Government to go into debt or
for bankers to hold office. (The prohibition regarding State debt is still in
force, but that affecting bankers has been nullified.)

By the middle of the 1 830*5 there was considerable agitation in favor of
statehood. In February 1837, the Territorial legislative council authorized
an election to determine popular opinion on the matter, and the election
held in April showed a majority in favor. Consequently, the council au-
thorized an election of members to a constitutional convention. Thus

HISTORY 57

originated the historic Convention of 1838, which met at St Joseph in
December 1838 and remained in session through January 1839.

Under the constitution framed by the Convention of 1838 Florida was
admitted to statehood on March 3, 1845. This constitution limited the
franchise to white males more than 21 years old who were enrolled in the
State militia, and provided for an annual session of the legislature, com-
posed of 17 senators and 41 representatives to be elected by popular vote.
Of the executive officers only the governor was elected by the people. The
State treasurer, comptroller, and attorney general were elected by the leg-
islature, as were the justices of the supreme court and the chancellors and
judges of the circuit courts. One representative to the Congress of the
United States was elected from the State at large by popular vote; the two
senators were elected by the legislature, since the seventeenth amendment
to the Federal Constitution had not yet been passed.

To keep a balance between the free and slave States, Florida was
admitted as a slave State and Iowa as a free State. William D. Moseley was
the first State Governor, David L. Yulee and James D. Westcottjr.,
the first United States Senators, Edward C. Cabell and William H.
Brockenbrough the first United States Representatives.

By this time there were great plantations of cotton and of sugar cane;
cattle and hogs were raised, especially in west Florida; orange culture was
beginning to be important; settlers and visitors were attracted in large
numbers. Forty counties were created between 1820 and 1860, as the pop-
ulation spread over a wide area. Between 1840 and 1860, Florida cotton
plantations produced a crop totaling half of the wealth of the State.

In addition to the Negro slaves of the plantations and those who had
found refuge with the Indians, there was a small group of free Negroes in
Florida. Some of these had acquired property during the easy-going Span-
ish era but, as early as 1826, legislation restricting their privileges was
passed by the Territorial council. In 1840, the 76 free Negroes and 96 slaves
in Key West were forbidden to appear on the streets after sundown with-
out written permission, from the mayor for free Negroes, and from their
masters for slaves. The penalty for violators was whipping or forced labor
on the streets. By 1860, laws had become so stringent that many free
Negroes emigrated and some even sought voluntary servitude.

Cotton had become the basis of Florida's economic life by 1860, and it
was to be expected that Florida would secede with the other Southern
States. The Ordinance of Secession was passed on January 10, 1861, Flor-
ida being the third State to join the Confederacy. Fifteen thousand Flo-
ridians served in the Confederate army, a number greater than the voting

58 FLORIDA

population of the State. While no decisive engagements were fought on its
soil, Florida was a major source of food supplies for the Southern army.
In 1862, John Hay, President Lincoln's personal representative, tried to
provide for civil government at Jacksonville, and in 1864 General Sher-
man made a similar attempt, but neither of them succeeded.

After the war, President Johnson set up a provisional government in
Florida, and appointed William Marvin Governor. Marvin called a consti-
tutional convention which met on October 25, 1865, annulled the Reces-
sion ordinance, and adopted a new constitution. On November 5, 1865,
the convention ratified the Thirteenth Amendment and gave the governor
power to appoint a commission to make recommendations, chiefly on the
problem of assimilating the Negro into the new government. The State
legislature, which convened in June 1866, ratified the Fourteenth Amend-
ment and passed laws that safeguarded most of the Negroes' civil rights
but denied them the vote. This position, similar to the policy of the other
Southern States, was unsatisfactory to the radical element in Congress.
Accordingly, when ex-Governor Marvin of Florida was presented for a
seat in the Senate, Charles Sumner opened his attack on the Johnson plan
of Reconstruction by challenging the eligibility of Marvin, on the ground
that many Florida citizens had been disfranchised. The Senate refused to
seat Marvin, and the Congressional Reconstruction Acts were passed on
March 21, 1867. Florida became a part of the Third Military District, ad-
ministered under General John Pope.

In November 1865, a branch of the Freedmen's Bureau had been estab-
lished in Florida, with Thomas W. Osborne of the Federal army as Assis-
tant Commissioner for the State. In 1867, Osborne organized the Lincoln
Brotherhood, a ' secret league' to secure participation of the Negro in pol-
itics. Osborne's intention was to make his Negro constituents voters but
not holders of high office. In the same year, the Loyal League of America
was established by a Negro from Baltimore, William M. Saunders, who
sought to secure offices for Negroes. In November, Florida voted for a con-
stitutional convention, nine-tenths of the votes in its favor being cast by
Negroes. The constitution, however, carried out Osborne's ideas by mak-
ing the requirements for higher offices such that the Negro could not
qualify.

The Reconstruction Period in Florida was darkened by suffering and
poverty, though it was not characterized by the harshness experienced in
other Southern States. An immediate adjustment was made between
planters and the Freedmen's Bureau, and'by 1866 nine-tenths of the Flor-
ida Negroes were at work in the fields, while employers were asking for

HISTORY 59

more laborers from other States. Though the bureau was empowered to
establish courts to protect the Negro, this was not done in Florida and
both civil and penal suits were tried in the regular courts. Finally the work
of the bureau in establishing schools for Negroes was supported by the
planters, many of whom, according to the 1866 report of the State super-
intendent of Negro schools, offered to pay half the expense. Public schools
were established for Negroes by the bureau in Jacksonville, St.Augustine,
and other cities.

In 1867, General John Pope reported that he expected trouble in Ala-
bama and Georgia but none in Florida, while Edward King and Harriet
Beecher Stowe stated that the freedmen were in much better condition in
Florida than in the Carolinas or Georgia. About 1870, Florida experienced
a period of lawlessness, particularly in the turpentine sections of middle
Florida, evidenced by an unusually active Ku Klux Elian; but even this
disturbance disappeared by 1871. When the Republicans gained a share of
political offices for Negroes, Jonathan C. Gibbs, a Negro, was made Secre-
tary of State in 1869 and State superintendent of education in 1872;
J. Walls became Florida's only Negro Congressman in 1872. The Negro
vote had begun to turn to the Democrats by 1874 and their candidate,
Charles W. Jones, was elected United States Senator, one of the first
Democrats to be seated in 14 years.

With a view to freeing Florida from military rule, a fourth State consti-
tution was framed in February 1868, ratified by the people in May, and
accepted by the Federal Government. The State was readmitted to repre-
sentation in Congress on June 25, and the Reconstruction government
gave way on July 4, 1868, to regular .State officials, headed by Harrison
Reed as Governor. Military control, however, was not finally abolished
until 1876. Florida functioned for almost 19 years under the 1868 constitu-
tion, which extended the franchise to all male citizens of 21 years or older,
including Negroes. It also provided that the governor, the lieutenant gov-
ernor, members of the legislature, and constables be elected by popular
vote. The governor and the senate appointed the State supreme court,
composed of a chief justice and two associates, who held office for life or
during good behavior; they also appointed the other judicial and execu-
tive officials. The constitution under which the State still functions was
framed in 1885, ratified by popular vote in 1886, and became effective in
January 1887.

In 1881, when the nearly bankrupt State sold 4,000,000 acres of land to
Hamilton Disston 'and associates ' for $1,000,000 the intensive develop-
ment of Florida began. Although its population had almost tripled in

60 FLORIDA

thirty years, growing from 140,424 in 1860 to 391,422 in 1890, its urban
centers were not large. St.Augustine, a sleepy fishing village just beginning
to attract tourists, had a population in 1890 of 4,742. Key West, the larg-
est city, with 18,000 inhabitants, was a prosperous naval base as well as
the center of the sponge and cigar industries. Jacksonville, with 17,201 in-
habitants was the second largest city, its prosperity depending on lumber
and naval stores. Pensacola, with a population of 11,750, was still an im-
portant Gulf port; Tampa, half the size of St. Augustine, was experiencing
its first boom with the coming of the cigar manufacturers from Key West
to Ybor City. Miami and Palm Beach were not yet in existence.

The major part of the State was an unexplored wilderness. A few plan-
tations in the north and west produced quantities of cotton, corn, and
tobacco; orange groves in the northeastern section were assuming com-
mercial importance; and vast phosphate deposits in the center of the
State had recently been discovered; but modern transportation and com-
munication facilities were still in their infancy.

A State bureau of immigration had been established in 1868. Many rail-
road companies launched extensive programs of land development, espe-
cially featuring the profits of the citrus industry. As a result, a number of
English colonist groups, such as the one which founded Avon Park, came to
Florida and a citrus boom developed in northeast and central Florida;
this collapsed after the severe freeze of 1895.

Cuban immigrants brought their political troubles along with their
cigar business to Florida. Over a period of 50 years before the Spanish-
American War, Florida was the sounding board for Cuban grievances.
Refugees at Key West published newspapers and organized expeditions to
invade Cuba, notwithstanding efforts of United States authorities to con-
trol their propaganda. In the years immediately preceding the war, fili-
busterers in Florida carried ammunition and volunteers to the Cuban rev-
olutionists, despite a double blockade of American and Spanish warships.
Although 5,000 Floridians volunteered, few of them saw action in the
Spanish-American War.

In the i87o's the greater part of the tourist travel was by way of the
St.Johns River to middle Florida. After railroad and hotel developments
were initiated in the i88o's by Henry M. Flagler and H.B.Plant, pioneer
Florida financiers, the volume of travel was turned to the east and west
coasts. But this diversion of tourist trade did not retard the development
of the interior of the State in the period between the Spanish- American
War and the World War. Drainage of the Everglades was begun in 1906
as a State project under the State board of drainage commissioners; rapid

HISTORY 6l

progress was made after 1910. Medical research made possible preventive
measures for the control of yellow fever and malaria. North Florida de-
veloped a large turpentine and naval-stores industry, after the center of
citrus culture was moved from the St. Johns River valley to middle and
south Florida following the destructive winters of 1895-96. Pebble phos-
phate was discovered in 1884 and hard rock phosphate in 1889 ; the former
is still a source of wealth for the State. In some sections phosphate offered
a substitute industry for timber, depleted by sawmills. Sixteen new coun-
ties were formed between 1909 and 1921, the greatest number since before
the War between the States.

The World War broke commercial ties valuable to Florida, but tourist
trade prospered and many persons who had formerly traveled to foreign
resorts spent their vacations in the State. After the United States entered
the War, an important army training camp was established at Jacksonville,
a naval training school at Pensacola, and student flying fields at Arcadia
and Miami. An army post was maintained at Key West and coastal de-
fenses strengthened.

After the World War reports of large profits in real estate brought spec-
ulators by the hundreds of thousands to Florida. The hysterical buying
and selling of land so inflated prices that it was profitable in many cities to
dredge sand from the bottom of bays and build artificial islands. People
rushed in by train, auto, and boat, intent upon making a fortune in a few
days. As a result, between 1920 and 1925, population increased four times
as fast as in any other State. One and a half million visitors came annually
in the early 1920'$, and seven new counties were formed in 1921. At the
peak of the real-estate craze in 1925, 2,500,000 people entered the State.
The bubble burst in the spring of 1926. Banks failed, and individuals who
had made millions became penniless overnight. Thus Florida experienced
a depression in advance of the rest of the country.

A great natural catastrophe occurred in the same year the hurricane
in mid-September, which caused the death of several hundred. Thousands
more were injured or left temporarily homeless. The damage caused by the
September hurricane of 1928 was more serious; 1,810 persons were killed
and 1,849 injured, according to estimates given by the American Red
Cross. A third disastrous storm swept the Florida Keys in September 1935,
destroying the railroad between Florida City and Key West. Red Cross
estimates set the number of dead or missing at 425. One hopeful result of
the earlier disasters was the increased attention given to modem building
construction in restoring the devastated areas and in developments in
other parts of the State. It was found during the more recent storms that

62 FLORIDA

the hurricane damage was relatively slight where modern construction had
been used. Also a hurricane research station has been set up at Gaines-
ville, through the co-operation of the local radio station, the University of
Florida, and the WPA.

The inflow of money from the tourist trade helped Florida toward a par-
tial recovery between 1926-29, but the Nation-wide depression, dating
from the stock-market crash of October 1929, for a time destroyed the
prosperity of many of the tourist and recreation centers. In 1930, public-
bond debts approximated $550,000,000. The State itself owed no part of
this sum, for the debts were the obligations of counties, cities, drainage
districts, and special school-tax districts. An apparently insatiable bond
market in the north and persuasive bond brokers seeking new issues to sell
had induced some towns to incur debts in excess of $1,000 per capita. This
was accomplished by raising assessed valuations of property to create the
illusion of security.

Bond defaults began in 1930 and this introduced the era of bondholder
committees, who entered into refunding agreements. Action by the legis-
lature, assisted by the Federal Government, helped to restore the badly
shaken financial structure. The State then turned to the development of
tangible resources. Introduction of paper mills led to extensive reforesta-
tion, port improvements to the installation of pre-cooling plants for the
more orderly marketing of perishable fruits and vegetables, and the re-
sumption of building took into account utility rather than effect. Co-
operative farm groups were organized, co-operative farm markets con-
structed, the citrus-fruit industry was regulated by law. As industry ex-
panded, the number of local labor unions increased; on the other hand,
many employers banded together in an organization known as Associated
Industries of Florida.

Violence broke out in 1936 when Earl Browder, Communist candidate
for President, was attacked at a Tampa political rally. This incident and
the 1938 parades of the Ku Klux Klan at Jacksonville, Lakeland, Miami,
St.Petersburg, and Starke engaged the attention of labor unions and
groups organized for the protection of civil liberties. By 1939 organized
labor had gained a number of advantages for the workers. A liberal trend
was indicated in 1935 in the passage of a Workman's Compensation Law
and the creation of a Florida industrial commission and a State welfare
board.

In 1930 Florida had a population of 1,468,211, with about 50,000 more
urban than rural inhabitants. Of the 1,035,205 white Floridians, 976,148
were native born and 59,057 foreign born. Negroes made up 431,828 of the

HISTORY 63

total. Approximately 100,000 of the native whites were of foreign or mixed
parentage, including 13,136 from England, 5,886 from the Irish Free State,
9,038 from Canada, 17,084 from Germany, 8,053 from Italy, and 5,975
from Spain.

Since 1934? extensive improvements, either partly or wholly undertaken
by Federal emergency agencies, have greatly added to the physical equip-
ment of the State. Outstanding among these are land reclamation and the
building of courthouses, post offices, roads, bridges, and recreation centers.
Cultural, educational, and welfare projects have greatly widened interest
In these fields and increased the number of participants in the activities.

GOVERNMENT

Florida's present constitution, adopted in 1885 and made operative in
1887, was concerned chiefly with the preservation of State sovereignty.
Drafted shortly after the close of the Reconstruction period, it represented
a compromise between the necessities of the times and the political phi-
losophy of the Old South. More specifically, it was conceived with the
problems in mind of the north Florida agricultural area, occupied by most
of the State's population at that time. It has since, by numerous amend-
ments, been expanded to meet economic changes, but the sectional politi-
cal control contemplated by its authors has remained intact.

Under this constitution the common and statute laws of England en-
acted before July 4, 1776, not inconsistent with the Constitution and
laws of the United States and with the legislative acts of Florida, are part
of the common law of the State. The constitution provides for the usual
three departments of government executive, judicial, and legislative
and expressly limits their respective functions. Provisions relating to the
executive department represented a distinct advance toward democratic
government, requiring for the first time in Florida history that all mem-
bers of the cabinet be elected by the people. The members are the treas-
urer, comptroller, attorney general, secretary of state, commissioner of
agriculture, and superintendent of public instruction. It further provides
that county administrative officials be elected by citizens of the several
counties.

The governor, elected for a four-year term, has broad executive powers.
He recommends measures to the legislature, signs all grants and commis-
sions, and has the power to suspend officers who are not liable to impeach-
ment. He may either veto bills passed by the legislature or disapprove any
items that call for appropriations. Another important power of the gov-

64 FLORIDA

ernor is that he may demand of the supreme court an interpretation of
provisions of the State constitution upon any question affecting his ex-
ecutive powers. The governor's power has been further enlarged through
the creation of boards and bureaus by legislative act.

The governor is prohibited from immediately succeeding himself in
office, but other State officials have continued to ' carry over.' In 1939, for
example, the commissioner of agriculture had been in office since 1923
and the treasurer had been a member of the cabinet as either treasurer or
comptroller for 23 out of 34 years. In effect, the chief executive finds him-
self with a ready-made cabinet over which he has little jurisdiction, ex-
cept through his influence on the legislature, which controls appropria-
tions. It is the duty of the legislature to appropriate funds to run the
executive branch. The lack of a civil-service commission, however, gives
the governor extensive appointive powers. The constitution does not pro-
vide for a lieutenant governor, but in the event of the governor's death,
incapacity, or impeachment, the president of the senate fills his unexpired
term.

The judicial branch of Florida government is vested in a supreme court,
16 circuit courts, n special courts, 67 county judges' courts, magistrates'
courts, and 16 county courts (in Broward, De Soto, Gadsden, Glades, In-
dian River, Jefferson, Lee, Manatee, Martin, Okeechobee, Osceola, Pasco,
Pinellas, Sarasota, Seminole, and St.Lucie Counties). The State supreme
court, consisting of six judges, appears to follow the constitution more
closely than other departments, but to its original and appellate jurisdic-
tion has been added an advisory power: that of giving an opinion on the
constitutionality of legislative acts.

Justices of the supreme court are elected at large for a term of six years,
and appointments by the governor can be made only to fill unexpired
terms; frequently such an appointment is bestowed upon the current
attorney general. The chief justice is elected by members of the court.

As the population increased, the number of circuit courts was also in-
creased, until in 1935 there were 28 circuits. In that year the number was
reduced to 16 by the legislature, in recognition of easier transportation
facilities among heretofore isolated communities. While circuit judges are
appointed by the governor and such appointments are confirmed or re-
jected by the State senate, candidates (by statute provision) first submit
to a primary election in their respective circuits. Although not bound to
do so, the governor invariably follows the mandate of the voters. A con-
stitutional amendment of 1912 provided an additional circuit judge for
Duval County; unlike the other circuit judges of Florida, who are paid by

HISTORY 65

the State, this judge is paid by the county. Each circuit is also provided
with a State's attorney and an assistant. State's attorneys, like circuit
judges, are selected at primaries, then appointed by the governor and con-
firmed by the senate. Counties elect a clerk of the circuit court for a term
of four years, even though a judicial circuit may include several counties.
As a county official, the clerk operates the delinquent tax-redemption de-
partment, in some cases serves as county treasurer, and acts as clerk of
the county court. Prosecuting attorneys and clerks are paid by fees within
a limitation fixed by law. It is customary to submit the names of candi-
dates or appointees for the State judiciary to the State bar association
for approval before nomination or appointment.

Each of Florida's 67 counties has a county judge's court, and 16 have
county courts; the former handles probate cases, the latter handle crimi-
nal misdemeanors involving penalties not to exceed one year in jail. The
judge of the county judge's court serves on the bench of county courts,
and also as a committing magistrate. The county judge appoints the clerk
of the county judge's court. Justices of the peace are elected from districts
within a county and their powers are limited to their districts. The county
sheriff or any constable acts as executive officer of the magistrate's court.
Eleven special courts, such as criminal courts of record and civil courts of
record, have been created in eight of the more populous counties: Dade,
Duval, Escambia, Hillsborough, Monroe, Orange, Palm Beach, and Polk
Counties.

Economic and social conditions in Florida have changed greatly since
1885; population has increased and shifted, and many new problems
have arisen. Yet the legislative branch of the State government has been
able to retain a number of features originally desired by the authors of the
constitution, especially the one providing for sectional political control.

At the first session under the new constitution, in 1887, the legislature
was made up of 68 representatives and 32 senators. The 1937 legislature
consisted of a lower house of 95 representatives and a senate of 38 mem-
bers. The senatorial increase was by constitutional amendment in 1923,
creating new senatorial districts. Additions to the house were brought
about through the creation of new counties, each of which is entitled to
from one to three representatives according to population. Every ten
years the lower house is automatically reconstructed on a basis of three
members for each of the five largest counties, two members for each of
the next eighteen, and one for each remaining county. In 1935, the date
of the last revision, west Florida lost a member and south Florida gained
one. According to the 1930 census, the three so-called 'big* counties,

66 FLORIDA

which include Florida's three largest cities Jacksonville, Tampa, and
Miami had a population of 451,977, nearly one-third of the State's total.
These three counties Duval, Hillsborough, and Dade have nine repre-
sentatives and three senators, whereas the three smallest senatorial dis-
tricts, comprising four counties with a combined population of only
30,000, have four representatives and three senators.

Any attempt to bring about reapportionment through a constitutional
convention probably would fail, since representation at such a convention
would be precisely the same as that in the legislature, which has opposed
a shift of power. Advocates of reapportionment, therefore, foresee no re-
writing of the constitution for this purpose.

Representatives are elected for two years, but they actually serve but
one session, which is held biennially beginning in April of the odd-numbered
years. Senators are elected for a term of four years. As only 19 of the 38
are elected at one time, there is never a completely new senate. The 19
hold-over senators nominate a president for the next term from among
those who must submit to a general election to retain their seats. Nom-
ination for the presidency is equivalent to election, if the nominee is suc-
cessful at the polls. The speaker of the house of representatives is elected
by that body. Subordinate officers are elected from nonmembers by each
body and receive the same pay as members, $6 a day while the legislature
is in session.

Municipalities operate under legislative charters, and consequently
many laws pertaining to city government are enacted in the legislature
through what are known as local bills. These consume a great deal of the
time and energy of members, often to the neglect of general legislation. To
correct this condition, the 1935 session passed a joint resolution to submit
an amendment to the people that would allow cities to enact local legisla-
tion under their own charters. This amendment was ratified by the voters
in 1936, but has never been put into effect.

A more serious aspect of the local-bill evil, its opponents contend, is
that candidates for the legislature run on local issues, thus creating as
many separate platforms as there are offices to fill. State-wide legislation
takes second place and successful candidates are not bound to support or
oppose general measures that appear after the sessions convene. This
situation has arisen from the failure of the controlling party to adopt a
State platform since the beginning of the twentieth century.

General legislation since 1933 has been in the direction of public welfare;
boards to administer old-age pensions have been created, medical clinics
established, and workmen's compensation laws and laws regulating the

HISTORY 67

fruit industry enacted. A trend toward price-fixing in specialized trades
and businesses began with the passage of an emergency milk-control act
in 1933. Similar laws have been enacted, applying to barbers, beauticians,
dry-cleaners, and laundries, each setting up a board with price-fixing au-
thority. The milk-control act was enacted into a permanent law in 1939,
but the barber law has been declared unconstitutional and the laundry
legislation is now (1939) under attack in the courts.

In 1937 the poll tax as a prerequisite to voting was abolished, but the
white Democratic primary system prevails and nomination in the Demo-
cratic primary is tantamount to election. Negroes are not admitted to the
polls for the Democratic Party primaries, but they frequently vote in the
general election and, under charter provisions, take part in municipal
nominations and elections in several Florida cities.

Transportation

BEFORE the coming of the railroads, transportation in Florida de-
pended chiefly on streams and coastal waters. Overland travel pre-
sented a dreary and discouraging prospect; with the exception fj
the Kings Road along the upper east coast and the Spanish Trail between
St. Augustine and Pensacola, land routes were little more than paths. The
St. Johns River, emptying into the Atlantic, and the Apalachicola, leading
into the Gulf of Mexico, were the main channels of commerce. From the
headwaters of navigation, goods were transported in wagons drawn by
eight or ten yoke of oxen. Five or six heavily loaded wagons made a train,
the coming of which was announced by the cracking of drivers' whips long
before the caravan came into sight.

For a long time after its discovery, explorers believed Florida to be
an island rather than a peninsula, and many efforts were made to find a
natural waterway across the State. During the temporary occupation of
St.Marks and Pensacola by American forces in 1818-19, the Secretary of
War directed an examination of the sources of the St.Marys and Suwannee
Rivers. Shipping interests wished to connect these streams with a canal,
and thus obviate the necessity for ocean traffic around the peninsula. The
era of the steam railroad had not yet begun, and the idea of canals oc-
cupied the minds of persons working for improved transportation.

Various minor canals were projected in Florida, but few ever developed
beyond the phase of promotion. The Chipola Canal Company was incor-
porated in 1829 to construct a ditch or railroad from the Chipola River to
St.Andrews Bay, and to finance its operations the company was author-
ized to raise $50,000 by a lottery. Another effort to reach the interior from
the Gulf was that of the Wacissa & Aucilla Navigation Company, incor-
porated in 1831. Shortly before the War between the States, a survey was
made for a cross-State canal, after numerous shipping disasters on the
Florida Reef had produced a strong agitation for an inland passage. Dur-
ing the period from 1848 to 1857 a total of 499 vessels, valued at
$16,266,426, met disaster on the reefs.

Florida's earliest railroad, chartered in 1834 and at first dependent upon
mule power, had meanwhile begun operations. It consisted of a 22-mile

TRANSPORTATION 69

stretch between Tallahassee and Port Leon, and the mule-drawn train
made the initial 'run' in five hours. Steam was introduced in 1834. This was
the humble beginning of the Tallahassee Railroad Company, a predecessor
of the Seaboard Air Line Railway. The second railroad, even shorter than
the first, was built between Apalachicola and St. Joseph's Eay in an at-
tempt to divert river commerce to the boom port of St Joseph. A third
line was established between St. Joseph and lola, a farming settlement on
the Apalachicola River. The prospects of St. Joseph in marine commerce
failed to materialize and both lines were abandoned, the Apalachicola
road in 1839 and the lola in 1841. These and other early railroads were
narrow-gage lines using light wooden rails faced with iron straps. Most of
them were built between a seaport and a cotton or orange-growing sec-
tion a few miles inland. Passenger equipment consisted of flatcars with
wooden benches.

Steam locomotives, when first introduced in Florida, were not popu-
lar, but, by 1 86 1, railroads linked most of the important cities in the
northern part of the State. The Florida Railroad in 1860 connected Fer-
nandina on the Atlantic Coast with Cedar Keys on the Gulf, forming the
first cross-State line. Another line, from Jacksonville to Tallahassee,
passed through Lake City, and from Tallahassee a short branch ran to
St.Marks on the Gulf. A financial merger of these and other small lines was
accomplished in 1880 under the name of the Florida Central & Peninsula
Railroad. The new company included the Florida Railroad, although this
line did not become a physical unit of the system until 1888. In 1903 these
properties were acquired by the Seaboard Air Line and added to the sys-
tem.

Railroad construction, however, did not discourage the advocates of
inland waterways. The Apopka Canal Company was authorized in 1879 to
connect Lake Eustis and Lake Apopka with a canal for navigation and
drainage. This canal was dug and operated. Others linked railheads with
natural waterways, and railroads in turn filled in gaps between protected
waterways along the Atlantic coast of Florida. Operations started in 1882
by the Florida Coast Line Canal & Transportation Company eventually
provided inland water communication from Daytona Beach to Titusville
on the Indian River, the southern terminus of the Florida East Coast
Railway, and to Jupiter Inlet, from which the Jupiter & Lake Worth Rail-
road continued the route southward to Lake Worth. Subsequently, a canal
was cut between Jupiter and Lake Worth, and in 1896 another canal was
completed for the 27-mile haul between Juno and the mouth of the Miami
River.

7O FLORIDA

A line of steamers established in 1889 on the Indian River operated from
Titusville to Jupiter, and many independent boats plied this tidewater
lane. The transportation of nonperishable freight southward and of pine-
apples and oranges northward became a paying business. During the pine-
apple season competition among the river boats was intense, and the cap-
tains would hoist a broomstick at the smokestack to indicate a full cargo
aboard.

This enthusiasm for expanding transportation opened up much terri-
tory; but by guaranteeing many rail and canal bonds, the State in the
process had been pushed to the verge of bankruptcy. Paradoxically, then,
it was the most pretentious plan of all for developing inland water com-
merce that extricated Florida from its financial distress. In 1881 Hamilton
Disston, a Philadelphia saw manufacturer, purchased 4,000,000 acres of
so-called swamp and overflow land at 25^ an acre, and the State with this
$1,000,000 cash liquidated the most pressing of its bond defaults. Public
funds, then tied up in the courts, were released.

Disston's purchase extended from the Gulf nearly across central Flor-
ida, and in this territory he began to dig a great network of canals that,
among other things, connected Kissimmee, a railhead on Lake Tohope-
kaliga in the middle of the State, with the Gulf by way of the Kissimmee
River, Lake Okeechobee, and the Caloosahatch.ee River. Through this
passage he brought boats from the Mississippi River to Kissimmee, which
was to be the hub of his ambitious waterways empire. Shipyards were
built there, and a boiler factory; but a few years later rails were extended
by the Plant System from Kissimmee to the Gulf, and Disston's water-
ways found little use except as drainage canals.

Coastwise sailing packets were still in use and enjoying good business,
but steam was rapidly replacing the sail, and in the late iSyo's and early
i88o's steamboat traffic on the larger rivers prospered as never before.
Large and luxuriant side-wheelers were built for the accommodation of
tourists; the St. Johns River provided the favorite route for water ex-
cursions.

The Brock Line, established by Jacob Brock in 1852, was the principal
steamboat company operating on the St. Johns until 1876, when Frederick
de Barry started the De Barry Line. This was later combined with the
Baya Line, and operated 13 steamers. The De Barry-Baya Line ran be-
tween Jacksonville and all points on the St. Johns, obtained the mail con-
tracts, and later placed steamers on the ' Sea Island Route ' to Savannah.
In 1889 the business was sold to the Clyde Line, which, in 1886, had built
the S.S. Cherokee and S.S. Seminole for the first through service by water

TRANSPORTATION 71

from Jacksonville to New York. The registry of St. Johns River traffic,
in 1885, listed a total of 74 vessels, aggregating 8,168 tons.

By now Florida's two spectacular railroad builders, Henry M. Flagler
and Henry B. Plant, had their grandiose plans well under way. Flagler,
with his East Coast Railway, had begun to penetrate and develop the
east coast, and Plant, by carrying his lines across the State, was opening
up the lower Gulf coast. Each sought to install port terminals that would
capture Central and South American water commerce, and each erected
in Florida, as railroad feeders, amazing hotels that still tower as monu-
ments of lavishness. Plant combined railroads and boat lines in his pro-
gram, while Flagler confined himself to rails, eventually extending them
to the sea to establish a rail and port terminal at insular Key West. From
there he operated a train ferry to Cuba.

Plant, the head and principal owner of the Southern Express Company,
with headquarters at Atlanta, Georgia, entered upon railroad building
after he had purchased, in 1879-80, several small Georgia lines that were
bankrupt after the War between the States. In 1881 he took over the East
Florida Railroad, which had been built from Jacksonville to the St.Marys
River to connect at the State boundary with the Way cross Short Line in
Georgia. With these properties and his newly organized Savannah, Florida
& Western Railroad, Plant entered Florida, and then laid his plans for
crossing the State to the Gulf coast.

Land bonuses were plentiful, and traffic in railroad charters carrying
these grants became a profitable business. Plant purchased such a charter
for $30,000 and under it completed his cross-state line from Kissimmee to
Tampa. The charter, covering a stretch of 75 miles, carried a grant of
5,000 acres per mile, but its unexpired term, to January 24, 1884, covered
only seven months. Construction was therefore pressed at feverish speed,
and the road, costing an estimated $375,000, was completed with 63
hours to spare. This was known as the South Florida Railroad. From
Tampa, Plant inaugurated a steamship service to Key West and Cuba,
Other boat lines operated by the Plant Investment Company, parent
concern of various rail, ship, land, and hotel enterprises, included the
People's Line on the St.Johns River, connecting at Jacksonville with
Plant's Savannah, Florida & Western Railroad, and at Sanford with his
South Florida Railroad and a line of steamers on the Apalachicola River
and its tributaries.

Plant was to acquire from a less fortunate promoter another cross-state
railroad, roughly paralleling his own to the north. Peter Demens (Piotr
Alexeitch Dementieff), a Russian political exile of noble birth who had

72 FLORIDA

come to Florida in 1880 to engage in lumber milling, built a short logging
railroad for his mill near Sanford. He also purchased an inoperative rait-
road charter, acquired some land grants, and in 1888 completed what be-
came known as the Orange Belt Line, terminating at the town site of
St.Petersburg on the Pinellas Peninsula. Demens, however, experienced a
succession of troubles. Rainy weather, mosquitoes, and an epidemic of
yellow fever conspired to delay work. Land bonuses had to be forfeited
because of this delay, to the hindrance of credit and underwriting. Labor
disputes completed Demens' tragedy. Rolling stock was chained to
the tracks under judgments obtained by creditors; unpaid workmen
threatened to lynch Demens; and, as a climax, when he finally brought
his line to the site of St.Petersburg, half of which was to go to the rail-
road, a wrangle between the landowner and Demens tied up the property,
causing both to lose the profits resulting from real-estate activity stimu-
lated by the entrance of the railroad. A creditor syndicate, headed by
E.T.Stotesbury, a Philadelphia financier, took over and operated the road
until 1895, when a freeze destroyed the citrus groves that supplied freight
to the Orange Belt. Ten days after this disaster Plant absorbed the crip-
pled line. The Plant System, in 1902, became a part of the existing At-
lantic Coast Line.

Flagler, an associate of Rockefeller in the Standard Oil Company, was
one of the first of a long line of retired millionaires who came to Florida to
play and remained to work. At the age of 53 he visited St.Augustine,
where he was struck with the lack of modern facilities for visitors. He
gained control of the Jacksonville-St. Augustine Line to bring in materials
for his Ponce de Leon Hotel, the first of a series of hotels which he built at
points from St. Augustine to Key West. In 1888 he acquired a narrow-gage
road running from Tocoi Junction to East Palatka, and a logging railroad
extending front East Palatka to Daytona. With these as a nucleus he
rapidly laid rails southward in a system that became known as the Florida
East Coast Railway. Train service was established to New Smyrna in
1892, to Fort Pierce in January 1894, and to Palm Beach three months
later. By 1896, continuous rail facilities had been completed from Jack-
sonville to Miami, a distance of 366 miles. Not until 1912, a year before
his death, did Flagler complete the last and most spectacular extension of
the Florida East Coast Railway, connecting the Florida Keys en route to
Key West by overseas bridges. After the Labor Day hurricane of 1935,
when 38 miles of this track were destroyed, the i overseas' railroad was
abandoned.

The principal figure in railroad building, after Flagler and Plant, was

TRANSPORTATION 73

S.Davies Warfield, president of the Seaboard Air Line, Under his leader-
ship the Seaboard invaded the previously undisputed territory of the
Florida East Coast by building in 1924 a cross-state line from Coleman
to West Palm Beach, a distance of 204 miles, and thence to Miami and
Homestead in 1926. This line provided the first direct rail connection
between the prosperous lower east coast and the rapidly developing west
coast, and saved the long, indirect journey through Jacksonville from one
south Florida coast to the other. Warfield was responsible for the consoli-
dation of many small roads with the Seaboard and for extensive con-
struction activities during 1920-2 7, when approximately 500 miles of track-
age were added to the system in Florida.

During the boom period of 1925-26 the Atlantic Coast Line, to compete
with the Seaboard's through passenger service from the west coast, built
the Perry cutoff, connecting a short gap in its system between Perry and
Monticello in northwest Florida. This made it unnecessary to route pas-
senger traffic from Tampa and other Gulf cities through Jacksonville for
points west and north. The Seaboard, in conjunction with the "Southern
Railway and the Georgia, Southern & Florida, already had established a
direct route north through Hampton that eliminated Jacksonville. Thus,
with the completion of the Perry cutoff, Jacksonville ceased to be the
railroad gateway to west Florida.

Shortly after this the St.Louis & San Francisco Railroad invaded Flor-
ida at Pensacola, terminating the port monopoly enjoyed there for many
years by the Louisville & Nashville, and at the same time providing an-
other outlet from the north and west.

It was also during the boom period that the Atlantic Coast Line double-
tracked its main line from Richmond to Jacksonville, and the Florida
East Coast Railway double-tracked from there to Miami. Still the rail-
roads were swamped with freight. Demand for building materials and
machinery was such that freight yards became snarls of rolling stock.
Thousands of empty cars, occupying available sidings, were blocked by
hundreds of incoming loaded cars, and this tie-up finally resulted in a
railroad embargo. Carload shipments into Florida were allowed thereafter
only by permit, and the long delays that ensued had much to do with
bringing water shipping back into its own.

Steamship lines, like the railroads, acquired new equipment and ex-
panded their services. The Clyde Line's Apache, first passenger steamer
to enter Biscayne Bay, made an initial run from New York to Miami in
1924. This line had formerly operated only to Jacksonville. The Peninsular
& Occidental Steamship Company, founded by Plant and operated by

74 FLORIDA

the Atlantic Coast Line, built new ships and added a service between
Miami and Havana to its regular run from Tampa to Key West and
Cuba. But the urgent demand was for materials to keep Florida's fan-
tastic building program going, and to meet this nearly everything sea-
worthy was pressed into service. Sailing ships resurrected from marine
graveyards during the World War again saw service, and these old-
timers jockeyed with fleet steam freighters to disgorge cargoes in Flor-
ida's bustling, congested ports. Lumber from Puget Sound came by
way of the Panama Canal, and more from South America, Canada, and
Europe. All this inspired extensive port developments around the coast
of Florida.

When this activity ceased, almost as quickly as it began, ports were
deserted, and railroads resumed normal operations. As a by-product,
tramp steamers have done a fair business exporting the junk metal of
deserted equipment to Japan, and hauling this scrap to shipside has pro-
vided railroads with considerable intrastate freight. It was after the boom
that bus and truck lines grew into an important factor in transportation.
Previously the need for fast and reliable carriers to market perishable
produce in the North had given the railroads an advantage. Refrigerated
fruit expresses for years handled the bulk of this business; but the in-
stallation of pre-cooling plants at port terminals and the introduction of
refrigerator ships divided the fruit business. Truck service, however, pen-
etrated many communities not served by rail or water, made direct de-
liveries, and eliminated the necessity for refrigeration, a costly item in
handling perishables. To meet this competition the railroad interests
sponsored a law, enacted by the 1937 Florida legislature, allowing rail
lines to operate truck pick-up-and-delivery systems, as well as to use
trucks to complete short hauls and fill in gaps in their lines. Passenger-bus
lines reach practically every section of Florida, and their affiliations with
out-of-State systems provide through transportation to all parts of the
country.

Practically all the modern roads in Florida have been built since 1915,
when the State legislature created the State road department. Prior to
that time such construction was in the hands of the several counties, and
as a result there was no co-ordinated system. Beginning in 1919, the State
road department was given its first necessary funds for carrying out a
comprehensive program. Road construction advanced until, during the
boom period, expenditures reached as high as $18,000,000 annually. More
than $250,000,000 had been spent on highway improvements by 1938,
providing about 9,000 miles of hard-surfaced roads. Six cents of the ^

TRANSPORTATION 75

Florida gasoline tax is applied in equal parts to new road construction
and the retirement of county highway bonds.

Perhaps the major achievement of the State road department since 1935
has been the completion of a xyo-mile highway from Miami to Key West.
The causeway of the Florida East Coast Railway, extending into the ocean
from Lower Matecumbe Key to Big Pine Key, and unused since the 1935
Labor Day hurricane, was purchased by the State in 1936 at a cost of
$640,000. Two ferries formerly carried motor vehicles across this stretch of
open water. A $3,600,000 loan from the Public Works Administration en-
abled the State to construct a highway 20 feet in width over the aban-
doned causeway; it was begun in 1937 and completed in 1938. With the
opening of this, the longest 'overseas' thoroughfare in the world, US i be-
came an unbroken highway extending from Maine to Key West.

Motorists now can circle south Florida by traveling from Miami to
Gulf-coast cities over the Tamiami Trail through the Everglades. The
trail, built of rock blasted out of submerged ground, was completed in
1928. The trench formed by the removal of road-building material serves
as a drainage canal and as a watercourse for Seminole canoes.

The State road department has succeeded in improving the appearance
of roadsides, as part of its new program for making thoroughfares wider
and safer. In laying out new roads, provision has been made for two-
channel highways divided by a parkway to reduce the menaces of bright
lights and head-on collisions. The value of this device has been demon-
strated by a short stretch of double-channel highway already in operation
along the lower east coast on US i, and another north of Tampa.

Commercial aviation in Florida began with the establishment in 1914 of
a 22-mile demonstration flying service over Tampa Bay between St.Pe-
tersburg and Tampa. Prior to this, four aviation schools had been estab-
lished in the State at Pensacola, Jacksonville, St.Augustine, and Miami.

The Tampa-St.Petersburg air line, launched primarily to gain publicity,
was later authenticated by aeronautical societies as the first scheduled air
service in the world. Inaugurated January i, 1914, with a single plane, the
line maintained two daily round-trip flights for 28 consecutive days. The
first passenger ticket was auctioned, and Mayor A.C.Pheil of St.Peters-
burg paid $500 for the privilege of making the initial trip. Tony Jannus,
who piloted the plane during the brief existence of the line, shortly after-
ward joined the Czar's flying corps and lost his life in Russia. The Tony
Jannus Administration Building at the Tampa airport perpetuates the
name of this aviator.

Commercial aviation after the Jannus flights was not resumed until

76 FLORIDA

more than 20 years later, when individual pilots attempted scheduled
trips between resort cities, catering to tourist trade. Some of these, incor-
porated as local lines, were soon displaced by larger interstate companies.
The National Airlines, Inc., organized in St. Petersburg, is the only Florida
airway operating out of the State.

In 1939, there were three scheduled air lines in Florida, the Pan Ameri-
can, Eastern, and National, and approximately 150 airports with modern
facilities and emergency accommodations. Marking the airways in the
State are 35 rotating beacons, 30 of them along the Atlanta and New York
routes from the State line through Jacksonville, to Miami by way of
St.Augustine, Daytona Beach, Titusville, Cocoa, Melbourne, Vero Beach,
Stuart, and West Palm Beach. Across the center of the State, from Day-
tona Beach to St.Petersburg, beacons designate the course at Sanford, Or-
lando, Lakeland, Tampa, and St.Petersburg. Twenty-two airports in Flor-
ida are illuminated for night flying.

The Pan American's commercial marine air base, largest in the world, is
in Miami. More than 60,000 air travelers bound to and from Latin Amer-
ica pass through it annually. This city has seven land and two sea airplane
bases, one combined land-and-sea base, and a mile-square dirigible field
equipped with mooring mast. In all, aviation facilities in the Miami area
cover a territory of 3,500 acres. In mid-December each year, during the
Ail-American Air Maneuvers, aircraft assemble here from all parts of the
United States and from Latin America.

New forms of transportation have caused the abandonment of some
short stretches of railroad in the State, but in 1938 the Atlantic Coast Line
and the Seaboard formed an interlacing pattern over Florida, with the
East Coast Line extending its rail tentacles inland down the Atlantic
coast. These three roads, with two other main lines entering north Florida,
and 17 local roads, have a combined trackage in excess of 4,500 miles*
Through trains into Florida have been air-conditioned, and in December
1938 the Seaboard operated the first chair coach streamline train, the
Silver Meteor , between New York and Miami. For this service the Seaboard
contracted for three Diesel-electric locomotives, each generating 6,000
horsepower and declared by the company to be the largest and most
powerful in the world.

Florida is a maritime State, on one of the main traffic lanes of world
trade, over which freighters from the seven seas come to load and dis-
charge their varied cargoes. A dozen deep-water ports space its shores, and
40 rivers with more than 1,000 miles of navigable waters penetrate its in-
terior. Its thousands of lakes still offer expedient routes for connecting

TRANSPORTATION 77

canals. In 1935, a $5,000,000 start was made on a $140,000,000 cross-State
canal, which would have connected the Atlantic and Gulf and bordering
intercoastal waterways, but construction was later suspended. Nine mil-
lion dollars have been spent on the protected passage for pleasure craft,
between reefs and mainland, down the east coast of Florida to Key West.

Agriculture

IN THE ornate script of LeMoyne, a French artist-explorer who lived
at Fort Caroline on the St. Johns River in 1564, it is recorded that the
Indians of Florida 'cultivate the earth diligently and the men know
how to make a kind of hoe from fishbone, which they fit to wooden handles
and prepare the soil, which is light. 3 Unfortunately the French settlers in
Florida failed to learn from their neighbors how to raise crops, and a short-
age of food drove their soldiers to raid Cuban shipping. This act focused
the attention of the Spanish on the lone French colony, Fort Caroline, and
so contributed to the destruction of its fort.

Late in the sixteenth century the Spanish Crown offered cattle and
bounties on crops to persons who would colonize Florida, but most Span-
ish settlers preferred Mexico. Failing to induce its subjects to locate here,
the Crown sent missionaries to convert the Indians, in the hope that
Christian allies would enable Spain to hold the land. The missionaries
brought oranges, lemons, figs, and sugar cane, planted them in mission
gardens, and encouraged the Indians to settle near by. They also taught
the Indians to herd the cattle and horses imported from Europe, which
throve on the green Florida prairies. One reason for English raids into
Florida in the early eighteenth century was a need for livestock and ex-
perienced Indian slaves for the Carolina plantations.

When England acquired the entire Florida Peninsula in 1763, many
large land grants were parceled out to British colonists, who established
prosperous plantations on the coast of northeast Florida. The Kings Road,
extending from New Smyrna to Colerain, Georgia, traversed this area.
Because of the large bounty offered for its cultivation, indigo was a pop-
ular crop, and the blue dye may still be seen in stained old vats, hidden in
overgrown fields.

During the second Spanish occupation, 1783-1819, many Americans
received Spanish grants, and their acreage was principally devoted to sea-
island cotton and sugar cane, crops that could be produced profitably with
slave labor. Importation of slaves from Africa continued in notoriously
large numbers long after Florida became American territory and the slave
trade was prohibited. Territorial agriculture was mainly an extension of

AGRICULTURE 79

the cotton kingdom; cattle ranked second in importance. Settlement of
the land was a slow process until the Seminole Wars ended in 1842. Fol-
lowing the War between the States, a great number of planters in north
Florida lost their lands through high taxation and lack of revenue; but
new railroads and improved water transportation after 1880 gave impetus
to agriculture in the central and southern parts of the State.

A tremendous advance was made in the agricultural development of
Florida in the period from 1880 to 1935. Then, as now, the major part of
the State's 35,000,000 acres consisted of forest land. In 1880 there were
only 23,000 farms, aggregating 3,000,000 acres of improved farming land;
by 1935 the number of farms had risen to 72,000 and the acreage of farm-
ing land to 6,000,000, but less than half of this acreage was under cultiva-
tion.

Florida, extending 500 miles into the ocean and gulf, has a range of
more than six degrees in latitude and six degrees in average annual tem-
perature between its northern and southern borders; thus the growing
season progresses from south to north, and many tender crops mature in
south Florida weeks earlier than in counties adjacent to Alabama and
Georgia. Another factor in shaping the character of Florida agriculture is
the curious pattern of soils that vary from clay and coarse sand to peat.
These peculiarities of climate and soil divide the State into four distinct
farming regions south, central, north, and west Florida. With few excep-
tions, all four produce the same crops, but the importance of certain crops
changes from one region to another. For example, vegetables lead in south
Florida, but farming in central Florida is dominated by citrus./ General
farming is a minor occupation in peninsula-Florida, where vast stretches
of pine land are broken by few clearings; but in the ante-bellum plantation
region of upper Florida the scene is strikingly northern: farmhouses line
the highways, fields are fenced, and livestock graze on the hills.

South Florida, with the rich Everglades muck lands, is one of the winter
'market baskets' of the States east of the Mississippi. Vegetables became
the leading crop within a relatively short period, during which govern-
mental and private research proved the adaptability of the local soils to
crops formerly confined to the central and northern producing areas of the
State. This development has lengthened Florida's growing season without
creating serious competition with other shippers, many of whose peak
crops go to market in other months of the year.

..JThe harvest season starts in September when the grapefruit ripen, and
the first carloads of vegetables are shipped in October. Irish potatoes,
string beans, peppers, lima beans, green corn, cabbages, cucumbers, egg-

80 FLORIDA

plants, tomatoes, celery, lettuce, English peas, and other varieties of gar-
den truck are harvested throughout the winter and spring. The growing of
avocadoes, coconuts, and papayas repays the producer, lends color to the
Florida scene, and has considerable value as a tourist attraction. Vegeta-
ble shipments reach a peak in March and decline thereafter until May; a
few mixed carloads go out to eastern markets in June and July, leaving
only August and September when no carload shipments are made. About
18,000 carloads of fresh vegetables were shipped from south Florida in the
1936-37 season, about four times the quantity of citrus shipped from the
same area.

General farming is relatively unimportant in this vegetable garden of
south Florida, where crops are usually planted, grown, and matured with
two main objects in view: an out-of-season market and a quick and high
cash return on the investment. Corn, sweet and Irish potatoes, and forage
crops for home consumption are the principal staples grown.

Cane, a bumper crop of the Everglades, is converted into sugar and
syrup. At Clewiston, on the southern shore of Lake Okeechobee, approx-
imately 25,000 acres of cane are cultivated by a single company for the
manufacture of raw sugar.

South Florida's dairying industry has expanded rapidly since 1930, fol-
lowing the partial elimination of the cattle-fever tick and the introduction
of Brahma stock for cross-breeding with the native herds. A great part of
rural Florida is open range on which an estimated one million beef and
dairy cattle graze. The south and central Florida counties that lie within
the lush Kissimmee Valley north of Lake Okeechobee constitute the larg-
est beef -producing region. Florida beef is priced lower than prime western
grades, but the veal is considered equal to the western product. Poultry
raising is another paying venture, and most of the present output is con-
sumed locally, especially during the winter months when south Florida
more than doubles its population.

Agriculture in south Florida largely owes its recent advance to the vast
work, practically complete, which has been done in controlling the waters
of Lake Okeechobee and in draining sections of the Everglades. Lacking a
natural outlet to the sea, the lake has for centuries flooded its southern
hinterland, the Everglades, at the return of each rainy season. Plans to re-
claim portions of this rich land date back to 1845, but the work was actu-
ally begun in 1881. Since then Federal and State Government special tax
districts and private interests have jointly borne the expense of building
around the lake a 66-mile dike and a system of pumping stations, spill-
ways, hurricane gates, locks, levees, and canals, the last of which drain ex-

AGRICULTURE 8l

cess water into the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Year by year,
the huge tasks of flood control and reclamation of submerged lands have
been carried toward completion.

Enormous yields per acre are produced with hothouse rapidity on the
reclaimed muck lands of this region, with snap beans a major crop. Unlike
citrus-fruit production, which required years for the development of
groves and a substantial outlay for equipment, the growing of vegetables
can be carried on at relatively little expense: The producers who operate
individually are often called ' one-season gamblers,' because they stake
their money on one planting, sell the harvest at auction in the fields, and
move on. If the market is good, the planter will have cashed in on three
months of effort. He may even have planted the ground without owning
or leasing it, since much of the country around Lake Okeechobee belongs
to persons who live elsewhere and are frequently in tax arrears. The cor-
porate producers, many of them controlling thousands of acres, must de-
pend on the same speculative market for their returns. Because of its gen-
eral remoteness from the main highways, little is seen of the truck-growing
industry; but the navigable waters in this region are crowded from Decem-
ber to March with barge trains moving winter vegetables to the Atlantic
seaboard for reshiprnent.

A different agricultural picture exists in central Florida, a region of
lakes, sandy loam hills, and river valleys. Here citrus is king. Beginning in
the late i88o's, when better methods of water and rail transportation were
offered the grower, citrus rapidly became the leading industry. The first
carloads Qf grapefruit roll to market in early September. These are fol-
lowed by a steady rise in the shipments of oranges until a peak of 6,000
cars is reached in January; then the crop gradually dwindles until June.
Citrus-fruit shipments from this region during the 1936-37 season totaled
approximately 32,000,000 boxes, or three-fourths of the State crop.

Citrus fruits are not immune to damage from severe cold weather in
central Florida. A Federal radio service informs growers of impending
frosts, and a dangerous drop of the mercury is a signal for the bonfires and
oil pots that create a protective smoke ceiling over the groves. The many
lakes of the region afford some natural aid against frost, which makes
grove land near water more desirable.

Insects that menace citrus are combated and largely controlled by
methods developed by the Federal and State Departments of Agriculture.
They have been especially successful in eradicating citrus canker. The
Mediterranean fruit fly, a European scourge, was discovered at Orlando
in 1929, but prompt action by governmental agencies, including a quaran-

82 FLORIDA

tine of affected areas and the destruction of infected fruit, resulted in the
stamping out of this pest in little more than a year.

Citrus-fruit growing is usually an individual undertaking, although
marketing is carried on through co-operatives and corporations. The busi-
ness is largely, dominated by the packers and shippers who move the crop
to Northern auctions.

Citrus products are exported to many European countries, but Great
Britain and its dominions are the principal foreign buyers. The State
maintains a citrus control commission that regulates the grading and ad-
vertising of all citrus fruits.

Both fruit and truck farms are highly industrialized, with packing
houses and canning and processing plants taking the place of sheds, barns,
and silos. Migratory labor is employed for short periods, mostly white for
fruit picking and Negro for vegetable harvesting; much of this labor comes
from Georgia between the growing seasons there. Second to citrus culture
in central Florida is the production of other fruits and winter and early-
spring vegetables. The growing season for a number of tender crops is sev-
eral weeks later in the year than that of south Florida. In addition to
watermelons, cantaloupes, and great quantities of strawberries, almost all
varieties of common garden vegetables are grown.

Florida produces about 40 per cent of the total celery shipments of the
Nation. Approximately 8,000 carloads are shipped annually, chiefly from
the neighborhood of Sanford, in Seminole County, but in increasing quan-
tities from Sarasota County. This crop requires careful cultivation. By
placing tiles throughout the fields, celery farmers have developed an ad-
mirable type of subirrigation control. The average yield is more than one
carload per acre.

The sweet and Irish potatoes, corn, sugar cane, peanuts, field peas, and
forage crops produced in central Florida are chiefly for State and home
consumption. The lesser farming enterprises include dairying, poultry
farming, viticulture, and the growing of ferns and flower bulbs for North-
ern markets.

In north Florida, subtropical crops are few and general farming is the
rule. Although the farmer does not receive the same high rate of profit as
the farmer in south and central Florida, his chances of crop failure are not
so great. This older farming region, where low-priced and low-yield crops
are produced, was the last to get the benefit of cash markets. Here the
farmer produced little more than enough for his own needs and was there-
fore limited to local barter. In 1937, however, with State and Federal
funds, co-operative farm markets were established, where livestock and

AGRICULTURE 83

other products in less than truck or carload lots could be exchanged for
cash. Within a year these co-operatives began to solve some of the prob-
lems of growers to whom currency had almost become an abstraction. The
benefits of similar outlets for tobacco growers in this same region already
had been demonstrated. The Suwannee River Valley in 1921 produced only
six acres of tobacco. Through the installation of marketing warehouses at
Live Oak, doing away with expensive transportation to distant buyers,
planting in the valley had increased by 1938 to 3,600 acres. Sales from this
and neighboring territory exceeded 11,000,000 pounds in the same year.
Smaller markets do business at Lake City and Quincy.

The agriculture of north Florida is more nearly self-sustaining than that
of the rest of the State, and the farmers have few specialized crops other
than tobacco and cotton. A composite picture would contain a farm with
milk cows and barnyard poultry, enough hogs for home consumption,
patches of sweet potatoes and watermelons, a small grove of pecan trees,
fields of corn and peanuts, forage crops, sugar cane, many rows of cotton,
and a few acres of tobacco. More than half the sweet potatoes raised are
disposed of through local channels, and less than 50 carloads are shipped
to other markets. Sugar cane is sold in the form of cane syrup. Peanuts,
Satsuma oranges, pecans, watermelons, cotton, Irish potatoes, and to-
bacco are the principal crops that reach consumers outside the State.

An average of 14,000,000 pounds of tobacco is grown in north Florida
each year. Two types of leaf are produced: burley, a bright leaf used in
cigarettes, and Sumatra, in demand for cigar wrappers. Among the color-
ful autumn events in the State are the tobacco auctions. The short staple
variety of cotton is produced mainly in Madison and Suwannee Counties.
Sea-island cotton, a long staple variety, was the leading crop of the State
a generation ago, but inroads of the pink boll weevil forced farmers to
abandon its planting. Since 1935 a method for combating the boll weevil
has been perfected by entomologists and this may restore sea-island cotton
to its former importance. More than 4,000 bales of this variety were
ginned in the State in 1937. A total of 40,000 bales of short and long staple
cotton was produced during the same year, and an estimated total of
28,000 bales in 1938.

Of the 7,000,000 bushels of corn harvested annually in the State,
2,000,000 are produced in north Florida. This section also leads in the pro-
duction of Irish potatoes. Alachua, Clay, Flagler, Putnam, and St. Johns
Counties ship approximately 3,000 carloads of potatoes to Northern mar-
kets every year. Alachua and Putnam Counties, bordering on central
Florida, produce more citrus fruits and vegetables than other north

84 FLORIDA

counties. Watermelons are next in importance as a shipping crop, and
2,000 carloads move to market in June and July. Jefferson County pro-
duces tons of watermelon seed and ships them to all parts of the United
States.

In an effort to develop a native supply of Chinese tung nuts for the
manufacture of paints and varnishes, approximately 16,000 acres of tung
trees have been set out in several north-Florida counties and in other sec-
tions of the State. One-quarter of the United States' production of tung
oil comes from Florida. The growing of tung nuts may become an impor-
tant branch of Florida agriculture, if the growers replace the single-type
tree with the better yielding cluster- type.

West Florida, the fourth farming region, was noted for its agricultural
products long before the War between the States. Physically, it is divided
into two parallel strips running east and west. On the north, touching Ala-
bama and Georgia, are red clay foothills that have been cultivated longer
than any other acreage in the State. The southern strip comprises low-
lands bordering the Gulf of Mexico. Cattle ranges and cut-over pine and
hardwood forests cover much of the flatlands, and farms dot the foothills.

West Florida is comparable to north Florida in growing seasons and
general farm crops. Corn is the principal staple, with more than 2,500,000
bushels produced annually. Cotton, tobacco, peanuts, sweet and Irish
potatoes, sugar cane, and forage crops are grown on a moderate scale.

A late-season truck-farming belt of limited, proportions has been de-
veloped in this area since 1925. Carload shipments of cabbages, Irish
potatoes, string beans, peppers, English peas, onions, and watermelons
reach the market in summer months. Cucumbers for pickling are raised in
several small farming communities, placed in brine, and shipped to fac-
tories for bottling. Peanut farming keeps a number of factories busy shell-
ing, cleaning, and grading the nuts, which are salted for the retail trade or
used by candy manufacturers. Mills in the area handle from 300,000 to
400,000 tons of peanuts annually. Eggs and poultry are shipped to all
Florida points. Hog raising is an integral part of west Florida's agricul-
tural economy, although the production figures are not high. Dairy pro-
ducts and a few range cattle, slaughtered for beef, are absorbed by local
markets. Pecans, peaches, pears, blueberries, blackberries, and plums are
grown on all the farms in this section. Satsuma oranges, a variety that
withstands low temperatures, are shipped in small quantities in October
and November. Tupelo honey, a clear, white, nongranular type, is a dis-
tinctive product of this section, where the tupelo gum trees flourish.
Apiarists from distant points bring their bees here when the tupelo blooms.

AGRICULTURE 85

Gulf County, the leader in honey production, ships approximately 2,000
barrels a year.

The gross income, for the 1936-37 season, from farming activities over
the long sweep of the Florida Peninsula clearly showed the relative impor-
tance of different products. Citrus farming headed the list with a gross in-
come of $68,838,000; this was followed by a return of $39,090,000 from
vegetables, strawberries, and melons. Revenue from livestock, poultry,
and dairying totaled more than $30,000,000, while the income from staples
corn, cotton, tobacco, peanuts, and forage crops came to approxi-
mately $12,579,000. The grand total of all agricultural revenue was close
to $160,000,000. Florida exports more than $100,000,000 of food products
annually.

Better farming practices crop rotation, a definite system of cover
crops, more animals to help build up the soil would improve greatly the
State's agricultural economy. The extent of importation of feeds, beef,
poultry, dairy products, and other staples is out of proportion to the po-
tentialities of production within the State. In 1936, for example, Florida
consumed, in addition to the local production, $15,000,000 worth of but-
ter, eggs, poultry, meat, and sweet and Irish potatoes. Also, certain pro-
ducts that are now imported from other countries could be introduced as
new crops on Florida soils.

While farm tenancy is widely regarded as the key problem of Southern
agriculture, because it affects about half of all Southern farmers and natu-
rally depresses the whole Southern economy, the same emphasis can
hardly apply in Florida. (The proportion of tenant-operated farms in 1935
for the State was 28 per cent, in contrast to an average of 48.7 per cent for
the 1 6 Southern States during the same year.) Tenancy in Florida exists,
chiefly, in the north and west sections of the State.

Lessees of the muck lands south of Lake Okeechobee and the thousands
of laborers, imported to work in that area and also in the fruit- and truck-
growing districts of central Florida, constitute a population that comes
within the scope of farm tenancy in the sense that they do not own the
land they work. But, since the members of these groups do not establish
(or attempt to establish) homes, the problem raised is one of industrialized
farming rather than of tenancy.

The number of Florida farmers in 1935, according to the U.S. Bureau of
Census, was 72,857, of whom 60,093 were white and 12,764 were Negro.
Of the 60,093 white farmers, 42,627 or 70.9 per cent were owners, 2,989
or approximately 5 per cent were managers, and i4>477 or 24.1 per cent
were tenants. Of the 12,764 Negro farmers, 6,792 or 53.2 per cent were

86 FLORIDA

owners, 50 or .4 per cent were managers and 5,992 or 46.4 per cent were
tenants.

Floridians take encouragement from the fact that tenant-purchase
allotments for 1938-39 under the Bankhead- Jones Farm Tenant Act
amounted to only $154,057, the lowest sum applied for by any Southern
State. The next lowest sum asked for was about seven times as much. Of
the 20,399 tenant farmers in Florida, 547 made loan applications in 1938.

Although the greater part of the State is not afflicted with the twin evils
of tenancy and the one-crop system, Florida has special problems in agri-
culture that still await solution. A bewildering variety of soils and crops
demands scientific measures that cannot now be undertaken by tenant
and small farm owners. The substandard living conditions of migrant and
resident farm laborers who harvest the citrus and truck crops constitute a
serious problem. An unstable national market for winter produce and
costly freight differentials lower the farmer's margin of profit; moreover,
because of the nature of their crops, many Florida farmers must have re-
serve capital to tide them over a bad season if they are to win at this risky
agricultural game.

Industry and Commerce

ES well known than its winter resorts and oranges are the varied in-
dustries of Florida. Among these are naval-stores production, lum-
bering, fishing, fruit packing, mining, cigar making, and sponge
fishing. A survey by the U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce
placed the value of all products manufactured in 1935 at $162,359,000.
For the same year, tourists spent an estimated $300,000,000, and the
citrus crop was valued at $53,189,000.

Florida plays host each winter to a population greater than its own.
The movement of tourists to Florida begins with the first nip of frost in
the North and continues well into spring, taxing the capacity of railroads,
busses, and steamship lines, and crowding the arterial highways of the
State with automobiles and trailers. At the peak of the 1936 season more
than 10,000 railroad passengers passed through Jacksonville in a single
day. The State has been popularized also as a summer resort, and many
thousands of visitors, principally from the other southeastern States,
spend their summer vacations on the Gulf and Atlantic beaches.
v The flamboyant tourist invasion is the lifeblood of resort Florida and
stimulates business in less favored localities. Moderately priced hotels,
apartment houses, and trailer and tourist camps do capacity business from
early December until late April, but as a rule expensive hotels, clubs, fash-
ionable sanatoria, and cabana colonies open during the Christmas holi-
days for an average season of 12 weeks. It is ostensibly for the tourist
that citizens tax themselves to provide paved highways, landscape their
towns, improve recreational facilities, enlarge schools, and arrange a gal-
axy of annual festivals.

The tourist industry, however, is a comparatively recent addition to
Florida enterprises; it did not become a big business until after the World
War, whereas natural resources had long before been put to profitable use.
The Spaniards found the moss to which they gave their name a fine stuff-
ing for cushions and horse collars, the English undertook the production
of indigo, and to the aboriginal pursuits of fishing and farming, early
nineteenth-century settlers added cattle raising and lumbering.

Cuba furnished a ready market for cattle, and in return supplied dressed

88 FLORIDA

boards and other building material. Almost up to the time of the War be-
tween the States little currency except Spanish gold circulated along the
Gulf coast. With the coming of sawmills in north Florida, coastwise sailing
packets delivered lumber down the coast and took on cattle for Key West
and Cuba, and out of this commerce grew one of the larger present-day
shipping concerns. Captain James McKay, who operated a cattle boat
from Tampa, obtained much of his cargo from Dr.Howell Lykes, a pioneer
stockman of the region, and from this business relation and a subsequent
intermarriage originated the Lykes Brothers Steamship Line.

The great pine forests of Florida had contributed products of value to
marine commerce for nearly two centuries before the sawmill made its
appearance. The first were pitch and tar produced from the sap of the
pine tree. Because carpenters used them to caulk the seams of wooden
ships pitch and tar were called ' naval stores/ and the present products of
pine-tree sap turpentine and rosin are still known by that name. Sir
John Hawkins, the English sea fighter, reported in 1565 that Florida was
a possible source of naval stores; and it was not long before the Spaniards
were chipping the pine trees of the State to obtain them. One of the rea-
sons the leading maritime nations of Europe desired colonies in America
was to obtain a source of naval stores.

With the advent of iron ships, chemical research found new uses for
the pine gums. Turpentine now thins the paint that colors American
houses, and is used extensively in the manufacture of polishes, perfume
bases, waterproof cement, and sealing wax, and for various medicinal pur-
poses. Rosin, once discarded as a practically valueless by-product of tur-
pentine, is today the principal ingredient of the varnish that covers floors
and furniture, and is also used in the manufacture of soap, insulating ma-
terial, writing paper, printing ink, sealing wax, plastics, and linoleum.

The work of gathering pine sap in the field is done in the vicinity of
turpentine camps, each with its own still and quarters where the manager,
woods riders, and laborers are housed (see Tour 36). Florida produces 20
per cent of the world's supply of these products. The forest management,
or 'operators/ bleed the trees, collect and distil the gum, and barrel the
turpentine and rosin. The 'factors/ or middlemen, then finance, trans-
port, grade, and assemble the products in market centers. Eighty per cent
of the pine area of Florida now carries a natural second growth of trees
valued at $10,000,000.

Although many varieties of trees are found in Florida, the longleaf and
slash pine are the most abundant and valuable, followed by the cypress
and some hardwoods. The value of products from the lumber industry

INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE 89

amounts to more than $125,000,000 annually and provides a yearly pay
roll of $31,000,000. The forest wealth of the State has been depleted to
less than one-fourth its original volume, because of indiscriminate cutting,
overcupping for gum, and fires and lack of reforestation. These conditions
have made it necessary for Florida to import part of its lumber.

An important quantity of lumber is used in marketing the State's agri-
cultural and citrus crops. More than 100,000,000 board feet are used an-
nually in the manufacture of fruit and vegetable containers, in addition
to the lumber required for barrels, cigar boxes, and containers demanded
by other industries. There are many reduction plants where waste wood
and stumps are ground into small bits by powerful machines and cooked
in huge vats. A variety of by-products is then extracted, including tur-
pentine, rosin, and pine oil. Some of these extraction plants make charcoal,
a popular fuel for cooking and heating.

Another important use for the lumber of the State is the manufacture
of paper. One mill at Panama City uses over 40 carloads of pulp a day.
Mills have recently been established at Port St. Joe, Jacksonville, and
Fernandina.

Although the fish, shrimp, and oysters taken from Florida waters were
a ready source of food to early settlers and the Indians, it was not until
the coming of the railroads, with fast transportation and improved
methods of handling, and later the perfecting of a quick-freezing process,
that fishing became important commercially. Investment in this industry
has increased from approximately $1,000,000 in 1900 to $10,000,000 in
1938. The catch principally mullet, snapper, mackerel, and bream has
risen from about 34,000,000 to 125,000,000 pounds during the same
period. Florida oysters, found chiefly in the Apalachicola, Fernandina, and
Crystal River areas, though small, are tender and delicate in flavor. All
oyster beds are owned by the State and leased to the oyster farmers. In
former years, when beds were privately owned, men built watchtowers
and protected their holdings with powder and ball.

Pensacola, Apalachicola, Cape Canaveral, Fernandina, New Smyrna,
and the mouth of the St. Johns River are centers of the shrimp-fishing in-
dustry in Florida, and the waters of the State each year yield 20 per cent
of all shrimp caught in North America. At sunset the fishing craft, with
nets drying at the masts, can be seen returning to port, trailed by thou-
sands of screaming gulls feeding on shrimp heads that are cast overboard.
Packing houses are busy long after dark, cleaning the catch and preparing
it for iced shipment to all parts of the United States. Most of the cleaning
is done by Negro women who receive approximately i$ a bucket for their

QO FLORIDA

labor, and average from 10 to 15 buckets a day. An estimated 12,000
buckets are cleaned daily for shipping and canning purposes.

Along the southwest coast of Florida is one of the largest beds of hard
clams in the United States. This covers more than 150 square miles of
sea bottom, and clams are so plentiful that the dredges used in digging
them work in one small area for months at a time. After being dug, the
clams are shucked and canned at Marco and Caxambas in the form of
chowder, minced and steamed clams, and clam juice.

The principal marine turtle market in Florida is at Key West, where
three different species are handled: the green turtle, whose meat is used
for soup and steaks; the loggerhead, inferior in quality, which serves as
food chiefly for local markets; and the hawksbill, caught solely for its
shell. Most turtles brought to Key West are captured at sea in large nets.
Turtles shipped alive on the coastwise steamers have their flippers bound
and are loaded back-down, for the under-shell is not strong enough to
support the great weight for long periods.

The crawfish, or 'Florida lobster 7 as it is known on the market, finds
an important place in the Key West fishing industry. Caught in traps and
hand nets in coral-reef waters, crawfish are shipped, alive or boiled, to
markets along the entire Atlantic seaboard.

Stone crabs, found along the lower east and west coasts, have become
scarce, and shipments out of the State are prohibited. The meat of their
extraordinarily large claws is eaten, and the other portions are discarded.

By-products of fisheries are important commercially. The nonedible
menhaden are used in the manufacture of fish oil and fertilizers. Oyster
shells are used for road building, and crushed shells are shipped to poultry
growers here and abroad. Five hatcheries in the State distribute millions
of fresh- water fingerlings for restocking lakes and streams.

Florida's cigar industry began at Key West in 1831, when W.H.Hall
chose the island city as a site for a factory, because of its climate and its
proximity to Cuban tobacco fields. In 1868, with open revolution and
business demoralization in Havana, many cigar makers migrated to Key
West, where established factories offered employment. When fire swept
the city in 1886, destroying the larger factories, and labor disputes further
disrupted production, the majority of the manufacturers moved their
plants to a district east of Tampa which they named 'Ybor City' for
Vicente Martinez Ybor, one of their leaders.

Since that time, Tampa's Latin quarter has supplied a world market
with fine cigars. Wrapper tobacco comes from the United States, but the
better grade used for the filler is imported from Cuba. In Tampa, the

INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE QI

finer brands are still rolled by hand, at long benches where three workers
form a team to turn out coronas, royals, perfectos, and panatelas, as the
different sizes and shapes are termed. In former years the monotonous
work was relieved by a reader, or lector, who sat on a platform and read
plays, stories, and the current news from Spain and Cuba to the workers;
but later, when readers were accused of spreading strike propaganda,
they were banned by factory owners. Radios are now used to entertain the
workers.

Ybor City, with 122 factories employing approximately 10,000 workers,
has an annual pay roll of $8,000,000. The factory output was 258,465,000
cigars in 1936, an increase of 15.1 per cent over 1935, the industry's best
year since 1931. One large factory in Jacksonville, employing more than
2,000 workers, mostly young white women, has an annual pay roll of
$1,250,000. It is entirely mechanized and produces 400,000,000 cigars
yearly.

The sponge industry probably originated some 4,000 years ago in the
Mediterranean Sea, where sponges were called zoffitan by the Greeks
(meaning half plant and half animal). The Florida industry started in
1849 at Key West, where spongers in small boats ' hooked 7 the growths
from the shallow sea beds with long-handled, three-pronged spears. With
the improvement of the diving suit it became possible to work at greater
depths, and when virgin beds were discovered farther north in the Gulf,
the major part of the industry moved to Tarpon Springs in 1905.

Working in deep water, sponge divers alternate with each other and
seldom stay down longer than 30 minutes at a time, because they are ex-
posed to a hazard known as the ' bends/ a paralysis caused by a too rapid
change in air pressure after diving. In addition to divers, the sponge crew
consists of a captain, engineer, lifeline tender, cook, and two or more deck
men, according to the size of the boat. In lieu of wages, the crews are
given a percentage of the profits after the costs of the voyage have been
deducted (see Tour 6b).

Florida phosphate was discovered in the winter of 1884-85 by J.Francis
LeBaron on the Peace River near the present city of Arcadia. A few years
later larger deposits were found to the south of Plant City and east of
Tampa. Between 1888 and 1892, shipments from the State increased from
1,000 to 345,327 tons. In 1936, about 2,920,000 tons were mined, valued
at approximately $10,000,000.

Limestone, the most abundant and widely deposited mineral of the
State, is crushed for lime, cement, and building and road materials. A total
of 1,778,263 tons, valued at $1,969,745, was produced in 1934. Coquina, a

92 FLORIDA

native rock composed of hard molluscan shells, mined in Volusia, Flagler,
and St. Johns Counties, is another popular building material.

A valuable clay fuller's earth is mined near Ocala and Quincy. More
than $1,000,000 worth of the Florida product is sold annually to the petro-
leum industry for use in filtering processes. Other Florida clays having
commercial importance are grouped into kaolin and brick clays. Kaolin,
found principally in Putnam and Lake Counties, is used for fine china-
ware.

Deposits of diatomite, composed largely of the skeletons of microscopic
marine plants, occur in Lake, Polk, and Santa Rosa Counties. Diatomite
is chiefly employed by chemists as a filtering medium in the manufactur-
ing of an insulating material; because of its unusual capacity for absorbing
moisture, it is also used in the manufacture of salt-shaker tops.

The State's extensive culture of citrus fruits is the basis for another
industry the packing and canning of fruits and their by-products. Pack-
ing houses operate throughout central Florida during the citrus-picking
season. In the case of individually owned groves, the crop is bought on
the tree and the purchasing company sends its own crew to pick and trans-
port the fruit to the packing houses. Here it is washed, dried, sprayed
with wax for protection against moisture, and polished and graded by
machinery. Oranges are individually wrapped and packed by hand in
wooden crates for shipment. Culls are sold to canneries and local markets.

Central Florida has a large yearly output of canned grapefruit and
grapefruit juice, canned oranges and orange juice, candied or crystallized
grapefruit and orange peel, and marmalades and jellies, as well as jellies
and pastes made from guava and other noncitrus fruits. Two factories in
Tampa supply containers to the central-Florida canning plants. Florida
grapefruit brandy, grapefruit cordial, and orange wine are increasing in
popularity. Citrus hulls are used for cattle food or for the extraction of
pectin and oils. In the 1935-36 season, the gross value of Florida's canned
citrus products amounted to $2,884,800.

Sporadic attempts were made to develop the sugar cane industry in the
Everglades as early as the middle i88o's, but large-scale commercial pro-
duction in this area dates from January 1929, when the first cane was de-
livered to the pioneer sugar mill at Clewiston. During the nine harvests
since that year, more than 600,000,000 pounds of raw sugar were pro-
duced. Black strap molasses, a by-product, is used in manufacturing
cattle food and grain alcohol (see Tour 13).

After the real-estate deflation in 1926, the volume of Florida business
and commerce dropped sharply for almost a decade, but economic condi-

INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE 93

tions improved by 1934, and a business recovery, partly due to Govern-
ment aid, was evident in 1936. The State's economic development over a
period of years is best shown by a comparison of bank resources. Standing
at $50,000,000 in 1907, they trebled by 1917, and soared to more than
$500,000,000 in 1927. Two years later they fell to $400,000,000 and con-
tinued downward until the early 1930^. Bank resources in 1936 stood at
approximately $339,228,000. An index of the current business life of the
State is seen in the comparative volume of retail sales, which dropped
from $504,523,000 in 1929 to $288,804,000 in 1933, and then rose to
$485,000,000 during 1936.

Building contracts awarded during 1936 were 35 per cent greater than
for 1935, mounting from $53,843,000 to $72,587,000; and real-estate trans-
actions were higher in 1936 than for any year since 1929. The continued
activity in real estate and the building trades is attributed largely to four
factors: the recent industrial expansion in Florida; loans to local public
agencies by the Public Works Administration; the co-operation of Fed-
eral agencies with home owners in refinancing, building, or repairing their
homes; and the general stimulus of an increase in consumer purchasing
power, through the program of the Works Progress Administration.

Electric power consumption increased from 718,256,000 kilowatt hours
in 1935 to 801,774,000 in 1936, testifying to Florida's industrial expansion
and the growing demand for electrical household appliances. The volume
of foreign trade has grown substantially. The development of better port
facilities and the extension of trade with South and Central American
countries, Europe, and the Orient have occurred since 1920. Jacksonville,
Tampa, Pensacola, and Miami, ranking in the order named, are the four
leading ports. Imports were 33 per cent higher in 1936 than 1935, ad-
vancing from $14,312,000 to $19,036,000. Exports for the same years rose
from $36,466,000 to $39,185,000. In 1935 operating revenues of railroads
in the State amounted to $30,824,000, and revenues of automobile trans-
portation companies, to $9,897,000. Many factories are expanding; new in-
dustries, such as paper and pulp production, are erecting large plants and
virtually building new communities around them; and tiie dredging of
ship channels has brought better port accommodations and increased
.water commerce to seaboard cities.

Labor

PRIVATE enterprise in Florida employed 349,339 workers in 193 5, ac-
cording to a business census of the United States Department of
Commerce. Of these workers, 215,855 were engaged in industry and
133,484 in agriculture. The total represented approximately 22 per cent of
the State's population of 1,606,842.

Earnings of business and industrial employees in the State then aver-
aged $859 per worker as compared with $1,171 for the Nation/ (No figures
were made available on the earnings of agricultural workers.) U.S. Depart-
ment of Labor figures for Florida in July 1936 showed an average hourly
wage for common labor of s6ji; for the entire South, 33^; and for the Na-
tion as a whole, 43^.

The seasonal nature of Florida employment causes a heavy influx of
skilled and unskilled labor to the resort cities during the winter season,
with a corresponding increase in rents. In communities less affected by the
tourist trade, and among certain low-wage groups, living costs change lit-
tle throughout the year. This particularly applies to the one-quarter mil-
lion Negroes normally employed in Florida. Economic opportunities for
Negroes are well-defined and limited, and are even further reduced in
times of depression when many manual occupations are taken over by
white labor. One-third of the Negroes employed are women, who are en-
gaged for the most part in domestic work. Male Negro employment falls
into three categories: agriculture, commerce, and domestic service.

In almost all Florida industries the wage scale is low. This is particularly
true of the naval-stores industry, which employs the commissary system
and, in addition, makes a practice of advancing small sums of money to
Negro turpentine hands. Once in debt, the Negroes are hindered by some
counties from leaving their employers until all obligations are paid. Phos-
phate mine operators also utilize this plan. Negro women, available at low
wages, are being increasingly employed to replace men in processing phos-
phate.

One of the obstacles in the way of organizing unskilled labor has been
the migration of workers in this class. Few Florida industries give year-
round work to the resident population. As a result, thousands of people be-

LABOR 95

come itinerant jacks-of-all-trades and never attain a settled or substantial
mode of living. Transients move in from the adjoining States and from the
North, and many of them accept low wages for the sake of living tempo-
rarily in a pleasant climate. Thousands help to move Florida's fruit and
winter vegetables to market. Thousands more come to work in hotels and
the various enterprises connected with the tourist trade. In the latter
group the average earning is about %oo per single man and about $400 per
family during the season. These people belong to a semi-tourist class that
seeks only enough to finance a winter's stay. A third group is composed of
indigents, who were once excluded by a border patrol; a fourth is composed
of health and pleasure seekers who, without sufficient funds to carry them
through the season, seek employment at small wages to provide the bal-
ance.

Florida's first labor organization was composed of Latin-Americans,
who moved with the cigar industry from Cuba to Key West, and there in
the i88o's formed a union. The Spanish factory owners had left Cuba be-
cause of revolutionary movements and labor troubles there; but they dis-
covered that their problems were apparently inescapable and the industry
in 1886 began a second migration this time to Tampa and within a de-
cade the Key West factories were deserted. But the problems that had
troubled the cigar workers in Havana and in Key West were no easier to
solve in Tampa. During the IQOO'S, changing economic conditions and the
militancy of the Latin- American workers accounted for periodic outbreaks
in the cigar industry. In 1910, nearly a thousand cigar makers went on
strike for nine months, and the disorders that occurred in connection with
the strike resulted in three deaths. The hiring of women, more dexterous at
certain operations than men, caused vigorous objection, and more recently
the introduction of machines aroused protest.

Cigar workers are now represented by seven locals in the International
Cigar Makers' Union. The first of them, Tampa Local No.336, became af-
filiated with the American Federation of Labor in 1898. Several indepen-
dent unions existed for short periods, but all had been chartered by the
A.F. of L. in 1938, when the membership exceeded 8,000 men, 20 per cent
of whom were unemployed. During the same year many workers demanded
that these locals transfer to the CIO, in order to make all employees,
skilled and unskilled, eligible for union membership. As a consequence, the
officers of the Tampa locals were suspended by the A.F. of L. In January
1939 the idea was abandoned and these men were reinstated in their
unions, but not to their former offices.

In 1886, shortly after Reconstruction days, the agriculturalists of north-

96 FLORIDA

ern Florida organized a Farmers' Alliance at Chipley, and with this back-
ing the Populist Party in 1892 adopted a farmer-labor platform and put a
candidate in the field for governor. Lonnie Weeks, the Populist candidate,
received only 14,000 votes to the winning Democratic nominee's 22,000,
but this showing of strength made organized labor a political force to be
dealt with, and indirectly led to much beneficial labor legislation.

The huge construction program launched in the State in the 1 920*5 stim-
ulated membership in the building- trades unions of the A.F. of L., because
in the wild scramble to get houses built, many apprentice painters and car-
penters were pressed into service. The great wave of unemployment fol-
lowing the real-estate crash caused a tightening up of standards in the
building trades, and by means of city ordinances something of a monopoly
in jobs and contracts has been created.

During the years prior to 1932, active labor organizations were largely
represented by cigar makers and those engaged in the building trades, but
with the advent of NRA the movement spread. Little was accomplished
during the brief life of the business codes beyond organizing small groups
in the unskilled occupations. Efforts to organize the citrus-fruit industry
were on several occasions countered with violence, while threats of vio-
lence were numerous, as in the case of a vigilante committee that was
formed by Orlando citizens in 1937 to repel CIO organizers. Several years
before, Frank Norman of Orlando, who had attempted to enlist citrus
workers in an independent union, was abducted and his fate has remained
a mystery.

Florida's first labor paper was El International, started in 1906 as the
official organ of the cigar-makers' unions at Tampa. It began as a monthly,
was later issued twice a month, and is now a weekly.

Eight other labor papers were published in the State in 1938; Labor
Journal at Jacksonville, Miami Citizen at Miami, Florida Labor Advocate
at Tampa, Union Labor News at West Palm Beach, Union News at Day-
tona Beach, the Advocate at St.Petersburg, and the Florida Federationist, a
State- wide publication issued at Miami. All these papers express A.F. of L.
opinion. Many of the daily newspapers regularly publish a page devoted to
union activities, where such matters are freely discussed by union spokes-
men.

From 1916 until 1932, during which period 31,625 labor disputes were
recorded in the United States, Florida had but 159, or less than half of one
per cent of the total.

As early as 1910, streetcar-company employees in Jacksonville struck
for the right to organize. A second strike was called in 1912 to enforce a de-

LABOR 97

mand for increased wages and improved working conditions. Strike-
breakers were imported from New York and the State militia ordered out,
but the strikers were able to effect a settlement that carried several bene-
fits. A third strike occurred in 1918, but local women who proclaimed that
strikes in wartime were unpatriotic took over the jobs of the workers. So
infectious was the war hysteria that this walkout quickly ended.

Florida longshoremen and dock workers, organized in 1935, joined in a
South Atlantic strike, which began in October 1937 and for three weeks
tied up the water fronts of Jacksonville, Fort Pierce, Miami, and Tampa.
The strikers, Negro and white p numbered more than 4,000. Few disorders
occurred, and the walkout was settled after arbitration among the
steamship-company officials, workers, and mayors of the cities involved.
The workers gained small wage increases and shortened hours of labor.

The Joseph Shoemaker kidnaping and murder case at Tampa in 1935
that attracted nation-wide attention was denounced by the Civil Liberties
Union and organized labor. Shoemaker, Eugene Poulnot, and Dr. Samuel
Rogers, members of an organization called the Modern Democrats which
made a local campaign issue of honest elections, were arrested at a meet-
ing in a private home. The men were held for investigation and, when no
evidence of illegal activity could be found against them, were released.
Just outside the police station they were seized by a masked band, taken
in cars to an isolated place and beaten Shoemaker so violently that he
died of the injuries. Eleven men were indicted, including six Tampa police-
men ; all obtained acquittals after two years of court procedure.

Two Miami newspapers were involved in a labor dispute early in 1937,
when typographical workers went on a sit-down strike and won an in-
crease in wages after 48 hours of arbitration. During the same period, Mi-
ami was also the scen of brief strikes by members of the building-trades
unions, who demanded and gained substantial wage increases. In July
1937 the Workers Alliance called strikes on WPA projects in Daytona
Beach and Tampa.

Before 1935 organized labor in Florida had been limited almost entirely
to urban industrial workers, but in November 1938, after an organization
drive among the fruit pickers by the United Cannery, Agricultural, Pack-
ing, and Allied Workers of America (a CIO international union), the mem-
bers of the Lake Alfred local struck against a reduction of wages for ' clean-
up ? picking in the orange, tangerine, and grapefruit groves. The fruit
pickers were joined in the strike by the packing-plant employees of six
firms in Winter Haven, making a total of approximately 500 men and
women in opposition to the Lake Alfred Citrus Growers' Association and

98 FLORIDA

the Winter Haven packers. It happened at the time that a glutted fruit
market made the closing of the plants desirable rather than detrimental,
and the strike did not succeed.

At the end of 1938, organized workers represented roughly 20 per cent
of the total number gainfully employed throughout Florida and slightly
more than 4 per cent of the State's total population. The Brotherhood of
Sleeping Car Porters, an A.F. of L. all-Negro union, is strongly en-
trenched. Its international president, A.Philip Randolph, was born in
Crescent City and educated in Jacksonville. The white transport unions,
including the railroad brotherhoods, have a total membership of several
thousands.

The A.F. of L. in 1937 estimated that its membership included 65,000
craft unionists in 400 locals affiliated with the State Federation of Labor.
Some of these unions admit only white members. A few Negro locals are
affiliated directly with the national offices of the A.F. of L. The strength
of organized craft workers is concentrated around three population cen-
ters Jacksonville, Miami, and Tampa.

The Workers Alliance has a membership of 3,500 among the 35,000
WPA workers, mostly in Jacksonville, Tampa, Miami, Daytona Beach,
Ocala, and Orlando.

The CIO, which admits Negro workers, has gained a foothold in several
Florida industries. In 1938, its membership in the State numbered 1,925
workers, distributed among 5 groups as follows: United Cannery, Agricul-
tural, Packing and Allied Workers, 1,400; American Newspaper Guild, 25 ;
National Maritime Union, 300; American Communications Association,
100; and the Inland Boatmen's Union, 100.

A State child-labor law, enacted in 1913 and amended in 1915, estab-
lished minimum wages and maximum hours for the employment of chil-
dren and specified a State labor inspector to be charged with its enforce-
ment. The proposed child-labor amendment to the Federal Constitution,
however, was voted down by the 1937 Florida legislature. Boiler inspec-
tion and other safety measures have been passed at different times by
State and municipal law-making bodies. A State workmen's compensa-
tion law enacted in 1935 provides, with exceptions, for medical care, com-
pensation, and other assistance to workers receiving injuries while gain-
fully employed; the law does not apply to elected governmental officials,
Federal employees, and workers engaged in agricultural pursuits or do-
mestic service, or to firms employing three workers or less. A Florida in-
dustrial commission, created in 1935, supervises the enforcement of this
act and exercises general authority over industrial employment.

Education

ETHE seventeenth-century Spanish mission schools, Indian youths
ere instructed in the Spanish language and taught the catechism,
[any of the padres were scholars, and all were earnest in their en-
deavor to convert and civilize the natives. It is difficult to evaluate their
work, as the contentions of Spanish, English, and French explorers over a
period of some two centuries mystified and confused the aborigines, while
active warfare between the whites precluded any progress in formal edu-
cation.

While mission education was given to all promising children, Spanish or
Indian, whom the priests considered eligible for their schools, the plan of
education introduced by the English colonists in the eighteenth century
benefited only the children of the wealthier classes. This restriction,
coupled with the apathy of the poorer white people and the handicaps of
the indentured servants, produced a large illiterate group. A Catholic pa-
rochial school, supported by public funds and free to all children of
St. Augustine, was opened in 1786 and continued, with some lapses, until
cession of the territory to the United States. Negro children were allowed
to attend if they sat apart near the schoolhouse door.

In 1831 a group of prominent citizens met in Tallahassee and organized
the Florida Educational Society. Later they sought to stimulate a desire
for education by establishing branches in several towns, but the attempt
was unsuccessful, and the society finally disbanded. Children of the well-
to-do attended private schools or were instructed by private tutors, while
those of the poor 'improved rapidly in dissipation and vice/ according to
John Lee Williams, authority on territorial Florida. By 1840 there were 69
private schools and academies in the Territory. The concept of free educa-
tion for all, regardless of ability to pay, was quite foreign to the South of
that time; free education was synonymous with pauper education to most
Southerners.

By an act of Congress in 1845, supplementing the act admitting Florida
and Iowa into the Union, the new State of Florida was given each six-
teenth section of land within its boundaries for the support of common
schools and two sections of land to be used for seminaries of learning. This

100 P L O E. I D A

theoretical increase of culture was of little consequence; few of the State's
political leaders wanted public schools.

The education of Negro slaves, where it existed at all during the early
nineteenth century, was conducted partly for sentimental reasons and
partly on material grounds. It is recorded that as early as 1817 Zephaniah
Kingsley, who lived on Fort George Island and was one of the largest slave
owners of his day, gave instruction to his slaves and thus increased their
per capita valuation. The free Negroes were generally more fortunate. A
few were sent away by their white fathers to be educated, and others were
allowed to attend schools kept by privileged members of their race.

The first State constitution perpetuated the use of the seminary lands
and the funds derived from them, and further legislation gave the State
the right to sell school lands and invest the proceeds in bonds. In 1852 a
public school was established in Tallahassee. According to the Federal
census of 1860, there were 2,132 pupils in public schools and 4,486 in pri-
vate schools of the State. The War between the States seriously hampered
educational progress; during its course there were few competent teachers,
no good textbooks, and an almost total lack of provision for public schools.

It was during the Reconstruction Period, 1865-76, that the concept of
free education for all classes may be said to have developed. The Freed-
men's Bureau established public schools, primarily for educating the
Negroes; among them was the institution that became Bethune-Cookman
College. White children were free to attend, but their parents were reluc-
tant to allow this. Nora Clark, a Negro woman in St. Augustine, kept a day
school until it was closed by the whites. Finally the idea of free education
bore some fruit, although practice lagged behind theory. Legislation in
1869 provided for the office of State superintendent of public instruction
and a board of education and appropriated funds to maintain schools.
Counties were required to augment State funds. Jonathan C. Gibbs, a
Negro who served as Florida's Secretary of State from 1869 to 1872 and
as Superintendent of Public Instruction for the following two years, is
described by one historian as ' probably the most outstanding character in
the early life of the Florida public school system. 3 It was about fifteen
years, however, before the general public was ready to benefit by these
laws, such was the economic and social distress of the times.

Higher education fared better. Two public seminaries were founded, the
first in 1852 at Ocala, to the east of the Suwannee River, and the second in
1857 at Tallahassee, to the west of the river. With various changes and re-
movals, these finally became the University of Florida and the Florida
State College for Women. Denominational colleges were established here

Industry

r Photograph by courtesy of Tampa Chamber of Commerce

TRANS-SHIPMENT OF BANANAS. TAMPA f

RAILROAD TERMINAL, JACKSONVILLE [ :

Photograph by courtesy of flespess Engraving Company 1

Photograph by courtesy of Farm Security Administrat ioii|

COMMEBCIAL FISHING FLEET AT KEY WEST DOCK

AIR VIEW OF COMMERCIAL DOCKS, MIAMI

Photograph by courtesy of Farm Security Administration
CITRUS PACKING PLANT, FORT PIERCE

ROLLING HANDMADE CIGARS IN A TAMPA FACTORY
Photograph by courtesy of Tamper Chamber of Commerce

Photograph by courtesy of Farm Security Administration
INSPECTING SPONGES, KEY WEST
BEAN CANNING FACTORY. DANIA

Photograph by courtesy of Farm Security Administration

PHOSPHATE MINE, POLK COUNTY

Photograph by courfesy of Department ot Agricultu*

PULP MILL,
Photograph by courtesy of Bespess Engraving Company

Photograph by courtesy of Farm Security Administration
TURPENTINE PLANT, NEAR MARIANNA

PAN AMERICAN AIRWAYS OFFICE, MIAMI

Photograph by Gerecke

EDUCATION 101

and there. The most notable for its continuance in spite of difficulties was
the school founded at DeLand in 1883 by H.A.DeLand of Fairport, New
York. In 1885 it passed under control of the Baptist State Association and
the next year became known as DeLand Academy and College. It was
chartered as DeLand University in 1887 and two years later given its
present name, Stetson University. Rollins College at Winter Park, now
noted for its interesting experiments in educational methods, was incorpo-
rated in 1879, but did not open until 1885. It is nonsectarian in policy, al-
though in the past it was connected with the Congregational Church.

The history of some four or five other institutions is confused by re-
movals from town to town, as well as by changes of name and administra-
tion. Schools for special groups were established comparatively late: the
Florida State School for the Deaf and Blind at St.Augustine in 1883, a
school for delinquent boys at Marianna in 1915, a similar school for girls
at Ocala in 1917, and a colony for feeble-minded children at Gainesville in
1921.

Vocational education was tried unsuccessfully in Tallahassee as early as
1831, but it was not until 1887 that steps were taken to inaugurate the vo-
cational education which has since been adopted by the populous urban
counties.

In 1905 the legislature enacted the Buckman Act, one of the most con-
structive laws in the history of Florida education. This act abolished the
State-supported institutions of higher learning then in existence and
created instead three colleges: one for white males, the University of Flor-
ida, at Gainesville; one for white females, the Florida State College for
Women, at Tallahassee; and the other for Negroes of both sexes, the Flor-
ida Agricultural and Mechanical College, at Tallahassee. The results of
concentrating available funds on these institutions have been most grati-
fying. Equipment and standards of scholarship compare favorably with
similar institutions in other parts of the South.

The University of Florida, which opened at Gainesville in 1906 with
fewer than 100 students, now has an average enrollment of 3,000 students.
The teaching personnel and equipment are of a high order, and the univer-
sity's record of expansion in some ways typifies the history of State educa-
tion. A Phi Beta Kappa chapter was founded in 1938. Agricultural experi-
ment stations operated in conjunction with the university have had an im-
portant part in the development of scientific agriculture in Florida, carry-
ing out experiments not only in citrus culture but in tropical plants, long-
staple cotton, pine products, and general forestry. Summer schools for
adult rural education have resulted in widespread cultural improvement

102 FLORIDA

both in Florida and in neighboring states that send students to the lec-
tures and conferences conducted at the university.

One of the most progressive educational units in the State is the P.K.
Yonge Demonstration School, administered by the University of Florida.
It is attempting to devise methods of instruction that will develop intel-
lectual curiosity in pupils of kindergarten, grade-school, and high-school
age. A point of departure from tradition is its method of basing the cur-
riculum on the children's capabilities, needs, and desires rather than on a
prearranged system of courses. The school's aim is to graduate students
'whose activities will bring society to a higher level/

The Florida State College for Women, founded in 1905, now has an
average enrollment of approximately 2,000 students, and has the distinc-
tion of being the first State women's college to be admitted to membership
in the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, and the
first in the South to be placed on the approved list of the Association of
American Universities. Its Phi Beta Kappa chapter was founded in 1934*
This college, one of the three largest women's colleges in the United States,
has had an important influence upon the professional and cultural life of
women in Florida.

The Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes, estab-
lished as a normal school in 1887, is the leading Negro educational institu-
tion in the State, with an enrollment of 860 for the 1938-39 term. The
State department of education has accredited this college and given it a
standard rating. Appropriations by the State and Federal Governments
for its support are sometimes supplemented by contributions from the
general educational fund.

No tuition fee is required of State residents at the University of Florida
or at the State College for Women, but for nonresidents the tuition fee is
$100 at both schools. The Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College re-
quires a $35 entrance fee of all students. Tuition costs are moderate at the
leading privately endowed institutions: Stetson University, the Univer-
sity of Miami, the University of Tampa, Rollins College, and Florida
Southern College at Lakeland.

There are three junior colleges for white students, all coeducational. The
Eingling Junior College, endowed by John Ringling, was established at
Sarasota in 1931; the St.Petersburg Junior College, founded in 1927, re-
ceives an annual appropriation of $10,000 from the city of St.Petersburg;
Palm Beach Junior College, at West Palm Beach, established in 1933, is
controlled by the county government.

Junior colleges for Negroes are also coeducational. The Florida Normal

EDUCATION 103

and Industrial Institute in St.Augustine, a Baptist institution founded in
1892, became a junior college in 1933. Edward Waters College in Jackson-
ville had its beginning in 1883 as a high school founded by the African
Methodist Episcopal Church. The school became a junior college in 1926.
The Bethune-Cookman College at Daytona Beach is an outgrowth of
the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute, founded by Mrs. Mary
McLeod Bethune in 1904, and the Cookman Institute, established in 1872.
In 1923 the two schools were merged under the board of education of
the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Despite its delayed beginning and slow growth, the public-school sys-
tem of Florida includes 2,523 buildings, a total investment in all school
property of $75,484,656, and a personnel of 12,409 teachers for the 385,763
children of school age. Free public education is provided in virtually all
elementary and secondary schools, as well as some free vocational training
for children of both races. All counties require out-of-State residents
whose children enter public schools to purchase Florida automobile li-
censes for their cars, and Miami also charges a nominal tuition fee for each
nonresident pupil.

In addition to State and county public schools, Florida has 61 private
educational institutions, many accredited by the National Education
Association. This is exclusive of private kindergartens and commercial
schools. The constitution of 1885 contains the provision: ' White and col-
ored children shall not be taught in the same school but impartial provi-
sion shall be made for both. 7 The principle of segregation has been carried
out, but educational facilities for Negro and white children are far from
equal. The report of the Florida superintendent of public instruction for
the two years ending June 30, 1936, (the latest issued at this writing,
1939) states that there are 1,494 buildings for white students and 1,029
for Negroes. The value of white school property is $70,543,001; of Negro
property $4,941,655. The report says quite frankly that: 'In a few south
Florida counties and in most north Florida counties many Negro schools
are housed in churches, shacks, and lodges, and have no toilets, water sup-
ply, desks, blackboards, etc. Counties use these schools as a means to get
State funds and yet these counties invest little or nothing in them/

There are 9,513 white teachers and 2,896 Negro teachers. The average
annual salary for white teachers is $1,029 and for Negroes, $492; 22
whites and 530 Negroes hold temporary certificates. All 67 counties have
facilities for white students in the high-school grades, but only 28 counties
make similar provisions for Negroes.

Every county provides transportation for white students, and 39 coun-

104 FLORIDA

ties also transport Negroes. In 1936 transportation for 71,376 white stu-
dents cost $1,579,824, and for 1,664 Negroes, $24,815. The superinten-
dent's report states further: 'In 1934-35 the State average per capita cost
of instructing white children was $40.72, whereas the State average per
capita cost of instructing Negro children was $14.78.' The work of the
State and Federal Governments and of religious organizations in the inter-
ests of Negro education has been aided by outstanding contributions from
the Rosenwald, Slater, and Jeanes Funds, and the General Education
Board, a Rockefeller foundation. The Rosenwald Fund has spent nearly
$1,500,000 to help build 125 rural schools. The Slater Fund has fostered
normal and industrial training in institutions which do not have accred-
ited four-year high-school courses. It has also co-operated with the Jeanes
Fund in maintaining 27 Negro teachers who, as county supervisors, have
developed better Negro schools in the rural districts. The General Educa-
tion Board has given much financial aid to institutions of higher learning.

Compulsory school attendance was not inaugurated in Florida until
1919. Distribution of free school books was begun in 1911, but was limited
to pupils under 15 years of age who were orphans or the children of indi-
gent parents; this was extended in 1925 to include all children in the pub-
lic schools in the first six grades, and in 1935 to include basic textbooks in
junior and senior high schools.

The State average per capita cost for white children is less than half the
average per capita cost for the Nation. Using the per capita cost of in-
structing children in the Nation as an index, it would seem that the quan-
tity and quality of education provided for white children in Florida is in-
adequate. By the same index the quantity and quality of education pro-
vided for Negroes is even more inadequate. Yet Florida's effort to support
education, measured by the percentage of annual income spent for educa-
tion, is greater than the average for the Nation.

A substantial addition to school facilities has been made by the WPA,
at an expenditure of approximately s$3, 700,000. By the end of 1938 the
construction of new buildings and enlargement of existing ones had pro-
vided 5,236 classrooms to relieve badly overcrowded conditions in some
counties.

Public Health and Social Welfare

THE yardstick of reality can well be applied to Florida by meas-
uring the public-health facilities and social services available to
the common citizen. The State's population has multiplied at an
amazing rate since 1900, and, though great advances have been made to-
ward an adequate public program, the problems of development, engi-
neering, and construction- to meet obvious and pressing needs have
taxed public energies to the relative detriment of public health and social
welfare.

The State hoard of health was created in 1889, chiefly for the purpose of
combating a yellow-fever epidemic. As the cause of the disease was un-
known, medical authorities attempted to stamp it out by quarantine
measures. Counties maintained 'shotgun quarantine' against one an-
other; armed guards even held up the shipment of flatcars of iron rails
and boxcars of ice. It was not until after the Spanish- American War that
Walter Reed, William C. Gorgas, and other medical officers in the United
States army succeeded, with the aid of enlisted men, in discovering the
deadly 'yellow jack/ The only other duty specifically assigned to the
board was the task of enforcing a quarantine of smallpox and cholera pa-
tients. Maritime quarantine of these diseases was not transferred to the
Federal Government until 1893. Cholera has never been prevalent in the
State, and smallpox has taken comparatively few lives. The latter fact ex-
plains why a mandatory vaccination law, though needed, has never been
passed in Florida.

Had the board confined itself to quarantine activities, its usefulness
would soon have been outgrown; but following the general trend toward a
wider concept of public health and the progressive example of other States,
it adopted a liberal construction of power and a broadened program. The
work of the board of health is carried out through nine bureaus, all di-
rectly responsible to the State health officer, who in turn is responsible to
the members of the State board of health. The bureaus are: administra-
tion, vital statistics, local health work, epidemiology, laboratories, public-
health nursing, health education, sanitary engineering, maternal and child
health.

105

106 FLORIDA

A division of narcotic and drug inspection is operated under the bureau
of administration. Drug and narcotic violations account for 90 per cent of
this division's work, and drugstore inspection for the remainder. The bu-
reau of local health work is concerned with the establishment of full-time
local health departments in all counties of the State. One of the functions
of the bureau of public-health nursing is the licensing of rnidwives, for
whom it maintains a continuous teaching course. This bureau supervises
all nursing projects of the WPA, promotes health education through news-
paper publicity, moving pictures, popular health pamphlets, exhibit mate-
rial and library service, and the monthly bulletin, Health Notes. Under the
bureau of maternal and child health is a division of dental health, which
carries on a program of education through the schools.

While the value of the board of health in Florida's government is gen-
erally conceded, its operating funds are still too meager to allow it to
cope effectively with public-health and sanitary problems. For the period
of 1937-39, the legislature appropriated $225,000 annually for use of the
board. This sum, together with funds that the State received under the
National Social Security Act (Titles 5 and 6), has resulted in an increase of
county health units from 3 in 1935 to 15 in 1938.

Lack of adequate hospitals furnishes another significant clue to public-
health conditions of Florida. There are 87 privately and publicly financed
hospitals, and five Federal institutions including one of the largest vet-
erans' homes and hospitals in the South (see Tour 6V). But not all of these
serve the general public, because the list includes such special hospitals as
Moosehaven, East Coast Railroad hospital, the hospital at the State
prison, and two college infirmaries.

With an appropriation by the 1937 legislature and a PWA loan, a State
tubercular institution was built near Orlando with 312 rooms, providing
for 400 patients, white and Negro. The WPA by the end of 1938 had built
or improved 13 hospitals, providing 896 additional beds, at a cost of more
than $700,000. Nevertheless, 36 of the State's 67 counties have neither
general hospitals nor hospital facilities for the treatment of indigents.
Only 10 hospitals have out-patient clinics, and only 16 are entirely sup-
ported by their municipalities or counties. Patients without funds and in
need of hospitalization must often go outside their counties for treatment;
and even there overcrowding greatly reduces the value of available ser-
vices. This is particularly true where patients require prolonged and expen-
sive treatment.

Exclusive of hospitals not open to the general public, Florida's rate of
about 6 beds in general hospitals per 1,000 population compares favorably

PUBLIC HEALTH AND SOCIAL WELFARE 107

with the national standard of 4.6 beds; but the State's provision for ner-
vous and mental patients is 3.4 beds per 1,000 of population, in comparison
with the national standard of 5.6. It should be noted, however, that Flor-
ida's annual expenditure of iSi per person for public-health and sanitary
services in 1930 compared favorably with the average national rate of gi
for the same year. In 1934, the Florida health expenditures were lowered
to 12^. Public-health authorities estimate that there can be no adequate
public-health service without a minimum annual expenditure of $i per
capita.

Co-operative medical service was launched in Tampa more than 50
years before 'socialized medicine' became a controversial national issue.
Soon after the Cuban cigar industry migrated to Tampa in 1886, a Cuban
physician, Dr. Guillermo Machado, was conducting a mutual benefit so-
ciety for medical aid. For 105^ a week, members of La Iguala (The Equal)
were entitled to medicine and services. This example was followed by the
Spanish, Cuban, and Italian clubs that later appeared in Tampa for social
and mutual benefit purposes. In 1906 the Centra Espanol erected a $60,000
hospital where members could obtain medical care and hospitalization in
return for their dues of $1.50 a week. An offshoot of this organization, the
Centra Asturiano, erected a large modern hospital in 1928. About 83 per
cent of its income is used for medical services.

The Florida State Hospital for the Insane, founded at Chattahoochee in
1876 (see Tour 7*;), is the only hospital in the State free to all indigent resi-
dents regardless of race. But it is so understaffed and overcrowded (with
more than 4,000 patients) that many persons mentally ill but not requir-
ing mechanical restraint are confined in county jails. The Florida farm col-
ony for feeble-minded and epileptic children, established at Gainesville in
1919, admits white patients only.

Florida's recorded death rate per 1,000 population was 12.8 in 1935 as
compared with 10.9 for the country as a whole. A large percentage of those
deaths was caused by preventable diseases. The maternal death rate is sec-
ond highest in the Nation; the incidence of malaria is six times as high as
the Nation's average, or 20.3 per cent as compared with 3.5. Tuberculosis
and syphilis are alarmingly prevalent, especially among Negroes, as is
shown by rates of 109.4 and 67.6 respectively, compared to national rates
of 55.0 and 9.1. During 1935 the rate of deaths from syphilis per 100,000
population in Florida was 26.0 for whites and 67.6 for Negroes; the tuber-
culosis rate was 56.3 for whites and 109.4 for Negroes. The general resident
death rate for Negroes in 1935 was 15.1 as compared with n.8 for whites.

Despite the prevalence of disease and high death rate among Negroes,

108 FLORIDA

only seven counties (Bade, Duval, Hillsborough, Palm Beach, Pinellas,
Putnam, and Volusia) have general hospitals that provide care for them;
28 other hospitals in the State, including the State Tuberculosis Hospital
near Orlando, and the Florida State Hospital for the Insane at Chatta-
hoochee, make some provision for Negroes.

Tn recent years, two small but well-equipped hospitals for Negro tuber-
cular patients have been established: one in Pensacola, with a capacity of
50 patients, a branch of the Escambia County Tubercular Sanitarium; the
other, the Tubercular Rest Home in Jacksonville, with 50 beds. In Miami,
a white specialist conducts annual clinics for Negro physicians of Florida.
At the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes in Talla-
hassee, a yearly clinic in general medicine attracts Negro practitioners
from all parts of the country.

Brewster Hospital, in Jacksonville, is outstanding among the dozen or
more private and semi-private hospitals and training schools for nurses
and interns that are operated by and for Negroes. It has been approved by
the American Medical Society and American College of Surgeons. The
hospital was opened in 1931 by the Methodist Episcopal Women's Home
Missionary Society.

With the aid of WPA funds, the city of Tampa in 1938 completed a 60-
bed hospital for Negroes at a cost of $125,000. It is equipped with labora-
tory and X-ray department, and employs a staff of white and Negro physi-
cians and surgeons. The brick structure is set in a landscaped park, over-
looking the Hillsborough River.

Support for the active social agencies and institutions in Florida comes
both from private sources and from Federal, State, county, and municipal
funds. Public agencies are the more important in point of general useful-
ness and the number of persons served. In most instances, however, pri-
vate agencies have pioneered in the field of social service and developed
many general policies and technical procedures that serve as a foundation
for public welfare activities.

The early laws of Florida providing for social services read well enough,
but they were not immediately put into effect. In Article X, Section i, of
an early State constitution (1868), provisions were made to 'establish such
institutions for the benefit of the insane, blind, and deaf and other benevo-
lent institutions as the public good may require.' Section 2 provided for a
penitentiary and a house of refuge for juvenile offenders.' The spirit of
this provision is now carried out in the school for boys at Marianna and
for girls at Ocaia. Section 3 provided that the counties of the State should
care for ' the inhabitants who by reason of age, infirmity, or misfortune

PUBLIC HEALTH AND SOCIAL WELFARE 109

may have claims upon the aid and sympathy of society.' Thus the consti-
tution divided social responsibility: the State was to care for the handi-
capped, delinquent, and criminal classes, while the counties were in some
way to provide for the aged, infirm, and dependent.

Various progressive laws affecting social service were enacted during the
next 60 years, notably in the fields of mothers' pensions and child welfare;
but the need for public social services on a State-wide basis was not fully
realized until the economic depression, beginning in 1929, drained the re-
sources of counties, municipalities, and private welfare agencies. After
making strenuous efforts, they conceded in 1931 that the task was beyond
their power. Several communities attempted unsuccessfully to stem the
rising tide of destitution by appointing committees on unemployment re-
lief, by enlisting community resources, and by making special appropria-
tions for relief purposes.

The first Federal funds were available under the Emergency Relief and
Construction Act of 1932. The need for them was evident in the rapid
swelling of relief rolls to approximately 100,000 cases within a few months.
The Civil Works Administration and the Federal Emergency Relief Ad-
ministration met the most pressing needs of the State during 1933-34. By
the early part of 1935, approximately one-fifth of the State's population
was receiving either direct relief or work relief from the FERA. By August
1935, the newly created WPA, providing work relief for unemployed, be-
gan to take the place of the older organization. In November of that year,
with the FERA discontinued, the WPA assumed responsibility for the ma-
jority of the employable workers on the Florida relief rolls.

Other agencies of the Federal Government have provided valuable so-
cial services in Florida during the emergency period. Outstanding for their
benefits to the unemployed are the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Re-
settlement Administration, the Federal Surplus Commodities Corpora-
tion, the National Youth Administration, and the Public Works Adminis-
tration.

The necessity for a co-ordinated program resulted in the passage of a
social welfare act by the 1935 legislature. This law represented the State's
first effective provision for a comprehensive program of social services. Si-
multaneously, the legislature submitted a proposed amendment to the
constitution that would permit appropriation of State funds for relief pur-
poses. It was ratified in November 1936 by a twelve-to-one majority.

The 1935 act created a State welfare board of 7 members and 12 district
boards, with power to administer relief and other welfare activities as well
as Federal social-security funds. Until ratification of the amendment, how-

110 FLORIDA

ever, no funds could be appropriated to match Federal grants for public
assistance as provided in the United States Social Security Act.

This situation resulted in a proposal that Florida counties provide funds
for a temporary old-age assistance program limited to needy persons 70
years of age and over. After months of negotiations by the State welfare
board with county commissioners and the Social Security Board, the plan
was inaugurated on October i, 1936, a month before the amendment was
ratified. Nine months before State funds were available, many counties
voluntarily appropriated them for public-assistance purposes. Under this
program 9,922 aged received yearly payments aggregating $816,979; one-
half of this sum represented grants-in-aid from the Federal Government.

The 1937 legislature, empowered by the amendment, appropriated
$3,800,000 annually for old-age assistance, aid to dependent children and
the blind, and other welfare services. Relief for those not included in so-
cial-security categories remained a responsibility of the counties, but the
latter were not required to participate in costs of the three Federal-State
assistance programs. An initial survey in 1936-37 indicated that there
were 27,304 residents more than 65 years of age eligible for old-age as-
sistance, 1,200 for assistance to the blind, and 25,037 children eligible for
aid to dependent children.

Private welfare agencies in Florida are relatively few in number and
small in size, but their work is of great value. Fraternal organizations, ser-
vice clubs, religious orders, and other private agencies alleviate social and
economic distress in many ways. They are active in providing free sum-
mer camps for children of the poor, hospitalization for invalids, correction
of physical defects, maternity care, day nurseries, low-cost food and shel-
ter for transients, and vocational training.

There are more than 30 orphanages and detention homes for white chil-
dren in the State, a few supported by county funds, and the majority by
church and fraternal organizations. Homes for unmarried mothers are lo-
cated in Tampa and St.Petersburg. Church and fraternal groups also
maintain several homes for the aged. The counties of Brevard, Bade, Es-
cambia, Hillsborough, Manatee, Pinellas, and Volusia support homes for
the aged out of public funds.

Provision for the Negro seems even less adequate in the field of social
welfare than in public health. Several private and semi-private institu-
tions, some of which are supported by community chests and similar en-
terprises, care for the Negro sick and indigent. In Jacksonville the Negro
Welfare League, which is probably the Negro Floridian's most compre-
hensive social agency, contributes to an old-folks home, a child-placement

PUBLIC HEALTH AND SOCIAL WELFARE III

bureau, a juvenile-detention home for boys, and the Clara White Mission.
Tampa has a well-managed day nursery for the children of working
mothers. Three similar nurseries are conducted in Jacksonville, two of
them by the WPA and a third with the assistance of community chest
funds. In St.Augustine several welfare associations for Negroes are aided
by the Buckingham Smith Benevolent Association, which was incorpo-
rated to administer the bequest of Buckingham Smith, a white philanthn>
pist who left his estate 'for the benefit of the black people of St.Augus^
tine.' In 1871, the year of the bequest, the property was valued at approxi-
mately $20,000, but by wise administration it has been made to yield an
annual income of $10,000.

Florida's former penal system has been described as one of ' aimless ex-
perimentation, followed by about 30 years of a lease system.' The lease
system, abolished in 1919, enabled private contractors to rent labor from
the State at the rate of $i a day per convict. The State supported the con-
victs and provided guards. The present greatly improved penal system be-
gan to take shape when the 1911 legislature appropriated funds to estab-
lish a prison farm at Raiford. This was completed in 1914, and the lash and
sweatbox were outlawed in 1923. A State prison fund, derived from a levy
of three-eighths of a mill on the dollar of all taxable property, supplements
the small revenue from the State prison farm. Women and the physically
unfit are retained at the farm, while others, with the exception of those
who work on the premises, make up the convict road force.

Negro prisoners are lodged in the State prison at Raiford, the various
road camps scattered throughout the counties, and in the city and county
jails. At Raiford, where conditions are probably the best, the buildings are
well constructed, regular occupations are permitted the prisoners, some
educational opportunities are provided, and Negro religious services are
given under the direction of a registered Negro chaplain.

The Florida Federation of Women's Clubs, making a survey of 13
county jails in 1931, found conditions far from ideal, and in some cases
worse than those surveyed nine years before. Among the more objection-
able features noted were inadequate medical care, the total lack of educa-
tion and rehabilitation measures, enforced idleness of prisoners, and the
fee system, whereby sheriffs received 65^ a day for the board of each in-
mate. Fortunately, some of these conditions have been remedied in many
counties. New jails with modern equipment are replacing unsanitary struc-
tures, and the welfare of the prisoners is given increasing attention.

Yet unfavorable prison conditions were but one of the many problems
that confronted the State when it attempted to consolidate the economic

112 FLORIDA

and population gains that resulted from the great expansion program of
the i92o ? s. Public health and social welfare emerged, during the 1930*5, a$
matters to be treated not as a private liability, but as a public responsibil-
ity; and this the State has undertaken in increasing measure through edu'
cation, legislation, and financial assistance.

Sports and Recreation

PROJECTING into subtropical seas, yet lying within overnight
reach of many millions of people, Florida has become a winter
playground for half a continent. It is more extensively used for
recreation than any other area east of the Rocky Mountains. From the
great bay at Pensacola in northwest Florida, and from Fernandina on the
Atlantic coast, down to the island of Key West, a program of play activi-
ties practically overshadows the workaday side of the State's life.

Climate and accessibility, of course, have much to do with the great
winter migration, but Florida's beaches, lakes, and forests offer many
natural facilities for recreation. The kinds of recreation are but a matter
of personal preference. They may be simply sitting in the sun, observing
plant or animal life, playing a game of chess in the shade of a banyan
tree, listening to an open-air band concert or an opera by radio on the
deck of a cruiser, golfing, fishing, hunting, swimming, or, for the 'form'
player, watching the 'bangtails' finish at the race tracks. The opportu-
nity to indulge in these preferences in the open under almost continuous
sunshine, adding the factor of health to play, accounts largely for the
presence of the millions who annually patronize Florida.

Many persons seeking health are drawn by the abundance of sunlight.
Florida's daily average of more than six hours is greater than that of any
other territory in the eastern United States. But warmth, which can be
enjoyed elsewhere in enervating comfort by a fireside, is not the principal
lure for the health seeker; the opportunity to absorb vertical rays of clear
sunlight at sea level is an important factor in Florida's winter monopoly.

Since the rewards of thrift and industry frequently come late in life, a
high percentage of visitors in Florida are beyond middle age. But this
neither diminishes their fun, nor seems to lessen their energy. Organized
into clubs for lawn bowling, shuffleboard, roque, horseshoe pitching,
checkers, dominoes, and bridge, these elderly contestants usually exceed
in numbers the gallery of spectators. Mass participation is the formula in
Three-Quarter Century clubs and like organizations. One shufHeboard
club in St.Petersburg claims 4,000 active members, and an annual card
party in a public park in the same city attracts 3,000 or more players.

114 FLORIDA

Florida, accordingly, is a playground for the many rather than for the
wealthy few; nevertheless, it is around the latter that recreation has been
publicized into the State's most prominent industry. To foster this, much
costly and elaborate paraphernalia has been installed in the resorts. Com-
mercialized recreation, with its attendant spotlighting, nearly obscures
the State's other interests and pursuits, and resort patrons consequently
have little acquaintance with these.

Scarcely known, for example, are ( syrup boilings' in the pine woods,
when neighbors join a farmer in turning to good use his patch of sugar
cane; the gatherings for chicken pilau made with rice which corre-
sponds socially to a wiener roast elsewhere; the combined barbecues and
rodeos in the cattle-raising sections; and the country fish fries, where
hundreds gather to feast and hear political orations. More familiar are the
festivals, fairs, and diverse celebrations that mark the end of harvest time
In the tobacco, strawberry, and fruit regions. These are widely advertised
and to an extent have become tourist attractions. Least known are the
Negro 'jooks,' primitive rural counterparts of resort night clubs, where
turpentine workers take their evening relaxation deep in the pine forests.

Greatest resources for sport and play, of course, are Florida's fresh and
salt waters. Bays and sounds are plentiful for small-boat racing, deep har-
bors for ocean-going yachts, and distributed along the State's coast are
nearly 800 miles of operating or potential bathing beaches. Swimming has
universal appeal, and for good reasons fishing lures thousands.

' I have fished in every State in the Union but three,' declared Barton W.
Evermann, ichthyologist with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries for more
than twenty years, ' and from the Bering Sea to the Gulfs of Mexico and
California, and, all things considered, I regard Florida as unequalled in
the richness and variety of its attractions for all sorts of sport with rod
and reel.'

Accounting for the fish indigenous to each of Florida's coasts, Ever-
mann explained that, 'The warm waters of the Florida Keys serve as a
more or less effective barrier to the passage of fishes living in colder wa-
ters. As a result many species are found on the east coast of Florida which
do not occur on the Gulf coast and vice versa.'

Tarpon and sailfish are the leading game fish in coastal waters. The
silver-scaled tarpon migrates from South American shores to the lower
east and west coasts of Florida; its most promising grounds are the swift-
running passes leading into Tampa and Sarasota Bays, Boca Grande, the
Caloosahatchee River, the Ten Thousand Islands, and the waters off
Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Palm Beach. Full-moon nights are pre-

SPORTS AND RECREATION 115

ferred by experienced anglers, since sunburn is avoided and the tremen-
dous leaps of the 30- to i5o-pound hooked warrior seem more spectacular.
No less valiant is the sailfish, whose habitat is the warm Gulf Stream.
International sportsmen compete annually in tarpon and sailfish tourna-
ments sponsored by several Florida cities.

Other favorite game fish are kingfish, sea trout, robalo or snook, sheeps-
head, cabia, flounder, pompano, bluefish, marlin, amberjack, and a host
of the bizarre species found only in tropical seas. The State requires no
license of the salt-water fisherman, provided his catch is not sold, since
his fishing grounds are under Federal jurisdiction. Up and down the coast,
cabin launches and motorboats are available for hire at reasonable rates
in all seasons.

The numerous lakes, rivers, and runs' from springs are stocked with
game fish. The black bass is the prize fresh- water fighter. Less combative
species include the speckled perch, bluegill, redbreasted sunfish or bream,
rock bass, and pickerel. Among bodies of water that are noted for the size
and variety of fishes are Lakes Okeechobee, St.George, and Apopka, and
the St.Johns, Indian, Kissimrnee, Choctawhatchee, and Apalachicola
Rivers. Professional guides and amateur advisers for fishermen are in
evidence throughout the State. Local chambers of commerce issue fishing
booklets with maps spotting the best grounds; newspapers in the larger
communities carry a column listing charter boats, guides, fees, and tide
charts. Regularly scheduled broadcasts dealing with the sport, its prize
catches and experiences, are featured by radio stations in several cities.
Seasonal fishing has long been outdated in Florida; the Izaak Walton
zealot can enjoy his pastime twelve months of the year. (For Pishing and
Hunting Regulations, see General Information.)

Clear streams in several sections of the State wind through the dense
jungles and lead campers to occasional bluffs on either side, which afford
an unspoiled view of Florida's natural woodlands that the highway trav-
eler misses. There are many rivers over which the paddler can travel, but
the best known extended canoe trip is the 469-mile tour of north Florida,
From White Springs on the Suwannee the route skirts Suwannee Sound
on the Gulf, continues up the tropical Withlacoochee River to Lake
PanasofTkee, then follows portage to Lake Griffm; from there it goes down
the swift Ocklawaha to the St.Johns, and northward with the current into
Jacksonville.

Amateur sailors find opportunities for winter yachting and boating, and
competition among all types of craft is an outstanding sport. Major events
drawing wide attention are the Miami-Nassau Sailing; Races, the Bermuda

Il6 FLORIDA

Race, the St.Petersburg-Havana Yacht Race, and the annual Biscayne
Bay Sailing Regatta at Miami. International motorboat tournaments are
held at Miami, New Smyrna, Palm Beach, and Tampa. Perhaps no one
factor has been more responsible for arousing interest in small-boat sailing
than the activities of the Melbourne Sailing Club. Active member clubs
of the Florida East Coast Yachting Association are found in practically
all cities along the Atlantic, and races between them are held throughout
the year. Aquaplaning is popular on inland lakes and in sheltered bays.

For those who wish to view water life from the surface, glass-bottomed
boats are available at Miami for trips over the coral beds of the Atlantic,
and at the docks of Florida's largest springs.

Low-lying sand islands, reached by bridges and causeways, parallel
both coasts and form most of the Florida beaches. Where the white sand
is firmly packed, the beaches serve as motorways and playgrounds. The
beaches of the quiet Gulf, from Pensacola to Fort Myers, compete with
those along the surf-rolling Atlantic as summer resorts. Swimmers and
divers are attracted to the many rivers, springs, lakes, and salt- and
sulphur-water pools. Meets are held throughout the year, enabling the
State to develop world's champions in these sports. Swimming is by far
the most popular sport with children.

Panther, wildcat, and black bear are hunted in several of the Gulf ham-
mocks and in the Everglades. Deer also abound in the Everglades and in
the national forests. An experimental deer-breeding farm for restocking
purposes was maintained for a time by the State at Welaka, and several
private preserves one of which claims to have 5,000 deer under fence-
are established in the west, central, and northern parts of the peninsula.

The hunter finds a profusion of small fur-bearing animals, including red
and gray fox, skunk, raccoon, muskrat, and opossum. The otter is less
plentiful. In late fall, natives and visitors take to the field with their dogs
to flush quail and doves, both found in all parts of the State. Wild turkeys
inhabit isolated interior localities, while streams, lake regions, and the
coast are the haunts of marsh hens, ducks, and snipe.

In territories near the supply headquarters at Jacksonville, Talla-
hassee, Winter Haven, Miami, and Orlando are five leading hunting
grounds that include the virgin wilds of Florida's national forests. State
foresters, assigned to the Ocala, Osceola, Apalachicola, and Choctawhat-
chee National Forests, co-operate with hunters in the selection of camping
grounds, the best 'stands,' and the observance of game laws. For those
primarily interested in marksmanship, numerous trap and skeet tourna-
ments are held throughout the State,

SPORTS AND RECREATION 117

Scenic attractions along the State's 9,000 miles of hard-surfaced roads
vary from the hilly, roller-coaster terrain of the west and central sections
to the vast prairie lands that extend through the south-central portion
of the State. Off the main routes are roads and trails leading into State
parks, national forests, tropical gardens, and along glistening stretches
of ocean beach. Florida's historical background is revealed in the old
Spanish forts and buildings of St.Augustine and Pensacola, the Mission
ruins at New Smyrna, and the time-mellowed Georgian homes of Talla-
hassee and vicinity. Hotels, apartments, and tourist and trailer camps
are available in every section of the State.

Several State parks, which offer a variety of low-cost recreation to the
tourist, were developed and improved in 1936-38 by CCC workers, under
the direction of the State park service. Florida Caverns State Park, in
Jackson County, has a natural limestone bridge over the Chipola River
and caves with stalagmite and stalactite formations. Torreya State Park,
set in the hilly region of west Florida, has many historical points of in-
terest, as well as large stands of the rare Torreya tree. Fort Clinch State
Park, on Amelia Island near Fernandina, includes the fort and 1,200 acres
of subtropical scenery. In north Florida, Gold Head Branch State Park
has fishing and swimming facilities, picnic grounds, and many miles of
woodland paths. In Hillsboro River State Park, near Tampa, are over-
night cabins, trails, roads, and a museum. Set in a region having an abun-
dant flora and fauna, Myakka River State Park, an area of 25,000 acres
between Sarasota and Arcadia, is fully equipped with camping facilities.
Perhaps the largest virgin hammock left in Florida is located in Highlands
Hammock State Park, which lies between Sebring and Zolfo Springs.
Royal Palm Park, more than six square miles in area, is west of Miami in
the wildest portion of the Everglades. It is owned and administered by the
Florida Federation of Women's Clubs and forms a part of the proposed
Everglades National Park. Accommodations for visitors are available on
Paradise Key within the park.

In mid-November an army of trailer-tourists rolls its homes into Flor-
ida for the winter season. These visitors live in the hundreds of camps that
have been established for them throughout the State. Their most repre-
sentative organization, the Tin Can Tourists of the World, which was
formed in 1920 at Tampa, in 1938 had a membership of 30,000. These
tourists assemble at Dade City for Thanksgiving and move to Arcadia
for Christmas, where they celebrate the season with a community Christ-
mas tree and a Santa Claus for the children. In January, the colony
changes its residence for an annual convention, usually at Sarasota; in

Il8 FLORIDA

1939 this was held at Tampa. A spirit of comradeship, often lacking in the
more expensive tourist centers of the State, is evident as the trailer folk
gather in their camps and exchange tales of Nation-wide wanderings.

Both seashore and inland resorts provide golf and tennis. Many of
America's golfing classics attract professional and amateur champions to
Florida cities during the winter. A majority of the State's 200 golf courses
are open to public play at nominal greens fees. Numerous tennis courts
are municipally owned and operated for the benefit of tourists and resi-
dents. Annual State and National shuffleboard and horseshoe-pitching
tournaments are held at Lake Worth and St. Petersburg.

Florida offers many exciting spectator sports: horse and dog races, air
and auto races, boxing and wrestling, basketball, baseball, football, dia-
mond ball, polo, and jai alai. Miami's two horse-racing tracks compare
favorably in capacity, maintenance, and speed with those in the North. A
horse track, said to be the fastest in the country, was opened at Hollywood
in 1939 for a brief meet. The Hialeah track, with its royal palms, land-
scaped grounds, and rare collection of pink flamingoes and black swans,
makes an exotic picture. Dog tracks in several of the larger cities, together
with horse-racing tracks where pari-mutuel betting is legal, operate during
a loo-day winter season. Annual air maneuvers are held in Miami. Many
speed records have been established on the natural automobile speedway
at Daytona Beach. Polo matches are regularly scheduled at Miami and
Palm Beach. Miami is one of the few places in the United States where jai
alai may be seen; this exciting sport, brought from Cuba, is played on a
paved court, like handball.

Florida claims to have originated diamond ball, now known as Softball,
played by more than 3,000 teams throughout the State. Interscholastic
football, basketball, and track and field events are held in fall and winter.

In March, Florida's baseball month, spring training camps are estab-
lished by a dozen big-league and numerous minor-league clubs. Exhibition
games are played on an advertised schedule, and participating teams make
up what is known as the c Grapefruit League,' a name bestowed by sports
writers. Regular league umpires officiate, and box scores are studied by
dub managers and others to obtain a preview of players' performances.

Although Negroes make up nearly 30 per cent of Florida's population,
they share little in the organized sports of the State. Negro schools and
colleges, as far as their limited facilities permit, have interscholastic and
intra-mural sports activities football, basketball, baseball, and tennis.
Projects established by the NYA and WPA, such as Bethune-Cookman's
Cypress 'Cabin' and the recreation training institute at Dunbar High

SPOUTS AND RECREATION 119

School in Fort Myers, are helping to expand these recreational opportu-
nities.

Fishing, which costs little and gives a return in food, is a favorite occu-
pation among Negroes. A possum hunt likewise combines sport and the
possibility of a savory dish, and the baying that announces a treed raccoon
is the musical prelude to a feast. Negro churches sponsor concerts, picnics,
and fish fries; social clubs provide opportunities for dancing and some-
times for games of chance such as skin (a card game), bolita, and dice.
Motion-picture theaters and night clubs in the city, and 'jooks' in the
country are operated for Negroes. At Jacksonville, a Negro club maintains
a Q-hole golf course, a swimming pool, a shooting range, picnic grounds,
and recreational equipment for children. The entire property, covering 36
acres, has been improved by the WPA and NYA.

In the use of Florida's improved beaches the Negroes are definitely
handicapped; few cities have provided bathing facilities for them. At Fer-
nandina, near Jacksonville, the employees of the Afro- American Life In-
surance Company have established American Beach, a tract of more than
twenty acres, with electrically lighted streets, modern homes, and summer
cottages.

The WPA, maintaining a division of recreational projects operated on a
State-wide basis, is active in promoting organized play. Some of its most
notable work has been among underprivileged children. Facilities installed
in scores of cities up to 1939 included 207 parks and playgrounds, 78 com-
munity houses, 6 swimming pools, 20 golf courses, 6 yacht basins, and 14
piers, representing an outlay of nearly $6,000,000. Plays of the Federal
Theater, classes conducted by the Federal Art Project, and concerts spon-
sored by the Federal Music Project have been well attended.

City recreation departments, in co-operation with school authorities
and civic clubs, supervise children's sports, arrange tourist dances, and
sponsor card parties, excursions, and community c sings'; these services
are extended to visitors and citizens alike. In some cities the ocean beaches
are used for playgrounds and for physical culture classes.

Newspapers and Radio

AORY die-hard, William Charles Wells, published Florida's first
newspaper at St. Augustine in 1783 the East Florida Gazette, an
inflammatory weekly that stormed at Americans for affronting
the English Crown. Wells came from Charleston a year before the British
evacuated that city in 1784, but found little peace in St. Augustine, for
shortly after he arrived Great Britain relinquished Florida to Spain. That
left her loyal subject with no apparent choice but to return to London,
but in the bitterness of defeat Wells demonstrated that he was first of
all a newspaperman by rushing to press an extra that emblazoned the
outcome of the Revolutionary War. Three issues of his East Florida Ga-
zette, were discovered in London in 1926, and photostatic copies of these
are in possession of the Florida Historical Society. One issue bears the
date, 'From Saturday, February 22, to Saturday, March i, 1783.'

No other newspapers were attempted until the United States obtained
Florida from Spain in 1821. In that year Richard W. Edes started the
Florida Gazette, also in St.Augustine, but it was as short-lived as Wells'
paper, lasting only from July 14 until October 15, when Edes died of yel-
low fever.

Meanwhile, the Floridian made its appearance on August 18, 1821, at
Pensacola. Gary Nicholes and George Tunstall, the editors and owners,
kept this paper going until 1824, when they sold the press and equipment
to W.Hasell Hunt, who launched the Pensacola Gazette and West Florida
Advertiser. In 1822 St.Augustine J s third paper, the East Florida Herald f
was founded by Elias B. Gould and occupied an uncon tested local field for
thirteen years.

Florida now had two newspapers, one in each of its former capitals un-
der Spanish rule, with approximately 400 miles of sparsely inhabited wil-
derness separating them. This situation soon inspired both publications to
advocate territorial division. The first legislative council met in Pensacola
in 1821, the second in St.Augustine in 1822, and the difficulties of over-
land travel to these sessions intensified the campaign for separation. Unity
was preserved only by the selection of a neutral site midway between these
two cities for a new capital, and here Tallahassee was founded in 1823.

1 20

NEWSPAPERS AND RADIO 121

Two years later the Florida Intelligencer made its appearance in Talla-
hassee, sponsored by Hunt and his associates, who shipped the equipment
from Pensacola.

An early issue of the Intelligencer prophesied accurately that Tallahas-
see, 'with its advantages and prospects will soon necessarily increase in
respectability, in wealth and population. 3 Great plantations developed,
and the capital and its environs became the Territory's cultural, economic,
and political center. Fourteen papers were published in Tallahassee and
its surrounding villages, including weeklies at Quincy, Magnolia, Port
Leon, Newport, Monticello, Apalachicola, and St. Joseph.

Hunt once explained in his papers that a delayed issue of the Florida,
Intelligencer at Tallahassee was occasioned by the priority of legal print-
ing. He likewise recorded something of the state of politics in 1829 by al-
leging that he had been booted out of Pensacola's postmastership for not
shouting, 'Huzza for Jackson! The Hero of New Orleans! Down with
Adams and Clay, the Hartford Conventionist and the Prince of Intri-
guers ! ' Hunt sold out, and his former newspaper properties were consoli-
dated in the Pensacola Gazette, one of three dominant papers that sur-
vived territorial days. The others were the Floridian of Tallahassee,
founded in 1828, and the Florida Herald of St.Augustine, started as the
East Florida Herald in 1822 and still in the Gould family when Florida be-
came a State in 1845. The paper was conservative under Elias Gould, its
founder, but when it was taken over by his son James in 1824 it became an
outspoken advocate of the Democratic Party. The name was shortened to
the Florida Herald in 1829, and nine years later the subtitle and Southern
Democrat was added. The Herald flourished without opposition until
D.W.Whitehurst in 1838 brought out The News, a Whig journal, which
became a Democratic organ in 1845 when ownership passed to Albert A.
Nunes. These St.Augustine papers, perhaps more than any others, re-
corded the political strife and maneuverings of their day. The Pensacola
Gazette, Democratic under Hunt, and a paper notable for its historical
content, revealed Whig leanings under the guidance of Benjamin D.
Wright. Most influential of the three was the Tallahassee Floridian,
strongly Democratic from its inception, but most ardently so during seces-
sion and the War between the States.

For nearly a decade journalism was confined to northern and north-
western Florida, but in 1829 Thomas Eastin, after a brief and futile at-
tempt to oppose the Pensacola Gazette with the Argus, drifted down to
Key West and founded the Register. This paper lasted but a short time,
and no copy is extant. Then, on March 21, 1831, the Key West Gazette

122 FLORIDA

appeared and ran for little more than a year, to be followed by the Inquirer,
edited and published for two years by Jesse Atkinson. Although salt,
cigars, and ship salvage made Key West an important commercial city, its
sparse population offered little financial return to publishers, and after the
Inquirer died, the island city was without a newspaper for 13 years.

Meanwhile, the plantations in north Florida were producing huge cot-
ton crops and creating two port cities. Apalachicola was the original port
of the territory, but a defective title to much of the town site and sur-
rounding country eventually resulted in the development of a competitor.
When the courts awarded the disputed title to the Apalachicola Land
Company, successor to the English pioneer trading firm of Panton, Leslie
& Company, many indignant citizens, reduced to the status of squatters,
moved to near-by St. Joseph Bay and there founded the city of St. Joseph.
With them went R.Dinsmore Westcott, who had started the Apalachicola
Advertiser in 1833 and now continued it as the St. Joseph Telegraph. The
victorious land company replaced the Advertiser with a paper of its own,
the Apalachicola Gazette, and in 1836 imported Cosam Emir Bartlett, New
Hampshire born but at the time engaged in newspaper work in Georgia, to
run it. Bartlett made the Gazette into a daily in 1839 and sustained it on
that basis for three months. This was the first daily in Florida and the
only one during the territorial period.

Efforts of St. Joseph to divert shipping business from Apalachicola were
unsuccessful, and in 1842 the Apalachicola Journal, successor to the Ga-
zette, declared: 'St. Joseph with her artificial resources and beautiful bay
has sunk into an everlasting commercial slump. 7 Nevertheless, St. Joseph
had secured Florida's first constitutional convention in 1838-39, and in
the Times of that city, formerly the Telegraph, appears a full account of
these proceedings. Under the editorship of Peter W. Gautierjr., the
Times became the most widely quoted paper in the territory.

In 1844, the Apalachicola Commercial Observer published n scientific
articles written by Dr. John Gorrie, inventor of the first patented ice ma-
chine (see Tour 7 a). The articles were signed ' Jenner/ his pen name.

Mortality among territorial papers was high. From 1822 to 1845, when
Florida joined the Union, 45 papers existed, a larger number than is usu-
ally found in new, thinly settled regions. Tallahassee led with n, and
Apalachicola had 10. Of the total of 6,800 issues published before 1845,
none of more than four pages, about 3,600 have been preserved. Subscrip-
tion prices varied from $4 to $5 annually, and readers were few. The Pen-
sacola Gazette began printing in 1824 with 75 subscribers. The general rate
of increase by 1850 was indicated in the combined circulation of 10 news-

NEWSPAPERS AND RADIO 123.

papers, amounting to 5,750. This figure had increased by 1860 to 15,500,
representing the total circulation of 22 papers, a substantial figure for a
State with but 77,746 white inhabitants. Negroes in the State numbered
66,777, but few of them were allowed the privileges of schooling.

James Owen Knauss, in his Territorial Florida Journalism, points out
that editors and publishers of those days also filled many other positions;
they were postmasters, port collectors, United States marshals, ministers
of the gospel, magistrates, and members of the territorial council.

The slavery question agitated the press long before Florida became a
State. In 1832, scarcely a decade after the purchase of Florida, the Key
West Inquirer, somewhat incoherently, as no doubt befitted the temper of
the editor, expressed itself on this subject:

We have always thought that the value of our Union consisted in affording equal
rights and equal protection to every citizen; when, therefore, its objects are so per-
verted as to become the means of impoverishment to one section, whilst it aggran-
dizes another, when it becomes necessary to sacrifice one portion of the States for
the good of the rest the Union has lost its value to us; and we are bound, by a recur-
rence to first principles, to maintain our rights and defend our lives and property.
If we are oppressed, it is a matter of perfect indifference whether that oppression
be inflicted by a foreign power or our next door neighbor. Upon the same principles
we are compelled to resist both 'even unto death.'

The issue had become so important by 1835 that a meeting was held at
Tallahassee to protest abolition; threats were made to dissolve the Union
If slavery were abolished. No abolitionist papers appeared in Florida. Al-
though Whitehurst, editor of the St.Augustine News, interested himself in
an African colonization society and advocated return of the Negroes to
Africa and the West Indies, St.Augustine papers were united against abo-
lition and quarreled only about local and territorial matters. Despite the
Yankee nativity of many Florida editors, most of them denounced the
abolitionists. By 1860, the imminence of war between the North and
South was reflected in the savagery of editorial opinion. The Tampa Pen-
insular of November 17, 1860, carried the following onslaught:

The election of Abraham Lincoln as President and Hannibal Hamlin as Vice
President is beyond per-adventure. Sovereigns of Florida! Will you submit to a
Black Republican administration? Will you become pensioners of Black Republi-
canism for the right to hold and protect your property? Will you sacrifice your
Honor and sell your birthright for a mess of pottage?

At the outbreak of the war, with the exception of the papers of Key
West, journalism had penetrated no further south than Tampa. When
Florida became a State, Key West had once more entered journalistic
ranks with the Light of the Reef, a paper that apparently lasted but a few
months. The Key of the Gulf, appearing the same year, also had a short
life, but was revived in 1857 under the editorship of William H. Ward,

124 EL OH ID A

champion of secession. The only other paper in peninsular Florida at
that time was at Ocala. A contemporary paper of the period, the Sunny
South, published at Tampa in the 1850*8, listed 16 weeklies in 14 cities as
follows: the Family Friend, Monticello; Floridian & Journal, Tallahassee;
the Florida Sentinel, Tallahassee; Weekly East Floridian, Fernandina;
St. John's Mirror, Jacksonville; the Examiner, St. Augustine; Florida Home
Companion, Ocala; the Sunny South, Tampa; the Florida Peninsular,
Tampa; Key of the Gulf, Key West; Cotton States, Micanopy; Eastern
Herald, Lake City; Florida Dispatch, Newnansville; Madison Messenger,
Madison; West Florida Enterprise, Marianna; and the Florida Tribune,
Pensacola.

The Key of the Gulfw&$ suppressed in 1861 when Union forces took Key
West. For two years thereafter Key West gleaned its local news from a
Union paper, the New Era, published by R.B.Licke, an officer of the goth
New York Volunteers. After the war, the Key of the Gulf was twice re-
vived, and a half-dozen other papers came and through mergers or sus-
pensions went. The present-day Key West Citizen was founded in 1904.

Jacksonville's first paper, established in 1835, was the Courier, rapidly
succeeded by the East Florida Advocate, the Tropical Plant, and the Flor-
ida Statesman, all short-lived. On December 31, 1864, J.K.Stickney issued
the Florida Union, a four-page war news sheet upholding Northern views.
A year later it changed hands, became a tri-weekly, attempted to become
a daily, and finally passed in 1873 to Walton, Fowle & Company, a print-
ing firm, who turned it over to W.W.Douglas and the Reverend H.B.Mc-
Callum. This pair switched it from Republican to Democratic, marking
the end of Reconstruction influence. The present Florida Times-Union
(which is the State's oldest surviving daily and bears its original mast-
head) first appeared on the morning of February 4, 1883.

Timothy Thomas Fortune, the 'Dean of Negro journalists/ born of
slave parents in Marianna, Florida, became a nationally known editor in
the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Beginning his career as an
office boy with the Marianna Courier, he later worked in the composing
rooms of the Jacksonville Courier and several other publications. He went
to New York City in 1878 and eventually found a place there on the
Evening Sun editorial staff. He is best known, however, for his books on
race relations and for his political writings in the New York Freeman, a
Negro newspaper which he edited. A noted Negro contemporary, Mathew
M. Lewey, former mayor of Newnansville and a member of the State
legislature, founded the Florida Sentinel at Gainesville in 1887.

The early Florida editor, regardless of erudition, took his journalism

NEWSPAPERS AND RADIO 125

raw. There were no 'weasel- word' qualifications, such as 'it is alleged/ or
'it has been charged.' If an editor believed a man to be a scoundrel he
called him that and very likely a blackguard and coward as well. Conse-
quently the life of a newspaperman was at times both exciting and hazard-
ous. Libel laws eventually toned down the phraseology, and so rigid did
restrictions finally become that the mere printing of testimony in a crimi-
nal trial made a paper liable for damages if the person under charges were
acquitted.

Teeth were extracted from the law in 1935, but in the meantime twen-
tieth-century journalism had made newspapers thoroughly respectable
and soft-voiced in their sentiments, although intensely sectional. Local
boosting and bias took the form of ignoring rather than disparaging other
communities, and became so obvious that one newly arrived editor made
an appeal to include, along with praise for the home town, a good word for
the State. Since 1910 the St.Petersburg Independent has done its part for
the climate by giving away an entire edition every day the sun fails to
shine before the paper goes to press in the early afternoon.

The chamber of commerce trend began with a taboo on the news of hur-
ricanes, freezes, and anything calculated to scare off visitors, but in recent
years the Florida press has treated such events more in accordance with
their news value. Where once an editor, through the magic of printer's ink,
subdued a howling gale into a caressing breeze, he now decorates the gale
with all the tested and approved circulation getters. This editorial ap-
peared in a Florida daily in September 1937 :

The widest of publicity is being given anything that even looks like it might
turn into a tropical disturbance or hurricane. Which is well. The old system of hush-
ing up storm news really did more harm than good in that often a community was
not warned sufficiently of an approaching storm's perils until it was too late. Now
an efficient storm warning service gives ample time to board up windows and
otherwise prepare for these autumnal visitations of what used to be called the gentle
zephyrs.

Flamboyant claims have mostly given way to constructive criticism of
local affairs. Among the beneficial reforms resulting from this criticism are
medical examination of food handlers and a more outspoken approach to
the problem of venereal diseases.

The mechanical makeup, syndicate features, wire service, editorial dress,
and general appearance of the Florida papers, introduced in the early
1920*3 during real-estate booms, has been retained. In 1925-26, the Miami
Herald carried more advertising lineage than any newspaper in the world
for that period, and the St.Petersburg Times ran a close second. The
world's largest single edition of a standard-size newspaper was published

126 FLORIDA

by the Miami Daily News July 26, 1925, with 504 pages, weighing
7-J- pounds. Many of the great presses that were brought in still operate in
the larger cities. Frequent suspension or relocation of newspapers followed
the collapse of real-estate prices, although several of the surviving pub-
lishers invested in more elaborate buildings and equipment.

Many of the city dailies of Florida have special issues, called 'star
editions/ that carry from one to three pages of Negro news of schools,
churches, clubs, and other social and civic activities. The Negroes pub-
lish five weekly papers in the State, the Miami Times, the St.Petersburg
Pi&lic Informer ', the Tampa Bulletin, the West Palm Beach Florida News,
and the St. Augustine Post.

Among the labor newspapers, all weeklies, are the Labor Journal of Jack-
sonville, the Advocate of St.Petersburg, the Florida Labor Advocate of
Tampa, and the Union Labor News of West Palm Beach (see Labor) .

The Latin-American colony of Tampa supports two daily papers pub-
lished in Spanish: La Gaceta and La Prensa-La Traduccion. These folk also
subscribe heavily to Cuban newspapers. The only other foreign language
paper in the State, the weekly Florida Deutsches Echo of Miami, is pub-
lished in German and English.

The number of daily newspapers in Florida has steadily increased since
1880 when only three existed. In 1899, there were n dailies. By 1919, the
number had risen to 35, and at the end of 1938 a total of 41 was being pub-
lished in 31 cities. These dailies with 21 Sunday editions had a combined
daily and Sunday circulation of 761,000. For 1937, the weekly papers, to-
taling 153, covered 127 towns and cities, and had a combined circulation
of approximately 240,000. Publishers of the dailies and many of the week-
lies are organized into the Florida State Press Association. The Suwannee
River Press Association is a smaller organization of west Florida news-
paper owners.

In 1938, the Florida Newspaper News, a journal devoted to the news-
paper profession, listed 20 papers of continuous publication over half a
century, although many of them had undergone change of name and own-
ership in that time. These publications appear in Jacksonville, Ocala, Jas-
per, Palatka, Lake City, Leesburg, Starke, Gainesville, Titusville, Bush-
nell, Key West, Eustis, Live Oak, Plant City, St.Petersburg, Fernandina,
Taveres, Mayo, and Pensacola.

RADIO: Florida's part in the development of the radio broadcasting
systems began in 1921, when station WQAM at Miami went on the air.
Nearly a score of public and private stations were in operation in 1938.

WJAX, in Jacksonville, and WSUN, in St.Petersburg, are municipally

NEWSPAPERS AND RADIO 127

owned; WRUF, operated by the University of Florida in Gainesville, is
owned by the State and has been rated by the Federal Communications
Commission as one of the four leading educational stations in the country.
Not dependent upon commercial programs, WRUF is able to give broad-
casts of public information and instruction, including daily market re-
ports to farmers, police reports, lectures on home economics and the do-
mestic sciences, and courses in music appreciation, elocution, and child
psychology. Fourteen of its staff of 18 employees in 1938 were students in
training for radio careers.

Fourteen privately-owned radio stations broadcast from the larger cities
of the State, and two of these, in Palm Beach and Tampa, are equipped
for ship-to-shore communications. Federal stations at Jupiter, St.Augus-
tine, Key West, and Pensacola are engaged in handling naval messages.
The United States Coast Guard has ship-to-shore stations at Jacksonville
Beach and Fort Lauderdale, and stations at Miami and St.Petersburg for
communications with aircraft. During the winter season a number of radio
stations designed to carry Federal frost warnings broadcast special tem-
perature bulletins to citrus and truck farmers whenever there is a possi-
bility of a frost. The U.S. Department of Commerce maintains a network
of seven short-wave stations in Florida, which are used to broadcast cli-
matic changes to aircraft pilots and weather bureaus.

In co-operation with station WRUF at Gainesville, and the University
of Florida's engineering college, a hurricane research station of the WPA
maintains short-wave radio communication with Puerto Rico. By photo-
graphing static, the Gainesville station is able to determine the approxi-
mate location, direction, and speed of hurricanes, and to forecast when
and where they can be expected to strike. When a hurricane impends, bul-
letins are broadcast hourly as long as there is danger.

Folklore

THE folklore of Florida is in great measure a heritage from the
' cracker/ the Negro, the Latin- American, and the Seminole.
From these four strains has been woven a pattern of beliefs and
superstitions that dictate many of the ways of Florida life.

The cracker, a pioneer backwoods settler of Georgia and Florida, has
come to be known as a gaunt, shiftless person, but originally the term
meant simply a native, regardless of his circumstances. Belief that the
name may have been shortened from 'corn cracker' is given credence
in Georgia, but in Florida it derives from the cracking of a whip. It is a
name honorably earned by those who made bold talk with their lengthy,
rawhide bullwhips in the days when timber and turpentine were the
State's chief industries. Those enterprises involved heavy-haul jobs,
with oxen the motive power, bullwhips to keep them moving, and the
pistol-shot crack of these whips to signal the wearisome progress of
the haul through the woods. Cracking the whip became, in fact, an
art and a means of communication an art of making a noise without
permitting the whip to touch the animals, and a signal system by which
conversations were held across miles of timber barrens. Today the whip
crack echoes through the pines only when cowboys are rounding up
their herds, and at rodeos and barbecues when the crackers demonstrate
their skill.

The cracker's wants are simple his garden plot, pigpen, chicken coop,
and the surrounding woods and near-by streams supply him and his family
with nearly all the living necessities. Fish is an important item of diet, and
when the cracker is satiated with it he has been heard to say: c I done et so
free o' fish, mystommick rises and falls with the tide.' Any small income
from his place is spent at the general store, and Saturday is the day to go
to town and stock up with ' bought vittles.' His one luxury is tobacco.
Snuff-dipping is still prevalent among the older womenfolk, though they
scorn cigarettes as immoral.

Teas and brews from native plants and herbs supply remedies for most
of the cracker's ills, although few households are complete without a drug-
store malaria medicine, usually a volatile draught of cathartic and quinine

128

FOLKLORE 129

to cure 'break-bone' fever. Panther oil, when it can be obtained, is prized
for easing stiff joints and rheumatism.

Superstition rules the life of the cracker; hunting or fishing or planting
almost everything he undertakesis done according to accepted formula.
He would no more set fence posts in the light of the moon than he would
plant potatoes or other crops that mature underground.

Any windfall, or a considerable profit from crops, goes for an automo-
bile, preferably a Ford, since the old Model T proved to be the most trust-
worthy on woods trails. His economic status therefore is known by his
transportation, which falls into four categories: mule, Model T, Model A,
and V-8; but the garage is the same, an open shed or lean-to.

Experience taught the cracker to resent intrusion and Be suspicious of
unfamiliar things and persons, particularly strangers who do not speak
his idiom. Anyone approaching with a ' How do you do? ' is likely to be an-
swered by an eloquent and disdainful expectoration. Generations of con-
tact with hardship and poverty have made him undemonstrative, and he
seldom displays any but the strongest emotions. He has appropriated the
defensive guile of the Negro and turned it to good account in his dealings.
Consequently he drives a hard bargain with soft words! The Yankee is his
special prey and to best a Yankee by any device is legitimate. i In the win-
ter,' the cracker boasts, ' we live on the Yankee, and in the summer on fish.'
Yet with all his bargaining craft, he is often cheated'!

The Florida cracker has a fondness for social gatherings and for his kin-
folks. The latter being numerous as a rule, and observance of birthday and
wedding anniversaries being an inviolate custom, occasions for celebrating
are frequent. Quiltings and hog-killings serve equally well for neighbor-
hood get-togethers, but a chicken pilau is perhaps the most appetizing ex-
cuse for an outing. The men build fires and put on large pots of rice; the
women clean and boil chickens. Later, chicken and rice are cooked to-
gether with rich seasoning. While this goes on, the men may go hunting
and fishing, or just sit and swap news. Also, the Sunday preaching may be
prolonged into an all-day i sing' or picnic on the church grounds.

The speech of the cracker is a mixture of Old English provincialisms,
local slang, and a variety of home-invented words, including ' Heifer on
my haslet,' meaning 'Well, I'll be damned 1* Orthodox 'cussing,' however,
when occasion seems to demand, attains a scope and degree of inflection
that blight any hope of imitation. The cracker's humor, for the most part,
originated from the limitations and hazards of his existence, and so he may
declare that 'I done drunk outa fruit jars so long I got a ridge acrost my
nose. 7

130 FLORIDA

With more embellishments, there is the cattle-country story of Burwell
Yates and the syrup kettle. 'One time,' the tale goes, 'Yates loant his
syrup kettle to Bill Stevens down at Ox Pond. Bill kept the kettle for three
years, so finally Yates drove down to get it. Bill's wife warn't goin 7 to let
him have it and took to squalling, so Yates grabs him a cypress shingle,
gets after her, and takes the kettle anyway. When Bill Stevens hears this
he takes down his shot gun, straddles his hoss, and sets out for Canoe
Creek to see Yates. When Bill gets there, Yates is drivin' a nail in a porch
post to han<* up a bridle. Bill throws up his gun and pulls the trigger, and
the load cuts a staple fork out of Yates' ear and ruins his hearin'. A year
later one of the Partins from Fort Christmas is a huntin' for stray cattle,
but none of the boys admits they'd seed any till Elmer Johns asks about
their mark. " Staple fork in the right ear," says the Partins. " That's dif-
ferent/' says Elmer. "They's a old deef bull with that mark ranging up
around Canoe Creek.'"

Long before the advent of the white man in America, West Indian na-
tives made expeditions to Florida in the belief that one of its many springs
held miraculous properties, and so the myth of the Fountain of Youth was
current here when early European maps, drawn before Columbus sailed
from Spain, located a similar spring in the Far East.

Eternal youth was not to be found in the crystal depths of Florida's
springs, but their mysterious caverns provided a source of much lore
among the now-extinct Indian tribes. From them came water gods and
many legends June legfcnd, was that on moonlight nights hundreds of little
people only four indies' ii? height c'arfte and danced around the deeply sub-
merged inflow of Wakulla springs until a huge Indian warrior in a stone
canoe appeared to drive them away] an illusion perhaps created by wav-
ing water plants and the moving Shadow from a projecting rock in the
springs. Scores of these legends, collected in book form, give a romantic
overtone to the wonders viewed by tourists through glass-bottomed boats.

The Seminole, who moved into Florida after the white man, brought
more practical beliefs and applied them to his daily life. The making of a
dugout canoe is still attended by great ceremony. After a powwow in
camp, the leader guides his tribe into the swamp to select the cypress tree
that is to be converted into a pich-li, a craft often 30 feet long. Singing and
dancing take place around the tree; then the men selected for the task fell
the tree, remove the branches and bark, and bury the ash-a-vee (cypress
log) in a wet mud bank where it is left for 18 months to age. The unearth-
ing of the log involves more ceremony and feasting. After about a week of
drying, work begins on shaping and hollowing out with a pit-a-chen-a-lo-

FOLKLORE 131

gee, which resembles a hand adz. As the work progresses the children join
in, squatting around the canoe and beating on it with sticks. From the
sound of this tattoo the cutters can tell when the desired thinness has been
obtained.

Seminole beliefs are largely associated with warnings; to places and ob-
jects strange powers are attributed, and portents are seen in many things.
The blooming of the sawgrass in the Everglades is notice of a forthcoming
hurricane, and the Seminole thereupon migrates to higher ground. This
belief has been widely accepted by white men, even though the sawgrass
is known to bloom regularly without regard to tropical storms.

Since voodooism is an unwritten form of the occult, it varies greatly ac-
cording to the environment. Its commonest exponent is the 'root doctor/
His medications may run from harmless nostrums to lethal powders, the
latter to be given an enemy with appropriate abracadabra. A side line is
usually amulets and charms. In Jacksonville a 'conjure ' shop does a thriv-
ing business in trinkets and devices for warding off evil and illness. For the
same purpose drugstores in the Negro section of Miami stock such ingre-
dients as Guinea pepper, rock incense, sandalwood, and Irish moss. For
those adhering to Hispano-Christian beliefs, a heart-shaped scrap of red
flannel is dispensed as the ' Sacred Heart of Jesus. 5 Placed on the bed of the
afflicted, it is supposed to work a cure or at least delay death.

The placing or removal of cures and the dispersion of evil spirits often
develops into a profitable business|In 1936, ^iNegro voodoo doctor named
Brundas Hartwell was reported to be rendering sufai^services to the credu-
lous people of his race at Chester, near Fernandina. At the rate of $25 a
treatment he stripped his patients and burned their clothes, then im-
mersed them in a creek and ' cussed 7 the evil spirits out of them.y

In the vegetable muck lands around Okeechobee, Negro bean pickers
from the Bahamas and the West Indies indulge in voodoo ceremonials and
dances, and at night the rhythmic throb of the tom-tom spreads to the far
horizons of the Everglades. These manifestations are sincere and far re-
moved from curious eyes. Voodoo rituals in Tampa have been witnessed
up to their ultimate frenzies, from which outsiders are excluded.

Although lucky pieces, powders, and potents are made in Tampa to ex-
pedite matters of love, finance, and health, many articles of this nature
are imported by salesmen who solicit from door to door. Widely popular
is a cone of incense which, when burned, reveals in the ash at its base a
number supposed to foretell the current bolita winner. Bolita, introduced
to Tampa by the Cubans in the iSSo's, means 'little ball/ A hundred balls,
consecutively numbered, are tied in a bag and tossed from one person to

132 F LORI DA

another. One ball is clutched through the cloth and this bears the winning
number. Played by Negroes and whites alike in Jacksonville, Key West,
Miami, Tampa, and surrounding towns, bolita has sponsored a great vari-
ety of superstitions. Some of these, traceable to the Chinese, who brought
the game to Cuba, include Oriental interpretations of dreams. As a result
the sale of all dream books as well as publications on astrology and numer-
ology has boomed. For thousands of Tampa folk bolita has invested nearly
all the commonplace occurrences of life with the symbolism of figures.
House addresses, auto licenses, theater stubs, steps, telephone poles, or
anything that can be counted, added, subtracted, or divided, are grist for
bolita. Equipped with the additional resources of voodooism, the Cuban
Negro can begin with virtually any incident and arrive at a bolita number.
He is equally adroit at explaining his miscalculations.

The Afro-American Negro has similar sources to explain many of his
troubles. c Witches have been ridin' me all night' may account for his
morning-after " miseries.' Burning paper in the corners of a room is thought
to be a help in such cases, but a more effective way to thwart a witch is to
use her own weapon, a broom. If the broom is placed across the doorway
to a sleeping room, the witch must stop and pluck the straws one by one
before she can enter, a task almost impossible to finish before daylight. A
still more ingenious handicap is to cover the floor with mustard seed, all
of which must be picked up before the witch can reach the bed.

Muscular prowess is a tradition with the Nggro, and feats of strength
have become an important part of his lore, jt-ong "Before Roark Bradford
developed John Henry into a black Paul Bunyan, "Old Pete, a railroad
roustabout, was performing physical miracles at Port Tampa. Christened
Henry Peterson, Old Pete set the pace for Bradford's character. For 5^ he
would permit coconuts to be cracked on his skull, and for 50^ he would en-
gage a goat in a butting contest. Reputed to have a skull an inch thick, Old
Pete is said to have fallen asleep on a railroad track and derailed a freight
car. After the front wheels had passed over his cranium, fellow workers
rushed forward and dragged the 'body ' from the tracks. This aroused Old
Pete, and when informed what had happened, he rubbed his eyes, yawned
and remarked, i Dawg-gone, my haid do feel kinda funny.' Old Pete's fame
has since expanded greatly in the telling. Among other feats he used a
ship's anchor for a pickaxe, lifted a locomotive back on the rails, and
pulled up a tree by the roots, ' toted ' it home, and chopped it into four
cords of firewood. He died in 1934 at the age of seventy-seven./
' A legenAof a different kind, fraught with realistic dread, was the re-
newal of life years ago in a mulberry tree, which is said to have taken place

FOLKLORE 133

in the town of Mulberry. Negroes there say the place received its name
from this particulai/tree. It was the custom of lynch mobs, the story goes,
to hang the victims Wm this- tree and then riddle their bodies with bullets.
This gunfire finally killed the tree. For many years it stood bare and ap-
parently dead, until one spring it again sprouted leaves. The news spread
rapidly among Negroes, who saw in it an omen of more lynchings, and
many of them fled to other sections. In 1938, the hollow and battered
trunk still supported a live bough, but further lynchings had not yet oc-
curred, j

To the Florida Negro is attributed the coinage of the word ( jook,' now
in general use among Florida white people. First applied to Negro dance
halls around turpentine camps, the term was expanded with the repeal of
prohibition to include roadside dine-dance places, and now to go ' jooking'
means to attend any night club. Will McGuire, in his 'Note on Jook, ' pub-
lished in the Florida Review, says the word was originally applied to Negro
bawdy houses. It gained legal recognition in connection with a murder case
in the prairie cattle country of Florida. Witnesses testified that the killing
took place in a ' jook joint/ and the term was later incorporated in a State
supreme court decision.

From Cuba, Spain, and Italy, the Latin-Americans of Ybor City and
Tampa have imported their own customs and traditions which survive
mostly in annual festivals. The Cubans found good political use for voodoo
beliefs brought by slaves from Africa to the West Indies and there called
Carabali A papa Abacua. Prior to the Spanish- American War, Cuban na-
tionalists joined the cult in order to hold secret revolutionary meetings,
and it then received the Spanish name, Nanigo. In 1882, Los Criminales de
Cuba, published in Havana by Trujillo Monaga, described Cuban Nanigo
societies as fraternal orders engaged in petty politics. Initiation ceremo-
nies were elaborate, with street dances of voodoo origin. Under the con-
cealment of the dances, political enemies were slain; in time the dance
came to signify impending murder, and the societies were outlawed by the
Cuban Government. When the cigar workers migrated from Cuba to Key
West and later to Tampa, societies of ' notorious Nanigoes/ as they were
branded by Latin opposition papers, were organized in these two cities.
The Nanigo in Key West eventually became a social society that staged a
Christmas street dance. A murder during one of these affairs served to dis-
solve the organization, and the last of the street dances was held in 1923.

Tampa has adopted Jose Caspar, the infamous Gasparilla, as its patron
rogue, and perpetuates his name in an annual Gasparilla carnival. In cele-
bration of the cigar industry, Latin- Americans in Tampa stage an annual

134 FLORIDA

fiesta known as Verbena del Tabaco. Cuban, Spanish, and Italian clubs
take part, with street dances and strolling entertainers in native costumes.
A feature is the famous folk dance of Cuba known as Comparsa, originally
a slave feast dance from which the rhumba is said to have developed.
Other dances include the Tarantella, Danza Montaneza, Tango Andalus,
Fandango, and Esemble Fantasia.

Stories of buried treasure are no doubt the most enticing legacy inher-
ited from the Spanish. Pirates at one time practically controlled the coasts
of Florida, and tales of their plundering invariably included caches of loot,
hastily buried and lost. Black Caesar and Gasparilla were real enough pi-
rates, but the mystery of their wealth has remained unsolved. Little gold
has been recovered by treasure expeditions, but the quest continues.

The Greek sponge fishermen at Tarpon Springs retain many European
customs, such as the observance of the Feast of Epiphany, introducing the
medieval pageantry of the Greek Orthodox Church, and diving for a
.golden cross tossed into the waters of Spring Bayou.

The Conchs are a group almost as hard to define as the crackers. Al-
though the term is now applied to anyone living on the Florida Keys, bona
fide Conchs at least have in common a Bahaman ancestry. The great ma-
jority of those in Florida live in Key West, and are Anglo-Saxon descend-
ants of Cockney Londoners who migrated there via the Bahamas. The
Conch colony at Riviera includes persons of mixed Cockney and Negro
blood, a result of miscegenation.

After a century of Jiving.in, ^Icxpd^ both Conch groups retain much of
their Cockney English Ior"e, with an evident Negroid influence apparent
at Riviera. |One story is an ada/tation of Jack-and-the-bean-stalk. A
Conch fisherman climbed the stalk'lo Heaven, only to see the stalk wither
and die and leave him stranded there. The virgins in lower Heaven came
to his rescue by piecing together their celestial robes to make a rope lad-
der, but this was not quite long enough and the fisherman had to jump.
He landed head first in the sand on the beach and buried himself to the
waist. ' There he struggled in vain to get out, but he couldn't manage it.
So he went to a near-by barn, got a grubbing hoe, and came back and dug
himself out. 3 And there are riddles and riddling rhymes:

Two O's, two N's, an L and a D,
Put them together and spell them to me.
Answer: L-o-n-d-o-n.

A few mother-country customs still prevail among several small foreign
groups. The Austro-Hungarian farm colony in west Florida holds weekly
gatherings that perpetuate peasant folk dances; the Swedish settlement in

FOLKLORE 135

Dade County observes Martinmas, Saint Martin's feast day; and at Ko-
rona, near Daytona Beach, Polish families hold a special Easter service.
Children carry baskets of flowers to the priest to be blessed; their elders,
after being anointed with water and wine, administer to one another a
half-dozen lashes.

Literature

WRITINGS with Florida as the theme began to accumulate
soon after Ponce de Leon's first voyage in 1513. Peter Mar-
tyr, historiographer of Spain in 1520, interviewed returning
explorers at the Spanish Court, and wrote of their adventures in Florida
and other parts of the New World. Many dignitaries of the Church con-
sidered Martyr a vulgarian, but Pope Leo X enjoyed his tales. Because of
his intimate style, historians have compared Martyr to Samuel Pepys.

The tragic Florida expeditions of Narvaez and De Soto were recorded
by scribes who accompanied the soldiers. Cabeza de Vaca, one of the four
survivors of Narvaez ; company, wrote a dramatic story of his seven-years'
wanderings, and despite De Vaca's boasting and exaggerations, this old
chronicle is valuable for its description of Indian life.

The Relation of the Gentleman of Elvas, anonymously written by an offi-
cer in De Soto's expedition, gave a factual account of the four years' wan-
dering by that ill-fated party in the wilderness. First published in Portu-
guese in 1557, it was later translated by Richard Hakluyt into English and
published in London in 1609 to promote British colonization in America. A
recent translation was made by James A. Robertson, and issued in 1932 in
a limited edition by the Florida State Historical Society.

An account of the De Soto expedition by Garcilaso de la Vega, based on
stories related by members of the party, was a much more fanciful version,
picturing battles with howling savages and encounters with pearl-bedecked
princesses. Written by a Spanish historian born the year after De Soto
helped Pizarro sack Peru, this book was described by Robert Southey as
'one of the most delightful narratives in the Spanish language/ Its mate-
rial has been freely used by historical writers, including Grace King in her
book on De Soto, but no complete translation into English existed until
1938, when one was made for the De Soto Commission that had been ap-
pointed by President Roosevelt to determine the landing place in Florida
of the old Spanish explorer and his route through the southern United
States.

During the attempted settlement of Florida by the French, there were
memoirs, journals, and letters in great number, many of them written for

136

LITERATURE 137

the purpose of confounding the Spanish accounts of unsuccessful French
ventures. One of the best is The Memoir ofChalleux, published in 1566. Af-
ter escaping from Fort Caroline during an attack by the Spanish, Challeux
recalled the massacre and subsequent events, mixing fact, fancy, and ar-
gumentation in a way that revealed the author as keenly observant, sensi-
tive, and definitely inclined to moralizing.

The letters of Rene de Laudonniere, the French commander, in his Nota-
ble History of Florida, edited in 1586 by M.Martine Basanier, told of the
voyage of Ribaut, the building of Fort Caroline, and its destruction by the
Spanish. Laudonniere also drew an apparently faithful word picture of the
Timucuan tribes as they existed during the French occupation, and there-
by preserved priceless information about a vanished race.

As early as the sixteenth century, English sea dogs made sport of French
and Spanish accounts of Florida, Persons overcredulous of the riches and
adventure to be found here were told facetiously to disregard ' pirates, or
the natives, or the alligators, or the Spaniards/ and the country was re-
ferred to as ' Stolida, the Land of Fools/ and i Sordida, the Land of Muck-
worms/ Here (from the Ashmolean Manuscript in the Bodleian Library at
Oxford, England) is a tipsy sailor, talking to a friend in a tavern:

Have you not hard of floryda,

A coontre far bewest,
Where savage pepell planted are

By nature and by hest,
Who in the mold

Fynd glysterynge gold
And yet for tryfels selP

withhy!

Yet all alonge the watere syde,

Where yt dothe eb and flowe,
Are turkeyse f ounde and where also

Do perles in oysteres growe,
And on the land

Do cedars stand
Whose bewty do (th) excell

withhy!
trysky, trym, go trysky wun

not a wallet do well?

Divers Voyages Touching the Discoveries of America , more familiarly
known as Hakluyt's Voyages, collected by Richard Hakluyt and published
in 1582, contains the first descriptions of North America in the English
language and is written in excellent Elizabethan prose. The author of 'one
Voyage/ John Sparke, a shipmate of Sir John Hawkins when the two ad-
venturers stopped at Fort Caroline in 1565, comments on the queerness of

138 FLORIDA

Frenchmen who smoked tobacco. The Voyages contains an account of
Sir Francis Drake's descent upon St.Augustine and a description of Flor-
ida, written by Pedro Morales, a Spaniard captured by Drake.

Spanish missionaries, during their flourishing days, produced some schol-
arly writing in the precise ethnic records which they kept while trying to
convert the Indians. In books published in Mexico as early as 1612, Fa-
ther Pareja, one of these resident missionary authors, relates the customs
of the Timucuan Indians. Through his study of Indian dialects he was able
to write the first treatise on American Indian languages ever published.
Pareja's writings rank with the rarest and most valuable of Americana.

Jonathan Dickenson, a member of a group of Quakers shipwrecked near
Hobe Sound on the east coast of Florida in 1696, converted this experience
into a book, God's Protecting Providence, published in 1720, which ran
through many editions. Seized by the Indians, who stripped them of their
clothes, the party of men, women, and children finally reached St.Augus-
tine after months of hardship in the wilderness. Describing the Indians,
Dickenson wrote, 'When these men-eaters' fury was at its height, their
knives in one hand, and the poor ship-wrecked peoples' heads in the other,
their knees upon their shoulders, and their looks dismal; on a sudden, the
savages were struck dumb, and their countenances changed. . . .' This
change, which saved their lives, Dickenson attributed to God's protecting
providence.

When England gained control of Florida, the British people evinced a
lively curiosity in the new colony, and books and pamphlets on the subject
began to appear in London. In the year of the cession, 1763, An Account of
the First Discovery and Natural History of Florida was written by William
Roberts in collaboration with the English Geographer Royal. Although of
slight literary value, the work met with enough success and public praise
to run through several editions. Florida's natural history, despite the name
of the book, is mentioned nowhere except on the title page.

John Bar tram, a Pennsylvania Quaker whom Linnaeus called 'the
greatest botanist in the New World/ published a journal of his Florida
travels, later included in William Stork's An Account of East-Florida with
a Journal by John Bartram (1776). His son William, who accompanied
him, was a more facile writer and had a wider range of interests. The son
returned to Florida alone a decade later, and wrote his famous Travels,
which has gone through many editions, the latest published in 1928. Wil-
liam Bartram's book drew the attention of the English literary world.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge called it the last book 'written in the spirit of the
old travellers.' From Bartrarn, William Wordsworth derived his 'Semino-

LITERATURE 139

lies,' and Coleridge, it is thought, was indebted to the Travels for some of
the imagery in KuUa Khan:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

Preserved in the Harvard Library is a lengthy manuscript by William
Gerard de Brahm, which contains many comments on Florida during the
English occupation and provides an especially good description of the cus-
toms and people of St.Augustine from 1763 to 1771. De Brahm was the
British surveyor for the southern district of North America. In detailing
for George III the fruits of his labor, he displayed a rich fund of scientific
knowledge; but his dogmatic interpretations somewhat mar an otherwise
delightful report.

Bernard Romans' Natural History of East and West Florida, written dur-
ing the English occupation and published in 1775, ^ as been widely ac-
cepted as a standard authority on the manners and customs of eighteenth-
century Florida. Romans, who worked as a draftsman in De Brahm's sur-
veying party, produced a book of greater literary merit than that of his
employer. Although the personal pronoun T is written throughout Ro-
mans' book as %' the author's egotism remains undisguised. Discursive,
original, and occasionally bombastic, Romans boldly presents many
biased opinions. Practices among the Indians that he judged abnormal
drew his attention particularly.

Romans' picture of Dr.Andrew Turnbull, the English colonizer, as a
harsh exploiter of defenseless humanity, has largely set the pattern for
subsequent writers dealing with the mutinous New Smyrna Colony. This
account apparently was the basis of Stephen Vincent Benet's novel, Span-
ish Bayonet (1926), which has to do with the ruthless treatment by Eng-
lish masters of Minorcan, Italian, and Greek colonists. A different version
of this pre-Revolution misadventure is Dr.Andrew Turnbull and the New
Smyrna Colony (1919), by Carita Doggett Corse, a history based on hith-
erto unpublished original documents and letters, known as the Shelburne
papers. According to this account, TurnbulTs troubles were manifold, be-
tween trying to hold in check more recruits than he had bargained for and
making trips to England in an effort to protect his land contracts, which
were threatened by political shifts in the government there. While he was
absent on one of these excursions, members of the colony, incited by politi-
cal enemies, burned the settlement and marched to St.Augustine, where a
Minorcan group remained to become pioneers of the present city.

Florida was nearly barren of literary men during the second period of

140 FLORIDA

Spanish control, 1783-1821. Cultured travelers in the province were rare,
and intelligent interests were directed more toward land grant disputes
and difficulties between the United States and Spain in regard to boun-
daries, than to the production of prose or poetry. The bulk of Florida
writing for these years is found in current Government documents, pon-
derous and didactic.

An immediate, widespread demand for information regarding the new
Territory was created when the United States acquired Florida in 1821.
The same year saw the publication of Sketches of the History and Topogra-
phy of Florida, written by James Grant Forbes, an authority on the Terri-
tory because of his travels and his familiarity with many unpublished
documents relating to it. His book, according to Daniel G, Brinton, the
famous American archeologist and ethnologist, received much praise at
the time of its publication, but was later unjustly denounced as a
'wretched compilation from old works.' An anonymous work, Notices of
East Florida with an Account of the Seminole Nation of Indians, was pub-
lished the following year (1822) in Charleston. It contained a minutely
descriptive diary of a journey through northern Florida, and an account
of the Seminole Indians, with a vocabulary of their language. It was later
learned that the writer was Dr.William H. Simmons, one of the two com-
missioners appointed to select the site of a capital for the Territory of
Florida. Many of Dr.Simmons' predictions concerning Florida and its
future have proved remarkably accurate, especially in regard to the de-
velopment of population centers.

One of the fullest accounts of this period was written by Colonel John
Lee Williams, the other commissioner chosen to select the capital site. His
View of West Florida (1827) and Territory of Florida (1837), descriptions of
the eastern section, were the result of years of laborious investigation and
difficult travel. Surprisingly, in view of his extensive knowledge of the Ter-
ritory, Colonel Williams doubted the existence of Lake Okeechobee and
neglected to place it on a map of Florida which he prepared.

In the iSso's, St. Augustine became a rendezvous for travelers, artists,
and magazine writers from the North, Many pages of diaries, periodicals,
and personal letters were filled with praise of the city's climatic and archi-
tectural charms. Ralph Waldo Emerson visited there in 1827 to recover his
health and, upon returning home, wrote in gratitude the poem beginning:

There liest them, little city of the deep,
And always hearest the unceasing sound
By day and night, in summer and in frost,
The roar of waters on thy coral shore.

LITERATURE 141

Another distinguished visitor, Washington Irving, wrote a lifelike sketch
of Florida's first Territorial Governor, William P. Duval, who was his
stagecoach companion during one summer. In this short piece, 'Early Ex-
periences of Ralph Ringwood, ' Irving incorporated some of the Governor's
witticisms and anecdotes.

Prince Achille Murat, eccentric nephew of Napoleon, settled on a plan-
tation near Tallahassee, where he wrote A Moral and Political Sketch of the
United States of North America (1833). This titled immigrant filled his
book with dissertations on American customs, expressing an especially
great surprise at the American enthusiasm for voting. Any astonishment
that Prince Murat felt in regard to the customs of his Florida neighbors
must have been equaled by their amazement at his omniverous appetite,
if stories concerning him are true. It is reported that he would eat any-
thing that crawled, swam, or flew, except, as he declared, 'ze turkey boo-
zard, and she are no good.'

About the same time, John James Audubon, the great ornithologist,
made a rich contribution to the knowledge of the customs and natural his-
tory of Florida through letters written while traveling here in the winter of
1831-32. These brilliant, yet simply written, descriptions of the Territory
appear in the first three volumes of his Ornithological Biographic (1831-

35)-

Indian warfare in Florida during the first half of the nineteenth century
has been a favorite subject for many writers, whose treatment of the mat-
ter varies greatly in point of view and in degree of literary and historical
value. Captain John T. Sprague's The Origin, Progress and Conclusion of
the Florida War, published in 1848, is accepted by historians as a standard
authority on the 1835-42 period. An active participant in the Seminole
War, Captain Sprague drew a vigorous pen-portrait of this bloody conflict,
remarkably impartial for one who was personally concerned in its prosecu-
tion.

Another account of the American conquest of the Seminole and their
Negro allies, The Exiles of Florida (1858) by Joshua R. Giddings, closely
approaches the standards of belles-lettres. Including a history of the run-
away slaves who found asylum in Spanish Florida early in 1800, Giddings'
work is a plea for understanding of the Negroes who intermarried with and
became allies of Indians in the long struggle against white authority. Be-
cause of the strongly partisan tone of the book, critics have differed widely
in evaluating it.

Two noteworthy contributions were made to Florida travel description
in 1850, when William Cullen Bryant's Letters of a Traveller and Charles

142 FLORIDA

Lanman's Haw-Ho-Noo, or, Records of a Tourist were published. Bryant,
in cool, severe prose, described northern Florida and St.Augustine, where
he had sojourned for a period; while Lanman's work is an ingratiating col-
lection of stories about Florida fishing, rattlesnakes, barbecues, and local
customs.

Daniel G. Brinton in his Notes on the Floridian Peninsula, Its Literary
History, Indian Tribes and Antiquities, published in 1859, added new ma-
terial to Florida literature, which up to that time had been devoted mainly
to the fields of history, war, personal reminiscences, and travel. Brinton,,
who later became president of the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science, by virtue of diligent research and capable presentation of
his material, provided an excellent bibliography of books on Florida. Al-
van Wentworth Chapman further broadened the field of Florida literature
with his Flora of the Southern United States, published in 1860 and still con-
sidered an authoritative volume.

Historical works regained their popularity in 1868 when Theodore Irv-
ing's Conquest of Florida was published. This nephew of Washington Irv-
ing used a graceful, flowing style for his history of De Soto's expedition.
The book has the dramatic force, sustained interest, subtle humor, and
sharp character delineation of a well-constructed novel. De Soto's march
through Florida also fills three lengthy chapters of George R. Fairbanks 7
History of Florida (1871), a lucid book that covers the period from 1513 to
the conclusion of the second Seminole War in 1842. Fairbanks' The His-
tory and Antiquities of St. Augustine (1858) tells of the establishment of
French and Spanish settlements, the activities of Spain in Florida, and the
gradual growth of St.Augustine.

A few years after the War between the States, Harriet Beecher Stowe,
author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, made her home in Mandarin on the St. Johns
River. It was here in the turbulent Reconstruction Period that she wrote
Palmetto Leaves (1873), a volume of tranquil sketches describing this sec-
tion and its people. Other writings published during Reconstruction were
for the most part violent polemics.

In 1875, a railway line commissioned the Georgia poet, Sidney Lanier, a
visitor in Jacksonville (then a village of 8,000), to write a guidebook of the
State. His Florida, Its Scenery, Climate and History, published in 1876, in
spite of the fact that it is the work of a poet writing prose under the stress
of financial necessity, has Lanier's characteristic charm of expression.

Barnard Shipp's The History of Hernando de Soto and Florida, published
in 1 88 1, was the most comprehensive work up to that time on the life of
this dashing explorer.

LITERATURE 143

Constance Fenimore Woolson (1848-94), one of the first American
writers to use local color in her novels, lived in Florida for several years,
where she wrote articles for various periodicals. In 'The Ancient City, ' a
lengthy travel article, she described a trip from New York to Jacksonville
and Tocoi, and thence by mule-train to St. Augustine. In East Angels, a
novel published in 1886, she pictures the effect upon human personality of
the exotic surroundings of St.Augustine.

Tallahassee, with its hills and prim customs, in no sense exotic, is the
scene of Maurice Thompson's novel, A Tallahassee Girl (1881). The sup-
position is that the'title was inspired by the sight of a graceful young lady,
probably the daughter of Governor Call, strolling on the grounds of the ex-
ecutive mansion.

Kirk Munroe drew upon Florida's rich historical background for mate-
rial for several of his most popular books. Flamingo Feather (1887) is a
quasi-historical novel of the Spanish period in the sixteenth century; his
novel of adventure, The Coral Ship (1893), is a tale of the Florida Reef.
Munroe settled at Cocoanut Grove, and there re-created the Florida coun-
try as a setting for many of his stories for boys.

Stephen Crane visited Florida shortly after his Civil War story, The Red
Badge of Courage (1895), had lifted him from obscurity to international
fame. Crane lived in Jacksonville for a while and there met Cora Taylor,
who later nursed him through a serious illness and became his wife. Prior
to the Spanish- American War, Crane went on a filibustering expedition to
Cuba in 1896. He was shipwrecked off the Florida coast, and this experi-
ence formed the basis of one of his greatest short stories, i The Open Boat/
published in 1898.

At the beginning of the twentieth century George Gibbs wrote In Search
of Mademoiselle, a swashbuckling tale of the struggle between Spanish and
French colonists for dominion over Florida. The plot chosen by Eugene
O'Neill in 1923 for his play, The Fountain, also employed Florida as locale,
Ponce de Leon for the central character, and the fantasy of the fountain of
youth as a theme. In the early 1930% Robert W. Chambers directed his
attention to Fernandina and the slave-smuggling days for a series of
stories.

The beginning of the twentieth century brought more historical works.
Woodbury Lowery published in 1901 The Spanish Settlements within the
Present Limits of the United States, 1513-61, a scholarly resume of that
period; and in 1905 a second book, Spanish Settlements within the Present
Limits of the United States: Florida, 1562-74. In this same year Edward
Gaylord Bourne, professor of history at Yale University, brought forth the

144 FLORIDA

Narrative of the Career of Herndndo de Soto in the Conquest of Florida, a
compilation of practically all the source materials on the discoverer of the
Mississippi River. A monograph, The Civil War and Reconstruction in Flor-
ida by William Watson Davis, a painstaking history of a tragic and sordid
era, appeared in 1913. Flight into Oblivion (1938), by Professor A J.Hanna
of Rollins College, is a well-documented account of the experiences in Flor-
ida and elsewhere of Confederate officials and army officers who fled their
posts after Lee's surrender at Appomatox.

The Florida Historical Society publishes an interesting quarterly and
gives valuable assistance to Florida historians. Another organization, the
Florida State Historical Society, published in 1923 Pedro Menendez de
Amies by Jeannette Thurber Connor, a biography of the man who founded
St. Augustine and developed the Spanish claims to the Atlantic seaboard.

Charles Torrey Simpson, Florida naturalist, shows literary talent com-
parable to his recognized ability as a scientist in his account of tropical
Florida, In Lower Florida Wilds (1920). His Out of Doors in Florida (1923)
contains a series of essays on flora, fauna, and geology, and his Florida
Wild Life (1932) covers the same subjects with particular attention to
climate and environment.

Contemporary writers, native and transient, have explored the gilded
coast resorts, or sought near-by extremes in primitive surroundings. Palm
Beach, symbol of wealth and exclusiveness, has lured both the literary so-
phisticate and the sociological writer. Elmer Davis summarized his impres-
sions in White Pants Willie (1932). Joseph Hergesheimer, a master of sur-
face detail, paid the resort meticulous attention in his Tropical Winter
(1933), in which he skillfully enumerated the superficialities of those
who make play a serious occupation. Arthur Somers Roche appropri-
ated Palm Beach to give his murder mysteries a resplendent setting,
while his wife, Ethel Pettit, in her book Move Over (1927) revealed ab-
surdities of the ' small talk ' among the wealthy. Few writers who have
developed a well-known character leave him behind when they visit
Florida, and the character inevitably invades Palm Beach, Even
Porky Neale, a phlegmatic detective accustomed to the New York
slums, was allowed a season of sleuthing there by his creator, Roland
Phillips.

The west coast of Florida, equally important as a resort section, has in-
spired different treatment and subjects. Spring training camps of major-
league ball teams, particularly the St.Petersburg headquarters of the New
York Yankees, have been used as background by Heywood Broun, Grant-
land Rice, Quentin Reynolds, and many more. Ring Lardner's ' Golden

LITERATURE 145

Wedding/ considered by some critics his greatest short story, was a
St.Petersburg tale.

Sewell Ford, who wrote the 'Shorty McCabe* and 'Torchy 3 stories,
lived for many years at Clearwater. Edison Marshall has a winter home at
Perry, but seldom writes of Florida. Eustace Adams at Tarpon Springs
has used the Greek sponge fleet for numerous stories, and Charles Rawl-
ings 7 The Dance of the Bends is also a story of the Greek sponge fishers.

Rex Beach, who grows bulbs and celery at Sebring, has written two Flor-
ida novels, The Mating Call (1927) and Wild Pastures (1935), both well re-
moved from the resorts. Earl Derr Biggers' novel, Love Insurance (1914) , is
a romance of St.Augustine. Edwin Cranberry brings the flavor of mysti-
cism into his St.Augustine story, Erl King (1930). Far different is Gran-
berry's Strangers and Lovers (1928), a tale of the south Florida cattle coun-
try dealing with a girl's struggle against the brutality of her environment.
Equally distant from familiar resort trimmings is Percival Wilde's psycho-
logical novel, There Is a Tide (1932). Irving Addison Bacheller, of Winter
Park, exposes in Uncle Peel (1933) the injustice done to Florida by real-
estate gamblers of the boom period, who 'left the State loaded with debts
incurred for their benefits.'

Merian C. Cooper of Jacksonville, globe-trotter and soldier of fortune,
made literary use of some of his experiences in Grass (1925), which is the
story of an epic migration of the Baktyari tribe across the lofty mountains
of Persia. John Anderson, New York dramatic critic, born at Pensacola,
has written two books, Box Office (1929), a critical survey of the theater,
and The American Theater (1938), a history.

Writers of post-boom Florida tend to avoid the beaten tracks of the
tourist, and by so doing have uncovered parts of Florida little changed
from pioneer days. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings has practically staked out
a domain of her own, the interior scrub country and its elemental people,
in her three novels, South Moon Under (1933), Golden Apples (1935), and
The Yearling (1938). Her faithful reproduction of 'cracker' speech and
backwoods customs, destined soon to disappear with the invasion of mod-
ern highways, becomes a presentation of the conflict between man and
nature. The State's wood lore and wild life is, in The Yearling, unfolded
before the eyes of a sensitive youth who achieves maturity through his
acceptance of nature on its own terms. The Yearling was awarded the
Pulitzer Prize in 1939.

MacKinlay Kantor, in The Noise of Their Wings (i93 8 )> with tiie van -
ished passenger pigeon as his subordinate theme, penetrates the Ten
Thousand Islands in south Florida, and shows the disastrous impact of

146 FLORIDA

sudden wealth on a primitive fisherman. T.S.Stribling in a short story,
'Yankees Don't Know Nothin V developed in serio-comic style the efforts
of the flatwoods dwellers in northwest Florida to ' go industrial ' along with
the pulp mills.

Ernest Hemingway used Key West, where his home is located, as a
background for To Have and Have Not (1937), a novel of uncompromising
realism. The life of Harry Morgan, the book's central character, pictures
the path that leads from unrelieved poverty to lawlessness. Hemingway
strengthens his moral by the device of contrasting decadent wealthy visi-
tors (those who have) and native Key West families (those who have not).
In a powerful climax Morgan realizes that his 'rugged individualism' con-
tributed to his defeat and death. Many of Hemingway's short stories and
magazine articles also have had a Key West setting, and his Spanish writ-
ings have been finished here between visits to Madrid.

The Negro's part in Florida literature has progressed from the simple re-
cording of slave days to thoughtful self-expression. In the 1840% Jonathan
Walker, a white carpenter, tried before a Pensacola court and found guilty
of abducting slaves, wrote an eloquent account of his misfortunes and of
the early struggles between slave and free States in the Trial and Impris-
onment of Jonathan Walker. In addition to a jail sentence, Walker was
branded on the right hand with the letters 'SS, } meaning ' Slave Stealer.'
The book, published in Boston, was read and widely praised by Abolition-
ists. Shortly after Walker's release from a Florida jail and his return to
Massachusetts, John Greenleaf Whittier wrote an indignant poem, 'The
Branded Hand/ in which he eulogized Walker's actions.

Reconstruction days were vividly portrayed in Carpetbag Rule in Flor-
ida (1888) by John Wallace, a self-educated Jacksonville Negro, who
served in the State senate during those tumultuous times. Dispassion-
ately written, the book undertakes to show how the Negro became the
pawn of those who professed to befriend him. Wallace was nearly blind
when he began to teach himself to read and write.

Jacksonville was the birthplace of another Negro writer, the gifted and
versatile James Weldon Johnson, who died in 1938. His Autobiography of
an Ex-Colored Man (1927), recites the tragic ostracism by the white race
of a person with Negro blood, one who was a close friend of Johnson. In
God's Trombones (1927), a book of seven Negro sermons in verse, Johnson
pictures the old-time Negro preacher. Along This Way (1933), Johnson's
autobiography, illuminates with quiet irony and a wealth of humorous de-
tail his career as lawyer, poet, musical comedy composer, diplomatic offi-
cial, author, editor, orator, and educator, Negro Americans, What Now?

LITERATURE 147

(1934) examines the status of Negro citizens in the United States, and ar-
gues that their wisest course is to work as a group toward integration
within the Nation.

A widely read contemporary Negro writer, Zora Neale Hurston, resides
at Eatonville, Florida's only incorporated Negro town. Her first book,
Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934), is a simple story about her people. In Mules
and Men (1935) she presents a collection of Negro songs and an initiate's
account of the practices, formulae, and paraphernalia of voodooism. An-
other work on this subject, Tell My Horse (1938), is set in Haiti and Ja-
maica, where the author took part in native rites. Her novel, Their Eyes
Were Watching God (1937), reaches its emotional and dramatic climax in a
description of a hurricane in the Everglades and its devastating effect on
the lives of her characters.

Poets have always been aroused by Florida, and the ' public forum' de-
partments of the State press overflow during the winter with spontaneous
verse from exuberant visitors. Several cities have poetry clubs and conduct
poetry contests. Wallace Stevens, one of America's best modern poets, is a
regular visitor to Florida. Harmonium, published in 1923, contains several
poems that reflect his appreciation of the special quality of Florida; among
these is the characteristic ' Nomad Exquisite ' :

As the immense dew of Florida

Brings forth

The big-firmed palm

And green vine angering for life,

As the immense dew of Florida
Brings forth hymn and hymn
From the beholder,
Beholding all these green sides
And gold sides of green sides,

And blessed mornings,

Meet for the eye of the young alligator,

And lightning colors.

So, in me, come flinging

Forms, flames, and the flakes of flames.

George Dillon, one of the most important Floridians in contemporary
poetry, is the author of the 1932 Pulitzer prize volume, The Flowering
Stone. He collaborated in 1936 with Edna St. Vincent Millay in a transla-
tion of Baudelaire's Fleurs de Mai. Formerly an associate of Harriet Mon-
roe on the editorial staff of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse (Chicago), Dillon
became editor of the magazine in 1937 after Miss Monroe's death.

Eunice Tietjens of Cocoanut Grove, connected for many years with the
.same magazine, is the editor of an anthology of classic secular poetry of

148 FLORIDA

the East, Poetry of the Orient, published in 1928, and the author of Profiles
from China (1917), Body and Raiment (1919), and Leaves in Windy
Weather (1929), all verse. Jessie Rittenhouse Scollard, a resident of Winter
Park, is author of several volumes of poetry, editor of The Rollins Book of
Verse (1929) and other anthologies of modern verse, and the founder of the
Poetry Society of Florida. Gilbert Maxwell, another Florida poet, is best
known for his Stranger's Garment, a volume of verse published in 1936.

Music and Theater

EILE is known of the music of the Indians who occupied Florida
before the Seminole except from the drawings of Jacques LeMoyne,
the French artist, who pictured Indian groups in 1564 blowing
trumpets made of bark and shell, hung with oval balls of gold, silver, and
brass. When such instruments were played, the Indians were marching on
missions of peace, but there is no record of their melodies.

Study of the Seminole tribe reveals that folk songs have survived for
generations deep in the Everglades. The music of the Green Corn Dance
and the songs, ' The Night of Love ' and ' The Hunting Song/ are Seminole
classics, as are the musical legends, ' Little Red Rabbit' and ' Story of the
Little Coon. 5 The instruments still in use are small water drums, gourd and
tortoise-shell rattles, and the flute.

An early instance of musical influence occurred in Florida when Jean
Ribaut and his company of French Huguenots were massacred in 1565 by
the Spanish governor, Menendez. The fifers, drummers, and trumpeters,
and several men who professed to be Catholics were spared, and the musi-
cians were taken to St.Augustine where they became members of the gar-
rison band.

Twenty years later, Sir Francis Drake sighted St.Augustine from the
sea and made ready to attack with his freebooters. One of these same
French musicians paddled out alone in a canoe to meet the British, fluting
the ' March of the Prince of Orange 3 as loudly as he could. Hearing the fa-
miliar tune, Drake befriended the musician before beginning an assault
upon the town.

Differing greatly from the primitive music of the Seminole are the Negro
spirituals and secular tunes. These have been given their present character
by improvisers, work-gang choruses, religious groups, dance bands, and
music clubs. Perhaps the most vital aspect of music in Florida today, this
growing Negro art reaches back to African and to Indian music and out to-
ward the Cuban; it influences and is influenced by contemporary musi-
cal composition. Music always has been an emotional outlet for the Flor-
ida Negro, and his songs have multiplied and shaped themselves to his
tasks, his tribulations, and his irrepressible spirits. A chanty or rowing

149

ISO FLORIDA

song, sung by Fernandina slaves in the late 1850% compressed this into a
few lines:

Jump, Isabel, slide water,
Ho, my aunty, ho 1
Jump, Isabel, slide water,
Ho, my aunty, ho !

I wash my shirts
An' I nebber rench 7 em
Ho, my aunty, ho !
Mosquito eat a-plenty
0' my buckwheat dougfc
Ho, my aunty, ho !

In Florida's turpentine or sawmill camps, at the docks, prison farms,
wherever Negroes work in gangs, singing lightens the drudgery. Songs
often punctuate the swing of the axe, thrust of the shovel, or swipe of the
hoe. Composed in time of sorrow, joy, work, or imprisonment, they illus-
trate the Negro's relief in rhythm.

Little corn, UGH!
Yellow gal, UGH!
Little fight, UGH!
Lotta time, UGH!

The grunt concluding each line marks the bite of the logging crew axes,
or the swipe of the hoes in the weed-cutting or potato-digging gang. Al-
though only one person may be chanting, all the hoes or axes fall in unison.

Among the sawmill gangs, the accent of the song is often marked by the
huge saw slashing into a log.

OH HO In the morning;
OH HO In the evening;
OH HO Hallelujah !
Ain't gonna be here all my days,

In the turpentine crews, where scores of men frequently work over wide
areas, songs are pitched to carry long distances through the woods.

When I left de State of old Virginia,

I left in de winter time;

Where you guin Nigger?

I'se guin to Florida, I'se guin to Florida,

Guin to Florida to work in de turpentine.

Perhaps the best-known and best-loved song among Negro laborers is
' i Uncle Bud/ which begins :

Uncle Bud is a man, a man in full,

His back is strong like a Jersey bull;

Uncle Bud, Uncle Bud, Uncle Bud, Uncle Bud.

MUSIC AND THEATER 151

Occasionally in a Negro song contrast and embellishment are obtained
by stress and accent in the tune, rather than by a change of words:

Love ain't nothing but the EASY-GOING heart disease,
OH LOVE ain't nothing but the easy-going heart DISEASE,
LOVE ain't NOTHING but the EASY-GOING HEART DISEASE.

The Florida Negro's religious music, which is as popular as his work
songs, ranges from the hymns and spirituals of the larger churches in cities
to the ' semi-jazz 7 of the backwoods meetings. The swing type of music,
with its insistent rhythm, has been increasingly used in some of the city
churches, especially those of the ' store-front ' variety.

Sinner you can't fool God,
Sinner you can't fool God,
Sinner you can't fool God,
He's got His eyes on you.

Two of the best-known Negro swing bands are the Hartley Toots Or-
chestra of Miami, and Ace Harris and his Sunset Royal Orchestra, of West
Palm Beach. Both of these have been organized for a number of years, and
arrangements of their music have been recorded.

An eminent present-day Negro composer, J.Rosamond Johnson, a na-
tive of Jacksonville, has written the music to numerous lyrics, spirituals,
and Broadway musical-comedy successes. His song, 'Lift Every Voice and
Sing,' is known as the Negro national anthem, and his dialect song, 'Li'l
Gal,' is considered a classic in its field. A volume of Johnson's music, Roll-
ing Along in Song, was published in 1937. Many lyrics in this collection
were written by his gifted brother, the late James Weldon Johnson.

The influence of Negro melodies on the English composer Frederick
Delius (1863-1934) is evident in much of his work, though he lived in
Florida for only two years. Born in Bradford, England, of wealthy German
parents who wanted their son to enter business, Delius persuaded his fa-
ther to send him to Florida to become an orange grower. He came to So-
lano Grove on the St. Johns River in 1884, at the age of 21, ostensibly to
take up this occupation, but in reality to pursue his interest in music free
from unsympathetic parental control. In a boat on the St. Johns and at
his house, he listened to an old Negro playing on the banjo and singing
plantation and old slave songs. One of these, beginning 'Oh Honey, I am
going down the river in the morning,' Delius later introduced into Appa-
lachia, a tone poem for orchestra and chorus, suggesting forests and
mighty waters.

In 1885, Delius moved to Jacksonville, where he found ample recogni-
tion of his talent. William Jahn, a German professor of music, gave him
piano lessons, and Thomas F. Ward, organist of that city, taught him

152 PL OR ID A

composition, harmony, and organ. When his allowance from home was cut
off, Delius found employment as organist in a Jewish synagogue. Many of
his early compositions were dedicated to another friend, Mme Bell-Ranski,
of near-by Picolata, who gave him much encouragement. An early work,
Zum Carnival, was published in Jacksonville. Delius returned to England
in 1886, and visited Florida only once again, twelve years later. But vivid
memories of Floridian life inspired his opera Koanga^ Sea Drift, for chorus
and orchestra; and Florida, an orchestral suite.

'In Florida, through sitting and gazing at Nature/ Delius wrote, 'I
gradually learnt the way in which I should eventually find myself. 3 Rich-
ard Strauss once said of his work: 'I never dreamed anybody except my-
self was writing such good music. 7

Mana-Zucca, a resident of Miami, has written sonatas, chamber music,
etudes, and songs. Best known of her songs are 'I Love Life/ 'Rachem/
and ' Nichavo ' ; her compositions for piano, ' Bolero de Concert ' and c The
Ocean/ are favorite concert pieces. Mana-Zucca has been active in local
musical organizations for years, and has brought to Miami some of the
world's best artists.

Appreciation and encouragement of music in Florida has received stimu-
lus during recent years from the rapid growth of civic music clubs, organ-
ists 3 guilds, choral groups, and student and other musical organizations.
Several symphony orchestras of consequence have been organized during
the last decade, and colleges and universities of the State have also de-
veloped orchestras and bands.

Rollins College conservatory of music, under the direction of Chris-
topher O. Honaas, and the music department of Stetson University, di-
rected by Dr.W.E.Duckwitz, are fully accredited music schools. The Uni-
versity of Miami conservatory, the school of music of the Florida State
College for Women, and the Jacksonville College of Music are also rated
highly.

State music festivals are held each year in Tampa, Winter Park, and
DeFuniak Springs; the first sponsored by the University of Tampa, the
second by Rollins College, and the third by the Federal Music Project of
the WPA.

The Symphony Society of central Florida at Winter Park was organ-
ized by Mary Leonard in 1926. Its orchestra, composed of members of the
faculties of Rollins College and Stetson University and professionals from
the local radio station, is conducted by Alexander Bloch. Dr. John Palmer
Gavit, former editor of the New York Evening Post, has presented the or-
chestra with a set of educational sound films illustrating functions of vari-

MUSIC AND THEATER 153

ous instruments, and designed for use in the public schools. The Friday
Musicale Orchestra, Jacksonville, is conducted by George Orner. There
are student orchestras and bands at Stetson University, Florida State
College for Women, Rollins College, University of Florida, and the Uni-
versity of Miami. At the last-named institution Arnold Volpe was con-
ductor. The Florida Symphony Orchestra of the Federal Music Project,
John Bitter, conductor, has given many concerts in its State-wide tours
from Pensacola to Key West. An outgrowth of four major symphony
units organized by the project in 1935, this orchestra has played to more
than 3,000,000 people.

Tampa's Thalians regularly produce Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, the
Tampa Civic Opera Association stages light opera, and the Latin- Amer-
ican Opera Company, of Tampa, using local Spanish and Italian talent,
frequently gives performances with renowned artists. A professional opera
group, organized by the Federal Music Project in 1935, has given perform-
ances throughout the State, with most of the properties and costumes de-
signed in its own workshops. Several New York artists have appeared with
this group, and a number of young Florida singers have made their debuts
under its sponsorship.

Through the Federal Music Project, about 20,000 lessons in voice or in-
strument are given weekly in the public schools and to persons unable to
pay for instruction, often in isolated rural sections. The project also main-
tains a composers' forum, to encourage embryonic composers. Those
showing promise are helped in a number of ways to develop their talent.

THEATER

The first recorded dramatic entertainments in Florida were the religious
pageant processions of St.Augustine. Seven con/radios, or religious broth-
erhoods, established there before 1600, presented plays and entertain-
ments in support of Santa Barbara, the first hospital of the city. Of one of
these pageants, Governor Pedro Ybarro wrote in 1607 to the King of
Spain: 'The caciques [Indian chiefs] have returned to their country,
dressed and very happy, and edified with the religious services and pro-
cessions they have witnessed.'

A century later, a disgruntled English actor, Tony Ashton, wrote a play
based on his adventures while taking part in Governor Moore's siege of
St.Augustine (1703). 'I returned to Charleston after the siege full of lice,
shame, nakedness, poverty, and hunger,' he wrote. f l turned player and
poet and wrote a play on the subject of the country.'

154 FLORIDA

The next record of the drama is found in an advertisement published
during the Revolution in a Tory paper, the East Florida Gazette at St.Au-
gustine. It announced that two plays, The Beaux Stratagem and A Miss in
Her 'Teens, would be given for the benefit of distressed refugees- Tories
from the United States on Monday evening, March 3, 1783. The charac-
ters were to be played by young British officers quartered in St. Augustine.

Gayer times evidently followed when the Spanish regained Florida, judg-
ing from the testimony of an Englishman who visited St. Augustine in 1817.
He described a carnival in full swing there, at the time : ' Masks, dominoes,
harlequins, punchmellos and a great variety of grotesque disguises, on
horseback, in carts, gigs and on foot, paraded the streets with guitars, vio-
lins and other instruments, and in the evenings, the houses were open to
receive masks, and balls were given in every direction/

An early example of the theatrical precept, 'the show must go on/ oc-
curred in 1840 at St.Augustine in connection with the staging of Honey-
moon, memorable less for its histrionics than for the dramatic arrival of
the players. ' Feminine members of the troupe/ the local newspaper re-
ported, c were in the first section of the party and reached the city in safety.
The men of the cast, however, were waylaid by Indians while en route
from Picolata by stagecoach. One actor was slain. Despite this tragic pre-
lude, the play was presented before a large and enthusiastic audience.'

Indians later became actors and toured with road shows. At Pensacola,
the Indian Amphitheater Troupe played in 1842 with the star advertised
as ' Beautiful Squaw Alazuma, daughter of Camuncks, Chief of Sack and
Fox Nations, appearing at each performance. 3

Pensacola, where the mention of a theater dates back to 1821, saw
many famous players of the late nineteenth century. In 1869, Fay Tem-
pleton, then a child of six, appeared with her father's company in a make-
shift theater composed of rough planks laid among cotton bales and coffee
sacks in an old warehouse. Thomas and Lawrence Keene and Fanny Dav-
enport played Pensacola in 1878 in a remodeled one-story building. A
large theater, called the Opera House, was begun in 1882, while Pensacola
was in the midst of a yellow-fever epidemic, and completed a year later.
Its acoustics were admirable, and its interior c modern > in every way. The
second, or 'peanut/ gallery was set aside for Negroes, and a section of 15
seats was reserved for the demimondaine of the town. Behind the gas foot-
lights of the Opera House appeared Pavlova, the famous dancer, and
many notable actors, including Charlotte Thompson in Jane Eyre, Minnie
Maddern Fiske, Joseph Jefferson, Lillian Russell, Billie Burke, May Rob-
son, George M. Cohan, and Grace George.

MUSIC AND THEATER 155

Jacksonville became known throughout Florida and southern Georgia
as a show town and gathering point for theater patrons in the i88o ; s. Be-
fore its first theater was built in 1884, empty stores and school buildings
were used by one-night stand companies. The first theater, destroyed by
fire, was promptly rebuilt in 1887, and notices of the opening, which fea-
tured a production of Faust with Minnie Hank and her company, were
telegraphed to all parts of the Nation. The Duval Theater was established
a few years later, and here Richard Mansfield, Joseph Jefferson, Sarah
Bernhardt, Modjeska, and many other distinguished actors played. It was
also here that the Divine Sarah once decided not to appear; this whim re-
sulted in a suit by the Duval Theater for breach of contract that caused
a great deal of unsolicited press comment throughout the country. The
average theatrical vehicles of those days were such ephemeral pieces as
The Fast Mail, Our Country Cousin, A Breezy Time, and Poor Jonathan.

Small theatrical companies visited Florida intermittently from 1900 un-
til the early 1920% but, in general, the population centers were too small
to insure profit for the large, first-rate attractions. Although the boom
(1924-26) remedied this difficulty for a time, the decline of the road shows
was felt in Florida, as elsewhere.

Since 1925, interest in the stage has been revived by little theater organ-
izations, which have been greatly aided by the recreational projects of the
WPA in nearly every county in the State. These projects foster dramatic
productions and pageants, and conduct drama classes for the purpose of
forming additional little- theater groups.

The Miami Civic Theater erected a playhouse in 1929 and has produced
many popular plays. The group takes an active part in encouraging all
forms of dramatic production in Miami. The little-theater group of Jack-
sonville, established in the 1920% designed and built its own theater in
1937, and has presented hundreds of standard dramas. The Bandbox
Players and a little-theater group in St.Petersburg give mainly light com-
edies of the type of Charlie's Aunt', Clearwater has an active little-theater
group and its own playhouse, the Francis Wilson Theater, dedicated to
the memory of the actor of that name who lived in retirement there. In
Tampa the Spanish, Cuban, and Italian clubs give amateur and profes-
sional performances in their native languages. Few cities of any Size are
without similar organizations, but practically all confine themselves to
familiar plays.

Professional drama has been largely limited to the Federal Theater
Project of the WPA. This project, besides furnishing employment to pro-
fessional actors, has given excellent productions of dozens of popular p]ays~

156 FLORIDA

In 1939, before it was discontinued, the Federal Theater had three separate
acting companies: an outstanding dramatic repertory company in Miami;
a revue and musical-comedy company in Tampa; and a touring company
with headquarters in Jacksonville.

The company in Miami, housed in the Scottish Rite Temple theater,
successfully produced some of the famous old American and Continental
plays, as well as Shakespeare and modern comedy. But it was Altars of
Steel, a play about steelworkers by Thomas Hall Rogers, that won it high
critical praise.

The Tampa company occupied its own building, the old Rialto Theater,
with a new interior designed and executed by WPA artists. Composed
largely of former musical-comedy and vaudeville players, many of them
Americans of Latin extraction, this unit has produced Cuban, Spanish,
and American revues, most of them written by members of the project.
Among the productions were El Mundo en el mano (The World in Your
Hand), It Can't Happen Here (Spanish version), The Old Rip, and Ready (
Aim I Fir el

The Jacksonville company, after a year and a half of locally presented
repertory, made a State-wide educational tour in 1938, presenting an Ani-
mated History of the Drama. Plays representative of great periods of drama
history were given in high schools, civic centers, and commercial theaters.
Each drama was supplemented with a specially prepared study outline. In
Miami and Jacksonville, the Federal Theater had also established mario-
nette units' that presented plays and variety programs on State-wide
tours. The Miami unit conducted regular Saturday morning performances
for children.

Nearly all the colleges and universities in Florida have active dramatic
art departments and producing groups. The Annie Russell Theater at Rol-
lins College, in addition to giving many plays produced by students, has a
professional artists' series every season, presenting well-known actors,
musicians, and dancers.

Art

THE first professional art produced in America consisted of draw-
ings by the French artist, LeMoyne, who lived in Florida in
1564-65. From him it is learned that primitive Indian art was
devoted mainly to personal adornment: dyed pelts, gay bird plumage, and
trinkets fashioned from bone and shell. Aboriginal use of copper orna-
ments was also indicated by LeMoyne, but this has been disputed by an-
thropologists. The Jacksonville public library possesses a volume of the
Narrative of LeMoyne, translated from the Latin of Theodore De Bry,
with heliotype reproductions of De Bry's engravings from the LeMoyne
originals.

The development of art in Florida was long delayed by the fact that
three times the territory was emptied of its settlers. Inexpensive church
pieces comprised most of the art of the early Spanish mission period, and
most of these were hastily concealed, carried away, or destroyed when the
English burned the missions. Fragments of three brass altar candlesticks,
buried in the ruins of the Franciscan missions at New Smyrna, were recov-
ered in 1885.

Pictorial art of the mission period seems to have been limited to the ' il-
lumination ' of reports with crude pen drawings by Spanish missionaries
and officials. One report, having to do with the shipment of 100 Indians
from Mexico to Florida in the sixteenth century, is embellished with fig-
ures of Spanish soldiers wearing plumed hats and carrying spears and
shields. Other drawings show Indians imprisoned in stocks, and under-
going various punishments for offenses described in the report.

Art was meager during the brief English occupation from 1763 to 1783.
A powder horn, combining art and utility, is now in the J.H.Grenville Gil-
bert collection of American powder horns in the Metropolitan Museum,
New York City. Listed as the St.Augustine horn, it is described in a mu-
seum bulletin as ' engraved with the British arms, a general view of the
town with its red roofs standing out conspicuously, the fort with the Brit-
ish flag flying triumphantly, and sailboats which give color and action to
the picture. It bears the inscription: " An Exact Prospect of St.Augustine
from the Light House, the Metropolis of the Province of East Florida."'

157

158 FLORIDA

Another reminder of this period is an anonymous portrait, now in a
Jacksonville home, of Gracia dura Bin, wife of Dr.Andrew Turnbull,
founder of the New Smyrna colony in 1767.

After 1783 the territory, once more under Spanish rule, became the do-
main of Indians and pirates. Itinerant portrait painters, who traveled
about the new Nation in the North, shunned Florida. It was therefore
many years before the influence of American art penetrated this frontier.

Meanwhile Florida had served as a laboratory for study and research in
natural science, with pictorial art employed as a recording medium. Mark
Catesby's Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, in
two large folio volumes, was published in London between 1731-48 after
years of preparation. It contained colored drawings of birds, animals, fish,
serpents, insects, and plants. An original may be seen under glass in the
Webb Memorial Library at St. Augustine, and, though now more than 200
years old, the plates still retain remarkable freshness of color.

A hundred years later the great ornithologist, John James Audubon, ar-
rived in Florida to make studies for his The Birds of America. A mimeo-
graphed copy of A Naturalist's Excursion in Florida, written by Audubon
at Bulowville in 1831, is owned by Rollins College.

By the time Florida was acquired from Spain in 1821, colonial portrai-
tures had been left behind, and American artists were embarking on the
new movement in landscape painting which later became known as the
c Hudson River School. 3 Florida, then busy fighting Indians, took little
part in this development. Its only notable contribution at this time was a
series of Seminole Indian portraits, executed by George Catlin for the
United States Government. Included in the series is the famous painting
of Osceola, reproduced in school histories and books on the Seminole; it
now hangs in the Indian section of the Smithsonian Institution at Wash-
ington.

The first great painter to reside in Florida was George Inness, who built
a home and studio on the Anclote River at Tarpon Springs in 1877. A
master of atmosphere, Inness in Florida ignored the characteristic palm
and painted the drab pine woods, which in early morning mists or in the
soft glow of evening were found to possess an unexpected beauty. His
Early Morning Tarpon Springs, in the Art Institute of Chicago, is an
example of Inness' Florida work. His paintings, now in many museums
and private collections throughout the country, are rare in Florida.

George Inness, Jr., who succeeded to the Tarpon Springs home, finally
gained recognition as an artist in his own right, despite the handicap of an
illustrious father. At first a painter of animals, he eventually adopted his

ART 159

father's technique; he began to paint landscapes which increasingly be-
came studies in atmosphere, the details tending to lose themselves in the
general effect. Confining his work to studio problems, and seldom trou-
bling himself with observation and analysis, the younger Inness developed
an extreme facility. Many of his pictures hang in Florida homes. During
the prosperous days of the early 1920*3, small canvases brought him from
$2,000 to ^$5,ooo, and in a short time he made more money than his father
did in a lifetime. In Tarpon Springs, the Church of the Good Shepherd has
been dedicated as a shrine to the memory of George Inness Jr. Here are
examples of his earlier efforts, as well as one of his last and most notable
paintings, the Only Hope, which aroused a great deal of comment on its
travels abroad.

Winslow Homer, one of America's foremost artists, who painted many
pictures in the South after the War between the States, was a frequent
visitor to Key West between 1888 and 1903. Some of his best-known
works, A Norther, Key West, The Gulf Stream, Taking on Wet Provisions,
and Palms in the Storm, are said to have been produced here. Homer's pic-
tures of Key West waters focused attention on this insular outpost, which
has become popular among present-day artists. Old waterfront structures,
fishing boats, quaint streets, and weathered houses provide inexhaustible
material. Docks and beaches are constantly visited by artists who hope to
capture the translucence of the many-hued seas. When the Federal Gov-
ernment launched its rehabilitation program for Key West in 1933, many
artists were given employment under a program for beautifying the city.
Art consequently flourishes there in public buildings, restaurants, night
clubs, bars, filling stations, and roadside stands. Sloppy Joe's bar has a
mural depicting local characters, including the proprietor and Ernest
Hemingway, the author, crowned with a Bacchus-wreath of grapes.

While the elder Inness was still painting in his obscure Anclote studio,
Florida suddenly received a tremendous consignment of art. Trainloads of
works, imported for the embellishment of the spacious railroad hotels
erected by Flagler and Plant, descended among a people struggling for ex-
istence in a raw country. Lavishness was the keynote: pictures with pon-
derous gilt frames, floor coverings of breath-taking expanse, and furniture
and decorative bric-a-brac in an amazing profusion of styles.

Plant outdid Flagler in the quantity of his collection. For two years
prior to the opening of the Moorish-style Tampa Hotel in 1891, Plant
scoured Europe, collecting art objects. Despite the vast size of his estab-
lishment, the purchases he made overflowed the place, and the surplus had
to be disposed of at auction. One authentic piece of sculpture stands before

l6o FLORIDA

the grand main entrance to the hotel, a fountain symbolizing Transporta-
tion, executed by George Gray Barnard shortly after he received acclaim
in Paris in the early 1890*8. Much of the original art and furnishings in
Plant's Tampa Bay Hotel has been removed, but a wing of the building,
set aside as a museum, still contains a bewildering assortment of rococo
bronzes, furniture, clocks, tapestries, paintings, and vases; one vase being
a gift from the Emperor of Japan.

Flagler showed an extensive interest in murals, and, through commis-
sions for the walls of his Ponce de Leon Hotel at St.Augustine, perpetuated
the academic tastes of the iSSo's. Symbolic and allegorical themes, inter-
spersed with Florida landscapes and Shakespearean scenes, cover the walls
of his hotel. In the dining room, cupids with outstretched hands, bearing
wine cups, bread, and grapes, depict The Feast. Above them sail Spanish
caravels of the era of Ponce de Leon. Around the dome are figures repre-
senting Spring, Slimmer, Autumn, and Winter, alternating with coats-of-
arms of Spanish provinces. At the head of one stairway is Columbus Dis-
covering America, and at the head of another, The Introduction of Chris-
tianity to the Huns of Charlemagne. Balcony paintings include a Florida
landscape, and portraits of Cortez, the Spanish explorer, and Osceola, the
Seminole war leader. Four standing figures in fresco represent Air, Fire,
Water, and Earth, and four seated ones, Adventure, Discovery, Conquest,
and Civilization. The Shakespearean heroines, Desdemona and Ophelia,
share a drawing room with A Bit of Old Mexico, A Trip on the Bosphorus (a
group of harem beauties), The Sultan's Favorite, and A Girl in the Woods-,
Juliet, Rosaline, Anne Page, Beatrice, and Titania, queen of the fairies,
occupy another room; and O/ for a Row, and Consternation, a young
woman with a surprised expression, grace a third. These hotels, and others
built subsequently by Flagler and Plant, had the effect, one might say, of
carrying the banner of art down the peninsula of Florida, and of drawing
to art the attention of members of the new leisure class who built winter
homes there; in turn, these newcomers brought valuable art- treasures to
the State.

Palm Beach, Miami Beach, and Miami have the largest private collec-
tions. It would be difficult, in fact, to find any city in Florida that lacks an
art collection. All principal cities have art leagues or clubs, and, in 1927, a
State federation was formed to stimulate and unify these activities. Re-
sults are shown in the increasing amount of art literature available in pub-
lic and school libraries in the State.

Art instruction has also become widespread. Courses in fine and applied
arts are given at the University of Florida, Gainesville; Florida State Col-

ART l6l

lege for Women, Tallahassee; Stetson University, DeLand; Rollins Col-
lege, Winter Park; the University of Tampa; and the Florida Agricultural
and Mechanical College (Negro), Tallahassee. Many private schools and
studios also offer courses in art. Notable among art schools in the South
is that of the John and Mable Ringling Art Museum at Sarasota. The mu-
seum, bequeathed to the State by its founder, John Ringling, contains a
collection of more than 700 works, including important examples of the
Italian, French, Dutch, Spanish, and English schools, and a group of
paintings, tapestries, and a sculptural work by Rubens. Around the mu-
seum and the privately owned school, a thriving art colony has grown up.
Sarasota, with its Ringling Museum and Ringling Circus quarters, offers
to students the unique opportunity of studying old masters as well as an
amazing assortment of wild animals. It is a common sight to see artists at
work on the circus grounds.

During the real-estate boom (1924-26) many artists were drawn to the
prosperous resorts, hoping to profit from the lavish spending. With the ar-
rival of the national depression, however, most of these artists were de-
prived of support and ultimately found themselves on relief. Under the
Federal Art Project, which continued the work of earlier Government
agencies, much permanent art has been produced for Florida buildings.
Project work includes bas-relief designs of Florida fauna, carved in native
stone on the Coral Gables Library; murals in the Orlando Chamber of
Commerce; over-mantel decorations in the student union building at the
University of Florida; seven murals in the Tony Jannus Administration
Building at the Tampa airport; and many murals in school buildings. An
outstanding piece is the memorial monument on Matecumbe Key to those
who lost their lives in the 1935 hurricane; a rectangular shaft of Key lime-
stone bears a carved panel, showing in simple lines palm trees streaming in
a high wind.

Through gallery exhibits, lectures, art centers, and classes, including a
Negro unit, the Federal Art Project in Florida has carried on an educa-
tional campaign in appreciation and practice of fine and craft arts. Its
Index of American Design division has contributed approximately 200 re-
productions of early textile designs, samplers, coverlets, spreads, costumes,
carvings, and other manifestations of folk and popular art. Perhaps the
most interesting among these are the old circus-wagon designs, copied at
the Ringling headquarters in Sarasota from famous old circuses that have
long departed from the American scene. The elaborate figures and orna-
mental carvings on this rapidly deteriorating equipment have been re-
corded on faithfully drawn colored plates.

162 FLORIDA

The Treasury Department Art Project is another Government agency
for the encouragement of art. It has awarded several mural commissions
for Florida buildings on the basis of regional competitions.

Many of the country's leading artists have found Florida a pleasant
place in which to live and work; and their presence has tended to over-
shadow any local style that may be striving to emerge. Artists continue to
frequent the resorts, producing, as a rule, impressions of Florida scenery
for sale to tourists. St. Augustine has the most Bohemian of these colonies:
Aviles Street, one of the original narrow lanes of the old city, with antique
stucco houses, has been largely taken over by studios, and has become a
tourists' attraction. Here the artists display their work on outside walls
and do much painting in the open. St.Augustine's historic buildings are
the favorite theme, and early historical events, especially the landing of
Ponce de Leon, are popular.

Recreation

Photograph by courtesy of Miami Beach News Service
ALONG THE ATLANTIC. MIAMI BEACH

VENETIAN POOL, CORAL GABLES

Photograph by courtesy of G. W. Bomer

Photograph fay courtesy of City of Wesi Palm Beach
IN THE GULF STREAM, OFF PALM BEACH j

HUNTERS IN THE EVERGLADES i
Photograph Jby courtesy of Burgert Brothers

Photograph by courtesy of Buigeit Brothers
FISHING IN ST. JOHN'S RIVER

TRAILER CAMP, MIAMI

Photograph by courtesy of Bespess Engraving

HOLLYWOOD BEACH

Photograph by courfesy of John Lodwick News Service
GOLF COURSE, PASADENA, ST. PETERSBURG ;

Photograph by courtesy oi the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce ,

START OF THE RACE, GREYHOUND TRACK, JACKSONVILLE

RACE TRACK, HIALEAH
Photograph Jby courtesy of G. W. jRomer

LAWN BOWLING, ST. PETERSBURG

CHESS GAMES, ST. PETEKSBURG

FEEDING A PORPOISE, MARINE STUDIOS, NEAR ST. AUGUSTINE

Photograph by GerecJce

REGATTA, PALM BEACH

Architecture

THREE centuries of building in Florida, ranging from medieval
dungeons to ephemeral vagaries, have recorded the historical,
political, and economic evolution of the State in terms of archi-
tecture. This span links present-day Florida with early European culture
and has brought into startling conjunction, and sometimes conflict, many
schools of architecture, and perhaps a few innovations without academic
ancestry. The composite result therefore may lack definition but certainly
not diversity.

Nothing of aboriginal construction in Florida is left save numerous shell
mounds, the largest collections of which are found in the Tampa Bay re-
gion. Early Indian tribes in Florida chiefly used perishable materials.
Writings of Spanish explorers, however, describe the use of stone by In-
dians for what must have been ceremonial structures, and De Bry's en-
gravings of LeMoyne's drawings also show the use of stone; but no trace
of such buildings exists in Florida. Oviedo, a Spanish writer, stated that
the Indian houses had ' walls of lime and stone (which lime they make of
shells of sea oysters) and these are one and one-half times as high as a
person. 3

Nearly all the missions built of wood and stone by priests who came
with the early Spanish expeditions have also disappeared. Two exceptions
exist in the crumbling ruins of the missions in the vicinity of New Smyrna.
Built by Indian labor under the direction of Franciscan priests, these mis-
sions, Jororo and San Antonio de Anacape, were utilized for material by
the Turnbull colony to build sugar mills, but the stone walls and arches
that were spared have withstood the inroads of centuries.

Most substantial examples of early Spanish architecture are medieval
Fort Marion (Castillo de San Marcos) and Fort Matanzas, at St Augus-
tine, and Fort San Carlos at Pensacola. Fort Marion, begun in 1672 and
completed in 1756, was built of large blocks of coquina rock, quarried on
near-by Anastasia Island by exiles and Indian slaves, many of whom were
sentenced to their task for life. The cost of San Marcos Castle, as it was
called, was estimated at $30,000,000, a sum that prompted the King of
Spain to exclaim: 'Its curtains and bastions must be made of solid silver. 3

163

1 64 FLORIDA

Fort Matanzas, built in 1736 of coquina rock, is much smaller. It was
erected to replace a watch tower at the entrance to the Matanzas Inlet.

Fort San Carlos at Pensacola represents a much later period. The origi-
nal fort, built of pine logs in 1698, was burned, later rebuilt, blown up in
1719, rebuilt a second time, and then reconstructed of brick between 1783
and 1796, after England had returned Florida to Spain. In recent years it
became a national park, and its masonry was completely restored. Al-
though sacked and burned several times, Pensacola and St. Augustine have
retained indelible imprints of the Spanish engineer and architect. Some-
times no more remains of this early work than the original building blocks
used in British and American reconstruction.

Original Spanish homes in St. Augustine survive in a few rectangular,
two-story buildings with the first story constructed of coquina rock and
covered with a plaster made of burnt oyster-shell lime. North walls were
usually left windowless as a protection against cold winds, and second sto-
ries were fashioned of hewn cedars. It is said that the idea of a first story
of stone and a second of wood was worked out in the West Indies as a pro-
tection against earthquakes and hurricanes. In Florida this construction
provided a ground-floor refuge in case of storms, and if the superstructure
were blown away, it could easily be replaced. These early houses had
thatched roofs. Chimneys were added by successive English and American
occupants.

The 'Oldest House/ now a historical museum, is thought to have been
built in the late sixteenth century and has been certified by an unbroken
chain of titles since 1763. It has arched doorways and, at each end, a
second-story ornamental porch. No nails were used in the original con-
struction. Other examples of early Spanish architecture at St.Augustine
include the Llambias House, built previous to 1763; and the Public Li-
brary, erected prior to 1785. The City Gates, once part of Fort San Mar-
cos and now St. Augustine's most familiar landmark, were erected in 1745
and rebuilt in 1804. The Catholic Cathedral, built in 1793, was damaged
by fire in 1885 and restored the same year.

The Spaniards were building with stone in Florida fifty years before
William Strachey, recorder of the Jamestown colony, described in 1618 the
wigwams of that settlement; before the Dutch West India Company is-
sued instructions to its American colonists in 1650 on how to build a house
by digging a hole in the ground, using sod for side walls and boughs for
thatched roofs; and more than a hundred years before the Provincial Ex-
ecutive Council of Philadelphia in 1685 ordered those dwelling in caves
along the river to come out by a certain date so that Front Street could be

ARCHITECTURE 165

opened. Yet Florida, because of its wars and changes in ownership, was to
start over again with the most primitive type of wooden dwelling at the
beginning of the nineteenth century.

Following the purchase of Florida from Spain in 1821 and the erection
of a chain of forts for protection against the Indians, settlers from Georgia
and other states to the north developed a utilitarian wooden structure,
known as a ' shotgun' house. This consisted of two houses under a single
roof, with an open passage or ventilating airway between. Porches were
later added on all sides. The houses probably were so named because of the
fact that a shotgun could be fired through the passage without hitting the
walls. This was supposed to be an advantage in combating Indians, but in
reality the open passage was for ventilation. The survival of many shot-
gun houses suggests that the pioneer builders used native materials and
common-sense methods of construction in recognition of climatic condi-
tions. These houses, built of fat pine, were set on high land and well off the
ground, thus providing for a windsweep beneath to prevent dry rot, a
scourge of later building in Florida. The James McMullen homestead, a
two-story log house at Coachman on the Pinellas Peninsula, since con-
verted into a historical landmark by the Daughters of the American Revo-
lution, is a well-preserved example of the shotgun period.

Another distinctive type appeared about the same time in Key West,
where the salvage of cargoes from stranded ships (or ' wrecking 7 in local
parlance) was an important business. Much of the building was done by
ship carpenters, and occasionally houses were constructed of mahogany,
possibly because Honduras was more accessible for material than were the
northern pine forests. Today no mahogany houses survive, but some in-
terior mahogany trim remains in the older structures, salvaged mostly
from the cabinet work of ships that foundered on the Florida Reef.

Early Key West houses were entirely of wood, for the most part follow-
ing the styles of New England and the British colonials of the Bahamas.
Minor detail showed Cuban influence, but Spanish architecture was al-
most completely lacking. They were designed to meet the lack of shade
and fresh water, but in another respect ignored the elements. Although
sturdily built and anchored with bolts to the native rock to withstand high
winds and waves, many of them were two stories in height with porches
and balconies and steep-pitched roofs, making them fair targets for hurri-
canes. All openings were shuttered to keep out heat and glare. For addi-
tional ventilation 'scuttles' were installed on roofs along with a platform
or 'mirador/ from which to sight ships in distress. Porch posts of a later
period are mostly slender lathe-turned wooden supports; and in some

l66 FLORIDA

cases the roofs of two-story houses extend down to shelter ground-floor
porches, thereby hiding from view upper-story windows. The multiplicity
of gables, the presence of numerous above-ground square concrete cis-
terns, and a general lack of paint give Key West the appearance of a
weathered settlement of excessive roofs and surplus foundations. Chim-
neys were unknown there before the introduction of brick and cement in
1844 for the building of Fort Taylor. After masonry came into general use,
a familiar American type, the two-story brick house with wooden porches,
appeared.

Brick had been extensively used in north Florida long before it reached
Key West. In 1837 a newspaper at Apalachicola boasted that the town's
business street along the waterfront 'had 2,000 feet of continuous brick
stores, three stories high, 80 feet deep, and all equipped with granite pil-
lars/ The most prodigious use of brick, however, occurred west of Key
West on that lonely outpost of the Florida Reef, the Dry Tortugas. Here
was constructed Fort Jefferson, once known as the Gibraltar of the Gulf
of Mexico, and now a national monument under the care of the National
Park Service. The structure was begun in 1851 and work on it ceased in
1865.

Before the conclusion of the Seminole Wars in 1842 plantations devel-
oped in northern Florida, and with them came the pretentious Maryland
and Virginia late Georgian Colonial mansions. Some of these were de-
stroyed during the War between the States, but characteristic examples of
brick construction are still extant, especially around Tallahassee; among
them are 'Goodwood/ built in 1839, an d the century-old Governor Call
mansion, now the Grove Hotel. The latter is a good example of the early
Greek Revival style. Less pretentious but well proportioned are at least a
dozen more in the ante-bellum towns of Madison, Monticello, Quincy, and
Marianna, nearly all of them built in the 1830*3. These are of the Southern
Planter type with two-story galleried porches and, with but one or two ex-
ceptions, square boxed columns and plain doorways, suggesting the lack
of expert wood carvers in Florida during this period. The Nichols Inn at
Marianna, which has round fluted columns, is one of the exceptions.

Other notable structures of these earlier days, still in good repair, are
the Fleming home, at Hibernia on the St. Johns River, built in 1825; the
Methodist parsonage in Quincy, begun in 1830 and completed in 1835 for
J.S.Smallwood; Ma'am Anna's House on Fort George Island (see Tour
20) i and the Gamble mansion, near Bradenton, built in 1850 (see Tour 4^).

During the prosperous days of the i88o's and early iSQo's more elabo-
rate homes began to appear in central and south Florida. With the arrival

ARCHITECTURE 167

of sawmills, turning lathes, and similar devices, permitting wide latitude
in the ornamental use of wood, classic columns yielded to spindle supports
and jigsaw traceries. This period lasted until its spectacular possibilities
had been exhausted.

It was in the i88o's that Florida acquired the first of its huge resort ho-
tels, those extravagant structures built by Flagler and Plant. Beginning
at St.Augustine, Flagler finally ended his hotel chain at Key West. One
of his railroad hotels launched Palm Beach, but his outstanding achieve-
ment was the Ponce de Leon at St.Augustine. Other Flagler buildings in
St.Augustine are the Alcazar Hotel and Memorial Church. Plant on the
west coast built the Tampa Bay Hotel at Tampa and the Belleview at
Belleair on the Pinellas Peninsula. From the standpoint of general lavish-
ness no modern hotel in Florida not even the grand-scale hostelries of
the 1920% such as the Miami-Biltmore at Coral Gables, the Roney Plaza
at Miami Beach, the Breakers at Palm Beach, and the Vinoy Park at
St.Petersburg has surpassed Flagler's Ponce de Leon or Plant's Tampa
Bay Hotel.

Early in 1884, as a preliminary to building in St.Augustine, Flagler sent
two young New York architects to Spain to study and absorb ideas,
John M. Carrere and Thomas W. Hastings. For two years they made
sketches and collected data, after which they returned and set to work.
The architectural results made the pair famous, but it would seem that
they had exhausted their Spanish inspiration on these mammoth hotels,
for they designed only one other building in the Spanish style. Their
Ponce de Leon Hotel, occupying a city block, is a monolithic structure of
concrete composed of six parts of coquina shell to one part of cement. As
the architects stated: 'It is not exact to say that the hotel was built; it
was cast. The coquina, found almost on the very spot, was a suggestion of
nature not to be overlooked.' In design the Ponce de Leon is a rich and
colorful adaptation of early Spanish Renaissance motifs and details, with
an admixture of Italian Renaissance; the latter is exemplified particularly
in the grand gateway, following closely that of the Certosa at Pavia. The
neighboring Alcazar Hotel lacks the setting and grand plan of the Ponce de
Leon. Plant's Tampa Bay Hotel, 'a thousand feet long/ was built of brick
with Moorish horseshoe-arched windows, a design carried out in the in-
tricate woodwork of a lengthy veranda. Its silvered domes and minarets,
emerging from tropical shrubbery on the west bank of the Hillsborough
River, give an oriental quality to Tampa's sky line. The building now
houses the University of Tampa.

Railroads held a monopoly on resort hotel construction until after 1900,

l68 FLORIDA

and few other grand-scale hotels were built for the next two decades.
Meanwhile, many comfortable native fortunes had accrued from phos-
phate, cattle, timber, and turpentine, and these were evidenced by a recur-
rence of classic columns. This desire to perpetuate an architectural tradi-
tion overlooked the more plentiful but less substantial houses in the low-
lands of the South, and revived the feudalistic symbols that occupied the
elevations. The reproductions included Palladian windows and porticos,
but good proportion apparently was often sacrificed to display. An ex-
ample of this ostentation is a former private residence in Jacksonville (now
the quarters of the Y.W.C.A.), four stories in height, with three tiers of
Corinthian columns. Gradually, however, this period waned and archi-
tecture, like the people, grew more cosmopolitan.

South Florida did not experience a marked architectural renaissance
until about 1920, but long before that time Palm Beach became an estab-
lished winter resort and attracted the builders of many magnificent pri-
vate estates. Nothing that was constructed there, however, approached
one of these estates, Viscaya, the home of the late James Deering, on Bis-
cayne Bay, south of Miami. This magnificent residence was completed in
1920, after seven years of work, at a cost of $15,000,000. Enclosed by high
walls, it became a place of mystery, and whispered stories were circulated
of hidden panels and secret passageways. These beliefs were dispelled
when, after the owner's death, Viscaya became a public museum for a
short period and was opened for inspection; but what the estate lacked in
mystery was more than made up for in splendor, for here was the realiza-
tion of a multi-millionaire bachelor's dream a fabulous home in fabulous
gardens. The main house is Italian Baroque in style and reminiscent of a
villa at Stra near Venice. It was built of stuccoed concrete, with doors and
windows trimmed with native coral stone. There is a central courtyard
arcaded on three sides and a second story with open balconies which serve
the bedrooms. A swimming pool, half outside the house and half under it a
is sheltered by a ceiling with marine decorations, painted by Robert W.
Chanler. The gardens are an array of terraces, balustrades, and fountains,
with natural and clipped shrubbery. The interior, reflecting incredible ex-
travagance, includes many historical pieces and paintings from Venice,
Florence, and deserted villas and palaces along the Brenta. The tile roof
originally covered an entire Cuban village. The architects were F.Burral
Hoffman and Paul Chalfin.

Addison Mizner exerted a dominant influence upon Florida architec-
ture, particularly at Palm Beach. Collaborating there with Paris Singer,
a son of the sewing-machine magnate, he designed and constructed the

ARCHITECTURE 169

Everglades Club, Upon completion of the club, he accepted a commission
to build a house for the Stotesbury family of Philadelphia; this definitely
established Mizner and inspired many imitators. While he studied Old
World architecture in Spain and Central America for Florida adaptation,
Mizner's followers, for the most part, gave their attention to superficial
Spanish effects. To soften the glare of Florida's brilliant sun, Mizner used
quiet pastel tints, and with multitones achieved a more vibrant texture.
Immediately there ensued a cycle of surface treatments that exhausted
the spectrum. The territory from Palm Beach to Miami became a kaleido-
scopic flow of color that required ten years of subsequent painting to sub-
due to varying shades of buff. But much of this i high- visibility' construc-
tion lacked permanence, as it ignored methods and materials suitable to
Florida's climate.

Mizner was among the first to recognize that the fiat country of coastal
Florida provided only sky for a background, and this inspired his bold
treatment of outline. One of his principal modifications of authentic Span-
ish architecture was in the treatment of windows; he removed the iron
bars and enlarged the window openings. He has been credited with the
original use of pecky cypress for interior finish, a pitted wood from trees
usually not less than 125 years old. Sawed into boards, this material "
showed apparently rotted streaks. These were cleaned out with the aid of
a blow torch and wire brushes, and the surface treated with acids and
stains to simulate a pleasing antique finish. Pecky cypress formerly had
been used for piling and fence posts, but after Mizner's innovation it be-
came popular and trebled in price. The unfinished town of Boca Raton,
now a private club, undoubtedly would have been his most ambitious
work had not the real-estate boom collapsed. Jacksonville has one example
of his work, the Riverside Baptist Church, and among his last efforts was
the Williams home at St.Petersburg, in construction at the time of his
death.

The 1924-26 period reflected the concentration of American wealth in a
Florida setting. Magnitude and ostentation were indices to the culture of
Yankee c conquistadores ' in the 1920*8. A new scale of grandeur was
achieved, but no new type of architecture. Heretofore, public buildings
had run pretty much to a pattern, such as the State Capitol at Tallahas-
see with its fat classic columns, the State University and the State College
for Women, with their familiar ' Collegiate Gothic/ and county court-
houses with their clock towers. The square red-brick courthouses, how-
ever, have undergone a half -century of historic change. They register the
migration of brick down the peninsula; they indicated by their design

170 FLORIDA

when many counties were formed, and by their pretentiousness, the ex-
panding pride of an improved economy. So by 1938 they ranged from the
one surviving wooden structure at Crawfordville in north Florida to the
lofty gray stone tower of the Dade County Courthouse at Miami, the tall-
est building in the State. In the process of evolution these structures ac-
quired classic porticos, and their clock towers grew into expansive domes,
but both these features disappeared with the arrival of the neoclassic style
and the use of cast stone and marble. Then the boom brought stucco and,
to an extent, the abandonment of standard patterns. The Sarasota Court-
house, for example, took the form of a Venetian campanile, with detached
wings joined by open colonnades.

Another of the more obvious, and somewhat ludicrous, by-products of
that time was the erection of ten-story buildings in three-story towns.
Lofty hotels and lone business structures jutted up obelisklike in sur-
roundings of vacant lots, bungalows, and small business blocks, as in Pan-
ama City, Lake Wales, and Haines City.

More widely scattered monuments of the boom period are the real-
estate subdivision gateways. Many of these stand forlornly in weed-grown
fields along the highways as sole reminders of what were to be magnificent
developments. Aside from their decorative function, they once served as
barometers of realty prices. Building lots behind wooden frames covered
with plaster in imitation of solid masonry were likely to represent the
lower market levels. As gateways improved in size, material, and design,
prices mounted accordingly. Likewise size and ornamentation increased
and prices rose with the temperature. In northern Florida entrances were
fairly simple, but, as the prospective lot purchasers moved southward into
a balmier climate, these gradually attained an atmosphere of opulence and
grandeur. Pylons grew into heroic arches of triumph, resplendent with
ceramic tile and sculptured cast stone, or into turrets and towers, con-
nected overhead by rainbow 'bridges of sighs 7 (not literally apparent at
the time), and finally into practical structures penetrated by driveways.
Subdivision portals reached their architectural climax in the grand en-
trance to Coral Gables, with a block-long building designed by Denman
Fink and Phineas Paist.

To achieve an imposing effect and an air of stability was the goal, and
architecture the device a time-honored one. Just as financiers, with gran-
ite, bronze, and bookkeeping, created the illusion of cash deposits far in
excess of existing currency, the promoters, by borrowing a page from the
bankers, the motion-picture industry, and Barnum, created the illusion of
adjacent high land values. The fictitious values were doomed to shrink, but

ARCHITECTURE 171

many of the buildings, though in the nature of stage sets, outlasted some
of the banks that helped to finance them. As a result, fruit stores and ga-
rages now occasionally occupy buildings with heroic marble fronts.

When familiar styles were depleted the exotic from remote lands ap-
peared and buildings took form without precedent except in the Arabian
Nights. The boom town of Opa Locka, near Miami, in advance of building
the city, erected a city hall that pierced the sky with an acre of bulbous
domes and needlelike minarets. The Florida landscape was spotted with
pretentious buildings around which towns were supposed to grow, but
sometimes these were left stranded in grand and startling isolation and
found uses vastly different from those for which they were intended. One
of the larger unfinished hotels in the Miami area was turned into a poultry
ranch, and thousands of chickens perched in the lofty guest chambers.
Perhaps the most incongruous phase of boom construction was the use of
century-old tile, stripped from houses and barns in Cuba and Spain, to
cover artificially aged reproductions.

Nevertheless, Florida gained interesting adaptations of academic Euro-
pean designs. The Singing Tower at Mountain Lake, erected by Edward
Bok, is one of the foremost. This marble shaft, dominating a high eleva-
tion, has been called a successful union of architecture and sculpture. Its
polished walls of many tints, combined with native limestone trim, ter-
minate in foliated openings cut in marble around the carillon. The sculp-
tured detail was designed and executed by Lee Lawrie and forty asso-
ciates. The bronze door to the crypt at the base, which contains the body
of the builder, was the work of Samuel Yellin.

The Singling Museum at Sarasota is another notable addition. Built of
Italian marble, it incorporates architectural details from many historic
European structures. Some rooms are finished completely with original
paneling from abroad. The loggia contains eleventh-century marble col-
umns and an inlaid doorway from Florence, Italy. Similar architectural
antiques have been reassembled throughout. Another good adaptation is
the Florida Military Academy at StPetersburg. Designed around an open
court to represent a Spanish village, the grouping includes a chapel, a gra-
nary, and a reproduction of the golden tower of Seville. The Civic Center
at Lakeland provides an interesting architectural treatment of a lake bor-
der, with a concrete sea wall rising on one side against a bluff to form a
plaza and colonnade. Other noteworthy buildings are the Ejiowles Memo-
rial Chapel and the Annie Russell Theater at Winter Park.

After the boom there was a departure from spurious effects and a more
general use of native woods, stone, and brick. Coquina rock and Key lime-

172 FLORIDA

stone, particularly the latter, have found popular favor in the newer pub-
lic buildings, such as the post office at Fort Myers, the Federal Building at
Key West, and the municipal airport at Tampa. This material, quarried
on the Florida Reef and sawed into slabs, quickly turns from a light cream
to a soft weathered gray, and its surface is an almost continuous lacework
of marine fossils.

An innovation of the building revival was utility; houses were built to
live in, not to promote lot sales. French and British Caribbean colonial
types appeared with the resumption of home building in Florida in 1932.
This newer construction avoided the almost standard buff tints in favor of
white, and eliminated protruding ornamental detail. Stucco bungalows
sometimes extended the white finish to the tile roofs, an idea borrowed
from Bermuda. The scores of new hotels erected at Miami Beach and else-
where in Florida after 1935 also had sheer walls of dazzling white, un-
marked except for flutings and incised geometric design. This cubicle type
of building, more commonly associated with industrial architecture, with
its flat surfaces and large windows of steel and glass, had invaded all parts
of the State by 1939.

The cabana, a comparatively modern beach structure, has developed
into a rather elaborate facility for seashore comfort. From a primitive,
single dressing room, it has expanded into a continuous composition with
scores of units, including a lounging room, dressing rooms, and baths, con-
structed in a half-circle around a pool and attached to a central luxu-
riously equipped club house. Chiefly Spanish in style at first, with shaded
loggias and arcades facing an open court and the sea, the cabana has
since undergone many changes, but all the variations strive for riotous
color effects, gay and exotic. One of the most pretentious is the Surf Club
at Miami Beach.

City zoning and planning had been in effect for many years in some
cities, but the speculative era went far toward ignoring these restrictions.
A notable exception was Coral Gables, which started off with fully devel-
oped city plans that have since been rigidly enforced. The business area of
Coral Gables is restricted to buildings of the Mediterranean and Spanish
types, with rock, stuccoed tile, and concrete as approved materials. Out-
lying sections are zoned to Colonial, French (urban and country), Dutch
East African, and even Chinese compound types. The plans of all build-
ings, even to color and awnings, must be approved by a city-employed ar-
chitect before their construction.

Florida's three largest cities, Jacksonville, Tampa, and Miami, portray
architecturally several generations. Burned in 1901, Jacksonville prac-

ARCHITECTURE 173

tically rebuilt its business area, giving it something of the atmosphere of
the financial district in a Northern city. Miami has the spectacular flare
characteristic of a resort city of enormous and ornate hotels. Tampa, on
the other hand, with a few tall buildings is an industrial city spotted with
many flat-topped, two- and three-story red-brick cigar factories. In all
three cities, outmoded business structures of the bay window, cupola, and
turret era still loom among the severe glittering modern fronts that are
gradually replacing them.

Architects have two organizations in Florida: the Florida Association of
Architects, concerned mainly with the legal and business aspects of build-
ing, and three chapters of the American Institute of Architects, which con-
sider the ethical, cultural, and professional phases of architecture. The
State board of architecture is a law enforcement body. Practically all cities
have enacted rigid building codes tinder which orderly construction pro-
ceeds. Factors that have proved costly in the past, such as dry rot, inade-
quate windstresses and termite damage, now receive consideration along
with design. Florida has recognized the fact that sound construction is an
essential element in architectural beauty.

PART II
Principal Cities

Daytona Beach

Railroad Station : 400 block Magnolia St. for Florida East Coast Ry.
Bus Stations: 115 Volusia Ave. for Florida Motor Lines; 118 Volusia Ave. for Pan-
American Lines.

Airport: Municipal Airport 2.5 m. W. on US 92 for Eastern Air Lines and National Air-
lines; taxi 75 j.

Taxis: io{ and upward according to distance and number of passengers.
Local Busses: Fare $ within city limits, io$f to Port Orange.

Traffic Regulations-. R. turns on red in business district. Beach driving for i m. each side
of pier, lom.p.h.

Accommodations: 39 hotels, numerous tourist homes on mainland and peninsula.

Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, 356 S.Beach St.; Peabody Community
House (Tourist Headquarters), 28 N.Wild Olive Ave.; Broadwalk Registration Booth,
Oceanfront; City Recreation Dept., City Island.

Radio Station: WMFJ (1420 kc.).
Motion Picture Houses: 5; one for Negroes.

Swimming: Daytona, Ormond, and Port Orange Beaches on Atlantic Ocean; bathhouse
facilities 25^ and 50^; lifeguards in bathing zone.

Calisthenics: On beach June to Sept. 7-7:30 a.m. daily except Sundays, free.
Golf: Daytona Golf and Country Club, 1.5 m. S. on Ridgewood Ave., 18 holes, greens
fee $1.50; Daytona Highlands Golf Course, Volusia Ave. and Lakeshore Dr., 9 holes,
greens fee 75^; Seabreeze Golf Course, 2 m. N. on Atlantic Ave., 18 holes, greens fee
$2; Rio Vista Golf Course, N.Ridgewood Ave. between Holly Hill and Ormond, 9 holes,
greens fee 50^.

Fishing: From all bridges in city, free; ocean pier 25^.

Shuffleboard: Peabody Community House, 28 N.Wild Olive Ave.; City Island Play-
ground, foot of Orange Ave., $1.50 annual fee.

Lawn Bowhng: Daytona Lawn Bowling Club, S. end Riverfront Park; Peabody Lawn
Club, 28 N.Wild Olive Ave.

Band Concerts: Oceanfront Park, between Ocean Ave. and the Broadwalk (summer)
Sun., Tues., andThurs. evenings; (winter) daily Jan.-Mar.

Annual Events: Trap Shoot, Municipal Gun Club, N. side of DeLand Rd. Jan.; National
Motorcycle 2oo-m. beach race, Mar.; Annual Stock Car Races, beach, Mar.; Interna-
tional Senior Golf tournament, Daytona Golf and Country Club, Mar.; Halifax Sum-
mer Frolics and local Mardi Gras celebration, July; Annual Labor Day Festival; moth-
boat races at intervals during summer and winter seasons.

DAYTONA BEACH (7 alt, 16,598 pop.) is a city with a triple waterfront,
one on the Atlantic Ocean and one on each side of a tidewater lagoon
known as the Halifax River. The western division, on the mainland, con-
tains the larger business and shopping district, and many homes of year-
round residents. The eastern section, on the peninsula, reached by four
bridges one a concrete span supported by wooden piles contains a resi-
dential section along the riverfront and ocean, and the lively beach colony
on the ocean shore.

177

178 FLORIDA

Shading the streets on the mainland are live oak, magnolia, and bay
trees, species of the hardwood forests that once flourished in this territory.
To these have been added extensive plantings of native palms and the
hardier subtropical trees and shrubs. The city is noted for its oleanders,
which grow abundantly throughout the area and are in full pink and white
blossom from March until late summer.

Beach Street, paralleling the river, is the principal mainland thorough-
fare; its two- and three-story brick and stucco business buildings, occupy-
ing the west side of the street, overlook the mile-long Riverfront Park. In
the heart of the shopping district, its broad lawn enclosed by a stone fence,
stands the two-story Burgoyne residence, an ornate structure of coquina
rock and faded green shingles, one of the city's oldest landmarks. In the
river at the foot of Orange Avenue, separated by a narrow channel, lies
City Island, once known as Railroad Island when used by Henry Flagler
as a river freight terminal for his railroad. Donated to the city in 1897, it
was enlarged and developed as a recreation center.

Ridgewood Avenue, following the crest of a low ridge from which the
city slopes to the river, and sheltered for the most part by huge overhang-
ing live oaks, is the oldest residential street. The broad avenue is lined by
dwellings built in the early 1890*8 and by those of more recent construc-
tion.

The city's Negro settlement, comprising 33 per cent of the city's total
population, lies west of the railroad, and has its churches, small mercantile
establishments, and typical one- and two-room frame dwellings. Negro or-
chestras are in demand at white entertainments. The greater number of
inhabitants are employed as domestics and unskilled labor, and during the
tourist seasons many are in service at resort hotels as cooks, waiters, por-
ters, and bellboys.

The majority of estates on the eastern shore of the Halifax River have
their own piers and boathouses, and the river provides a basin for yachts,
houseboats, and small craft, as well as a course, south of the bridges, for
mothboat races held frequently throughout the year. Recreational and
community activities, however, are centered about Oceanfront Park, with
its spacious coquina rock stadium, concrete broadwalk, and privately op-
erated amusement pier.

In the business district of the oceanfront section of the city are many
retail shops that display curios, exciting bathing togs and appurtenances
to water sports. Daytona Beach is both a summer and winter resort,
and for practically twelve months of the year the sidewalks and streets
here are hosts to a throng of sun-tanned men and women with an occa-
sional sheepish, white-skinned newcomer arrayed in bright and scanty
beach regalia. Activities in this half-mile area present a colorful cross-
section of Florida's resort life.

Period architecture in the Daytona Beach territory is limited to private
residences. Although pseudo-Mediterranean types prevail, there are exam-
ples of the Italian Renaissance type with turned columns of polished na-
tive stone, and of Spanish Colonial design. Certain other traditional fea-
tures have been incorporated in the design of local buildings, such as the

DAYTONA BEACH 179

steep roofs, sturdy walls, wooden shutters, and massive chimneys of
French provincial types.

Concerts, musicals, festivals, and art exhibits are a large part of each
season's program. Since 1932 the city has conducted outdoor interdenomi-
national services of short sermons and congregational singing on the ocean
front each Sunday evening during the summer months. For Negroes, there
is a social and educational center at Bethune-Cookman College.

The city of Daytona Beach lies in the area known provincially as the
Halifax country, originally inhabited by the Timucuan Indians. Francis-
can friars established missions in the area about 1587 and converted many
to Christianity. In 1702 the English colonists, with their allies, the Creek
Indians, swept down from Georgia, destroying the missions and killing the
natives or taking them into slavery.

A dormant period followed until 1765, when the British settlers came to
take up plantations along the Halifax River. The Indians were friendly
and settlers prospered until the outbreak of the Revolution. The majority
of the English moved to the West Indies when Florida was ceded to Spain
in 1783, and their plantations, taken over by American pioneers during
the second Spanish and American territorial periods, failed because of
clashes with the Indians. Before 1821, through grants offered by Gov-
ernor Nespedes of St.Augustine, practically all the land in the vicinity of
Daytona was taken up by American colonists from Georgia. The majority
of the grants were for sugar plantations, but a few were given for the cut-
ting of timber.

Permanent settlement on the site of Daytona Beach began about 1870
when Mathias Day, of Mansfield, Ohio, bought a tract for $1,200, laid out
the original plat of the town, and named the settlement Daytona. Alfred
Johnson of New Jersey, who had preceded Day, built the first residence, a
log cabin, at the corner of First Avenue and North Beach Street. Among
the first large buildings was the Colony House, designed as a hotel to ac-
commodate settlers until they could build for themselves. Despite the ac-
tivity and enthusiasm of the pioneers, the town grew slowly, because of
limited transportation facilities.

Transportation in English times was principally by sea from Jackson-
ville, and by the Kings Road, but this highway was neglected and over-
grown at the beginning of the American territorial period. In 1876 a stage
road was opened west of Daytona to Volusia Landing, near DeLand, on
the St. Johns River, which shortened the route considerably. By 1881 a
ferry was established across the Tomoka River, n miles north of Day-
tona, connecting with the reconstructed Kings Road into St.Augustine.
Five years later the St. Johns and Halifax River Railroad was extended to
the Tomoka River. This stream, bridged in 1887, permitted the first train
to enter Daytona. The same year the Halifax River was spanned, making
the peninsula and ocean beaches more accessible.

Henry M. Flagler, who played an important part in the development of
the Florida east coast, extended his railroad south from St.Augustine in
1888 and purchased a large hotel at Ormond from John Anderson and
Joseph D. Price, its builders. Daytona took on a new lease of life with the

l8o EL GRID A

influx of winter visitors and soon had a population of 2,000. Although de-
veloped almost solely as a resort, the area is the center of a prosperous
citrus industry. The more recent growing of the papaya and the prepara-
tion of products made from this melonlike fruit is a flourishing industry.
This territory marks the approximate northernmost limits for its commer-
cial cultivation.

Up to 1914, Beach Street was a narrow shell road along the Halifax
River, fringed with tall pines and cabbage palms. In that year the sea wall
and esplanade were built and presented to the city by C.C.Burgoyne, a
pioneer resident.

Until 1926 the city of Daytona occupied only the west shore of the Hali-
fax River. On the opposite side lay Seabreeze and Daytona Beach, sep-
arate municipalities. During the boom period of 1924-26, Daytona and
the small community of Port Orange began wrangling over the annexa-
tion of the peninsula south of Daytona Beach. Landowners in the disputed
territory demanded that they be included in Daytona. This was done in
1924, and the Daytona confines were extended to the southern end of the
peninsula. Two years later Seabreeze and Daytona Beach voted for an-
nexation and the three cities, with a single municipal government, were
united under the name of Daytona Beach.

The magnificent ocean beach, 23 miles of white sand, 500 feet wide and
beaten to the smoothness and hardness of a pavement by incoming tides,
is internationally recognized as a natural motor speedway. Its modern his-
tory is linked with the development of the automobile, for pioneers of the
motor industry conducted speed trials here over a period of 35 years. The
first driver to break a world's record on the beach was Alexander Win ton,
who, in 1903, piloted his machine at the speed of 68 miles an hour. The
same year R.E.Olds drove a measured mile in one minute, six seconds.

In 1905 John Jacob Astor, William K. Vanderbilt, Henry M. Flagler,
Rollin White, and other wealthy racing enthusiasts and motorcar builders
were attracted to the spot. Henry Ford, at that time perfecting his car,
which he drove himself, was forced to withdraw from a race owing to lack
of funds for necessary repairs. In the next decade the names of L.Malford
Dusenberg, Jimmy Murphy, Ralph De Palma, H.O.D.Seagrave, and Bar-
ney Oldfield flashed on the racing horizon. Frank Lockhart and Lee Bible
met spectacular deaths while attempting to set new records. In March
1935 Sir Malcolm Campbell, the English sportsman, drove his Bluebird
along the measured mile at the rate of 276 miles per hour.

POINTS OF INTEREST

RIVERFRONT PARK, S.Beach St. between Orange and Fairview
Aves. and extending to the Halifax River, is a landscaped area planted
with Washingtonian palms, cedars, banana trees, and many native and
exotic flowers and shrubs. There is a drinking fountain in a colonnaded
Corinthian pavilion near the center of the park, and flowing artesian wells
provide water for lily ponds and a brook spanned by arched stone foot
bridges.

DAYTONA BEACH l8l

SUGAR MILL MACHINERY, on the lawn of a house at the SW. cor-
ner of S.Ridgewood and Loomis Aves., includes the flywheel and cylinder
of a large sugar mill of the early nineteenth century. The origin and own-
ership are undetermined, and it is not known how long it has been on the
site.

ST.PAUL'S ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, SW. corner N.Ridge-
wood Ave. and Cypress St., was built in 1927, Gerald Barry, Chicago,
architect. It is a buff stucco structure with red tile roof and dome designed
in a modified Spanish-Italian Renaissance style with a lace-paneled pecky-
cypress door framed by twisted columns of a composite order, topped with
finials, a broken pediment and a niched figure of St.Paul. The dome,
topped with a cupola and cross, dominates the Daytona Beach skyline.
The design of the two massive doors is based upon that of the portals of
the Basilica in Valencia, Spain. The church is the repository for a relic
of Saint Teresa, brought from Rome, which consists of a bone, a strand
of hair, and a fragment of the Saint's garments.

THE BETHUNE-COOKMAN COLLEGE (Negro), on both sides of
2nd Ave. between McLeod and Lincoln Sts., operated by the Methodist
Episcopal Church, has a campus shaded by moss-draped oaks and cab-
bage palms. Two- and three-story rectangular red brick buildings with
white-columned entrances house the various departments of the college.
The institution was founded in 1904 by Mary McLeod Bethune, a Negro,
as the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute for Girls, and became
co-educational in 1922 when merged with Cookman Institute. The latter
school was established in Jacksonville in 1872. Bethune-Cookman was the
first private school in Florida to offer Negroes an education above the ele-
mentary grades.

The college places special emphasis on Negro teachers' training, recog-
nized as one of the State's greatest needs. The institution was expanded
from a rented frame cottage to 14 brick and stucco buildings occupying
a 58-acre campus. There is a faculty of 30 and an average yearly enroll-
ment of 700 students.

OCEAN BEACH, on the eastern limits of the city, is a broad stretch of
sand and surf accessible from a number of streets on the peninsula. The
bathing zone between Silver Beach Avenue and University Boulevard is
protected by lifeguards, and has first aid and rescue facilities. The beach
is lined with wooden umbrellas painted red, yellow, blue, and green, con-
trasting vividly with the white sand. When the tide is low the beach is
popular for driving, and rows of cars park on the sand above the wide
driving area and the surf. Bicycles and motor scooters are popular convey-
ances, and colorfully clad bathers go far out on the gradually sloping shelf
of sand into the surf. The well-known Daytona Beach speedway is an n-
mile stretch, 500 feet wide at low tide, extending from Ormond Beach on
the north to Ponce de Leon Inlet on the south.

THE MUNICIPAL BROAD WALK, a concrete promenade 50 feet
wide and 1,680 feet long, extends along the beach front between Ora and
Main Sts. Amusement devices border the land side of the walk, and
steps lead down to the beach at intervals.

l82 FLORIDA

OCEANFRONT PARK lies below the street level between Ocean Ave.
and the Broadwalk. Landscaped with flowerbeds and palms and criss-
crossed with walks, the park contains a row of concession stalls under
Ocean Avenue, and facing the beach, sun shelters, and ornamental foun-
tains. At the northern end are a large coquina-rock bandshell and a sta-
dium seating 6,500. In the center of the park rises a tall, obelisk-shaped
clock tower. In place of numerals on the four faces of the clock dial, the
i2-letter name of Daytona Beach is spelled out. Residents often give an
alphabetical rendition of the time, saying: 'It is H after Y, J instead of the
conventional, '25 minutes after 12.' Pedestrian tunnels beneath Ocean
Avenue connect the park with several cross-street intersections.

The DAYTONA BEACH BOAT WORKS (open daily), 701 S.Beach
St., covering about 10 acres, contains a landlocked yacht basin, parkway,
machine shop, foundry, marine railway, and a dry dock accommodating
boats up to 600 tons. There are separate clubs for officers and sailors of
visiting yachts.

DAYTONA BEACH PIER (open 6 a.m.~7 p.m. daily; adm. including
museum 10^; for fishing 25), E. end of Main St., extends 1,200 feet into
the ocean. It has facilities for fishing and supports a casino where there Is
dancing Tuesdays and Saturdays. The MUSEUM on an upper floor has a
small collection of mounted Florida fishes, birds, and animals.

POINTS OF INTEREST IN ENVIRONS

Ormond Tropical Gardens, 5.9 m.j New Smyrna, 14.5 m.; Ponce de Leon Light-
house, 16.1 m. (see Tour ib).

Jacksonville

Railroad Station: Union Terminal, 1000 W.Bay St., for Atlantic Coast Line R.R., Sea-
board Air Line Ry., Southern Ry., Florida East Coast Ry., and Georgia-Southern and
Florida R.R.

Bus Stations: Union Bus Station, Bay and Hogan Sts., for Southeastern Greyhound
Lines, Florida Motor Lines, Mcjunkrn Bus Line, and Beach Motor Transit Co.; 16
N.Hogan St. for Pan- American Lines.

Airport: Municipal, 7 m. N. on US 17 for Eastern Air Lines and National Airlines, taxi
$1.25, i to 5 passengers, time 20 min.

Taxis: Jitney cabs, 10^ and upward according to distance and number of passengers;
meter cabs, 35^, i to 5 passengers in 3-mile zone.

Busses: Fare 8j, 3 tokens 20^, weekly 2o-ride pass $i, school children, 10 tickets 40^.
Piers: St Johns River, S. end of Liberty St. for Clyde-Mallory Line; 800 E.Bay St. for
Merchants and Miners Line.

Toll Bridge: S. end of Broad St. to S.Jacksonville and points S., autos 25^, pedestrians
iff, yearly tag $i, trucks according to tonnage.

Traffic Regulations: R. turns on red. One-way streets: E. on Forsyth, Monroe, and
Church Sts. ; W. on Adams, Duval, and Ashley Sts. Follow traffic lanes on Riverside
Viaduct and St, Johns River bridge approach.

Accommodations: 28 hotels, 3 for Negroes; tourist camps on US highways in environs;
rates higher during winter.

Information Service: Tourist and Convention Bureau, Hemming Park NE. corner
W.Monroe and Hogan Sts.; Jacksonville Motor Club, Windsor Hotel, Hogan and
W.Monroe Sts ; Jacksonville Tourist Club, Waterworks Park, ist and Main Sts.;
Florida State Hotel Assn., 224 W.Forsyth St.; Chamber of Commerce, 52 W.Bay St.
Radio Stations: WJAX (900 kc.); WMBR (1370 kc.).
Motion Picture Houses : 13 ; 3 for Negroes.

Swimming: Sunshine Pool, S. Jacksonville, foot of Flagler Ave.; Springfield Pool, 7th St.
and Blvd.; Stockton Pool, Stockton St. near McCoy's Creek, Riverside; Lackawanna
Pool, Lennox and Day Aves.; Jacksonville, Atlantic, and Neptune Beaches, 20 m., all
free: regular bus service, 25^.

Tennis: Boone Park, 3700 Park St.; Riverside Park, Gilmore St. between College and
Park Sts. ; Springfield Park, Perry and 4th Sts. ; Southside Park, Hendricks Ave. between
LaSalle and Cedar Sts. All $i membership fee, 30^ an hour daytime, 40^ at night.
Golf: Municipal Links, 1450 Golf air Blvd., greens fee 75^; Hyde Park Country Club, San
Juan Ave. and 64th St., greens fee 75^; Timuquana Country Club, Venetia, near Camp
Foster, greens fee $2; Ponte Vedra Country Club, Jacksonville Beach, greens fee $1.50;
San Jose Golf Course, San Jose Blvd., S. Jackson vflle, greens fee $i; all iS-hole courses.
Riding: Stables and riding school, 64th St., Lake Shore; Orange Park Rd. at Yukon.
Dog Races: McDuff Ave. N. of Beaver St., adm. 25^ Dec.-Apr.

Annual Events: Mid-winter Trap Shoots, Jan.; Flower Show, Apr.; Easter Sunrise Ser-
vices (Ribaut Monument, Mayport); Jacksonville Outboard Club Regatta, Apr. and
Sept.; Seminole Canoe Club, Ortega, tournaments and long distance trips in spring and
fall.

183

1 84 FLORIDA

JACKSONVILLE (25 alt., 129,459 pop.), the State's largest city and a
leading commercial center of the South Atlantic seaboard, is sometimes
referred to as a working son in the Florida family of playboys. It is in the
northeast corner of the State, where the St. Johns River turns eastward to
the Atlantic. This broad stream divides Jacksonville from South Jackson-
ville, and dictates the layout of business and residential sections. Span-
ning the river is one of the Nation's largest vertical-lift bridges. A viaduct,
branching west, leads above a web of railroad tracks to areas where land-
scaped estates extend to the water's edge. Eastward along the north bank,
where the river twists into a lazy S,' are five miles of wharves, terminat-
ing at municipal piers.

Within four blocks of the city's palm-fringed square, ocean liners, ba-
nana boats, globe-girdling freighters, and occasionally noble four-masted
schooners dock, and at the near-by fishhouse wharf, weatherbeaten smacks
and crab and shrimp boats discharge their cargoes. Purple flowering hya-
cinths clot the boat slips and basins, and out in midstream floating islands
of them from the upper reaches of the river sail down to sea. A dozen or
more streets of the business section, ending at the waterfront, afford a
maritime vista of gleaming superstructures, towering spars, and wind-
whipped flags of many nations.

Bay Street, paralleling the waterfront, was once a sandy trail lined with
pine shacks. Despite paving and other attempts at modernization, the
street retains much of the salty flavor that prevailed during the heyday of
Jacksonville's river traffic. Here are the city's older commercial structures,
and west of the bridge, where the street approaches the railroad terminals,
is a succession of bars, pawnshops, and upstairs hotels. Few of these build-
ings have stood more than a third of a century, for the fire of 1901 swept
away nearly all of this downtown area.

Rising from the waterfront is the modern business and shopping dis-
trict, a six-block square area of metropolitan stores, lofty hotels, and office
buildings that presents an impressive skyline. Yet within this section re-
main examples of once fashionable clapboard residences with dormer win-
dows and rambling galleries supported by wooden columns, now converted
into rooming and boarding houses. Many of their cramped yards are
bright with jasmine, dogwood, and crape myrtle; flowering gardens edge
brick walks, and coral vines and wisteria cover trellised nooks. Along some
downtown streets evergreen oaks, camphor trees, and native palms relieve
the stone and concrete backgrounds.

Plaques and tablets marking historic sites crop up unexpectedly on cor-
nerstones and at street intersections. Mendicants are more plentiful than
in tourist cities of Florida. Busses have replaced trolley cars, and an
anti-noise campaign is responsible for the neon 'quiet' sign that deco-
rates overhead traffic lights.

The city is awakened each morning at 7 o'clock by ' Big Jim,' a stentorian
whistle atop the waterworks. It also proclaims the noonday respite, sounds
again at five o'clock, and is a tocsin in times of disaster. The morning whistle
is broadcast by a local radio station. This powerful, copper chime whistle
was designed by John Einig and cast here in 1880 by James Patterson, for

JACKSONVILLE 185

whom it was named. Funds for its manufacture were raised by public sub-
scription through local labor unions, and it was donated to the city.

Main Street is a pioneer thoroughfare that marks the eastern boundary
of the business area. Traversing residential districts on the outskirts, it
runs between ramshackle buildings of faded brick and wood, threads a
short neon-lighted stretch of chain stores, and halts amid a clutter of
wharves and warehouses at the river. A boisterous street, its sidewalks are
thronged far into the night, when the more sedate avenues adjoining are
dim and deserted.

The more substantial Jacksonville homes are south and southwest of
the business district. Here, along quiet, oak-shaded streets, and in estates
where terraced lawns descend to the river bank, scarlet hibiscus and olean-
der hedges, trumpet vine, and purple bougainvillea drape brick walls and
gateways.

At the western rim of the business area, Broad Street, an avenue of mot-
ley shops, is the outpost of the slum district. It is a strip of US i ending at
the busy approach to the St. Johns River Bridge. A tall red-and-white
brick temple erected by the Negro Masonic order, the most imposing edi-
fice along the thoroughfare, contains offices of Negro professional men.
The Negro settlements, extending west from Broad Street, redeemed in
part by an extensive slum-clearance project, comprise a territory that rep-
resents less than 2 per cent of the city's 35-square-naile area.

Although the majority of local Negroes, 30 per cent of the total popula-
tion, are engaged in domestic service or supply the unskilled labor market,
others operate businesses that include restaurants, theaters, funeral estab-
lishments, and three insurance companies, one with assets of a million
dollars. Their many churches range from the store-front type, with a few
dozen worshippers, to a substantial edifice with a congregation of nearly
2,000. The Stanton High School has an average enrollment of 1,500 Ne-
groes and the Edward Waters College for Negroes provides advanced edu-
cational facilities. Brewster Hospital serves the city's Negro population.

Jacksonville has more than 450 industries producing as many different
commodities. The city has the largest naval-stores yard and the largest
wholesale lumber market on the Atlantic coast. It stands second on the
South Atlantic seaboard as a distribution port for petroleum products.
Having the world's largest cigar factory under one roof, it supplies a tenth
of all cigars consumed in America. Jacksonville also has the only dry-ice
plant and the only glass factory in Florida.

The boom had little effect upon the city; it remained financially sound
throughout depression years, and continues to be the banking center of
the State. Its docks, terminals, cotton compress, naval-stores warehouses,
and water and light plant are municipally owned. A towering sign over the
light plant urges civic-minded citizens to c Do It Electrically, 3 and a more
modest one above the City Hall doorway reminds passers-by that to cook
with electricity is the clean and economical way. In addition to furnishing
current at the lowest rate in Florida, profits of the $10,000,000 light plant
have averaged more than $i ,500,000 annually, making it possible to give the
city the lowest tax rate of any community of its size in the United States.

l86 FLORIDA

Jacksonville is a focal point of land, water, and air transportation in the
South. A hundred passenger trains enter and depart daily in the winter
season from the Union Terminal; 20 regularly scheduled commercial
planes and numerous transient planes land every 24 hours at the munici-
pal airport, and an average of 5 ocean-going and coastwise vessels tie up at
the river piers during the same period. Three Federal highways converge
at Jacksonville, and the greater number of tourists visiting the State pass
through the city or remain overnight before scattering to resorts more typ-
ical of Florida's advertising literature. Twice each year in early winter
when the sun-trek South begins, and in early spring when the tourist exo-
dus is under way Jacksonville plays overnight host to more than half a
million visitors. Shop windows display a limited amount of sporting togs,
but local people do not wear ' whites' in winter, although as near as
St. Augustine, 40 miles south, this is the custom.

The city operates an educational project known as the Jacksonville
Plan that has won wide repute. Through arrangements with employers
and parents, pupils in the two upper classes at high school may enter vari-
ous plants co-operating with the school. These apprentices, working 4
hours a day in a 5-day week, obtain practical training in chosen occupa-
tions under experts, but as the training is purely an educational project,
the pupils receive no salaries.

The city has the a capella choir of St. Johns Episcopal Church, the Fri-
day Symphony Orchestra, and a Choral Guild of 300 voices. The Civic
Music Association of more than 1,500 members offers a series of winter
concerts.

In the literary field, George Dillon, a native, was awarded the Pulitzer
prize in 1932 for his poem 'The Flowering Stone.' Harriet Beecher Stowe
wrote several accounts of the St. Johns River in the vicinity of Jackson-
ville, where she spent many winters after the War between the States, and
Stephen Crane was a resident during 1896, soon after publication of his
most successful novel, The Red Badge of Courage. One of his short stories,
'The Open Boat/ written here deals with his experiences in Florida. Promi-
nent among the local Negro writers are Thomas H. B. Walker, author of
Man without Blemish, and the late James Weldon Johnson, who wrote
many books and memoirs and poetry, the best known being the Autobio-
graphy of an Ex-colored Man, and the lyrics of ' Lift Every Voice and Sing/
a Negro anthem, nationally accepted, sung for the first time in Jackson-
ville, and written when he was principal of Stanton High School. His
brother J.Rosamond Johnson, composer of many musical-comedy scores,
and perhaps best known for his popular song, c Under the Bamboo Tree/
spent the early years of his life in the city. Paul Laurence Dunbar and
W.E.Dancer, Negro poets, were at one time Jacksonville residents.

The Florida Historical Society, originally organized in 1856, has for its
objective the preservation of all material pertaining to the history of the
State. The Society's library is in Jacksonville.

In 1816 Lewis Zachariah Hogans built a log cabin on his Spanish grant,
overlooking the St. Johns River, and the field he tilled is now the heart of
Jacksonville. In 1818, John Brady maintained a rowboat ferry across the

JACKSONVILLE 187

river at the foot of present-day Liberty Street, where, years before, cattle
were swum across the stream. This ford had been named Wacca Pilatka
(cows crossing over) by the Indians, but the spot was known as the Ferry
of St.Nicholas by the Spanish who in about 1740 built Fort St.Nicholas on
the south shore to guard the crossing. The English, however, called the
settlement Cowford, a name that persisted until 1822.

Taking advantage of the ford, the Kings Road, built in 1765 and lead-
ing from St.Augustine to Georgia, crossed the river at this point. Fort
St.Nicholas was burned in 1812 by the Patriots of Florida during their
operations against St.Augustine.

Upon the purchase of Florida by the United States in 1821, order was
restored in the province by General Andrew Jackson, Territorial Gov-
ernor. A section of Cowford on the north bank of the St. Johns River,
platted in 1822 by Isaiah D. Hart, his brother Daniel, and Zachariah
Hogans, was given the name of Jacksonville in honor of Florida's gov-
ernor, although the nearest Jackson ever came to the town was the Suwan-
nee River. Streets were laid out and named, but it was eight years before
the town claimed a population of 300. The city was incorporated in 1832,
but the charter was repealed in 1840, and until a new one was drawn n
months later, Jacksonville was without a city government.

The first newspaper, the short-lived Courier, appeared in 1835 with a
sentimental poem occupying the first column. Several proposed railroads
were incorporated, and although none was built, the town developed rap-
idly as a market for cotton and naval stores, and with the introduction of
the steam sawmill, lumber became an important industry.

The Seminole War followed a series of Indian depredations that ter-
rorized the Jacksonville area. Business was paralyzed, and to crown the
succession of disasters, a freeze in 1835, with the mercury dropping to 7
above zero, killed the orange groves of the St. Johns River section. At the
end of the war in 1842, a 20-year period of prosperity ensued. Steamship
lines inaugurated weekly services to Savannah and Charleston, and as
far up the St. Johns as Enterprise. The harbor, crowded with schooners
loading longleaf yellow pine for domestic and foreign markets, was de-
scribed as resembling a forest of towering masts, and Bay Street, with its
bars, gambling houses, and dance halls, patronized by roistering, hard-
bitten seafarers, became almost as notorious as San Francisco's Barbary
Coast.

While transportation by water flourished, a visitor stated that he saw
only two vehicles in the city, a dray and a secondhand hearse, each pulled
by aged mules and driven by a Negro. In 1851 the State legislature au-
thorized the construction of a plank toll road between Jacksonville and
Lake City, then known as Alligator. Prior to the building of a railroad to
that point, the sole means of transportation between Jacksonville and the
State capital at Tallahassee was by stage, a four-day journey.

At the outbreak of the War between the States, although having many
wealthy northern citizens, Jacksonville sympathies were largely with the
South, and when the State joined the Confederacy the local light infantry
was first to offer its services. Blockade runners made the city a base. On

l88 FLORIDA

four separate occasions Jacksonville was occupied for brief intervals by
Union forces. Upon withdrawal of the northern troops in 1863, refugees re-
turning to the city found their homes burned, trenches instead of streets,
and outlying farms desolate. All ferry and dock facilities were destroyed;
there was no commerce, no currency, no river transportation. At one time,
according to the report of a Union officer, the town had less than two dozen
inhabitants. During the Reconstruction period, however, Jacksonville grew
into a popular winter-resort city. The first theater and several large hotels
were built. The St. James, referred to as the Fifth Avenue Hotel of Florida,
opened in 1869, and 14 years later the first electric lights in the State were
installed on the premises 8 in the lobby and 8 outside. Population in 1870
reached 6,912, an increase of 300 per cent in a decade.

It was during this period that newspaper ventures showed signs of per-
manency, and predecessors of the two present Jacksonville dailies were es-
tablished. The early i88o's marked progress in the development of the
port of Jacksonville, when the channel was deepened and jetties built at
the mouth of the river, an undertaking aided by Federal funds and super-
vised by Government engineers. The volume of river traffic soared; by
1885 upwards of 74 vessels were in port service, accounting for an annual
business of $2,000,000. The peak value of bottoms and cargoes was esti-
mated in excess of $38,000,000.

It was not until 1883 that a railroad began operation southward from
the city. This was a narrow gauge line with a terminal on the south shore of
the St. Johns River, running a daily combination passenger and freight
train to St. Augustine. Until the completion of a bridge in 1890, passengers
from Jacksonville and northern points were ferried across the river.

Prior to the Spanish-American War, Jacksonville became a refuge for
many Cuban exiles. Filibustering vessels, among them the tugboat Three
Friends, repeatedly smuggled arms and men into Cuba, eluding U.S. Rev-
enue cutters and Spanish cruisers. Upon declaration of war, 40,000 Ameri-
can troops encamped near the city, and the river was mined as a precau-
tion against raids by enemy gunboats.

The city's greatest catastrophe, the fire of 1901, swept an area of 148
blocks, destroyed 2,368 buildings and left 9,000 homeless; but upon the
devastated area a new Jacksonville was built, and within a decade more
than $25,000,000 had been expended to replace the burned structures.
Rebuilding followed sounder standards of design and construction. The
city is predominantly one of single-family frame dwellings and there
is an absence of the hybrid type of architecture known as Florida-
Mediterranean.

In 1930 a city plan adopted by the council and still in force was judged
by the City Planning Experts' Board of the United States as one of four
outstanding in the Nation. Fifty-seven years of intensive work and ex-
penditure of $18,000,000 in dredging the river channel and basins have
made Jacksonville a great inland port. Its population more than doubled
between 1915 and 1937. Jacksonville's bonds sell on a par with Govern-
ment securities and its bonded indebtedness stands less than $80 per ca-
pita, a figure approached by no other city in the State.

JACKSONVILLE 189

POINTS OF INTEREST

1. HEMMING PARK, Hogan St. between W.Duval and W.Monroe Sts.
and extending to Laura St., is a block-square area planted with date,
Washingtonian, and cabbage palms, live oak and camphor trees, and land-
scaped with hardy shrubs and flowers. The curved walks, lined with green-
slatted concrete benches, converge at a central plaza from which rises a
tall CONFEDERATE MONUMENT, surmounted by the figure of a soldier,
given to the city by Charles G. Hemming in 1898, for whom the park was
named. Hemming was a member of the Jacksonville Light Infantry and
Third Regiment that encamped in the city during the War between the
States. Parking on Monroe Street and a portion of Hogan Street, opposite
the information booth, is reserved for out-of -State motorists.

2. JACKSONVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY (open 9-9 weekdays), NE. cor-
ner E.Adams and Ocean Sts., a limestone structure with a Corinthian fa-
fade, built in 1905, is the depository of 130,000 volumes, largest in the
State. The building was the gift of Andrew Carnegie. The library is noted
for its collection of Floridiana.

3. The SITE OF COWFORD, SE. corner Liberty and Bay Sts., is desig-
nated by a bronze marker on a metal pedestal against the Liberty Street
side of a red brick building. It denotes the site of the original settlement of
Jacksonville in 1790.

4. The MUNICIPAL STADIUM, Adams St. between Bridier and Haines
Sts. and extending to E.Monroe St., with concrete and steel-and-wood
bleachers, has a seating capacity of 21,000. The Jacksonville Choral Guild
of 300 voices holds outdoor oratorios and operas here.

The MUNICIPAL DOCKS AND TERMINALS, on the St.Johns
River between 8th and 2ist Sts., are distinguished by long galvanized steel
warehouses and railroad spurs running out on three piers 1,000 feet long
and 200 to 300 feet wide. Here freighters with round, tin rat guards clamped
on their cables lade and unlade cargo with cranes direct from railroad
cars. The place hums with the cheerful movements and shouts of scores of
Negro stevedores; gulls wheel about the broad, hyacinth-dotted river or fly
down screaming to pick up bits of food from brick pavements; there is the
clatter of cranes and winches, and the heavy impact of freight.

From the NAVAL STORES YARD, operated in connection with the docks,
there is the odor of resin from hundreds of gray barrels, and squat silver-
painted turpentine tanks are covered with loose-woven wire cages' to
safeguard them from lightning risk and doubled insurance rates.

The terminals are flanked by oil and gasoline company stations and
dotted with dark, greasy petroleum tanks, gasoline tanks aluminum-
painted to ward off the sun's heat and possible explosion, and row upon
row of tank cars; by molasses and fertilizer warehouses; a cypress lumber
yard, from which comes the pungent odor of freshly cut timber; piles of
rusty scrap iron; a pre-cooling plant for fresh fruit and vegetable carriers,
and white piles of sand in a dredge depot of the U.S. Engineers, whose duty
it is to maintain a 30-foot channel to the sea.

The docks and terminals, established in 191 5, operate their own railroad

JACKSONVILLE

2. Jacksonville Public Library

3. TheSiteofCowfard

4. The Municipal Stadium

6. The King Edward Cigar Factory

7. The Church of God and Saints of Christ

8. DurkeeviUe

9. The Bethel Baptist Institutional Church

10. Confederate Park

11. The Woman's Club

12. Memorial Park

13. The Riverside Baptist Church

191

IQ2 FLORIDA

system with 20 miles of tracks that have direct connection with all trunk
lines entering the city, a waterworks system, and a cotton compress capa-
ble of pressing 115 bales an hour. They also maintain a port and traffic bu-
reau to assist shippers and industries in obtaining equitable rates.

5. The NATIONAL CONTAINER CORPORATION PULP AND PA-
PER MILL (open 10-3 Tues. and Thurs.; free guide service), 4300 Talley-
rand Ave., occupying steel and concrete buildings, employs the Kraft pro-
cess in the manufacture from pine wood of brown wrapping paper, bags,
and containers (see Fernandina, Tour 30).

6. The KING EDWARD CIGAR FACTORY (open weekdays; guides),
459 E.I 6th St., is a flat-topped white factory-type building, its many win-
dows trimmed with green, and with aluminum-painted ventilators on the
roof. All cigars produced here are machine made.

The tobacco used for outside wrappers is moistened, placed under bur-
lap and left for 24 hours before passing through stripping machines that
remove stems and cut the leaves in half. These are bunched, the excess
moisture is removed, and they are sent to trained selectors who sort the
leaves according to color and quality. Filler tobacco is sweated under can-
vas for from 10 to 25 days, stemmed and halved, and packed into paraffin-
lined cases until the correct degree of evaporation takes place. This pro-
cess is known as 'casing.' The filler tobacco passes into a machine that
chops it into half -inch pieces, blows away the dirt and powder, and deliv-
ers clean tobacco to curing bins.

When properly seasoned, the filler is fed into a machine that measures it
into exact quantities to be bunched and wrapped with a filler wrapper; in a
second machine it is covered with an outside wrapper; then it is inspected,
banded, placed in a cellophane envelope, and boxed. Machine operators
are paid 8o< per thousand cigars. The factory output is more than 1,800,-
ooo cigars each 24-hour work period.

7. The CHURCH OF GOD AND SAINTS OF CHRIST (Negro), NW.
corner Stuart and igth Sts., a small white clapboard building with a red
roof, fronted by a yellow, blue, and red picket fence on a low brick wall,
more commonly called Crowdy Negro Church, is one of the many ' sancti-
fied ; churches of the South. Members call themselves saints and claim that
their doctrine of sanctification gives them power to speak with the un-
known tongue, to heal, and to prophesy. They believe in devils and attri-
bute every misfortune, disease, and bodily ill to 'the working of Satan. Rites
and ceremonies are performed, together with exorcisms and evocations to
drive out the evil spirit. All medical aid is taboo. Guitars, drums, and tam-
bourines are used during services, accompanied by the clapping of hands.
Intermingled are strange, unintelligible utterances known as ' speaking in
tongues.'

The Church of God was organized by a self-styled prophet, William S.
Crowdy, in 1908. A ' reverend } is in control and members are responsible
to him for every act. Meetings are held every night, and white visitors are
welcome.

8. DURKEEVILLE, main entrance NE. corner Myrtle Ave. and W.6th
St., is a 2o-acre low-rent, slum-clearance project for Negroes, undertaken

JACKSONVILLE 193

by the city in co-operation with the Federal Housing Administration. There
are 34 one- and two-story reinforced concrete houses with red tiled roofs and
concrete coal bins on each back stoop to provide fuel for cooking. Apart-
ments range from two to five rooms, with individual porches and yards. The
buildings cover less than 16 per cent of the ground area and ample space is
available for playgrounds.

9. The BETHEL BAPTIST INSTITUTIONAL CHURCH, NW. corner
Caroline and Hogan Sts., is the outstanding Negro church in the city. Of
Romanesque design, it is built of grayish-yellow concrete blocks and a
gray wooden belfry extends above the corner entrance to a black-shingled
spire. The initial branch of the first church of the Baptist denomination
was organized in Jacksonville in 1838 and was originally used by white and
Negro worshippers. Its first meetings were held in the Government ' Block
House, ' near the site of the courthouse on Forsyth and Market Streets. In
1840 a chapel was built at the northeast corner of Duval and Newnan
Streets, but this was sold to the Methodists in 1846. The fund purchased a
plot of two acres in LaVilla, a residential section, where a small brick
church was built. Pickets and outposts were stationed here during the War
between the States whenever Jacksonville was occupied by Federal troops.

During the Reconstruction period an attempt was made to exclude Ne-
groes from the organization. In court, it was decided that since the major-
ity of the parishioners were colored, the church and its name belonged to
them. As an aftermath, however, the Negroes sold the property to the
white people, and bought a lot at Main and Union Streets where they built
a frame building. In 1894 the church was incorporated by the State as the
Bethel Baptist Institutional Church with authority to carry on social
betterment and industrial training. It also has a publishing and tract-
repository department. The present building was erected in 1903 and
houses the second largest Negro congregation in the State.

10. CONFEDERATE PARK, Main and Hubbard Sts., bordering Hogans
Creek on the south, is planted with date and cabbage palms, cedars, mag-
nolias, and live oaks, and is landscaped with various shrubs and plants.
Green-slatted concrete benches and occasional pieces of statuary line the
winding walks. Swans and ducks swim on a small lake, and an island pro-
vides a sheltered nesting spot.

This site was the eastern end of Confederate trenches that extended to
the present Union Terminal. As many as 14,000 troops were encamped
here during the War between the States. On the west side of Main Street
is WATERWORKS PARK, containing the municipal light plant, studios of the
municipally owned radio station WJAX, a Tourist Center with shuffle-
board courts, and a miniature golf course.

11. The WOMAN'S CLUB, NE. corner Riverside Ave. and Post St., is a
two-story red brick Tudor-style vine-covered building with a steep-pitched
red roof, casement windows, and two half-timbered gables on the River-
side Avenue side. The entrance is on Post Street. In the rear of the building
a terraced lawn with marginal landscaping slopes down to the St. Johns
River.

12. MEMORIAL PARK, Riverside Ave. between Margaret St. and

IQ4 FLORIDA

Memorial Park Dr., and extending to the St. Johns River, has an opening
through the shrubbery on Riverside Ave. from which the winged WAR
MEMORIAL FOUNTAIN is visible, silhouetted against the blue water and dis-
tant shore of the St. Johns River. The fountain, designed by Adrian Pillars,
Jacksonville sculptor, has a winged bronze figure of a youth victorious,
holding aloft a branch of laurel on a globe where child and adult figures are
depicted caught in the terrestrial whirl.

The park has an open grassy center skirted by a circular promenade,
around which are planted oaks, date palms, magnolias, and shrubs. Be-
hind the fountain is a concrete balustrade and walk along the waterfront
lined with classic concrete benches.

13. The RIVERSIDE BAPTIST CHURCH (open 8-12 and 1-5 daily ex-
cept Tues. andFri. p.m.), SE. corner King and Park Sts., is an octagonal
structure of gray limestone blocks with a red tiled roof, embodying fea-
tures of Spanish and Byzantine architecture. The building was erected in
1925, and Addison Mizner was the architect. Gable wings extend from four
sides of the octagon, giving the structure the shape of a cross. The entrance
into the front gable, on King Street, is through heavy carved pecky-cypress
doors under a graven stone arch, above which is a series of three arched
blue windows. Two other entrances into the side gables are through cy-
press doors under large blue rosette windows. All windows, placed in deep
recesses in the thick walls, usually in groups of three, are of blue glass. The
effect inside is that of calm blue light diffused from a great height over or-
derly pews. The only departure from the scheme of blue is a trinity of yel-
low windows on either side of the rear gable, that cast a golden light upon
the choir, enclosed behind iron grillwork back of the pulpit. The central
chandelier, copied from one in the Santa Sophia Mosque in Istanbul, has
blue glass, to produce the same lighting effect by night as by day. Tile for
the floors was brought from an ancient Spanish Cathedral.

14. ORIENTAL GARDENS (open 9-5:30 daily; adm. 40ji), 2 San Jose
Blvd., includes 18 acres of brilliant sub tropical plan tings along the St. Johns
River. Pools and winding streams reflect the massed colors of the many
flower beds, and bridges, arches, and garden ornaments carry out the idea
of a Chinese garden. The citrus grove here is the nearest spot to Jackson-
ville where visitors can see orange trees in fruit and bloom.

POINTS OF INTEREST IN ENVIRONS

Mandarin, 13 m. (see Tour ia); Jacksonville Beaches, 18.6 m.; Ribaut Monument
22.5 m.', Mayport, 23.3 m. (see Tour ia) ; Jacksonville City Zoo, 5.9 m.\ Fort George
Island, 21 Am. (see Tour 20).

Key West

Bus Station : Southard and Bahama Sts. for Florida Motor Lines.

Airport: Pan- American Airport, 3 m. NW. on S.Roosevelt Blvd. for Pan American Air-

ways,Inc.; taxi 25^.

Taxis: 25^ per passenger, anywhere in city.

Piers: Trumbo Island for Peninsula & Occidental (P. & O.) Steamship Line.

Accommodations: 5 hotels; rooming and boarding houses; rates higher Dec. to Apr.
Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, La Concha Hotel, Fleming and Duval Sts.

Motion Picture Houses: 2.

Swimming: Yacht Basin Pier, S. end of Southard St.; pier off Roosevelt Blvd.N.; Rest

Beach S. end of White St.; South Beach, S. end of Duval St.; Nelson English Beach

(Negro), S. end of Whitehead St.; all free.

Tennis: Bayview Park, Division St. and North Beach, free daytime, small fee nights.

Golf: Key West Municipal Course, Stock Island, 5 m. E, on State 4A, 9 holes, greens

fee $i.

Shuffleboard: Eaton and Simon ton Sts., free; Jackson Square, Whitehead and Angela

Sts., free.

Fishing'. All bridges of the Overseas Highway; steamship docks. Deep-sea charter boats,

Yacht Basin, S. end of Southard St.

Annual Events: El Grito de Yara (Cuban Independence Day), Feb. 24; La Semana
Alegre (Week of Joy) Feb.

KEY WEST (7 alt., 12,831 pop.), the southernmost city in the United
States, 100 miles off the Florida mainland, occupies a coral island barely
four miles long and less than two miles wide, lying between the Atlantic
Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Other keys are visible from the eastern end
of the city, low emerald islands in a shimmering, painted sea beneath
high-piled lavender clouds. Steamers and other craft work their way
through the old Nor'west Channel, a charted course taken for centuries.
Much of the vegetation that grows on the island sapodilla, banyan, tama-
rind, East Indian palm, frangipani, night-blooming cereus, and a host of
others sprang from seed brought through this channel by seafaring men
from far ports of the world. The natural, deep-water harbor is lined with
sponge and fish docks, with turtle crawls and markets. Launches, dories,
and sturdy smacks of commercial fishermen tie up here, often alongside
battle cruisers and liners at anchor.

The sea is an ever-present consideration, yet most of the island is cut
off from it by the f enced-in area around West Martello Tower and by the
private hotel grounds and beach on the south; by the Fort Taylor fortifi-
cations on the west; by the Naval Station on the northwest; and by the
docks and abandoned railroad terminal on the north. The city's skyline is

I9S

IQ6 FLORIDA

low, broken only by two groups of tall radio towers, a large hotel, and the
buff cone of a lighthouse.

North and South Roosevelt Boulevards, wide connecting drives planted
with palms, rim the island on the east, affording beautiful marine views.
Both of these, and Flagler Avenue between them, lead into the downtown
area. Duval Street, the main business thoroughfare and the only one com-
pletejy traversing the island, might be taken as a symbol of Key West. It
extends northward from a bathing pier in the Atlantic Ocean through a
combined business and residential section, and terminates at a steamship
pier in the Gulf of Mexico. At each end of the street a sign reads: 'Stop!
Thru Traffic! 5

Streets in the business section are almost deserted during the heat of
day, houses are shuttered, and dogs sleeping on the sidewalks are not dis-
turbed by detouring pedestrians, none of whom is ever in a hurry. The ice-
man rings a bell to announce his approach (his product is made of distilled
sea water), and occasionally an automobile, a bicycle, or a motor scooter
passes, though deep-guttered intersections discourage rapid movement
from one street to another. Before completion of the highway, a mule-
drawn mail wagon met incoming and outgoing planes, boats, and busses,
and between times resumed its regular schedule of hauling sponges. The
downtown section comes to life on Saturday nights. Townspeople throng
the streets and mingle with the fishermen who have come in for supplies
and amusement. Inspired Negro Saints ' carry on revival meetings at cor-
ners, and there is more than a hint of the Spanish promenade as men
gather along the walks, their eyes following the ladies as they pass. Open-
front cafes, coffee houses, and bars, nearly all erupting music, invite pa-
trons. Many of these places have rear swinging doors labeled 'Club in
Rear/ and embellished with an ace of clubs or a pair of dice.

Restaurants, nearly all owned by Cubans, feature Cuban- American cook-
ing, and specialize in seafoods. Turtle steaks, conch steaks, and stews are
popular foods, as are bolichi roast (beef stuffed with hard-boiled eggs),
alcaporado (beef stew prepared with olives, raisins, and other ingredients),
black bean and garbanzo soups, and arroz con polio (chicken with yellow
rice). Other dishes are stuffed chaotas, baked and fried plantains, preserved
guavas, and baked guava duff with hard sauce. Since the island furnishes
little forage for cows, and supports but one dairy and a flock of goats,
evaporated milk is usually served.

There are no tearooms in Key West, but coffee shops are everywhere,
serving black, sweetened coffee and buttered, hard-crusted bread that
comes from the oven in two-foot loaves. Coffee is drunk at all hours of the
day and night, not much at a time un buchito just a swallow. These
shops are social institutions; here newspapers and magazines are read,
problems of the day are discussed, and local gossip is exchanged.

Its isolation on the last of Florida's inhabited keys and its proximity to
the West Indies have given Key West characteristics of friendliness and
leisure, and tempered it with the Latin approach to life; the inhabitants
are congenial and curious, ready with smile and conversation in a com-
munity where it is normal for everyone to know everyone else. The city

KEY WEST IQ7

is made up of a conglomeration of races speaking English and Spanish,
each influenced by Negro dialects. Among the merchants, commercial
fishermen, and artisans, are descendants of settlers who migrated here
chiefly from Virginia, the New England States, and the West Indies.
About one-fourth of the population is descended from Cubans and Span-
iards that arrived with the establishment of the cigar factories in the
i86o's, and from refugees of the Cuban Revolution of 1868 and 1898. Key
West 'Conchs' are the offspring of two groups of cockney English; one
group migrated to the Bahamas from London in 1649, another moved
from Florida to the Bahamas when Spain regained Florida in 1783. De-
scendants of these two groups emigrated to the Florida Keys during the
early iSoo's when marine salvaging and fishing became profitable. Both
white and Negro immigrants from the Bahamas speak with a cockney ac-
cent and use cockney words and phrases. The Negro population, confined
to a section west of Duval Street, is almost wholly of Bahama origin, with
a few immigrants from Cuba. Since slavery was abolished in the British
territories long before it ended in the United States, there are few ex-
slaves on the islands. Most of the Negroes are employed in fishing and tur-
tle industries, and in domestic service, though some collect and sell large,
rose-pink conch shells.

Houses in Key West differ little from those of the island's first settlers
pirates and seamen of foundered vessels who built homes similar to those
they had seen in New England, New Orleans, or in the Bahamas. They
used materials found close at hand salvaged lumber, occasionally cedar
and hardwoods from the upper keys and Cuba, and pine from Pensacola.
Masonry made its appearance in 1844 when schooners arrived with great
cargoes of brick and cement for the construction of Fort Taylor.

Then as now, the local builder, ever mindful of hurricanes, built
staunchly. The typical Key West house, a one-and-a-half story frame
structure put together with mortise and tenon joints, and secured by pegs
and trenails, is anchored deep in the native coral rock. None has a base-
ment because of the solid rock beneath the topsoil. Few are painted, for
paint does not last long in the tropics. Roof area is of prime importance
because the city depends solely on rain for its drinking water, as that ob-
tained from drilled wells is brackish. Many houses have roofs with two
and even three combs, and every inch of roof space is drained into pipes
leading to backyard cisterns. Most houses have slatted shutters, which re-
main closed to keep out the glare, the slats permitting a free current of air.
Many of the older houses were ceiled with wooden panels, and some of
the interior trim is from cabins of ships wrecked on the near-by reefs.

Houses on the northern end of the island were constructed during the
era of the city's greatest prosperity. Here wealthier citizens, some of them
shipmasters, exceeded the average modest story-and-a-half dwelling and
built dignified two- and three-story structures, often topped with a look-
out platform or mirador. Two-story porches frequently extend around
three sides of these houses.

It is probable that Ponce de Leon sighted Key West in 1513 when sail-
ing south along the islands after landing in the vicinity of St.Augustine.

198 FLORIDA

Other early Spanish adventurers threaded the maze of keys during that
century, and named this island Cayo Hueso (Bone Key), because of the
numerous human bones found here. Legend attributes the presence of
these bones to a warring Indian tribe that pursued enemies over the Flor-
ida Keys and slaughtered them, leaving their skeletons to bleach in the
hot sun. The island was later occupied by pirate crews that infested the
neighboring seas, and by fishermen supplying Cuban markets, but the
small settlement at Key West was abandoned when Florida fell into Eng-
lish hands in 1 7 63 .

Florida again became a Spanish possession in 1783, and in 1815 the
King of Spain gave this island to Juan Pablo Salas, a young artillery offi-
cer of StAugustine, for services rendered the Crown. Eight years later
Salas sold it to John W. Simonton, an American, and in the same year the
Government sent Commodore David Porter with his f mosquito fleet^to
rout buccaneers from the keys. Following his successful campaign, families
from New England, Virginia, and South Carolina settled here, along with
many Tories who had fled to the Bahamas during the American Revolution.

About this time many inhabitants turned to salvaging cargoes froin ves-
sels wrecked on outlying reefs, and ships were said to have been deliber-
ately lured to destruction by false flares and beacons. A U.S. superior
court, established on the island in 1828, issued salvage licenses, ruled that
a cargo belonged to the first salvage crew reaching a doomed ship, and
tried cases involving salvage questions. Wrecks boomed the town; profes-
sional 'wreckers 7 who had previously taken their cargoes from American
waters to Nassau and Havana courts now made their headquarters here.
Buyers came to bid on merchandise salvaged from ships lost on the reefs.
In years of severe storms, salvage receipts often reached $1,500,000. Erec-
tion of Federal lighthouses (the first in Key West was built in 1825)
brought aid to mariners and gradually diminished this business.

The U.S. Naval Station was enlarged during the Mexican War of 1846-
48; construction of Fort Taylor was begun on the island, and that of Fort
Jefferson, 60 miles west on Dry Tortugas. At the beginning of the War be-
tween the States the Government fortified Key West with the two Mar-
tello Towers. Local citizens were strong Confederate sympathizers, but
the city, like other port towns of Florida, was held by Federal forces
throughout the war. Nearly 300 blockade runners were captured, brought
here, and tried in the admiralty court during this time.

Key West had become the world's largest cigar manufacturing center
by 1870; and many Cuban patriots who fled to Key West prior to the
Spanish-American War were employed in the factories. A cable was laid
to Cuba in 1866; nuns opened a girls' school two years later, and a public-
school system was established to supplement private instruction. The city
had a population of 10,000 in 1880, which during the next decade grew to
i8;ooo. Fire destroyed half of Key West in 1886, including Vicente Mar-
tinez Ybor's large cigar factory. This plant subsequently moved to Tampa
where there existed a stable water supply, better transportation facilities,
and some tax exemptions for factory owners.

During the Spanish-American War, Key West again became an impor-

KEY WEST 199

tant naval base. News of the sinking of the battleship Maine was brought
by motor launch from Cuba and sent to American newspapers from Key
West. Many of the dead and wounded were brought here, and an Amer-
ican fleet impatiently awaited sailing orders.

The Overseas Extension of the Florida East Coast Railway, a romantic
engineering feat, completed in January 1912, linked Key West and inter-
vening keys with the mainland. Freight trains were transported by ferry
from the terminals to Havana; trade with Cuba thrived, and a year later
Key West's population reached 22,000.

The World War added to the city's importance as a naval base. Patrol
vessels, submarines, planes, and dirigibles were stationed here. Thomas
Edison carried on extensive experiments near by with depth bombs.
Throughout the prohibition era, with Cuba only 90 miles away, rumrun-
ners played hide and seek with Government agents, and exciting chases
recalled the activities of slave traders and hijackers of earlier years.

Trade with Cuba fell off rapidly after tie Armistice, and only a few
minor cigar factories continued operation. Steamship lines dropped the
city as a port of call; increased tariff on Cuban pineapples closed local can-
ning factories; the depression years soon destroyed markets for fish pro-
ducts, the sponge fishing industry was not entirely revived, and the tourist
business vanished. Garrisons of the Naval Station and Army Post were re-
moved, and the Coast Guard headquarters were transferred to St.Peters-
burg.

Whereas in the 1 830*3 Key West was adjudged the richest city per ca-
pita in the United States, in 1934 it was bankrupt. There were no funds in
the treasury, no market for its bonds, and public officials were unpaid. In
July of that year the city council passed a resolution petitioning the Gov-
ernor of Florida to declare a state of emergency for Key West. Because
approximately 80 per cent of the inhabitants were on relief rolls, the Gov-
ernor authorized the Florida Emergency Relief Administration to attempt
rehabilitation of the stranded community. A program was originated
whereby Key West was to be made the American winter resort of the trop-
ics, competing with Bermuda and Nassau. Citizens volunteered and actu-
ally contributed 2,000,000 man hours of labor; streets were cleaned,
beaches developed, adequate sanitation provided, houses renovated and
redecorated. Hotels, long shuttered, were reopened, and fetes were devised
to attract visitors.

This program, hailed as one of the Nation's most interesting experi-
ments in community planning, made the city a proving ground for Gov-
ernment-sponsored cultural projects. FERA artists, transferred from other
sections, covered walls of public buildings, cafes, and night clubs with
murals, and recorded upon canvas and copperplate the manifold life of the
island community. Classes in handicraft were organized to teach persons
on relief new ways of livelihood through use of native raw materials. These
products, on sale at a number of shops, include ash trays, buttons, buck-
les, and pins carved from the hard shell of coconuts; palm-fiber hats,
purses, and rugs; novelties made from shells and fish scales, and Spanish
drawnwork.

200 E L R T D A

Pageants and operas were presented under the auspices of the Relief
Administration; unemployed writers produced descriptive literature de-
signed to attract the more conservative visitors who passed through on
their way to the Bahamas. A housing service provided quarters for new-
comers and arranged every detail from hiring servants and stocking pan-
tries to preparing and serving the first meal. Forty thousand persons vis-
ited Key West the following winter.

Just as Key West seemed on the road to financial recovery the Labor
Day hurricane of 1935 swept across the upper section of the keys, and
though the city was unharmed, miles of the Overseas Railway tracks were
destroyed, and much of the highway that paralleled parts of it was washed
away. The railway company, already in receiver's hands, abandoned the
extension and moved its ferries to Port Everglades near Fort Lauderdale;
the island's commercial fishing industry, lacking quick transportation to
mainland markets, was ruined. . .

Proposals for the Overseas Highway were resumed in order to eliminate
ferry service established by the State and in 1936 the railway's right-of-
way was taken over by the Monroe County Toll Bridge Commission.
Utilizing long spans over which Flagler took his railway to sea, the system
of highways and bridges, opened to traffic in 1938, brought the city within
five hours of Miami by motor.

POINTS OF INTEREST

1. SPONGE PIER, N. end of Grinnell St. (auction sales 9 a.m. Mon., Wed.,
Fri.\ is the headquarters for sponge dealers. Key West fishermen take
sponges by grappling only. They assert that the Greek divers who for-
merly operated in this territory spoiled the beds by walking over them
with weighted shoes, and add, without being asked, that no divers are
permitted in these waters. The sponge dock is a lively place during its
thrice-weekly auctions, recalling the 9o's and before, when all commodi-
ties entering Key West were sold at auction.

2. The TURTLE CRAWLS (open daily), N. end of Margaret St., a row of
pens built in the water beside a dock, normally contain large numbers of
sea turtles. Butchering takes place at 8:30 a.m. from Monday to Thursday
inclusive. Near by is a factory and cannery for preservation of turtle meat
and soup. The animals are caught principally off the coast of Central
America and brought to Key West on boats manned by natives of the
Grand Cayman. Many of the turtles are estimated to be more than 100
years old, and weigh up to 300 pounds,

3. The FISH MARKETS, N. end of Elizabeth St., line the waterfront.
Each has its wharf, and tied to the various docks are crates called 'fish
cars.' Here fish are netted, killed, and dressed in the buyer's presence.

4. The AQUARIUM (open 7-6:30 daily; adults ISff, children 5), N. end of
Whitehead St., was built with CWA and FERA funds. Brilliantly-colored
tropical fishes are on display in tanks, lighted and heated by the sun,
through which salt water is pumped. The rare guitar fish can sometimes be
seen here, and in contrast with the vividly colored tropical fishes are octo-

KEY WEST 201

puses, sea turtles, sting rays, morays, and little purple Portuguese men
o'war with their trailing stingers. Northern aquariums and dealers send to
Key West for specimens. The aquarium has two murals of fishermen by
Alf red D. Grim.

5. U.S. NAVAL STATION (open 8-4:30 daily; no cameras allowed), en-
trance W. end of Greene St., is distinguished from a distance by its three
orange and black radio towers. The base operates a radio station, a fueling
port for destroyers, and has various naval impedimenta in shops and on
wharves. The station grounds are planted with many tropical trees and
shrubs, all of them labeled. In the past, naval officers brought plants from
Panama, Guam, Hawaii, and the Philippines and set them out here.

6. KEY WEST LIGHTHOUSE (open daily, dawn to sunset), Whitehead
and Division Sts., a conical stuccoed brick tower with a lantern of 11,000
candlepower, has a light that is visible for 15 miles. It is said to be the only
lighthouse in the United States entirely within the city limits of a commu-
nity; an excellent view of Key West is obtained from its railed balcony. It
was constructed in 1846 after a storm had washed away the first light,
built in 1825 on Whitehead Spit where Fort Taylor now stands.

An AVIARY AND TROPICAL ARBORETUM is maintained on the grounds as
a hobby of the lighthouse superintendent. Under a spreading India rubber
tree are a sand pile for children and benches for those who want to linger
in the cool shaded grounds. The plants include a cork tree, a wishbone
tree with rounded green stems that branch somewhat like wishbones, a
ribbon plant with many roots reaching out at odd angles; many kinds of
cacti, West Indian almond, and other tropical plants. Most of the birds,
some kept in a tall cage built over low trees, are native to the keys and
Cuba. It is said that the only English sparrows in Key West frequent this
vicinity.

7. The ERNEST HEMINGWAY HOUSE (private), SE. corner Olivia
and Whitehead Sts., is a two-story white stucco residence with a fiat roof
and one of the few chimneys in Key West. Double porches have iron grill-
work around three sides, and an outside green staircase ascends to the
second-story porch. The arched windows are fitted with yellow slatted
shutters. A high wall encloses the landscaped premises. Built shortly after
the War between the States, it is one of the" older houses in the city. The
author, whose novel To Have and Have Not has a Key West background,
is the present occupant (1939).

8. FORT TAYLOR (open 2-4 Sun. and Wed., other days by permission of
adjutant; no cameras allowed), entrance W. end of United St., is a Coast
Guard base with artillery mounted behind fortified ramps. Begun in 1844
and completed two years later, it was held by Union forces during the War
between the States.

9. The HARRIS HOUSE (private), S. end of Duval St., an ornate red-
brick structure with a tower, veranda, and second-story balcony, is the
southernmost home in the United States.

10. The PUBLIC LIBRARY (open 3-6 daily), Duval SL between Vir-
ginia and Division Sts., housed in a white frame building, is operated by
the Key West Woman's Club.

202

203

204 FLORIDA

11. SAN CARLOS INSTITUTE PATRIOTIC Y DOCENTE, Duval

St. between Southard and Fleming Sts., a two-story stucco building, was
erected by the Cuban Government in 1924 and named in honor of^ Carlos
Manuel de Cespedes, Cuban patriot. The Palace Theater occupying the
ground floor was formerly the Cuban Opera House. On the second floor,
interesting for its majolica tilework, are the offices of the Cuban consul,
and a grade school maintained by the Cuban Government as part of the
Cuban school system. Instruction is given in Spanish with the exception
of one course, which is conducted by a teacher paid from Monroe County

funds. ^

12. The WATLINGTON HOUSE (private), Duval St. between Eaton and
Caroline Sts., is a weathered and shuttered story-and-a-half house with^a
porch across the front and three dormers, each of different size. Built in
1825, it is said to be the oldest house in Key West. The wood used in its
construction is cedar, probably from Cuba. It was built by Captain Cous-
ins, who sold it to Francis Watlington, captain of the schooner Activa,
which ran between Dry Tortugas, Key West, and Cuba. In about 1832 the
house was moved on rollers from its original site on Whitehead Street to
its present location, and anchored to stone and cement piers. Mrs. Wat-
lington brought her furniture and accessories from the Bahamas, and
most of them are still in the house, ownership of which remains in the
family. There is an old red-brick oven in the backyard.

13. DELMONICO'S GRAND SPANISH RESTAURANT, 218 Duval
St., has a series of murals by Stanley Wood, Miami artist local land-
scapes and seascapes, with colorful cloud effects characteristic of the keys,
and vivid tropical plants in the foreground.

14. The BAHAMA HOUSES (private), SW. corner Eaton and William
Sts., stand side by side. These houses were originally erected on Green
Turtle Key, Bahama Islands, by Captain Joe Bartlum and Captain Dick
Roberts, in the early nineteenth century. When the two families moved to
Key West and found building materials scarce, the houses were taken
apart, loaded aboard a schooner, brought to Key West, and reconstructed
on the present site. They are built entirely of white pine. Although unpre-
tentious they have the dignity and comfort of the provincial Georgian-
type home. Different from most Key West buildings are the low ceilings,
but typical of the city's architecture are the delicate balustrades on the
porches, the large shuttered openings, and the roofs with twin gables.

15. KEY WEST CEMETERY, entrance Margaret St. at Passover Lane,
oldest of the city's burial grounds, has plots fenced in with wooden pickets.
A wooden bench stands in one corner of each plot, and often there is a
pump to bring up water for flowers. Some burial plots are covered with
smooth-swept white sand. In one section of the cemetery many of the
crew of the U.S.S. Maine are interred; and in ano therms a monument to
Cuban patriots who lost their lives in the Spanish-American War.

16. WEST MARTELLO TOWER (not open to public), waterfront be-
tween Reynold and White Sts., is all that remains of a U.S. Army^ Coast
Defense, one of two circular brick forts begun in 1861. Authorities differ as
to the origin of the name. Some claim it is derived from the Italian mar-

KEY WEST 205

Oj or hammer, used to strike an alarm; others say the tower was named
for a fort of this kind built on the coast of Corsica in the late 1 790^5.

17. EAST MARTELLO TOWER (open by arrangement at airport),
S.Roosevelt Blvd., most imposing of Key West's old forts, was begun in
1 86 1. Some of the Irish bricklayers who worked on the masonry settled in
the town.

18. RAUL'S CLUB, S.Roosevelt Blvd., E. of East MarteUo Tower, has a
series of murals by A very Johnson in the main ballroom, depicting native
dances of Africa, China, Cuba, and other nations. In the rear of the club
building is a marine garden where many types of seashells and other speci-
mens are displayed. A pool adjoining the garden contains fish that take
food from the visitors' fingers and in some cases permit themselves to be
stroked and removed from the water.

POINTS OF INTEREST IN ENVIRONS

FORT JEFFERSON (open; reached by chartered boats only; no accom-
modations), a ghost prison fortress, occupies 16 acres on Garden Key, one
of a group of low-lying coral and sand bars known as Dry Tortugas, 60
miles west of Key West. Ponce de Leon first sighted the archipelago in
1513 on his voyage around the peninsula. Later, retracing his course, he
landed and christened the keys Las Tortugas because of numerous turtles
in adjacent waters. Surrounded by jagged reefs and shoals, and almost in-
accessible, the islands were for three centuries the lair of pirates and smug-
glers. When the Tortugas were ceded to the United States with the rest of
Florida in 1819, Garden Key was reserved for military purposes, because
of its strategic position in the Gulf of Mexico, and in 1846 the Government
began construction of the mammoth hexagonal, three-tiered, casemated
fortification a citadel intended to outrival all others.

Obstacles in the fort's construction were almost insurmountable. Ships,
money, and cargoes were lost in making the hazardous i,5oomile voyage
from eastern seaports; workmen were difficult to obtain, and few, except
Negro slaves, were able to withstand the tropical heat, disease, and poor
food. The site was swept again and again by hurricanes. Temporary build-
ings were erected, and a section of the luxurious officers' quarters, three
stories high, was partially completed, but the main structure was not be-
gun until 1851. The outside walls were 5 feet thick, and each of the hex-
agonal sides 450 feet long and 60 feet high. The massive foundations
rested on coral rock 10 feet below sea level.

A moat, 70 feet wide and 30 feet deep, open to the sea and infested by
sharks and savage barracudas, encircled the fort. By 1865 the curtains and
terreplein were carried to the point evident today. It is estimated that
40,000,000 bricks were used, at a cost of $i each for transportation alone.
Two hundred and forty-three large caliber guns were mounted, but not
one of them was ever fired.

Among the fort's noted prisoners at the conclusion of the War between
the States, were Dr.Samuel A. Mudd and three others charged with com-
plicity in the assassination of President Lincoln. Although Mudd's

206 P L R I D A

acquaintance with John Wilkes Booth was purely casual, his act of setting
the assassin's broken leg resulted in a life sentence. He was pardoned in
1869.

Neglected, stripped by vandals, swept by repeated tropical storms that
crushed brick and concrete and bent steel girders, Fort Jefferson deteri-
orated rapidly. It remained unoccupied until 1898 when war with Spain
was imminent. The American fleet was stationed here and the battleship
Maine sailed from the fort for Havana.

In 1902 the property was transferred to the Navy Department, and
coal rigs and water distilling plants were built. When these were destroyed
by hurricanes in 1906, the fort was again abandoned. Two years later the
entire group of islands was set aside as a Federal bird reservation. Until
1934 Garden Key and its crumbling ruins were merely a rendezvous for
fishermen and tourists. In January 1936 President Roosevelt gave the fort
the official status of Fort Jefferson National Monument and placed it un-
der supervision of the National Park Service.

The TORTUGAS LABORATORY (private), Garden Key, maintained
by the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C., was founded in 1907 by
Dr.Alfred Goldsboro Mayor. Here each Bummer marine biologists and
other scientists study the life of the coral reef, and the results of their in-
vestigations are published in the fall.

On Loggerhead Key, two and one-half miles west of Fort Jefferson, is
LOGGERHEAD LIGHTHOUSE, said to be a greater distance from the
mainland than any other light in the world.

Greater Miami

Railroad Stations: 200 NW.ist Ave. for Florida East Coast Ry.; 2210 NW.yth Ave. for
Seaboard Air Line Ry. ; both in Miami.

Bus Stations: Union Bus Station., 275 NE.ist St., for Florida Motor Lines, Greyhound,
and Tamiami Trail Tours; 301 E.Flagler St., for Pan American Bus Lines; all in Miami.
2202 Ponce de Leon Blvd., Coral Gables, for Florida Motor Lines.
Airports: 2500 S.Bayshore Drive for Pan American Airways, taxi $1.15, bus from
Columbus Hotel, Biscayne Blvd. and NE.4th St., 45 minutes before each plane depar-
ture, 50^; 7 m. on NW.36th St for Eastern Air Lines, taxi $1.50, time 30 minutes. Vene-
tian Causeway, and NW-36th St. and NW.42nd Ave. Miami, and 380 Alton Road,
Miami Beach, for charter land and seaplanes. Blimps leave County Causeway, Miami,
for 2o-minute trips daily, adults $3, children $1.50.

Taxi: Miami, 15^ for first J m., 5^ each additional J m. Miami Beach, 15$ for first
-J m , 5( for each additional -J- m. Coral Gables, 15^ for first J m., $ for each additional
| m. Jitney cabs to Miami Beach, io and 1 5 jf . *

City Busses: Miami, iojf; Coral Gables, $ } to Miami Beach, iojf.

Streetcars: Miami, 5^ in city, ioji to Miami Beach. Transfers from streetcar to bus only
in Miami Beach and the NW.7th St. bus in Miami.

Steamship Piers: NE.ioth St. for Clarke S.S.Co. to Nassau, Clyde-Mallory S.S.Co. to
New York, Jacksonville, and Galveston, and P. & O. Steamship Line to Key West and
Havana; E. end of NE.i2th St. for Merchants & Miners Line to Jacksonville, Savannah,
Norfolk, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston; E. end of NE.pth St. for Munson Line
to Havana, Nassau, and New York; all in Miami.

Ferry: S. side County Causeway to Fisher Island, U.S. Quarantine Station, and W.K.
Vanderbilt Estate, ro^.
Traffic Regulations: Parking meters, si-
Street Order and Numbering: The city is divided into NE., NW., SE., and SW. sections
by Miami Ave. running N, and S., and by Flagler St., running E. and \V., and all thor-
oughfares take the prefix of sections in which they lie. Streets, terraces, and lanes paral-
lel Flagler St.; avenues, courts, and places parallel Miami Ave.

Accommodations: 413 hotels, rates higher Dec.-Apr. Tourist and trailer camps in en-
virons.

Information Service: (Miami) Chamber of Commerce, 35 NW.2nd St,; Miami Motor
Club, 242 Biscayne Blvd.; South Florida Motor Club (AAA), 1331 Biscayne Blvd.;
(Miami Beach) Chamber of Commerce, $th St. and Alton Road; (Coral Gables) Cham-
ber of Commerce, Aragon Ave.

Radio Stations: WQAM (560 kc.) ; WIOD (610 kc.) ; WKAT (1500 kc.).
Motion Picture Houses: 30,

Tennis: (Miami) Municipal courts, NE.2nd Ave. and igth St., free; NW.3rd St. and
Qth Ave,, zoi day, $o# night; NW.ygth St. and ist Court, free; NW-36th St. and 7th
Ave., 20^; NW.and Ave. and 34th St., free; Oak Ave. and Matilda St., free; NW.iSth
St. and NW.ioth Ave., free. (Miami Beach) Flamingo Park, Meridian Ave. at nth St.;
Washington Park, Washington Ave. at 2nd St.; Lincoln Park, Lincoln Road at Wash-
ington Ave.; Municipal courts, Washington Ave. at Collins Canal, variable small fees.
(Coral Gables) Salvadore Park, Columbus Blvd. and Andalusia Ave.; 997 Greenway
Drive, small fees.
Golf: (Miami) Miami Country Club, 1345 NW.nth St., 18 holes, $r; Red Road Course,

207

208 P 1 R I D A

Red Road and NW.36th St., 18 holes, 50^ summer, $i winter; West Flagler Course,
W.Flagler St. and NW. 3 7th Ave., 18 holes, $i. (Miami Beach) Municipal Golf Course,
848 Lincoln Road, 18 holes, 50^ summer, $i winter; LaGorce Golf Club, 5701 Alton
Road, 18 holes, $3.25 (open in season only); Bayshore Golf Club, 2239 Alton Road, 18
holes, $2.25 (open in season only) (Coral Gables) Coral Gables Golf and Country Club,
Greenway Drive and Coral Way, 9 holes, 50^ summer, $i winter; Riviera Golf Club,
Bird Road, S. of Miami Biltmore Hotel, 9 holes, 50^; Miami Biltmore Country Club,
18 holes, $3 winter, $2 summer. 4 .

Swimming Pools: (Miami Beach) Bouche Villa Venice, 23rd St. and Collins Ave.; Ro-
man Pools, 23rd St. and Collins Ave.; Deauville Pool, 6701 Collins Ave., fees vary.
(Coral Gables) Venetian Pool, De Soto Blvd. and Sevilla Ave., 50^ winter, 25^ summer.
Surf Bathing: (Miami Beach) between Biscayne and i4th Sts.; Surf side Park at 7ist
St., free (Coral Gabies) Tahiti Beach, 25^. f ,.. -. ~ , ^ .

Fishing- All piers, docks, and bridges; deep-sea fishing boats at City .Docks, Baytront
Park Miami; Chamber of Commerce Docks and Floridian Hotel Docks, Miami Beach.
ShitMeboard, Rogue, Chess, and Checkers: (Miami) NW.yth Ave. and NW.36th St.;
NwVd Ave between 2nd and 3rd Sts.; NW.ioth Ave. and NW.iSth St. (Miami
Beach) Flamingo Park, Meridian Ave. and nth St. (Coral Gables) Salvadore Park,
Columbus Blvd. and Andalusia Ave.

Softball: (Miami), NW.2oth St. and NW nth Ave ; NW. 3 rd St. and NW.i 4 th Ave.;
NW 7th Ave and NW.36th St., zofc SW Sth Ave. and SW^th St., free; NW.2nd Ave.
and NW-34th St ; NW.iSth St. and NW.ioth Ave., free, (Miami Beach) Flamingo
Park, Meridian Ave. and nth St., zojzL

JaiAlai: Biscayne Fronton, 3500 NW 35th Ave. Miami, Dec.-Apr. ! ,2<tf.
Greyhound Racmg: (Miami) W.Flagler St. and NW.37th Ave., 2$; NE.2nd Ave. and
NE i rsth St., 2$t. (Miami Beach) South Beach on ocean front, 25^. All Dec.-Apr.
Horse Racing: Hialeah Park, NW.7Qth St. and Bougainvillea Ave., $1.25; Tropical Park,
i|m.W of Coral Gables, $i. < XTT ^

Riding: (Miami) 3400 NW.62nd St., 5416 NW.i2th Ave., 13575 NE.6th Ave.; (Hialeah)
48th St., 71 W.Sth St.; 303 Giralda Ave., Coral Gables, $2 per hour.

Annual Events: (Miami) Orange Bowl Football Game, Ail-American Air Maneuvers,
Jan International Flower Show, Glenn Curtiss Trophy Golf Tournament, Dixie Golf
Tournament, Frost-Bite Dinghy Races, Feb.; Greater Miami Fishing Tournament,
Mar to May; Miami Yacht Club Sailboat Regatta, Biscayne Bay Regatta, Miami-
StPetersburg Yacht Race, Mar.; Pan American Day, Relay Olympics, Apr.; (Miami
Beach) Fashion Show, Jan.; Miami-Nassau Yacht Races, Miami Beach Professional
Tennis Tournament, Feb.; Lip ton Cup Race, Mar.; (Coral Gables) La tin- American
Institute, Jan.; Mixed Doubles Tennis Championship, Mar.; Miami-Biltmore $10,000
Open Golf Tournament, Dec.

GREATER MIAMI (Miami, 10 alt., 110,637 pop.; Miami Beach, 6 alt.,
6,492 pop.; Coral Gables, n alt., 5,697 pop. ; Hialeah, n alt., 2,600 pop.),
southernmost resort area on Florida's mainland, covers approximately
90 square miles. Biscayne Bay, spanned by three causeways, separates
Miami and Miami Beach, twin cities that in tourist eyes are one. Coral
Gables merges imperceptibly on the west, but extends to the bay south of
Miami, and Hialeah, adjoining on the northwest, tapers of into the Ever-
glades, the source of the Miami River that winds through the heart of
Miami and empties into the bay.

In less than a quarter century, miles of rainbow-hued dwellings, bizarre
estates, ornate hotels, and office buildings have grown from mangrove
swamp, jungle, coral rock, and sand dunes. Islands dredged from the bay
are glorified by exotic plantings, and houses of many types and styles.
Great wealth, lavishly spent on these synthetic isles and shores, has gone
into the building of a winter playground designed to attract those, pleas-

GREATER MIAMI 2OQ

ure-bent, who follow the sun. To the first-time visitor its shining spires, its
tropical foliage, the incredible blue of its waters, the cloud formations that
tower in the background all sharply etched under an intense, white sun-
light appear as ephemeral as a motion-picture set.

There is a Manhattanish touch to the gleaming white and buff skyscrap-
ers which are not needed, for there is room to expand horizontally and
the effect of the skyline, rising abruptly from the waterfront and flood-
lighted at night, is heightened by the flatness of the terrain. Residents
pridefully point out the more expensive buildings, name their cost, and
boast of the speed of their construction.

Henry Flagler's engineers, platting the resort over drawing boards in
St.Augustine, were accountable for the predominance of narrow, one-way
streets in the downtown area. In winter these thoroughfares are as
crowded as a county fair and their attractions as varied as a midway. Cars
bearing license plates from every State and many foreign lands clog traffic,
for Miami's percentage of seasonal vehicular transportation is higher in
proportion to population than any other American city.

Miami's show street, Biscayne Boulevard, a section of US i, adorned
with royal palms, is a four-lane motorway for almost a dozen blocks where
it parallels a landscaped park overlooking the bay. At intervals broad
causeways reach from island to island across to Miami Beach and provide
Abases for seaplanes, speedboats, and a blimp. Biscayne Bay, a roadstead
shared by the cities, bristles with docks for coastwise liners, fishing and
excursion boats, and a spacious harbor for yachts and houseboats.

Extending westward from the bay and waterfront park, Miami's shop-
ping and theater district is confined to a dozen blocks, with Flagler Street
the center. Open-front shops sell boxes of fruit, fruit juices, neckties, and
innumerable souvenirs. Drugstores and department stores present the lat-
est in show-window artistry: bewildering displays of sports equipment,
beach togs and accouterments; Panama hats, shorts, and clothing suited
to a subtropical climate. Seminole families sit in curio shops to attract pa-
trons. Photograph galleries with canvas seashore backgrounds, or a boat
lettered Miss Miami, invite passers-by who, if they prefer, can be snapped
riding a stuffed alligator, holding up a huge mounted fish, or leaning non-
chalantly against a prop palm. Pitchmen spiel endlessly to sell their
wares. Astrologers read one's future and pick winning horses in the
stars, and astronomers with portable telescopes show the wonders of the
heavens, sometimes including the Southern Cross, for a dime.

Theater doormen, resplendent as admirals on dress parade, advertise
orally the current screen attraction; policemen in navy blue uniforms with
white belts and pith helmets direct traffic. Adult newsboys hawk their pa-
pers and racing forms like sideshow barkers, and stroll between cars held
up by lights, a vociferous performance that continues far into the night.
Pedestrians wear what they please. Sun glasses, eye shades, and lotions ad-
vertised to promote a quick tan are among the best sellers, for with the
majority of newcomers a sepia complexion is a midwinter achievement.

Soaring planes and leisurely sight-seeing blimps are almost constantly
overhead, for Miami, one of the important aviation centers in the South,

2 tO FLORIDA

is the base of two continental air lines and the international Pan American
Airways. The army, the navy, and the coast guard have flying bases here.
The municipal airport is the scene of the annual All- American Air Maneu-
vers, and not far from it is the dirigible mooring mast, one of five in the
United States. The Macon, Akron, and the Graf Zeppelin have moored
here.

To those preferring shuffleboard, band concerts, and shady benches in
the park, Miami's neon glitter and pulse of Broadway are tempered by
the languor of the tropics, and time is as negligible as yesterday's weather
report. But to the spirited clan who descend upon the city at the begin-
ning of the racing calendar, Miami is 100 days of perpetual carnival New
York's festive 4o's transplanted, a Saratoga August multiplied by three
prolonged Kentucky Derbies.

Miami's season of sports revolves around the race horse and the racing
greyhound, but even jai alai has its pari-mutuels. Owners, trainers, touts,
and hangers-on fill hotels and rooming houses, and throng the sunny
streets, their patter concerned with odds, entries, and past performances.
Paddocks and stands swarm with eager humanity each afternoon and
evening. The playboy and plowboy, the dowager in pearls and the sylph in
shorts, the banker on vacation and the grifter on prowl keep turnstiles
clicking and feed staggering sums to the pari-mutuels. More than $34,000,-
ooo was wagered at the horse tracks during the 1938-39 season, and nearly
$10,000,000 at the dog tracks. The North American record for a winning
daily double, $7,205, was made on March 15, 1935, at Tropical Park.

Gambling is both legal and illegal, for while it is quite within the law to
buck pari-mutuels at the tracks, the same business with bookies is strictly
illicit. Many grills are equipped with tickers and huge blackboards upon
which racing entries and results here and at other tracks are chalked.

Miami Beach, once a i,6oo-acre, jungle-matted sand bar three miles out
in the Atlantic, grew to 2,800 acres when dredging and filling operations
were completed. The island, 10 miles long and from i to 3 miles wide, is a
world of moneyed industrialists, boulevardiers, and stars of stage and
screen, its atmosphere gay, carefree, and expensive.

The older section of the city, around and south of the County Causeway
approach, has the trappings and spirit of Coney Island with its preponder-
ance of open-front bars, sandwich stands, bingo establishments, kosher
restaurants, and delicatessen stores. On the tip of the island the greyhound
track, the pier, and its burlesque theater overlook the ocean and the Gov-
ernment ship channel.

Northward along the Atlantic, where palatial hotels, apartments, and
homes face Loomis Park and the beach, are terraces and swimming pools,
bright with sun parasols and cabanas. Back from the beach and Collins
Avenue that parallels it is Indian Creek, a placid, sea-walled lagoon wind-
ing southwest to the bay through a canal, which divides the island. Well-
kept golf courses border the waterway, boulevards follow its irregular
palm-fringed shores, gleaming yachts and houseboats moor in the shel-
tered coves, and broad stretches provide a course for speedboat races. On
both sides are private piers and landing docks, some trellised with alia-

GREATER MIAMI 211

manda and bougainvillea, waterway entrances to winter estates of celeb-
rities.

Lincoln Road, the principal east-west thoroughfare, is a street of thea-
ters and exclusive shops, many of them branches of New York, Paris, and
London establishments, and open only during the season. Its double side-
walks are gray. The outer walk is separated from an inner shoppers' walk
along the store windows by a parkway bordered with royal and coconut
palms. North of the road the residential sections and beaches are highly
restricted.

Between Miami and the 'Glades lies Coral Gables, a boom-time city,
blue-printed to the last detail before a palmetto was grubbed from the site.
Its 'grand' entrance off Tamiami Trail, an imposing buff stucco archway
in the medieval manner, forms part of a block-long building containing
studios and apartments. The business area is restricted to buildings of
Mediterranean design; their plans, color, and even awnings must be ap-
proved by the city architect. Palm-bordered drives bearing Spanish
names, and coral- tinted sidewalks encircle numerous plazas, several golf
courses, and the Venetian pool, a municipal development in an abandoned
rock pit. A landscaped canal flows past a towering hotel and the Univer-
sity of Miami to a pseudo-Tahiti beach on Biscayne Bay where wind-
tossed coconut trees and palm-thatched sun shelters attempt to capture a
South Sea atmosphere.

Scarcely a fourth of Greater Miami's permanent population is native-
born; some are from adjoining States, but the greater number hail from in-
dustrial centers and farm belts of the North and Midwest. Several thou-
sand Latins reside or spend their vacations here, and many send their chil-
dren to the University of Miami. They contribute to the sports and social
life of the city, enjoy its winter tempo and sparkle, and are responsible for
numerous Spanish and Italian restaurants. This influx has been brought
about to a great extent by the Pan American Airways; its clipper ships to
and from Caribbean, Mexican, Central and South American ports have
made Miami an international city.

Miami Beach and Coral Gables are free of slums. Miami's restricted
Negro district, bordering the tracks and representing 30 per cent of the
city's population, virtually reaches into the heart of town, but halts
abruptly at Fifth Street. A large number of residents are of West Indian
stock, and many Filipinos live on the fringe of the settlement. Liberty
Square, a Federal Housing project, provides modern accommodations for
nearly 250 Negro families. The Booker T. Washington High School, with
an average enrollment of 2,000, is the largest of the State's five accredited
Negro high schools, and the St.Agnes Protestant Episcopal Church is the
largest of its denomination in the South. The Negro population increases
during the tourist season when resort hotels open and the unskilled-labor
market reaches its peak.

The World War created a renaissance in south Florida, and the Miami
area in particular, with a new affluent class fostering a demand for extrav-
agant dwellings in harmony with climate and background. At the begin-
ning, architects conceived a flamboyant style known as Florida-Mediter-

212 FLORIDA

ranean, and the boom era of building here resulted in a conglomerate of
true and distorted Italian, Spanish, and Moorish designs. Cement block,
coral rock, and stucco on lath, wire, and wallboard were the prevailing
materials; paint pots of the world were dredged for fantastic colors. Old
tile roofs were stripped from buildings in Cuba and Central American
countries; floor and wall tiles, statuary and ornamental urns were brought
from Spain and Italy. Full-grown exotic shrubs, palms, and other trees,
many imported from the West Indies, transformed the flat, desolate sand
and scrub land into a garden spot.

More recent houses are of modified English and French Caribbean and
British Colonial types, sometimes referred to as Modern Tropical, with
an occasional dwelling exhibiting walls of glass and flat roofs featuring sun
decks and solariums. Only in the Coconut Grove section remain old houses
native to Florida stately and white columned, with balconies and lofty
porticos.

Intermingled with the better architecture are clapboard houses of early
builders, their ugliness sometimes concealed by heavy foliage. In sharp
contrast to their surroundings are various groupings known as the Spanish
Village, the French and Chinese Villages, and even the African Colonial
Dwellings. With few exceptions, the hotels and commercial structures of
Miami proper, where ornamental arcades are introduced, follow the lines
of those in northern cities.

Infrequent tropical storms of late summer and early fall achieve head-
lines in northern papers but seldom more than 24-point type in the local
press. Once it is certain the blow will strike the city, all precautions are
taken to protect property and insure the safety of inhabitants; windows
are boarded up, signs removed, and trees braced. Residents of insecure
houses move into more substantial quarters and downtown hotels are
filled. Favorite refuges for those of lesser means are the post office, munici-
pal buildings, and churches, where families move in with bedding, kitchen
utensils, and provisions to take squatters' rights until the danger has
passed.

Because of its climate and natural advantages, the Miami site attracted
settlers from earliest times; Indians long favored it, Spaniards coveted the
territory but could not hold it, and the vicissitudes of the Serninole Wars
compelled its temporary evacuation by Americans. The name Miami is re-
putedly a variant of the Indian words, maiha, translated as Very large/
and mih, ' it is so. J On Spanish maps of the early seventeenth century, an
area adjacent to Miami is marked Aymai, and Mayami.

William Brickell came to the site of Miami in 1870, and Julia S. Tuttle
purchased property on both sides of the Miami River shortly afterwards.
During the three decades that followed, the Everglades drainage project
was begun to redeem productive land. The severe freeze of 1894-95 de-
stroyed citrus groves of central Florida and threatened railroad earnings,
but Mrs. Tuttle sent Flagler a bouquet of orange blossoms from Biscayne
Bay, which was untouched by frost.

Flagler visited Mrs. Tuttle, and was impressed. Mrs. Tuttle deeded 100
acres to him, and, joined by Brickell, donated every alternate lot of her re-

GREATER MIAMI 213

maining acreage. Flagler installed a waterworks and other civic improve-
ments. Miami at that time consisted of a dozen sand trails hacked through
palmetto growths, and Flagler Street was lined with business enterprises in
pine shacks and tents. Flagler's East Coast Railway reached the town
from West Palm Beach in 1896 and his resort hotel, the Royal Palm, was
opened. Miami was incorporated as a city that same year, with an esti-
mated population of 1,500.

Throughout Miami's formative years, Miami Beach was a wilderness of
mangroves, seagrapes, and scrub palmetto, infested with snakes and mos-
quitoes. Excursion boats carried picnic parties and bathers to the island
where frame shelters along the beach served as bathhouses. An early at-
tempt failed to develop the island as a coconut plantation, and John S.
Collins, a New Jersey horticulturist, set out an avocado grove. To provide
water transportation, Collins dredged the canal that bears his name, from
Indian Creek to Biscayne Bay. When the fruit growing venture was aban-
doned, Collins organized the Miami Beach Improvement Company to
promote a residential colony, and began construction across the bay to
Miami of what was then the longest wooden bridge in the United States.
It was opened in 1913, two years before Miami Beach was incorporated
as a city.

Collins spent his funds and the late Carl F. Fisher of Indianapolis loaned
him $50,000, with 200 acres of land as security. Fisher's money and enthu-
siasm revived the company. Miami Beach's first auction sale netted
$65,000. Sometimes the auctioneer waved vaguely toward the mangrove
swamps and explained that the lot being sold was 'off there somewhere.'
Fisher's property, most of it under water, was made solid land by pump-
ing in sand from the bottom of the bay, creating a yacht basin and several
miniature islands.

During the early i92o's James Bright, Missouri ranchman, later joined
by Glenn Curtiss, aeronaut and sportsman, founded Hialeah. The city is
best known for the Hialeah Park race track, built by Joe Smoot in
19*31, when pari-mutuel wagering was legalized.

The first symptoms of revived real-estate activities in 1922-23 brought
an advance guard of investors. During the three years, before the boom
collapsed in 1926, America became Florida conscious, and the Miami area
held the center of the stage. A local newspaper issued a 504-page edition in
1925; northern periodicals carried special sections on Miami subdivisions
and news stories on the fabulous real-estate values. Land in the flatwoods
eight miles from the post office sold for $25,000 an acre; downtown busi-
ness property found buyers at $20,000 a front foot; owners of a Flagler
Street corner refused $6,000,000 for holdings that cost $350,000 in 1919.
More than $100,000,000 was spent in building during the peak year.

Coral Gables came into existence like a magic city, and George Merrick,
its founder, paid out $3,000,000 for advertising in 12 months. The demand
for building material was so great that railroads were swamped and an em-
bargo was declared on non-perishable Florida-bound freight. Water traffic
increased tremendously and ships, unable to enter the congested harbor,
were compelled to anchor outside for weeks awaiting their turn to dis-

214 FLORIDA

charge cargoes. The Seaboard Air Line Railway brought its cross-State ex-
tension into Miami in 1926, too late to share in the era of prosperity.

After the crash the Miami area marked time. First to feel the effects of
the collapse, it was among the first to recover. Building permits reaching a
lo-year low of $2,500,000 in 1932, rose to $14,000,000 in 1934, and ex-
ceeded $34,5 70,008 in 1939.

Greater Miami's leading industry is its tourist business, entertaining
some 2,000,000 visitors annually. Since the dredging of the channel and
harbor, coastwise freight and passenger vessels make the city a year-round
terminal; several steamship lines operate to West Indian ports during the
winter season, and ocean-going cruise ships make Miami a port of call.
The 600 industrial firms are for the most part minor concerns manufactur-
ing novelties and utilitarian products.

Fishing is perhaps the greatest Miami recreation, with practically every
variety of game fish in near-by waters. The income of the charter fishing
fleet and of equipment dealers increases annually. During the 100 days of
winter fishing an estimated $500,000 is spent on boat hire alone.

POINTS OF INTEREST

(Downtown Miami}

1. BAYFRONT PARK, Biscayne Blvd. between SE.2nd St. and NE.6th
St. and extending to Biscayne Bay, consists of 40 acres of land pumped
from the bay in 19 24 and landscaped with tropical shrubbery. Pelicans and
gulls frequent a sand spit opposite the park.

The AMPHITHEATER was the scene in February 1933 of an attempt on
the life of Franklin D. Roosevelt, then President-elect, which resulted in
the death of Mayor Anton J. Cermak, of Chicago. A plaque to Mayor Cer-
mak was unveiled in March 1939. The amphitheater is planted with royal
and coconut palms and has a yellow stucco stage of oriental design with a

Say platform, red-bordered brown curtain, and a series of paintings of
airo street scenes on either side of the proscenium. A marquee with a
dome painted green, yellow, orange, and red covers the central stage. The
stucco structure is surmounted by two towers with onion-shaped domes
painted attractively in colors of blue and silver, and open-air green
benches seat 8,000.

The main PROMENADE, bordered by vivid flower beds, hedges of clipped
pine, and royal palms, leads from the foot of E.Flagler St. to the bay.
Benches line the promenade and bayfront. Strollers crossing the park
should watch for almost invisible guy-wires that anchor large trees against
the wind.

The park contains the OUTDOOR OBSERVATORY of the Southern Cross
Astronomical Society, with two five-inch refracting telescopes erected on
stands. Lectures are given on Sunday, Tuesday, and Friday nights,
weather permitting. All stars visible in the northern hemisphere and those
60 degrees below the equator are seen here. The Southern Cross is visible
during February and March, at about 2 a.m.

2. In the MUNICIPAL YACHT BASIN, N. of Bayfront Park at Bis-

GREATER MIAMI 215

cayne Blvd. and NE.6th St., pleasure boats and deep-sea fishing boats
come and go. Here tickets are sold by barkers for sightseeing and fishing
trips and glass-bottomed boat trips. People crowd the pier when the deep-
sea fishing boats come in, bearing their catches of sailfish, barracuda, tar-
pon, and other game fish. A mechanically operated bulletin board is main-
tained for posting game-fish prizes.

3. The MIAMI AQUARIUM (open 8 a.m. to midnight; adm. 25 f) is a ship
set in sand on Biscayne Blvd. at NE.5th St. At the entrance girl artists do
portrait sketches for a tip, and two monkeys, chained to a revolving iron
ladder, swing round and round. The vessel is the Prim Valdemar, an old
Danish barkentine. During the boom it sank in a storm, blocking Miami
harbor when the city was in greatest need of lumber and supplies in ships
waiting outside. The 1926 hurricane raised and beached the barkentine
and it was converted into a loo-room hotel; in 1927 it was fitted out as an
aquarium. Live exhibits include sea turtles, stone crabs, Florida lobsters,
shrimp, morays, sharks, stingrays, alligators, crocodiles, and two mana-
tees or sea cows, seldom seen in captivity. There are also numerous
mounted specimens.

On the upper deck are tables for eating and drinking, and seats for those
who wish to sit and look out over Biscayne Bay.

4. The MIAMI DAILY NEWS TOWER, Biscayne Blvd. at NE.6th St.,
is designed somewhat in the manner of the Giralda tower of Seville. The
portals of this ochre-colored building are adorned with huge capped col-
umns and scroll arch, with a Spanish shield or keystone. In the foyer are
panels depicting the evolution of the art of painting.

5. DADE COUNTY COURTHOUSE, NE. corner W.Flagler St. and
NW.ist Ave., a 28-story neo-classic structure, rests upon a high base, the
lower floors adorned with Doric columns and a frieze. The upper stories are
embellished with fluted columns of the Corinthian order. The building is
topped with a temple-like octagonal upper story with pyramidal roof. The
1 6th to the 1 9th floors are occupied by the c escape-proof 7 county jail.
Completed in 1927 at a cost of $4,000,000, the building is illuminated at
night and can be seen for miles.

6. FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, SW. corner E.Flagler St. and
SE.3rd Ave., is a white stucco structure with a neo-classic fagade. A tower
at the rear of the edifice resembles that of an old Scottish church. Miami's
oldest church, it was completed in 1900. Extravagant offers for the land
were made during the boom but Henry M. Flagler, the builder, specified
that it was never to be sold.

7. The CITY CURB MARKET, SW.2nd Ave. and Miami River, is an
open white building with a red tile roof. Stalls are piled with fresh, locally
grown vegetables; small plants and flowers; tropical jellies and preserved
fruits; fresh meats; fresh fruits sapodilla, guava, mango, Surinam cherry,
tangelo, kumquat, oranges, grapefruit, tiny lady-finger bananas, and
strawberries. In an adjoining building on the river bank are the seafood
stalls.

8. PFLUEGER'S MARINE MUSEUM (open 9-5 daily), 1367 N.Miami
Ave., displays mounted specimens of south Florida marine life. Each case

2l6 FLORIDA

has a painted reef scene as a background for the brilliantly colored fish
such as the rainbow parrot, mud parrot, red-lined parrot, four-eye butter-
fly, angel, trigger, file, and many others.

9. MIAMI WOMAN'S CLUB BUILDING, NE.iyth Terrace and Bis-
cayne Bay, is a five-story buff stucco structure with a red tile roof. The
club maintains the FLAGLER MEMORIAL LIBRARY (open 9 :30-5 :30 daily
except Tues. and Sat. 9 :30-9) , largest of the six in the city.

(Miami Bay Shore)

10. The JAMES DEERING ESTATE (private), 3250 S.Miami Ave., was
completed in 1916 at a cost of $15,000,000. The house of coraline stone, not
visible from the road, dominates the lower bay. The roofing tile once cov-
ered an entire Cuban village. The grounds are enclosed by a pink concrete
wall bearing carved primitive designs, topped with festoons of bougain-
villea and orange fiame vines. The massive seventeenth-century gateways
are of pink marble and Istrian stone.

n. PAN AMERICAN AIRWAYS BASE (open daily), 2500 S.Bayshore
Drive, built in 1928 on Dinner Key, is approached through an avenue of
royal palms divided by a parkway planted with bougainvillea and other
subtropical shrubs. The TERMINAL BUILDING on the bayfront is a smooth
white stucco structure of modern design, two stories high in the center,
with one-story wings. A yellow and white frieze of winged globes and rising
suns circles the central two-story section, and is connected at the corners
by sculptured eagles. The interior is decorated in quiet blues and grays. A
lofoot revolving globe in the concourse shows the air routes in colors.
The beamed ceiling, two stories high, is decorated with signs of the zodiac
surrounding a compass. A frieze traces the progress of aviation from Leo-
nardo da Vinci's bird-shaped airplane design of 1490 to the Martin commer-
cial ship of 1933. Around a balcony are offices, a restaurant, and a cocktail
room overlooking Biscayne Bay. The architects were Delano and Aldrich,
of New York. On bulletin boards announcing arrivals and departures are
listed 32 West Indian and South American ports between which a fleet of
i9-ton, 4o-passenger clipper ships operate on regular schedule. From an
outer second-floor promenade take-offs and landings can be watched.

In the HANGARS (open 8-4 daily), north of the terminal building, visitors
are permitted to enter planes, and guides explain operations.

Miami has never recovered from the initial excitement of becoming a
clipper-ship port, and it is the local custom to run down to the base around
five in the afternoon, to see the planes come in.

12. COCONUT GROVE HOUSEKEEPER'S CLUB, 2985 S.Bayshore
Drive, the oldest federated woman's club in Florida, is a two-story
mission-style building with a front of rough, gray native rock. Founded
in 1891 by Flora McFarlane, the club was the social center of the country-
side ; people came by boat, particularly from the community on the Miami
River. They placed their small children in the nursery to sleep. At the close
of the festivities the babies were picked up hurriedly, identified by their
wraps. One night young Dick Carney, now Captain Richard Carney,

217

2l8 FLORIDA

Miami's assistant dock master, went into the nursery and switched the
shawls. There was great confusion on homeward bound boats and in
Miami homes next morning when parents found they had the wrong ba-
bies. The incident was used by Owen Wister in his novel, The Virginian.

13. PLYMOUTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, Ingraham Hwy.
and Devon Rd., is designed in the manner of a Mexican mission with ba-
silican plan and vine-covered exterior walls; the doors are said to have come
from a Spanish mission in Mexico. In one of the doors is a round cathole,
now covered with screen. Many outdoor weddings are performed at a pul-
pit in the walled garden.

(Coral Gables)

14. The UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI, 515 University Place, established in
1926, functions in a buff stucco boom-time hotel. Three long wings form a
triangle around a landscaped patio, and an observation dome rises from
the southeast corner. With an enrollment of more than 1,000, it is the third
largest educational institution in Florida. The school of music has a sym-
phony orchestra and a symphonic band. Students in marine zoology make
weekly trips to near-by waters where they study marine life from diving
hoods.

The university emphasizes Pan-American relations, and its Latin-
American division, a major feature, offers special courses on Latin-Ameri-
can history and geography; political, cultural, and commercial develop-
ment; the world position of American republics, and business training for
those planning to engage in Pan-American trade. A Pan-American Forum
is conducted for several weeks each winter to acquaint the student body
and visitors with Pan-American affairs, and students are interchanged
with Latin-American countries. The resident faculty is augmented by
educators from Latin- American countries.

15. The CORAL GABLES LIBRARY AND COMMUNITY HOUSE
(open 1-9 Mon-Thurs.; 9-6 Fri.-Sat.), Ponce de Leon Blvd. at Phoenetia
Ave., was constructed by the WPA in 1937. Built of native coral lime-
stone, it consists of two one-story buildings with red tile roofs set at right
angles and connected by an arcaded patio. At the entrance are pylons,
with symbolic bas-reliefs representing art and science. The pilasters ad-
joining the exterior walls of the buildings are capped with bas-relief carv-
ings of native fishes, birds, and animals. The fountain on the northeast
side of the library has four bas-relief nudes representing four moods of the
sea. The hexagonal base of the fountain has bas-reliefs picturing waterfowl
and marine life. The auditorium seats 500. The hand-hewn beams, murals,
and sculpture are the work of the Florida Federal Art Project.

16. The MIAMI-BILTMORE HOTEL, Anastasia Ave. and Columbus
Blvd., a massive tile-roofed concrete structure with rambling wings and a
lofty central tower designed in the Mediterranean style, dominates the
Coral Gables landscape. It was designed by Schultze and Weaver and
built in 1925 at a cost of $10,000,000. The i5o-acre grounds, traversed by
a canal, include a country-club building and an i8-hole golf course. Guests

GREATER MIAMI 2ig

have membership privileges at the Roney Cabana Club in Miami Beach,
and the Anglers' Club at Key Largo. Free transportation is provided to
the beach by aero-car, and to Key Largo by sea-sled and aero-car.

17. TROPICAL PARK RACE TRACK (open daily; adm. during racing
season $1 for grandstand, $3 for clubhouse), 1.5 m. W. of Coral Gables on
Bird Rd., was originally a dog track. In 1932 the grandstand, seating 3,500,
then facing west, was reversed and the surrounding area landscaped. An
Australian-pine hedge screens the track, and the clubhouse entrance is
landscaped with clipped Australian pine, royal palms, and salvia.

(Northwest Miami)

18. MUSA ISLE INDIAN VILLAGE (open 9-6 daily; adm. 25$, NW.
25th Ave. and NW.i6th St. on the Miami River, presents the Seminole
Indians as they live in their camps. A trading post displays Indian handi-
work for sale. Within the village are the thatched-roofed platforms where
the Indians live, a small zoo, and a museum. Men wrestle with alligators
morning and afternoon, the exact time depending upon the attendance.

19. The 'HEN HOTEL,' NW.2yth Ave. and NW.34th St., a huge unfin-
ished building begun as a hotel in 1925, was named the ' million-dollar hen
hotel' when a hatchery was established here during the early 1930*3. The
floor space accommodated more than 60,000 laying hens, 20,000 fryers,
and 50,000 incubator chicks.

20. BISCAYNE FRONTON (adm. 25$, 3500 NW.35th Ave., is a large,
coral-tinted stucco building, its marquee supported by blue columns with
red capitals. Night exhibitions of jai alai are played here throughout the
season.

Jai alai (pronounced hi-li), a Spanish game similar to handball, is played
with a cesta, or basket, strapped to the player's right hand. The curved,
three-foot basket, woven from imported reed, has a maximum depth of 5
inches. A player often wears out three or four baskets during a contest.
The hard, rubber-cored ball, or pelota, slightly smaller than a baseball, is
covered with goatskin. Jai alai is 'faster than tennis and more dangerous
than football/ The ball is driven with such speed that it sometimes breaks
a leg or arm. In 1933 a star player died here from a fractured skull. There
are few ball games calling for greater strength, endurance, and skill It is
said most jai alai players die young, for if not severely injured by the ball,
their hearts give out. Featured players, who are always in rigid training,
seldom appear more than twice a week. A stout net separates the cacha, or
playing court, from spectators.

The server drops the ball, catches it on the rebound, and hurls it with a
terrific forehand stroke against the wall. On the spacious court, 210 by 36
feet, players move like lightning, their c^to-lengthened hands reaching
out miraculously to intercept and return bullet-like rallies of the ball. The
pelota continues in play until it falls in illegal territory or a contestant fails
to make good a return. Players are awarded purses for straight, place, and
show, and there is pari-mutuel betting. Rules of the game are printed on
programs sold at the fronton.

220 FLORIDA

21. LIBERTY SQUARE, NW.i4th Ave. between NW.6snd and NW.
6sth Sts., a 62-acre Negro low-cost housing project built in 1936 by the
FHA, was the first of its kind in the United States. Grouped around a
white stucco administration building and recreation hall are 34 storm-
proof apartment buildings fronting on palm-planted courts.

(Hialeafy

22. HIALEAH PARK RACE TRACK (open 7-6 daily; adm. during rac-
ing season $1.25 for grandstand, $4 for clubhouse), entrance Bougainvillea
Ave. and 23rd St., is approached through an avenue of royal palms, some
So feet high and 150 years old, brought from the Everglades and Cuba.
The vine-covered grandstand and the clubhouse, screened with clipped
Australian pines, were built in 1931 and have a combined seating capacity
of 10,500. The wide oval track rings a Q2-acre area in lawns and flowerbeds
surrounding a 32-acre artificial lake in which 300 pink flamingoes, seen
from the stands, resemble a bed of pink water lilies. These birds, captured
in southern Cuba, are kept in the park by clipping their wings. The first
one hatched in the park, the only one then known to have been hatched in
North America, lived three weeks and is mounted, together with an adult
specimen, in a glass case on the southern pavilion.

The back of the grandstand is covered with a 250-foot trellis overgrown
with purple bougainvillea. Behind the stands is the Australian totalizer, a
large, electrically operated board, said to contain nearly 100,000 miles of
wiring, that computes odds and pay-off prices, and displays results after
each race. The race-track plant includes stables for about 1,500 horses.

23. MIAMI MUNICIPAL AIRPORT, NW.iiQth St. andLeJeune Road,
the third airport established in the United States, was built in 1912 by a*
company headed by Glenn Curtiss, pioneer aviator. The annual Ail-
American Air Maneuvers, designed to promote interest in light plane fly-
ing and to develop pilots for national defense, are held here. Army, navy,
and commercial planes take part, and there is an exhibit of commercial
planes.

From this field June i, 1937, Amelia Earhart, with Captain Frederick
Noonan as co-pilot, took off on a proposed 27,ooo-mile flight around the
world, the first attempt ever made to encircle the globe at the middle lati-
tudes. The route included Brazil, West Africa, India, Dutch East Indies,
Australia, and New Guinea, whence the plane took off on a 2,556-mile hop
to Howland Island. The last radio message, July 2nd, stated the plane was
over the Pacific, position doubtful, with half an hour's fuel supply. More
than 100 U.S. navy planes and 10 ships participated in a search that cov-
ered an estimated 250,000 square miles. Plane and pilots were given up for
lost on July i8th. A bronze plaque honoring Miss Earhart, placed on the
field by the Bade County Federation of Women's Clubs, was dedicated
January 6, 1939.

(Miami Beach')

24. The HARVEY S. FIRESTONE ESTATE, Collins Ave. and 44th St.,
is at the point where Collins Ave. jogs one block from the ocean. The main

GREATER MIAMI 221

entrance, on the 44th St. side, is bounded by a low bougainvillea-covered
wall, above which rises a high clipped Australian pine hedge. Back of this
is a galvanized cyclone fence topped with barbed wire.

Fronting Collins Ave., about half way up the W, side of the estate, is a
vine-draped pergola incorporated into boundary walls and hedges. The
upper oval is open and affords a view of the vine-covered, many-chim-
neyed Georgian Colonial mansion with its glazed-tile roof. This estate is
open once each spring for a charity garden tea.

25. FLAGLER MONUMENT (accessible only by boat), Bay Island, N. of
Star Island, a square white shaft, illuminated at night, was erected in mem-
ory of Henry M. Flagler by Carl Fisher, Miami Beach pioneer.

26. AL CAPONE'S HOUSE (private), N. side of Palm Island, is a white
mansion with a green tile roof barely visible over a high white wall. There
are heavy wooden gates at the two entrances. Alphonse Capone purchased
the house in 1928 and occupied it at intervals until he was sentenced May
1932 to 10 years imprisonment for violation of Federal income tax laws-
He was transferred from Atlanta to Alcatraz, San Francisco Bay, in Au-
gust 1934, and removed to Terminal Island, San Pedro Harbor, in Janu-
ary 1939.

Orlando

Railroad Stations: Sligh Blvd. for Atlantic Coast Line R.R.; 79 W.Central Ave. for Sea-

board Air Line Ry.

Bus Station: Terminal, 25 Wall St. for Florida Motor Lines.

Airport: Municipal Field, 2.1 m. E. on E.Central Ave., for National Airlines and East-

ern Air Lines; taxi 25^ per person, xoji extra baggage.

Taxis: Fare 15^ up according to zone and number of passengers.

Local Busses: Fare roji, three tokens 25^, within city limits.

Traffic Regulations: Right turns on red.

Accommodations: 17 hotels; numerous rooming and boarding houses, auto camps.
Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, 113 E.Central Ave.

Theaters and Motion Picture Houses: Municipal Auditorium, 203 W.Livingston Ave.,

concerts; five motion picture houses, one for Negroes.

Baseball: Tinker Field, 1500 W. Church St.; Sunshine Park, W.Livingston Ave., between

Paramore and Garland Sts.

Swimming: Municipal Solarium, Lake Estelle, 25^; Carolina Moon Beach, 303 N.Ken-

tucky Ave., 25^.

Tennis: Sunshine Park, W.Livingston Ave. between Paramore and Garland Sts., free;

Eola Park, E.Central Ave., between Rosalind Ave. and Eola Drive, free. Tennis Club,

Sunshine Park, annual fees $5 for men, $3 for women.

Golf: Orlando Country Club, Beardall Ave. at Country Club Drive, 18 holes, greens fee

$1.50; Dubsdread Country Club, Edgewater Drive at city limits, 18 holes, greens fee

$1.50-

Roque: Sunshine Park, annual fee $1.50.

Shuffleboard: Sunshine Park, annual fee $2.

Lawn Bowling: Sunshine Park, annual fee $2.50 to $5.

Annual Events: Orlando Air Party, Jan. ; Central Florida Exposition, Feb.; Horse Show,
Mar.; National Shuffleboard Tournament, Feb. and Mar.; State and International
Lawn Bowling Tournament, Feb.; Casting Tournament (N.A.S.A.C. rules) Mar ; Choir
Festival, Apr.; Amaryllis Show, Apr.; Yacht Club Regatta, early spring; Fishing Tour-
nament, Dec. to Apr.; Florida Field Trials, Dec.

ORLANDO (in alt., 27,330 pop.), in east central Florida, is the seat of
Orange County and the State's largest inland city. It is in the ridge section
on a watershed from which, the St. Johns River flows north and the Kissim-
mee flows south. Orange County's thousand lakes, many of them spring-
fed, temper the climate throughout the year. Lake shores in the city are
extensively developed to the water's edge. Along their encircling boule-
vards landscaped parkways are shaded by live oaks, camphor trees, and a
profusion of native and imported palms. Gardens are gay with sub tropi-
cal shrubs, citrus trees, and winter-blooming flowers. In contrast are the
dull red of brick-paved streets and the sparkling blue of lakes against this
background of evergreen foliage. In less than half a century Orlando has

222

ORLANDO 223

grown from a trading post on a cow range to a city resembling a great cul-
tivated park.

The business and shopping districts converge on Orange Avenue, the
principal north and south thoroughfare. It resembles that of a substantial
northern city in its architecture and its atmosphere of enterprise and ac-
tivity. Sidewalks are narrow; traffic signal lights bear the admonition
' Quiet/ Fruit- juice stands and used-car lots, some in landscaped settings,
appear between tall, year-round hotels, theaters, and department stores.

Architecturally the city varies from well-preserved two- and three-story
brick business buildings and residences of the late nineteenth century with
dormers, cupolas, and stamped metal cornices, to ornate structures of
glazed tile embellished with chromium bands.

Frequently dwellings reflect that part of the country from which the
owners came. Side by side are the plantation house with wide verandas and
roof -high columns, the red brick English manor, the chaste New England
cottage, and the flat-roof, gay-colored tropical house. Their variety of style
is unified by landscaping. Coral and golden flame vines and exotic flower-
ing shrubs grow in nearly every yard.

Social life is centered in homes, clubs, musical and theatrical groups, and
around the parks and recreational facilities. Rollins College, six miles
north, is the center of Orlando's academic life; speakers of note, many
leading artists of concert and stage, and nationally known educators are
heard there each winter.

Negroes, who comprise 25 per cent of the city's population, at one time
owned and occupied property in the downtown area, principally along
Church Street, but with the growth of the city they moved farther west.
In a small Negro settlement in the western part of the city, is the L.C.
Jones High School, named for a former principal. For his educational ac-
tivities Jones was listed in Who's Who in Colored America. Except for a
few business and professional men, local Negroes are employed on farms,
in citrus groves and packing plants, turpentine camps, and domestic ser-'
vice.

The city is a shipping center for citrus fruits and winter vegetables cul-
tivated on the thousands of fertile acres surrounding the city. Sales are
handled through private and co-operative markets. One of the larger co-
operatives is controlled by grower members according to the number of
acres each owns. Thirteen nurseries specialize in citrus stock.

Dairying and poultry farming also form important units in Orlando's
commerce. Nine sawmills and five naval-stores plants exploit the resources
of surrounding pine forests. Amaryllis, gladiolus, and narcissus bulbs are
grown and exported.

The settling of Orlando, like that of other towns in central Florida, was
an aftermath of the Seminole Wars. Many volunteers, following the with-
drawal of the regular army, remained to form a community. The site was
selected for its proximity to Fort Gatlin, established about 1837 because
of the excellence of the water and the habitable highlands of the area. Un-
der protection of the garrison, settlers drifted into the Orlando area, un-
named until 1850. Among the first was Aaron Jernigan, of Georgia, who

224 FLORIDA

reached here with his family, slaves, and herds in 1842. Jernigan and most
of the other pioneers that followed him were cattlemen.

In 1846, and again in 1849, this territory was menaced by Indian cattle
rustlers. On both occasions Jernigan, then serving as Orange County's first
representative in the State legislature, was called from Tallahassee to pro-
tect his herds. Cessation of hostilities by the Seniinole led the army to
abandon Fort Gatlin in 1848, but the settlers continued to carry arms, and
Jernigan built a stockade on the west shore of Lake Holden. The stockade
and the small settlement that grew around it was a convenient stopping
place for travelers.

The stockade was granted a post office in 1850. Named Jernigan, it be-
came the seat of Orange County by a legislative act of 1856, and was in-
corporated in 1875. Credit is given Judge V.D.Speer, a pioneer settler, for
establishing Jernigan as the county seat. Towns competing for the honor
were Fort Reed, called 'The Lodge/ and Apopka. The wily judge, aware
that an American soldier at that time was entitled to vote wherever he
might happen to be on election day, invited all soldiers stationed in Sum-
ter County to be his guests at an old-fashioned picnic that day. They came,
partook of his food and drink, promptly voted for his cause, and Jernigan
became the county seat. Several versions are current for changing the
name from Jernigan to Orlando. Judge Speer is said to have selected the
name in honor of Shakespeare's hero in As You Like It, others assert it
was named for Orlando Reeves, a runner between Mellonville and Fort
Gatlin, slain by Indians on the site of the town.

During the War between the States, when a Federal blockade stopped all
shipments of cattle from Florida to Cuba, Orlando stockmen sold their beef
to the Confederates, delivering it on the hoof at Charleston, South Carolina.

Francis Eppes, grandson of Thomas Jefferson, and mayor of Tallahas-
see at the time the Army of Occupation took control, moved his impover-
ished family to Orlando in 1867. As lay reader he held the first Episcopal
services in the district at his log cabin. For 14 years, until his death, Eppes
was an intellectual and spiritual force in the community. In 1869 Will
Wallace Harney, poet and journalist, editor of the Louisville (Kentucky)
Democrat, and a member of the National Academy of Science, described in
magazine articles the fertile farming land and ideal climate of Orlando, and
the city had its first boom.

The first commercial citrus grove near Orlando was 100 acres planted
during 1865-66 by W.H.Holden, from seeds of fruit trees found growing on
his property. His crop was hauled to Mellonville, now Sanford, on the
St. Johns River and carried by boat to Charleston. The long overland route
brought a demand for better transportation facilities, and the South Flor-
ida Railroad was extended from Mellonville to Orlando in 1880. Gen-
eral U.S. Grant turned the first spadeful of earth.

During the early 1890*3 the State and railroad interests sold land in and
about Orlando at approximately $i an acre to English buyers, and large
numbers migrated to the Lake Conway district and set out citrus groves.
Nearly every home had its tennis court; a yacht club held periodic regat-
tas; a polo team was organized in 1884, and the English Club was formed

Cities I

Photograph by Frank Turgeon, Jr.
VIA MIZNER, PALM BEACH

THE OLD SLAVE MARKET, ST. AUGUSTINE

PATIO, OLD SPANISH TREASURY, ST. AUGUSTINE
Photograph by /. Carver Harris

Photograph by F. W. Wolff
THE CATHEDRAL (1793), ST. AUGUSTINE

VISCAYA/ THE DEERING ESTATE, MIAMI

Photogiaph by courtesy of Miami News Service

DAYTONA BEACH

DOWNTOWN SECTION, JACKSONVILLE
Photograph by Virgil Moore

Photograph by courtesy ot Farm Security Administration
KEY WEST DUVAL STREET, FROM THE ATLANTIC TO THE GULF

MOAT, FOUT MARION, ST. AUGUSTINE

Photograph by courtesy of National Park Service"

ORLANDO 225

two years later. The widespread planting of citrus gave agriculture in cen-
tral Florida an importance that drove the cattle to ranges farther south,
and marked the passing of frontier life in the community. However, stock-
men and cowhands from Kissimmee Valley ranches are still seen at local
sports events, and in the bars and mercantile establishments along West
Church Street on Saturdays.

The freeze of 1895 ruined the citrus trees, but true to their traditions,
the Englishmen played cricket during those harrowing hours. Later faced
with disaster, more than half the growers abandoned their groves. Those
who remained have been influential in the business and cultural life of the
city.

In April 1929 grapefruit on a tree in the Orlando grounds of the Bureau
of Entomology, U.S. Department of Agriculture, was found to be infested
with a destructive insect pest. Specimens sent to Washington were identi-
fied as the Mediterranean fruit-fly by J.M.Aldrich, Associate Curator of
the National Museum, and G.B.Merrill of the Florida State plant board
made the same discovery a few days later. Plant board inspectors, after a
quick survey, found 364 infested properties in the Orlando area. Federal
emergency funds of $500,000 were provided and this sum was later in-
creased by a Congressional appropriation of $4,250,000. The National
Guard, employed in spraying and road patrol, remained on duty until
July 1930, but the quarantine was not officially lifted until November (see
Tour ic).

During the past 30 years Orlando has been a favorite resort for a type of
visitor, usually middle-aged and retired, appropriately called a perennial
tourist. This man swears by Florida literature and believes his health and
longevity depend upon orange juice and the local brand of sunshine. Al-
though returning North or West from time to time he claims the city as
his permanent residence and usually is an enthusiastic member of the
Chamber of Commerce, his native State society, and the country club.

POINTS OF INTEREST

The CITY HALL, S.Orange Ave. between E.Jackson and South Sts.,
erected in 1905, a two-story structure with a heavy Corinthian portico,
was one of the first white-sand brick structures built in the Orlando area.

The OLD COURTHOUSE, E.Central Ave. between Court and North
Main Sts., an ornate dark red brick structure surmounted by a square
clock tower, is of modified Romanesque design with steep gables and a
massive turreted tower. Erected in 1892 it was considered one of central
Florida's outstanding county buildings. It now houses municipal and
WPA offices.

The ORANGE COUNTY COURTHOUSE, N.Main St. between E.
Washington and E.Wall Sts., a four-story limestone and granite structure
of neoclassic design with classic Tuscan colonnades and rusticated first
story, was completed in 1927. Murray S. King of Orlando was the archi-
tect. A jail occupies the top floor. The grounds are planted with a variety
of palms and ornamental subtropical shrubs. On the southeast corner of

226 FLORIDA

the lawn stands a chocolate or cacao tree. Brought from India and planted
in 1802, it is marked by a bronze tablet.

ALBERTSON PUBLIC LIBRARY (open 9-9 weekdays; 2-6 Sun.*), 165
E. Central Ave., of neoclassic design, opened in 1923, contains 70,000 vol-
umes, including a rare-book section. The symmetrical facade is dominated
by a high central section with pedimented Doric portico; a classic parapet
crowns the long wings on either side. Murray S. King of Orlando was the
architect. It was named for Captain Charles Albertson, who bequeathed
his private library to the city.

The M.O.OVERSTREET RESIDENCE (private\ E.Central and S.
Rosalind Aves., is a red brick structure of classic design with two-story
colonnaded porches on three sides. The pedimented porticoes are sup-
ported by Corinthian columns. It dominates the Lake Eola section and its
landscaped grounds are among the most attractive in the city.

LAKE EOLA PARK, E.Central Ave. between Rosalind Ave. and Eola
Drive and extending to Robinson Ave., with an area of 55 acres, is the
largest park in the city. The lake is encircled by a concrete walk, its park-
ways landscaped with plumosa, date and cabbage palms, and live oaks.
Scattered clumps of bananas and bamboos add to the tropical setting.
This is a convenient place to study the swans, ducks, and sea gulls, partic-
ularly at feeding time. The swans inhabiting this and other municipal
lakes are descendants of a pair imported in 1910 by Charles Lord, an Eng-
lishman, from the private preserves of Edward VII. They were named
'Mr. and Mrs. Bill.' It is claimed that 'Mr. Bill' drowned his mate when a
setting of eggs failed to hatch. He died at the age of 78, was mounted, and
is on display at the Chamber of Commerce building. The birds are fed by
city employees each mid-afternoon, and sea gulls from Daytona Beach
commute regularly to partake of the free meal.

The ORLANDO ZOO (always open), NE. corner W.Livingston Ave.
and Garland St., exhibits Florida birds and animals in natural settings.
Gravel paths lead between open-air cages that contain raccoons, monkeys,
alligators, a wild cat, and a black bear. An elevated screened cage houses
rattlesnakes and water moccasins; an aviary contains parrots, eagles, owls,
geese, and a variety of herons; a natural rock pit is the home of the small
Florida deer.

SUNSHINE PARK, W.Livingston Ave. between Paramore and Gar-
land Sts. extending to Alexander Place, has large municipal recreation
grounds with facilities for shuffleboard, roque, lawn bowling, and horse-
shoe pitching. The clubhouses are headquarters for tourists' societies and
social gatherings .The Municipal Auditorium, seating 3,300, is used for or-
gan recitals and varied entertainments during the winter. The adjoining
Exposition Park embraces the grounds and permanent stucco buildings of
the Central Florida Exposition.

POINTS OF INTEREST IN ENVIRONS

Winter Park (Rollins College), 1.7 *.; Eaton ville, all-Negro town, 6 m.\ 'The
Senator/ huge cypress tree, 16m. (see Tour 2c); Lake Apopka, 14.4 m. (see Tour 9),

Palm Beach

Railroad Stations: S.Tamarind Ave. and Datura St., for Seaboard Air Line Ry.; E.Rail-
road Ave. and 5th St., for Florida East Coast Ry., both in West Palm Beach.
Bus Stations: 310 Evernia St. for Florida Motor Lines; 215 S.Olive Ave. for Pan Ameri-
can Bus Lines, both in West Palm Beach.

Airports: Municipal Field, 4 m. W. on Southern Blvd., West Palm Beach, for Eastern
Air Lines, taxi 50^.
Taxis : 25^ per passenger per zone.
City Btisses: Fare loff.

Ferry: W end of Royal Poinciana Blvd. (Main St.), pedestrians only, fare 5^.
Afromobiles: Breakers Hotel, E. end of Breakers Drive, Jan. to Apr.; along Lake Trail
and Worth Ave. other months; fare $1.50 an hour, two passengers.

Accommodations: 13 hotels, majority open Jan. to Apr.

Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, Royal Palm Way and Lake Drive.

Motion Picture Houses: 2, open winter only.

Swimming: Lido pool, adm. 25^, and Public Beach, ocean front, E. end of Worth Ave.

Golf: Palm Beach Country Club, N.County Rd. and Country Club Rd., 18 holes,

greens fee $2.50. In West Palm Beach: Belvedere Golf Course, 2 m. W. on Belvedere

Rd., 18 holes, greens fee 75^; West Palm Beach Municipal Country Club, Southern

Blvd. and Military Trail, 18 holes, greens fee $i.

Tennis : Poinciana Courts, N.Lake Trail near Cocoanut Walk.

Fishing: Rainbow Pier, foot of Worth Ave., adm. 25^; charter boats for Gulf Stream

fishing at numerous piers along the lake.

Annual Events: Yacht Club Regatta, Feb ; Southern Professional Tennis Tournament,
Everglades Club, Feb.; Flower Show, Academy of the Society of the Four Arts, Feb.;
Under-Privileged Children's Benefit, Feb.

PALM BEACH (10 alt., 1,707 pop.) is an exclusive resort *town on the
northern end of an 1 8-mile island between Lake Worth on the west and the
Atlantic Ocean on the east. At no point is the island wider than three-
quarters of a mile, and in places it is only 500 feet. Three bridges connect
the city to West Palm Beach and the mainland: the concrete Flagler Me-
morial Bridge on the north, which replaces the wooden railroad trestle that
led to the grounds of the now vanished Royal Poinciana Hotel; the impos-
ing South Bridge in midtown, a continuation of Royal Palm Way; and the
Southern Boulevard Bridge, which leads from the Bath and Tennis Club
to the main highway that penetrates a section of the Everglades.

Royal Palm Way, the city's landscaped boulevard and principal east-
west thoroughfare, extends from Lake Worth to the Atlantic Ocean, a
three-quarter mile avenue bordered by double rows of royal palms. It di-
vides a two-mile area that contains the business district, schools, clubs,
brokerage offices, and unpretentious homes of year-round residents.

227

228 FLORIDA

Worth Avenue, at the widest part of the island and the southern extrem-
ity of the shopping district, is a four-block street of smart shops, including
branches of metropolitan stores. Lined by Australian pines and scarlet-
flowered hibiscus, Wells Road forms the northern limit. North and south
of this area are rich estates surrounded by vine-cloaked walls raised high to
insure seclusion.

The restrained magnificence of these properties is the result of lavish ex-
penditure, expert landscaping, and continuous care. They embrace acres
of terraced lawns and formal gardens, dotted with tiled swimming pools
and fountains, and glorified by exotic plants. Many of the flowering trees
and shrubs are imported from the remote corners of the earth, and the en-
semble has the variety and beauty of a tropical arboretum.

County Road, also known as Palrn Beach Avenue, the city's main north-
south highway, passes between many large estates. Front-page names are
on many ornate gateways, but passers-by see little of the homes and only
rarely the occupants. Lake Trail, paralleling the east shore of "Lake Worth
for several miles, a jungle-shaded lane beneath the palms, is reserved for
pedestrians and afromobiles two-wheeled wicker chairs, mounted on the
front end of bicycles, accommodating two persons, and pedaled by Ne-
groes. The lake, actually a salt-water lagoon and a section of the Intra-
coastal Waterway, was named for Brigadier General William J. Worth
who served in the Seminole War. Barely half a mile wide, the gleaming
blue water of the basin is, in season, a mirror for the many craft anchored
there.

Wide, palm-fringed Ocean Boulevard, the resort's motorway and prom-
enade, extends along the Atlantic and affords an unobstructed view of the
ocean and tumbling surf. Many of the homes have passages under the
boulevard, giving access to private beaches. A five-block ocean frontage
between Brazilian and Hammon Avenues includes the public beach, swim-
ming pool, casino, and a fishing pier.

Barely three miles off Palm Beach, its nearest approach to America's
shores, the Gulf Stream runs 70 fathoms deep, while 30 miles out it reaches
400 fathoms. The current is so powerful that southbound vessels keep to
its western eclge, and white liners, rusty cargo ships, and oil tankers pass in
review almost within hailing distance of the coast.

Palm Beach is regarded as the winter counterpart of Newport cosmo-
politan, individual, and independent. Its habitues constitute a fragment of
international society seeking June in January and the pleasures afforded
by right of social prestige and heavy purse. A municipal ordinance rules
that all building operations cease by the middle of December so that in-
coming residents will not be disturbed, and the town planning board sees
to it that trees and shrubbery are pruned, parkways cleared of rubbish, and
beaches groomed.

A vanguard of servants descends from the North in December to set the
stage. With the new year, private railroad cars are parked on West Palm
Beach sidings and sumptuous houseboats and yachts from distant ports
moor in the sheltered waters of Lake Worth.

Hotels offer every luxurious accommodation, but permanent winter resi-

PALM BEACH 229

dents have their own estates. For the organized coterie., the social whirl
spins as regularly as the clock. The official day begins at eleven on the pri-
vate beaches when the nomad citizenry assemble to devote a few hours to
recuperation, and seek a coveted sun tan. During this period the ocean
front is a panorama of brilliant bathing togs, bronzed bodies, painted wind
breaks, and gay umbrellas. Luncheons, accompanied by music, are served
in cabanas and upon canopied terraces that flank sea- water pools.

Restricted to members and their guests are a faultless golf course,
many fast tennis courts, Bradley's Casino, and numerous clubs. At all
times there are yachts cruising to remote Florida keys or the Bahamas,
planes for Nassau and Havana, sea sleds for brief excursions up shallow
tropical rivers and canals, motoring to Miami race tracks, and speedboats
on the lake. But fishing remains the supreme sport, and quest of the val-
iant sailfish in the Gulf Stream provides the acme of thrills, a challenge to
the skill and endurance of the deep-sea angler.

To lend zest to the eternal round of entertainment is the resort's winter
colony of celebrities of stage, screen, and radio; playwrights, songsrniths,
and producers. The annual charity benefits staged by the community, to
which these stars contribute their services, are perhaps unrivaled in amuse-
ment circles. But with the ides of March gayety ends and the city becomes
a ghost town given over to caretakers and artisans, its homes shuttered, its
shops closed, its beaches practically deserted.

For many years no wheeled vehicles, with the exception of bicycles and
afromobiles, were allowed in the city. Later motorcars were admitted, but
rolling chairs and bicycles are still the popular conveyances. There are no
commercial parking lots or tourist camps, and the parking of trailers is
limited to one hour.

Palm Beach has no Negro settlement, and Negroes are not allowed on
the streets after dark unless actively employed in the city.

To those of the literary world, many of whom are winter residents, Palm
Beach has furnished alluring backgrounds. Joseph Hergesheimer's Tropi-
cal Winter has captured much that is characteristic of the city and its peo-
ple. The island and environs have been the locale for numerous articles and
short stories, and for novels by Elmer Davis, Arthur Somers Roche, and
Ethel Pettit, his wife, and others. Prominent artists of magazine and news-
paper fields make the city their winter vacation ground; matched with na-
tionally known sports writers and novelists, their annual golf tournament
is an event.

The early architecture of Palm Beach, running to steep-roofed, gable-
typed frame houses with cupolas and turning-lathe ornamentation, was
dominated by mammoth wooden hotels painted in the prevailing Flagler
white and lemon yellow. Magnificent concrete structures have supplanted
pioneer hostelries, but a few of the residences remain, some still occupied
by owners who prefer their shingle-walled dwellings to the palatial estates
that surround them.

It was Addison Mizner, artist-architect, prize fighter, and miner, who,
shortly after the World War, introduced the Spanish vogue that resulted
in a transformation of architecture along Florida's lower east coast. Miz-

230 FLORIDA

ner's houses, built with courtyards on various levels, were replete with ar-
cades and lofty galleries; rooms featured exposed rafters and vaulted ceil-
ings; tiled pools and mosaic murals resembled those of Pompeii. To obtain
materials needed for his creations, Mizner established plants for the manu-
facture of tile, ironwork, furniture, and pottery. His pioneer Florida effort,
the Everglades Club, was responsible for commissions to design homes for
the Stotesburys and Vanderbilts, for Rodman Wanamaker II and Drexel
Biddlejr.

Following the boom, with its extensive building program in the city, the
Mizner vogue passed, and the British-Colonial-type house became popu-
lar; the pastel shades of the Mediterranean were in part replaced by the
oyster white of the newer designs and by less bizarre ornamentation.
Among more recent examples classed under the general term of Tropical
Colonial are the West Indian and Bermudan, with whitewashed walls and
green shutters.

Settlement of the Palm Beach area was of comparatively recent date;
neither the Spanish, during three centuries of almost unbroken rule, nor
the English left their imprints upon the lower east coast. It was not until
the War between the States that Lang, a Confederate draft dodger, settled
in what is now Palm Beach and built the first house. Lang vanished at the
close of the war and in 1872 Charlie Moore from Miami took over the
property. Others followed, and by 1873 four families had settled in the vi-
cinity. Captain Elisha Newton Dimick, known as the founder of Palm
Beach, reached the island in 1876 and built a house on land purchased
from the State at approximately $i an acre. His holdings, together with
his father's, are a part of the property now occupied by Colonel Bradley's
Casino and the Whitehall Hotel. Two miles of ocean front extending from
what is now Sunset Avenue to McKenna Place, homesteaded by Melville
Spencer of Pennsylvania in the early 1870*5, was sold 40 years later to
Samuel Untermeyer, New York lawyer. The land homesteaded by Cap-
tain Albert Geer was sold to Henry M. Flagler for $75,000 and became the
site of the Royal Poinciana Hotel.

The resort proper perhaps owes its existence to the wreck of a Spanish
barque in 1878. The vessel's cargo of coconuts washed ashore and took
root; early settlers gathered many nuts and planted them on their prop-
erty, and in time the barren sand key was transformed into a patch of
South Sea loveliness.

After years of receiving mail in haphazard fashion, in 1880 the settlers
were granted a post office under the name of Palm City. Afterwards, dis-
covering that another town in the State had a prior claim to the name, the
settlement was rechristened Palm Beach.

In 1893 Henry M. Flagler, whose railroad had reached as far south as
Rockledge, "attracted to the palm-covered island and quick to visualize its
possibilities as a winter resort, purchased property on both sides of Lake
Worth and began construction of the Royal Poinciana, Palm Beach's pio-
neer hotel. Shacks, tents, and boarding houses sprang up rapidly. Material
for the hotel was shipped down the Indian River from Eau Gallic to Jupi-
ter, thence 8 miles across country on the Jupiter and Lake Worth Railroad

PALM BEACH 231

to Juno, where it was again transferred to boats on Lake Worth. Flagler
visited here regularly, directed the layout of the township, installed water-
works, paved streets, and made other civic improvements, including an ex-
tensive landscaping program, at his own expense. The early arrivals were
from Philadelphia the Wanamakers, Stotesburys, and Wideners fami-
lies still prominent among colony leaders. With their approval, Palm
Beach patronage increased, the capacity of the Royal Poinciana Hotel was
doubled, and larger, more magnificent hotels and estates were built. Ex-
clusive clubs with a membership fee of $10,000 came into being. To this
slender ribbon of sand almost within sight of the Everglades has been
transplanted the luxury of the world. It is a luxury tempered with good
taste, and though the city is in many ways artificial, its beauty is genuine.
Several hurricanes have swept the city since its founding, the most se-
vere one occurring September 16, 1928, causing an estimated damage of
$10,000,000. Miles of ocean drives were washed away, trees and shrubbery
destroyed, and homes ruined by water. Although there was no loss of life
here or in West Palm Beach, more than 1,800 were drowned in the Okee-
chobee section west of the city.

POINTS OF INTEREST

1. MEMORIAL FOUNTAIN AND PLAZA, occupying the center of S.
County Road between Brazilian and Australian Aves., was built in 1930 as
a memorial to those who have taken a prominent part in the city's devel-
opment. Behind a landscaped, oblong, sunken pool a series of steps lead to
successive terraces. At the foot of the second flight are square-cut columns
topped by ornamental urns bearing bronze memorial tablets. Upon the
highest terrace is a circular, three-tier concrete fountain upheld by four
rearing, winged horses. Addison Mizner contributed his services as de-
signer ; winter visitors and local business firms defrayed the cost of the struc-
ture, and the site was donated by the city. 'Only two names have so far
been placed on the memorial tablets: Henry M. Flagler, railroad builder,
and Elisha N. Dimick, pioneer resident and first mayor of Palm Beach.

2. VIA MIZNER and VIA PARIGI, Worth Ave. between Cocoanut Row
and Hibiscus Ave., two roofless winding courts extending through to Peru-
vian Ave., are Mizner creations in the typical Mizner manner. The nar-
row, flag-paved streets, restricted to pedestrians and afromobiles, are bor-
dered by shops displaying exotic wares, and by patio restaurants and open
air cafes. Outside stairs lead to second floor apartments and studios, their
casements opening upon iron-grilled balconies. Tropical trees, shrubs, and
vines contribute to the Old World atmosphere.

3. The EVERGLADES CLUB (private), Worth Ave. at S. end of Cocoa-
nut Row, a stucco building with a red tile roof, medieval turrels, and
wrought-iron grille work, in the style of a Spanish monastery, was de-
signed by Addison Mizner, his first venture in Palm Beach. The building^
originally intended to serve as a country club with cottages for convales-
cent soldiers, was transformed into the first of the city's smart clubs fol-
lowing the World War.

232 FLORIDA

4. BETHESDA-BY-THE-SEA, NE. corner S.County Road and Barton
Ave.j an Episcopal church of Gothic design, was built in 1925. It embraces
a number of features of ecclesiastical design characteristic of fifteenth-
century churches, when the embattlement tower was used for defensive
purposes. The arched main entrance passes through the tower that is
capped by a parapet with four corner finials. The nave, surrounded by
large stained-glass windows, seats 500. Adjoining the tower is a cloister,
formed by a series of decorated, foliated arches enclosing a quadrangle in
the manner of open-air cloisters of medieval churches. The parish house
alongside follows the same architectural design. The architects were Hiss
and Weekes.

The CLUETT MEMORIAL GARDEN (open daily], adjoining the
church, is noted for its tropical landscaping. It was presented to the church
by Miss Nellie Agnes Cluett of Troy, New York, in memory of her parents.

This is the third church of the same name built in the city, all of which
are standing. The original church on North Lake Trail, about a mile north
of Bradley's Casino, was erected in 1889; its kneeling benches and book
racks were built of rough pine boards and packing boxes. When a hurri-
cane damaged the church in 1894, a second church was built near by. This
is a gray shingled structure with a low arched veranda across the front and
two octagonal towers. The larger tower, with curling eaves resembling a
pagoda, contains a clock with gilt numerals and hands.

5. The BREAKERS, Ocean Walk, E. end of Breakers Drive, is a $7,000,-
coo hotel of Italian Renaissance design, built in 1925. It is of buff stucco,
with twin towers on the west facade. The architects were Shultz and
Weaver.

6. The WHITEHALL, S.Lake Trail at W. end of Cocoanut Walk, a
$4,000,000 white stucco structure, is the city's second largest hotel. The
nucleus of the building was the Henry Flagler residence. It was enlarged
and reconstructed in 1925; Carrere and Hastings were the architects.

7. The SITE OF THE ROYAL POINCIANA HOTEL, S.Lake Trail be-
tween Royal Poinciana Blvd. and Cocoanut Walk, is associated with the
early resort life of Palm Beach. Constructed as part of the Flagler East
Coast development in 1894, the grandiose frame structure of more than
1,000 rooms was used until the season of 1929-30. It was demolished in
1936, but a wing of the great veranda still stands. The grounds and gar-
dens remain intact and are considered among the most beautiful in Amer-
ica. The POINCIANA GREENHOUSE (open daily] contains a collection of rare
tropical shrubs and trees.

8. BRADLEY'S BEACH CLUB (private), NE. corner Royal Poinciana
Blvd. (Main St.) and N.Lake Trail, a rambling white clapboard house, uni-
versally known as Bradley ; s, is America's winter Monte Carlo. It was
founded in 1898 by Colonel Edward R. Bradley, cowboy, scout, and miner,
and chartered as a social club. All interior walls are white trimmed with
green, the colors of the Bradley racing stables. Admittance to persons more
than 24 years old and nonresident in Florida is by membership card or by
introduction through a member.

9. ST.ED WARD'S ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, NW. corner N.

PALM BEACH

AND

WEST

3. The Everglades Club

4. BetheBda.By-The-Sea
S.Th Breakers

6. The Whitehall

7. Silo of the Royal Polnrfana Hotel

8. Bradley'* Beach Club

9. St Edward's Roman Catholic Church
10. 1 Mirasol

1 L The Parka Marine MUMUJB
12. Both and Tennis dub

233

234 FLORIDA

County Road and Sunrise Ave., is of Spanish Renaissance design and con-
structed of casts tone. The main entrance is flanked by two towers, one
domed, the other topped with an arcade and tile roof. The three massive
arched doors are of carved walnut with iron grilles. Over the entrance is a.
stained-glass window dedicated to the patron saint of the church, and
above it is the shrine of St.Edward; the four memorial windows in the
north chapel represent the life of St.Anthony, those in the south chapel
that of St.Theresa. Carved black walnut screens extending from column to
column separate the chapels from the baptistery, and the vestibule from
the nave. Cloisters representing the eight parables and eight miracles,
lighted by 16 arched windows, open from both sides of the nave. The effect
of the interior and exterior is one of extreme simplicity and beauty of de-
tail. Architects were Mortimer Dickerson Metcalfe and Edward Minden.

10. EL MIRASOL (private) , Wells Road between N. County Road and the
ocean, is the 42-acre estate of E.T.Stotesbury, with buildings designed by
Addison Mizner. The STOTESBTJRY ARCH, on N. County Road, main en-
trance to the grounds, is a large gateway built in Moorish style, its col-
umns ornamented with Spanish and Moorish tiles. The grounds are en-
closed by a buff stucco wall with a red tile coping. The best view of El Mir-
asol is from Wells Road, north of the estate.

11. The PARKE MARINE MUSEUM (open 9-5 daily), N. end of^N.
Ocean Blvd., is housed in a small white frame building near the inlet pier.
The museum, owned by a taxidermist, has a large collection of mounted
marine life, ranging from a 5oo-pound tuna to a half-pound Sargossum fish.

12. The BATH AND TENNIS CLUB (private), S.Ocean Blvd. at E. end
of Southern Blvd., is in the form of a rambling Spanish mission, with the
broad terraces of its cloisters overlooking the ocean. It was designed by
Joseph Urban of New York and built in 1926 at a cost of $1,250,000 to its
300 charter members. At one time annual membership fees were $10,000.

Pensacola

Railroad Stations: 21 S.Coyle St. for Frisco Lines; BE. corner N.Alcaniz and Wright Sts.

for Louisville & Nashville R.R.

Bus Stations: 121 N.Palafox St. for Greyhound Lines, St. Andrews Bay Transportation

Co., and Teche Greyhound Lines; 17 E.Garden St. for Munroeville Bus Co.; Palafox and

Gregory Sts. for local busses.

Taxis: Zone system, ip fare.

Local Busses: Fare 55^ in city; Fort Barrancas and Naval Air Station, 15^.

Piers: L. & N. docks, S. end of Tarragona St., and Frisco docks, S. end of DeVilliers St.

for North German, Dixie-Mediterranean, and Mobile Oceanic Lines.

Toll Bridges: Pensacola Beach, Santa Rosa Island, and State 53, 75^ one way, 85^ round

trip; Lillian Bridge, Alabama points, 25^.

Traffic Regulations: R. on red into S. Palafox St. only; all through streets marked by

yellow signs.

Street Order and Numbering: Palafox St. is the dividing line for E. and W. Sts., Garden

St. for N. and S. Sts.

Airport: 5 m. E. on i2th Ave. for National Airlines.

Accommodations: Five hotels; boarding houses and tourist camps.

Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, E.Garden and Brae Sts.; Municipal Adver-
tising Board, San Carlos Hotel, W. Garden and N.Palafox Sts.

Radio Station: WCOA (1340 kc.).

Motion Picture Houses: Six.

Swimming: Bayview Park, E. end of Blount St., free; Pensacola Beach, Sonta Rosa

Island, 8.3 m. SE. on State 53; Saunder's Municipal Beach, between I and J Sts.; Gulf

Beach, 17 m. W. on State 93.

Shuffleboard: E.Garden St., opposite Chamber of Commerce.

Tennis, Checkers, and Dominoes: Bayview Park, E. end of Blount St.

Golf: Osceola Country Club, 4 m. N. on US 90, 18 holes, greens fee $i.

Fishing: Municipal pier, S. end of Palafox St., numerous piers and bridges for bay and

river fishing, free; Pensacola Beach pier for surf fishing, io Charter boats, guides and

equipment for deep-sea fishing along waterfront.

Annual Events: All Souls' Day Candle Lighting, St. Michael's Cemetery, week before
Lent; Camellia Show, Mar.; Navy Carnival, May; Navy-Civilian Golf Tournament,
May June; Southern Yachting Association Regatta, July 4; Pensacola Tennis Associa-
tion Tournament, July 4 and Labor Day; Pensacola Anglers' Club Fishing Rodeo, July;
Navy Day Celebration, Oct.; Horse Show, Oct.; Escambia County Fair, Nov.

PENSACOLA (13 alU 3*, 579 pop.) is built on the north shore of Pensa-
cola Bay, the largest natural, landlocked, deep-water harbor in the State.
On the east is Bayou Texar and on the west Bayou Chico, wide arms of the
bay that reach inland on each side of the Pensacola peninsula. The ship
channel winds past the U.S. Naval Air Station, Forts Barrancas and San
Carlos, and enters the Gulf of Mexico between a barren sand spit and
Santa Rosa Island.

235

236 FLORIDA

The city rises from a level area, occupied by the business section and
dominated by a block-square hotel, to North Hill and East Hill, the newer
residential districts. From them is a view of the bay, more than 15 miles
wide at places, with its irregular, tree-fringed bayous and ochre-yellow
bluffs. It is spanned on the southeast by a long toll bridge connecting the
city with Santa Rosa Island and the white Gulf beaches. The harbor, once
crowded with ships when exports of lumber and naval stores made Pensa-
cola an important Gulf port, shows little activity. Huge wharves, railroad
coaling docks, and warehouses line the waterfront, obviously too large
and numerous for the maritime commerce handled today.

In atmosphere and character, Pensacola is more an old Spanish town
than an American city, and the old Spanish proverb, 'The night is made
for sleep, and the day for rest/ is still quoted here. The names of streets
Zarragossa, Palafox, Tarragona, Intendencia, Moreno, Gonzales, and Al-
caniz are a heritage from early Spanish settlers.

The old city, extending six blocks north of the bay, presents a jumble of
gables, pilasters, dormers, and colonnades. The plank walks and long
flights of steps leading to second-story entrances have disappeared, but
there remain high balconies, many ornamented with wrought-iron railings,
and jutting balustrades reminiscent of New Orleans and Mobile, to which
Pensacola is more closely related historically and architecturally than it
is to other Florida cities.

Garden Street, a dividing line for north and south streets, served during
the British occupation as a community garden and pasture. Although it
has been converted into a two-way thoroughfare, a parkway landscaped
with flower beds, shrubs, and pecan trees down the middle suggests its
earlier use. Palafox Street, the principal business thoroughfare, is also di-
vided for several blocks by a formal garden, and these two streets retain
something of the color and charm of the easy-going lyoo's, despite their in-
tersection in the heart of the city's business district.

Intermingled along downtown streets are churches, monuments, and
historical squares; store fronts of chromium and tile; faded two- and three-
story frame and brick buildings with wood and metal awnings that have
sheltered leisurely shoppers for more than a century. All are dwarfed by an
eight-story gray stucco hotel with its patio and observation tower, the cen-
ter of the town's social, civic, and political activities.

In residential areas overlooking the old town much of the natural growth
of oak, magnolia, and other hardwood has been retained in small parks and
spacious yards, and along the streets. The majority of the houses, built
since the World War, are of Southern Colonial design; those of brick and
stucco have not been influenced by the architecture or bright coloring in-
troduced by the boom.

Unlike most Florida communities, there are no sharp dividing lines in.
the areas given over to the different racial groups and nationalities. In.
some white sections are numbers of Negro homes, and in other parts of the
city where Negroes are most numerous, some white families live in har-
mony with their neighbors. The probable reason for this is that Pensacola
is one of the few Southern cities where the dominant social group was orig-

PENSACOLA 237

inally Spanish. In fact, the customs and characteristics of southern Europe
still prevail, and pure Latin types are frequently seen on the streets. Negro
life in Pensacola is progressive, and members of this race seem better edu-
cated than is usual in the 'Deep South ;' and though racial distinction is
rigidly adhered to from a social standpoint, many Negroes hold trusted
and responsible positions with firms operated by white men. There is a
small professional group in the city, and some Negro establishments, par-
ticularly barber shops, are patronized by white customers.

There exists in Pensacola the remnant of a peculiar ethnic group calling
themselves ' Creoles/ but who are not to be confused with the New Orleans
Creoles of French and Spanish stock. The Pensacola Creoles are chiefly de-
scendants of a much larger group, of Spanish and Negro admixture, who
enjoyed great prosperity before the War between the States. A large per-
centage of them own their homes. Although they hold themselves aloof
from the Negroes, they are not accepted on terms of social equality by the
whites.

The economic life of the city is largely dependent on the Naval Air Sta-
tion. Its officers and cadet aviators, and, to a lesser extent, the officers of
the army post at Fort Barrancas, dominate the social life. Sailors, soldiers,
and marines are abroad every afternoon and night. The gala occasions are
the annual pre-Lenten coronation balls and Navy Day celebration, and
the more boisterous festivities along the waterfront attending the return of
red-snapper fishing boats.

There is evidence that Panfilo de Narvaez and his men, leaving the vi-
cinity of Apalachicola in a fleet of makeshift boats, passed close to the site
of Pensacola during the winter of 1528; but its first recorded history begins
with the arrival of Capitan Maldonado, commander of the fleet that
brought De Soto to Florida shores, who entered the bay and christened it
Puerta d'Anchusi, a name probably suggested by Ochus, as the bay was
known to the Indians. By discovering the bay he completed a voyage west-
ward along the Gulf coast seeking a harbor for De Soto, who was near Apa-
lachee, 100 miles to the east. De Soto agreed to make the harbor his base of
supplies, but intrigued by tales of gold he marched off to the north.

Nineteen years later, Philip II of Spain dispatched an expedition of
1,500 soldiers, colonists, Negroes, and Indians, in the command of Don
Tristan de Luna, to the Pensacola region. The fleet reached the harbor iri
1559, and De Luna renamed it Santa Maria. No historical data exist as to
the exact spot upon which the settlement was established, but in 1561, af-
ter a storm destroyed the fleet, the colony was abandoned. This settlement
on the shores of Pensacola Bay antedated by six years the founding of
St.Augustine.

Gradually the name Santa Maria was replaced by the present name, re-
putedly derived from the Indian panshi, meaning hair, and okla, meaning
people, a name conferred upon natives of this region who wore their hair
long. Some historians, however, claim the settlement was named for the
Spanish seaport Peniscola.

Formal possession of the site was re-established in 1698 by Don Andres
d'Arriola, who, arriving with 300 soldiers and settlers, built a wooden fort

238 FLORIDA

in honor of Charles II, and erected houses and a church. The French, hav-
ing established colonies to the west, captured the fort in 1719: it was re-
taken by the Spanish only to be surrendered to the French again when the
town was burned and the fort blown up. Although a treaty was signed be-
tween the warring nations in 1720, it was not until 1723 that Pensacola
was restored to Spain.

The new settlement was founded on Santa Rosa Island, a barren and un-
inhabited strip of land opposite the mainland, because its isolation prom-
ised security from Indian attacks. Destroyed by a hurricane in 1754, the
settlement was re-established on the north side of the bay, the present site
of Pensacola. Shortly after Florida became a British colony in 1763, the
Spanish garrison and entire population were removed to Vera Cruz, Mex-
ico, and Pensacola was made the capital of West Florida. A captain of the
English forces occupying the deserted town, wrote that Pensacola con-
sisted of C 4o huts, thatched with palmetto leaves, and barracks for a small
garrison, the whole surrounded by a stockade of pine posts. 7

Many white settlers brought Negro slaves and established plantations.
The first city plan was made still discernible in the old sections of Pensa-
cola and streets were laid out through the swamp; the principal thor-
oughfare was named for George III, another for Queen Charlotte; a stock-
ade was built in the center of town as refuge against Indian attacks. Dur-
ing the period of English rule, surrounding marshes were drained, cleared,
and planted in gardens.

At the outbreak of the American Revolution, Pensacola became a haven
for Tories. The most important commercial result of this immigration was
the establishment of the Scottish firm of Panton, Leslie and Company, by
its senior member, William Panton, America's first millionnaire and mer-
chant prince, his object being to capture the Indian trade of West Florida.
The Scotsman's interests were strengthened by the influential connection
he formed with Alexander McGillivray, chief of the great Creek Confeder-
ation.

McGillivray was the son of Lachlan McGillivray, a youth of a good
Scottish family, and of a French-Indian mother. He received an education
in Charleston, South Carolina, and in 1776, at the age of 30, returned to
his mother's people to become the chief of 6,000 Creek warriors. He held
positions as Colonel in the British Army, Colonel in the Spanish Army,
and Brigadier General in the United States Army. But McGillivray kept
faith only with Panton and made the trading company more powerful than
any government in the territory. The firm's trade with the Indians grew
steadily, reaching as far as Tennessee.

This era (1772-81) was most prosperous, and Spain again coveted the
harbor. A Spanish fleet under Don Bernardo de Galvez, governor of New
Orleans, besieged Pensacola from sea and land, until its surrender in May
1781. The Spanish governor was unsympathetic to all Protestant colonists,
and most of the English left the city when Florida was ceded back to Spain
in 1783. It was during this period that Fort San Carlos was built. After Na-
poleon sold Louisiana to the United States in 1803, Spanish Florida was
surrounded by territory of its unfriendly neighbor, the United States.

PENSACOLA 239

By 1814 Pensacola had become a lawless and disorderly city, headquar-
ters for filibusters, runaway slaves, and British agents. An English expedi-
tion under Colonel Edward Nichols entered the city in the summer of 1814
and received a hearty welcome from the Spanish governor. Soon the forts
were repaired, arms and ammunition were distributed, and the flags of
England and Spain floated in unison. Nichols busied himself in penning
bombastic proclamations, and in enticing the Indians to join him. A visi-
tor of that day wrote: Such scenes of preposterous costuming, of tripping
over swords, of hopeless drill, and mad marching and countermarching as
the common of Pensacola then witnessed can be imagined only by those
who know precisely what sort of creatures Indians are. Captain Woodbine
might as well have attempted to train the alligators of the Florida lagoons
for the British artillery service.' These conditions induced Andrew Jack-
son to make an attack on Pensacola in November 1814, as a result of which
the British withdrew.

Raids by Florida Indians on the Georgia border brought Jackson to
Florida again in 1818, when he descended upon Pensacola and set up a
military government. Severe criticism was directed at him for invading the
territory of a nation with which the American Government was at peace,
but Spain was told that West Florida would be returned when sufficient
Spanish troops were sent to govern the unruly savages. This was done in
1819 and the province was surrendered. In 1821, with the transfer of Flor-
ida to the United States, Jackson was made provisional governor of the
territory, and took up his residence in Pensacola. He accepted the appoint-
ment as a vindication of his Florida campaigns, but held it only four
months. Neither he nor Mrs. Jackson understood the Latin population,
and Jackson indulged in fiery tilts with retiring Spanish officials.

The first legislative council of the new Territory of Florida convened in
Pensacola in 1822, but because of a yellow-fever epidemic the sessions were
transferred to a plantation 15 miles from the city. Pensacola was chartered
as a city in 1822. During 1825, owing to the strategic location and excel-
lent harbor, the United States established a navy yard here, and the same
year a New York syndicate projected the building of a railroad between
Pensacola and Columbus, Georgia. Land auctions were held and lots
changed hands rapidly; new buildings were erected. An editor of a local
paper complained that 'The sound of carpenters' hammers, heard on every
side, we regard as the greatest annoyance a man can no longer adjust
himself for an hour's siesta.'

Iron and cars for the railroad were imported from England; shiploads of
laborers brought over from Ireland ' worked like beavers, but fought like
devils,' and were replaced by Dutchmen. Half of these refused to stay in
the city; the rest demanded their mid-morning and mid-afternoon beer,
and until this privilege was granted laid down their tools.

In 1844 Jonathan Walker, abolitionist, was captured, tried in Pensacola
for slave stealing, and sentenced to 15 days imprisonment, a fine of $150,
and to be branded on the palm of his right hand with the letters ' SS ' (slave
stealer). Around this incident, John Greenleaf WMttier, in 1846, based his
poem, 'The Branded Hand.'

240 3? L O R I D A

At the outbreak of the War between the States, when United States ar-
senals and other property here were seized by the Confederates, Pensacola
was the largest city in the State. The surrender of Fort Pickens on the
western shore of Santa Rosa Island was demanded and refused, the Con-
federate decision being, ' We think no assault should be made, as posses-
sion of Fort Pickens is not worth one drop of blood to us. Bloodshed may
be fatal to our cause/

In February 1862 the Confederates were ordered to abandon the city;
all supplies and ammunition were sent to Alabama, and the majority of
troops moved to Tennessee. By May the greater number of citizens had
departed, burning what they could not take with them, and on the loth of
the month Mayor Brosnaham surrendered the town to Federal military
authorities.

The years immediately following the war found Pensacola a drowsy old
town, 4 squares wide and 8 long, its streets deep in sand. A local newspaper
protested the destruction of weeds that flourished in the areas, declaring
they furnished the only signs of growth in the town. Upon recovery from
the effects of the Reconstruction period, Pensacola enjoyed a second era of
prosperity, due largely to railroad development of the territory and ex-
ports of timber and naval stores.

In the early iSyo's began the development of the waterfront. The har-
bor was filled with steamboats and square-riggers from the ports of the
world. Vessels, before loading cargo, discharged their ballast, which was
hauled and dumped along the shore, and 60 acres of land were created in a
few years. Thus Pensacola's reclaimed shoreline is made up of red granite
from Sweden, blue stone from Italy, broken tile from France, and dredg-
ings from the River Thames and the Scheldes of The Netherlands.

In 1880 fire gutted the business district, destroying more than 100 build-
ings. Rebuilding was slow. By the turn of the century Pensacola, with a
population of 18,000, was the second largest city in the State. It did not
grow proportionately through the early IQOO'S, and little of importance oc-
curred until 1914, when the Government established its first training base
for naval aviators. During the World War the Naval Air Base activities in-
creased, and Pensacola datelines appeared regularly in the Nation's press.
When the Armistice was signed, 438 officers and 5,559 enlisted men were
stationed at the base.

Important industries in the Pensacola territory are those producing tur-
pentine, rosin, and insulating wall board from pine stumps and wood
waste, a furniture factory, and a large brewery. Vegetables, fruits, and
poultry from the back country make the city an important agricultural
trading center.

Pensacola is one of the leading points for commercial fishing, and 46 per
cent of the red-snapper catch of the United States is shipped from here.
Fishing boats, modeled after Gloucester smacks, sail to the snapper banks
near Yucatan, remaining at sea for weeks and bringing back tons of fish.
The snappers are caught by handlines often in water 25 fathoms deep.
When a boat returns home, Pensacola's waterfront is a scene of merry-
making, with money flowing freely until spent. It is considered unlucky for

PENSACOLA 241

a professional fisherman to set out on another trip with funds in his
pockets.

POINTS OF INTEREST

1. PLAZA FERDINAND VII, S.Palafox St. between E.Government and
E.Zarragossa Sts., is a remnant of the original Spanish Square. It is en-
closed by a low stone fence and planted with oaks, cedars, magnolias, and
cabbage palms. Old cannon are mounted at each corner, and a fountain and
pool face Government Street. Here occurred the exchange of flags when
Spain ceded West Florida to the United States in 1821, and a granite
marker commemorates the event. The large monument in the center of the
square is in memory of Colonel William D. Chipley (1840-97), soldier,
statesman, and benefactor of West Florida.

2. SEVILLE SQUARE, S.Alcaniz St. between E.Government and E.Zarra-
gossa Sts., is also a part of the original Spanish Square, which was broken
up in 1802 and sold for building lots, only two city blocks being retained
as public squares. This part was the center of the fashionable residential
section of the city through the i88o's.

3. OLD CHRIST CHURCH (Episcopal), NW. corner S.Adams and E.
Zarragossa Sts., erected in 1834, is the oldest church building in the city. It
is a plain, rectangular brick structure with Gothic windows and a large
square belfry. The church was used as a hospital and barracks by Union
forces during the War between the States. Extensive repairs were made in
1879, including a 2o-foot addition on the west side. The organ loft was
removed, the flat ceilings were replaced by Gothic arches, and stained-
glass windows substituted for plain ones. In 1902 the bell and the stained-
glass windows were removed to the New Christ Church and some of the
openings were bricked up.

The church was deserted from 1902 to 1936, when title to the property
was given to the city for use as a PUBLIC LIBRARY (open 10-5 weekdays}.

4. The BARCLAY HOUSE (private), S. end of S.Florida Blanca St., built
in the late 1700*5, is said to be the oldest residence in the city. Of stuccoed
brick, with a large chimney on either end, it stands flush with the street
and high off the ground. A large front gallery opens into a hall running
through the building. The low second story is pierced by three dormers.
The original floors, sills, window frames, and balustrades to the second
floor are in an excellent state of preservation. Areas of broken plaster ex-
pose sections of hand-hewn lath. Tradition says a tunnel once ran from the
basement to the Old Christ Church, a block and a half west.

5. ST. MICHAEL'S CEMETERY, Alcaniz St. between E.Chase and E.
Romana Sts., the year of its establishment uncertain, is said to be the
city's oldest cemetery and contains many historic graves, among them
that of Dorothy Walton, wife of a signer of the Declaration of Indepen-
dence, who died in 1832. On All Souls' Day candles are burned on many
graves here.

6. The PERRY HOUSE (private), NE. corner N.Palafox and E.Wright
Sts., now used as a Scottish Rite Temple, was the home of Governor Ed-

242 FLORIDA

ward A. Perry. The two-story, stuccoed brick building with a balcony sup-
ported by a row of square white columns extending around three sides, is
well preserved.

Edward Aylesworth Perry (1833-89) moved from Massachusetts to
Pensacola in 1857, and at the outbreak of the War between the States en-
listed in the Confederate army, where he was promoted to the rank of
Brigadier General of the Florida Brigade. He was elected Governor of
Fl6rida in 1884; during his administration the State passed a Confederate
Veterans Pension law.

7. FIRST METHODIST CHURCH, E.Wright St., adjoining the Perry
House, established in 1821, was the first Protestant Church in Pensacola.
The original structure occupied the site of the San Carlos Hotel. The pres-
ent church, a brown stucco structure of Gothic design, was built in 1910.

8. NEW CHRIST CHURCH, NW. corner N.Palafox and W.Wright Sts.,
built in 1902, is a gray stucco structure with red tile roof. The entrance is
between engaged Ionic columns that support a broken pediment. The fa-
$ade rises to a bell gable topped with a concrete cross.

9. ST.MICHAEL'S ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, SW. corner N.
Palafox and W.Chase Sts., houses the oldest Catholic congregation (1781)
in Pensacola. The gray stucco structure with Gothic doors and windows
and a square belfry rising to a pyramidal spire was erected in 1888. The
glass windows were imported from Munich, Bavaria.

10. DOROTHY WALTON HOUSE, 137 W.Romana St., built in 1805, is
notable for an old-fashioned twin chimney piercing its low garret roof. The
new roof extending over the porch is not in keeping with the plastered
walls of oystershell, sand, and lime. This was the home of George Wal-
ton II, secretary of West Florida under Governor Andrew Jackson. A por-
tion of the house is occupied by the DOROTHY WALTON MUSEUM (open
9-12 and 2-6 daily; adm. 10). Among the exhibits are old maps and en-
gravings of Pensacola, ancient firearms, coins, and pottery, and cannon
balls fired by the Spaniards in the bombardment of Fort George in 1781.

11. HULSE HOUSE (private), 210 W.Romana St., built in 1848, was origi-
nally occupied by Dr.Isaac Hulse, a surgeon in the United States navy,
distinguished for his success in treating yellow-fever patients in Pensacola
and in the French fleet anchored in the harbor during an early epidemic.
The residence, a one-and-a-half story frame structure with a chimney at
each end, has six wooden columns supporting a veranda roof, broken by
three dormers, that extends across the front of the building. Four case-
ment windows open upon the veranda. The building was used during the
War between the States as a lodging house, and later by the Sisters of the
Holy Cross as a convent school.

12. SITE OF GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON'S HOUSE, SE. corner
S.Palafox and E.Intendencia Sts., is marked by a bronze tablet on a red
brick business building. Mrs. Jackson viewed with horror the Sunday gam-
bling and merrymaking of the gay Spanish populace, and when the city
came under American rule observance of the Sabbath was strictly en-
forced, largely through her influence.

13. The SITE OF THE GRAVE OF ALEXANDER McGILLIVRAY,

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243

244 FLORIDA

W.Main St., between S.Barcelona and S.Baylen Sts., a Scottish-Indian
made chief of the Creek Confederation in 1776, is marked by a bronze tab-
let. Near by are the ruined walls of the Pan ton-Leslie warehouse.
14. MUNICIPAL PIER, S. end of S.Palafox St., municipally owned, is
provided with benches from which the wide sweep of Pensacola Bay, the
lighthouse, and the distant Naval Air Station are visible. Fishing smacks
often unload their catches of red snapper here. The PENSACOLA YACHT
CLUB, its boat slips and pier, occupy the west side of the wharf.

POINTS OF INTEREST IN ENVIRONS

Cony Field, 5.2 m.\ U.S. Naval Air Training Station, 5.9 m.\ Forts Barrancas
and San Carlos, 6 m.\ Fort Pickens, 7 m. (see Tour ;d). Pensacola Beach and Santa
Rosa Island, 8.3 m. (see Tour 146).

Railroad Station: Malaga St. between Valencia and Ovieda Sts. for Florida East Coast

Ry.

Bus Stations: Alhambra Hotel, King and Granada Sts. for Florida Motor Lines and

Seminole Coach Co.; Gilbert Plaza Hotel for Pan-American Bus Lines.

Airport: Municipal Field, 4 m. N. on US i ; no scheduled service.

Taxi : io to 25^ in city.

Hackmen: Negro; horse-drawn vehicles, $1.50 per hour. Stations 30 Granada St. and

Ponce de Leon Hotel.

Traffic Regulations: Principal one-way streets, St. George and Aviles Sts. (S), Charlotte

St. (N) ; numerous others, all marked.

Accommodations: 12 hotels; many cottages, rooming and boarding houses; rates higher
Dec.-Mar.

Information Service : Chamber of Commerce, San Marco Ave. N. of City Gates. Licensed
guides at Fort Marion entrance; city tour $i, including Anastasia Island, $1.50.

Radio Station: WFOY (1210 kc.).

Theaters and Motion Picture Houses: Cathedral Lyceum, 265 St. George St.; Civic Center
Auditorium, adjoining Chamber of Commerce; two motion picture houses.
Swimming: North and South Beaches, Anastasia Island, free; YMCA indoor pool, Va-
lencia and Ribera Sts. 15-25^.

Tennis: Ponce de Leon Hotel, King and Valencia Sts., annual fees $10; Civic Center,
San Marco Ave. N. of City Gates, 25^; YMCA, 25^.

Shufflleboard and Horseshoe Pitching: Civic Center, San Marco Ave. N. of City Gates,
annual fee $3.

Golf: St. Augustine Links, i m. N. on US i, 18 holes, $2; St. Augustine Municipal Course,
93 Cerro St., 9 holes, 50^.

Riding: Garnett Orange Grove, StXouis Ave. W. of San Marco Ave., $i per hour.
Fishing: Vilano Bridge, Usina's Beach, City Pier, Lighthouse Park Pier, Matanzas Inlet
Park, all free; boats, guides and equipment available along waterfronts; deep-sea fishing
boats and guides at City Pier.

Annual Events: A Day in Old Spain, March; Pilgrimage to Shrine of Nuestra Senora de
la Leche, Low Sunday (Pentecost).

For further information regarding this city consult Seeing St.Augustme, another of
the American Guide Series, published in 1937 by the Record Co. and sponsored by the
City Commission of St.Augustine.

ST.AUGUSTINE (7 alt., 12,111 pop.), Is the oldest permanent white set-
tlement in the United States. Tune and sun and tropical rains have ex-
acted toll from crumbling parapets and gateways, stucco and paint have
covered age-mellowed walls and antique planking, but much remains to.
preserve tie charm and memories of an old city.

245

246 P L R I D A

The peninsular site was selected by the Spaniards in 1565 as a strategic
point for defense because three rivers encircle all but the north side where
Fort San Marcos, now Fort Marion, was built. The Matanzas and North
Rivers, links in the Intracoastal Waterway, border on the east and south,
the San Sebastian River on the west. All are salt-water lagoons lying be-
hind Anastasia Island, which separates the city from the Atlantic Ocean.

On the north the City Gates, once the moated entrance to the town,
open into narrow St. George Street, one of the principal thoroughfares.
Guarding the channel on the east stands the gray stone fortress, a re-
minder of the settlement's early role as defender of Spain's claim to North
America. Bay Street sweeps south of the fort along Matanzas Bay and
past the bronze statue of Ponce de Leon, Florida's discoverer, overlooking
the circle approach to the massive white Bridge of the Lions that crosses to
Anastasia Island,

Here, in the heart of the ancient city, on opposite sides of the Plaza de
la Constitucion, historic military parade grounds, are the Catholic Cathe-
dral and Trinity Episcopal Church, occupying sites long used for religious
activities. In the park west of the Plaza, once the site of the Spanish gov-
ernor's palace, the balconied post office looks across to the red spires and
tiled domes of the great Flagler hotels. Some distance beyond, past the
yellow frame railroad station, are the busy docks of the shrimp-fishing
fleet on the San Sebastian River.

Around the palm-fringed Plaza clusters the business district, an incon-
gruous mixture of the old and new in structure and in wares. Although the
majority of streets bear Spanish names, some are English and a few typi-
cally American. Here, side by side under overhanging balconies, are an-
tique shops and cocktail lounges; a weathered cedar door adjoins one of
gleaming chromium, and a rust-pitted iron grille, perhaps fashioned by
slave hands, becomes a show window for the latest in radios. An office
building shoulders an ancient cathedral; clustered flags and placards ad-
vertise points of interest; water tanks and neon signs break in on an Old
World skyline, and machine-age traffic shatters the spell of drowsy, shad-
owed streets. The colors of Castile, emblazoned on municipal banners and
on walls of ornate tourist hotels, are matched by the scarlet hibiscus and
golden allamanda, blossoming in sheltered gardens and along city park-
ways.

Bicycles are still a favorite means of transportation. Horse-drawn sur-
reys, driven by top-hatted Negroes who solicit fares for sight-seeing trips,
are reminiscent of St.Augustine's early days as a tourist resort. On narrow,
twisting side streets, Minorcan restaurants offer pilau (a highly seasoned
potpourri of rice with boiled meat, fish, or fowl), fried shrimp, chowders,
and gopher (land turtle) stew.

The art colony along Aviles Street displays its products on gray coquina
garden walls, and the artists often work at easels beneath fig trees in open
courtyards. Gardens throughout the city are bright with subtropical flow-
ers. Many plots, secluded behind high walls, were laid out a century ago,
and their patios are sheltered by pomegranate, fig, and sweet orange trees,
fruits brought over at an early date by the Spaniards.

ST. AUGUSTINE 247

The western area of the town, paralleling the sluggish San Sebastian
River and traversed by the railroad, with its docks, freight houses, ware-
houses, and clutter of shacks, presents an industrial aspect in sharp con-
trast to the city's older portion.

The Spanish flavor has remained dominant in the city's atmosphere as
successive waves of non-Spanish settlers fell under its influence; climate,
location, and background have contributed to the preservation of its
charm. Although invading nations often razed old structures and salvaged
stone to build new dwellings, they retained Spanish ideas in architecture.
North walls remained windowless for protection against winter winds,
while large southern casements and patios were retained. The English
added steep gable roofs, chimneys, and porches to their houses, but kept
intact the wooden second stories and walled-in gardens. Pioneering Amer-
icans found the buildings to their liking and moved in with but few
changes. The newer structures in the old part of town suggest those of
Granada and Seville, and native coquina rock used in their construction is
as useful to modern builders as it was to the artisans who discovered and
quarried the stone in 1580.

The residential districts have grown more since 1900 than during the
previous three centuries. North of the City Gates are substantial homes of
Southern Colonial type, surrounded by well-kept lawns shaded by palms,
crape myrtles, and massive live oaks. Intermingled are conventional brick
and frame bungalows and apartment houses, and a few houses of the Span-
ish Provincial styles. The oleander and hibiscus hedges, and bright flower-
ing bignonia, bougainvillea, and coral vines that festoon fences and gate-
ways, provide colorful suburban backgrounds.

Of St.Augustine's present-day population, the largest foreign group
includes descendants of the Minorcans, transplanted by Dr. Andrew Turn-
bull from the Mediterranean island in 1767. Portuguese, Italians, and
Scandinavians of the shrimp fleet make up a portion of foreign residents,
as well as the Cubans, Greeks, and Armenians who operate many restau-
rants and curio shops.

Negroes have had an important place in St.Augustine's history. As
slaves of the Spaniards brought over in the late 1500*5, they were the prop-
erty of the king and required to be of Catholic faith. In the first hospital in
the United States, built here in 1597, a Negro woman waited on patients,
including Negroes and Indians. During the Seminole War many Negroes
allied with the Indians, causing much concern among St.Augustine slave
owners. Shortly before the War between the States escaped slaves were
aided in reaching Canada by a white family occupying a plantation near
the city. This property is the site of the coeducational Florida Normal and
Industrial Institute for Negroes, founded in 1892, The Negro colony, west
of the railroad, has its stores, meeting houses, and recreational center. The
inhabitants are employed in domestic service, as guides, as unskilled la-
borers in small manufacturing plants and on the shrimp fishing docks, and
in hotels.

Extensive plans are under way for the preservation of the historic re-
sources of the old town: St.Augustine is the subject of research by staff

248 FLORIDA

members of the Carnegie Institution at Washington, assisted by other his-
torians and scientists. Excavations are revealing ancient landmarks, and
old maps and documents are being used as the basis for the preservation of
the important features of the city, under a program of the St.Augustine
Restoration Committee.

On April 3, 1513, Ponce de Leon landed somewhere in the St.Augustine
area and remained for five days. On September 8, 1565, Don Pedro Me-
nendez de Aviles, Spanish admiral, took possession of the territory along
the river and founded the settlement, naming it St.Augustine because he
first sighted Florida on August 28, St. Augustine's Day. The French fleet
under Jean Ribaut, preparing to attack the town, was blown to sea by a
hurricane.

St.Augustine became the Spanish military headquarters of North Amer-
ica, and its governors manned forts and policed the coast from Virginia to
Florida for 40 years, repulsing efforts of other nations to establish colonies
in the territory. One of the most formidable attacks on St.Augustine was
made in 1586 by Sir Francis Drake, British admiral, who sacked and
burned the town. The Spanish colonists fled to forest refuges during the
raid, but later returned and rebuilt their homes.

St.Augustine was safer after it became the headquarters of missionary
activities among southeastern Indians, and through its 40 or more mission
towns controlled the natives and defended the frontier against the French
and English. Following the founding of Charleston by the English, the
Spaniards in 1672 began construction of a stone fort. From South Carolina
in 1702, and again in 1728, the English descended to burn, plunder, and
seize thousands of Indians for slaves. Although the fort withstood artillery
attacks, the hospitals, monasteries, and the valuable Franciscan library
"were destroyed.

James Oglethorpe, Governor of Georgia, launched a series of attacks,
the most formidable in 1740, and although he failed to capture the fort,
he took all the outlying defenses. His victory on St.Simon's Island in 1742
ended the power of Spanish St.Augustine. Twenty years later, when the
British took over Florida, they found a town of empty houses, most of its
residents having fled to Cuba.

Under British rule (1763-83) St.Augustine enjoyed prosperity. The In-
dians were no longer a menace, great plantations were established in the
vicinity, and the King's Highway was constructed to Georgia. During the
Revolution, many slave-owning Tories found residence in the city, where
anti-rebel sentiment was intense. John Hancock and Samuel Adams were
burned in effigy in the public square, and later prominent dissenters, in-
cluding Heyward, Rutledge, and Middleton all signers of the Declara-
tion of Independence were imprisoned in the fort. The city became an
important depot for British operations against the Southern Colonies, and
gunboats patrolling the coast and the St. Johns River brought in numerous
American prizes. A land attack against Savannah was launched from
StAugustine in 1777, and a naval venture in 1783 resulted in the capture
of the Bahamas for England.

A rabid Tory paper, the East Florida Gazette, established here in 1783,

ST. AUGUSTINE 249

ceased publication the year the war ended. When St.Augustine received
word that Spain was again to control Florida, the British quickly evacu-
ated. Abandoned houses gradually filled with Americans taking up Span-
ish land grants. A few years later American residents urged the annexation
of Florida by the United States, and in 1812 a number of them joined a
similar group from Fernandina for a time to support a Republic of Florida.

Another Spanish evacuation took place in 1821, when Spain transferred
Florida to the United States. After the new American Government be-
came operative, the second session of the legislature was held in St.Augus-
tine, but later Tallahassee was chosen as the capital.

Among the visitors to the city during the next decade were Prince
Achille Murat, nephew of Napoleon, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, who
wrote that St.Augustine was a town of some 'eleven or twelve hundred
people/ and that 'the Americans live on their offices, the Spaniards keep
billiard tables, or, if not, send their Negroes to the mud to bring back oys-
ters, or the shore to bring fish, and the rest of the time fiddle, mask, and
dance.'

Throughout the Seminole War from 1835 to 1842, the city figured prom-
inently in national news. Soldiers wrote letters to all parts of the country,
giving their impressions of the old town; of forlorn refugees from the sur-
rounding territory camping within the walls, and of pitiful Indian prison-
ers and hostages confined in the dungeons of the fort. Popular sentiment
favored Osceola, Seminole leader, after his seizure in 1837 while en route to
confer with American leaders 7 miles from St.Augustine. His death in
prison at Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, served to increase the bitterness,
but this and similar controversies lapsed at the close of hostilities.

Union troops held the fort and town of St.Augustine from 1862 to the
end of the War between the States. For a period following the war the
town was practically isolated from the rest of the State. River boats oper-
ated up the St. Johns River as far as Picolata, and passengers reached the
city, a distance of 48 miles, after a 6-hour stage and ferry trip. Provisions
were mostly brought in from Jacksonville by sea, and prices were exorbi-
tant. In 1871 a mule-drawn railroad was built from Tocoi, on the St. Johns
River, to St.Augustine, and it was 1874 before the first locomotive entered
the city.

With improved transportation an increasing number of tourists visited
the city. Letters and articles written by noted journalists and novelists
began to appear in northern papers. Among those attracted in the i88o 3 s
was Henry M. Flagler of New York, retired oil man who, impressed by the
beauty of the little Spanish community, began its development as a win-
ter resort. Flagler erected two large hotels and extended a railroad south-
ward. St.Augustine was made, and remains, headquarters of the Florida
East Coast Railway and Hotel System.

Although surrounded by water, St.Augustine has been retarded in its
development as a port by the constantly shifting sand bars at the mouth of
the Matanzas River, channel to the sea, which form a barrier to all but
shallow draft vessels. Some water commerce, however, has been developed
through the Intracoastal Waterway.

250 FLORIDA

POINTS OF INTEREST

1. FORT MARION (open 8:30-5:30 daily, adm. 10j4, children under 12,
free; guide service) on Matanzas Bay at N. end of Bay St., oldest fort stand-
ing in the United States, was proclaimed a National Monument in 1924,
and is administered by the National Park Service. The plan of this gray
coquina fortress followed designs by Vauban, French military engineer.
Construction of the quadrangular, four-bastioned, moated stronghold was
begun in 1672, but the fort, known as Castle San Marcos, was not com-
pleted until 1756. St. Augustine was defended by wooden forts until Indian
hostages, Negro slaves, soldiers, and inhabitants of the city erected San
Marcos at a cost of millions of dollars. The outer walls, 1 2 feet thick at the
base and tapering to 7 feet at the top, were built of coquina blocks quar-
ried on near-by Anastasia Island and ferried to the site.

Seven years after completion the fort fell into British hands and during
the 20 years of English occupancy it was known as Fort St.Marks. Again
in possession of the Spanish, the old name was restored, but in 1825 after
Florida became United States' territory, the stronghold was renamed Fort
Marion in honor of General Francis Marion, Revolutionary patriot of
South Carolina.

During the Seminole Wars the fort was used as a prison, and here Os-
ceola, Coacoochee, Talmus Hadjo, and other Indians were confined. In the
southwest corner room opening off the courtyard, Coacoochee and Hadjo
were imprisoned, and made their escape through the high, narrow window.

A broad stairway, formerly a ramp up which heavy cannon were drawn
to the terreplein, or roof, of the fort, is supported by a graceful elliptical
arch considered remarkable by engineers because it sustained ramp and
passage of ordnance without a keystone.

From the terreplein is a fine view of the fortification, the old sea wall,
and the surrounding town. Granite arcs, upon which American guns were
swung, are still in place, and below in the eastern earthworks is the hot
shot oven where cannon balls were heated red before firing, in order to set
fire to enemy ships.

2. The ZERO MILESTONE, between Bay St. and the City Gates, a co-
quina sphere six feet in diameter, was placed here in 1929. It marks the
eastern terminus of an old Spanish trail that linked the missions between
St. Augustine and Pensacola.

3. The CITY GATES, St. George St. at Orange St., consist of two square
coquina pylons with concave peaks capped with representations of the
Moorish pomegranate. The gates are attached to sections of an old co-
quina wall and a moat, and as part of the city defense system comprise one
unit of Fort Marion National Monument. Construction of the original co-
quina gates, replacing earlier wooden ones, began in 1745, but the present
more ornamental structures were erected in 1804, and for many years
guarded the drawbridge over a moat.

4. The OLD WOODEN SCHOOLHOUSE (open 8-6 daily; adm. 10$, 14
St. George St., a vine-clad, one-story clapboard structure of hand-hewn red
cedar planks, with a coquina chimney and a dormer window, was built as

It]

ST. AUGUSTINE
1939

17. TlHamltaoCtab

18. Plmadelo

19. 7h Catlwdral oi SL
30. PabUcXibrary

21. Tiw Folio

82. Tb Don Tal*4 HOBI*

23. PMC. d* two Hotel

251

2$2 FLORIDA

a residence in 1778. It was used for a schoolhouse before the War between
the States. The old Spanish kitchen is still intact.

5. The HOME OF JOHN PAREDES (Arnau House), 54 St.George St., a
two-story coquina block building covered with rusty stucco, with three
dormer windows and a tall coquina chimney, is occupied by a curio, sou-
venir, and antique shop. It was built between 1805 and 1813 and is owned
by the St.Augustine Historical Society.

6. The OLD SPANISH INN (private), 43 St.George St., a wide-eaved
two-story coquina building covered with stucco, dates from the first Span-
ish occupation, which ended in 1763. Its two arched openings are sup-
ported in the center by wooden columns,

7. The CITY BUILDING, NW. corner St.George and Hypolita Sts., a
three-story yellow concrete building with a four-columned Grecian portico
and red brick trim, is the temporary shelter for the headboard of the
casket of Pedro Menendez de Aviles, founder of St.Augustine. This relic
was presented to the city by the Spanish Government in 1924. In the city
vaults are municipal records dating from 1821.

8. The OLD SPANISH TREASURY (Anna G. Burt House) (open 1-5
daily; adm. 25), SE. corner St.George and Treasury Sts., a two-story
flat-roofed, white-shuttered house, the first story of yellow stuccoed stone,
the second of wood, houses the Woman's Exchange. The original building
is said to have been erected about 1600.

The house contains intact the furnishings of the Burt family that occu-
pied the premises from 1830 until the death of Miss Burt in 1931, when the
property was deeded to the city. Among the contents are fine old mahog-
any pieces, oil paintings, rare glass, old spreads on carved four-poster beds,
old-time clothing, and other accessories of a well-to-do household of that
time. The heavy-walled treasury room contains an authentic Spanish
chest, a collection of old coins, two ghoulish apelike figures used for intimi-
dation by the Spanish court of inquisition, and a separate well to provide
potable water should the supply in the garden be poisoned. In the garden
outside is the other well, under an arched colonnade with square vine-
covered piers. Part of the garden wall is the original coquina fence around
the treasury. The plants include Japan plum, sago and date palm, a rare
frankincense tree, camphor and orange trees, the night-blooming jasmine,
Mexican coral, and many others.

9. The POST OFFICE, St.George St. between Cathedral and King Sts.,
a two-story L-shaped building of stucco and coquina with a red tile pitched
roof, distinguished by its weathered wood balconies, was reconstructed in
1936-37 along the lines of a 1764 drawing. It embodies part of the struc-
ture of the Governor's Mansion, which was rebuilt on this site in 1690.

10. TRINITY EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SE, corner St.George and King
Sts., a mottled stucco edifice with a wooden-shingled spire, is said to be the
first Episcopal Church in Florida, The cornerstone was laid June 23, 1825.
An unostentatious example of Gothic Revival architecture, the north
porch and tower and the walls of the north transept and baptistry are the
only remaining portions of the old building.

n. The PRINCE MURAT HOUSE, NW. corner St.George and Bridge

ST. AUGUSTINE 253

Sts., a two-story vine-covered building with two shingled dormer win-
dows. Used as a coffee house, this coquina structure was built around
1815 and is believed to have been occupied by Prince Achille Murat dur-
ing his residence in the city.

12. The LLAMBIAS HOUSE (private), 31 St.Francis St., a two-story
coquina house with a red tile roof, green shutters, and overhanging bal-
cony, built prior to 1763, was once owned by T.Llambias, member of the
original Minorcan colony.

13. The 'OLDEST HOUSE' (open 9-6 daily; 25 includes adm. to the Casa
de Cannonosa and Webb Memorial Library and Museum), 14 St.Francis
St., was reputedly built in the late 1500*5. The house abuts on the street,
and thick coquina walls reach to the wooden second story, which termi-
nates in small porches at each end. A hip roof adds to the massive appear-
ance of the vine-covered structure. Notable features of the interior include
low ceilings, huge fireplaces, crushed coquina floors in the old section, and
hand-hewn cedar beams. Early accounts indicate the Franciscan Friars
may have found refuge here during the six years they were rebuilding
their monastery after the fire of 1599. A portion of the building was re-
stored and the tower added in 1888. The St. Augustine Historical Society
purchased the house in 1918.

WEBB MEMORIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM (open 10-12 and
2-4 daily), 16 St.Francis St., a stucco building adjoining the ' Oldest
House/ was named in honor of Dr.Dewitt Webb, for 35 years president of
the St.Augustine Historical Society. The library upstairs houses a collec-
tion of Floridiana valued at more than $50,000, including illustrated vol-
umes by Catesby, 1743, on Florida plant and animal life.

CASA DE CANNONOSA (House of the Cannon Ball) (open 9-6 daily),
18 St.Francis St., a rectangular building with a vine-covered balcony, ad-
joins the library. It was so named because it is claimed one of the walls
was pierced by a cannon ball from an Oglethorpe battery in the siege of
1740. During early American occupation the place served as a tavern.

14. The ST.FRANCIS BARRACKS (open daily), 108 Marine St, is a
two-story yellow stucco building with a shallow balconied court topped
with a flat balustrade. Officially designated as a barracks in 1 88 1, it houses
the State arsenal and executive offices of the Florida National Guard. On
this site about 1577 the first Franciscans built their crude church, monas-
tery, and convent. During the English occupation the chapel of the con-
vent was adapted as barracks for the soldiery. When Florida became a
territory of the United States the old cells were used as a jail. The main
building, gutted by fire in 1915, was restored in 1921.

15. The NATIONAL CEMETERY, Marine St. and Cemetery Lane, bor-
dered by a concrete wall, contains graves of many soldiers killed during
the Seminole Wars, notably Major Dade and the 104 men massacred by
the Indians in 1835. Their tombs are marked by three gray stone monu-
ments known as the Dade Pyramids.

16. BRIDGE OF LIONS, continuation of Cathedral St., connects the
mainland with Anastasia Island. Dedicated in 1927, the concrete span and
drawbridge with its massive piers and symmetrical towers stretches in a

254 FLORIDA

sweeping arc across Matanzas Bay. The bridge derives its name from two
monumental marble lions guarding the city approach, a gift of the late
Dr. Andrew Anderson.

17. The HAMBLEN CLUB (two weeks free membership to tourists; dues $1
month), Bay St. and plaza fronting on Cathedral St., is an ornate three-
story stucco building with a variegated tile roof and a square tower topped
by a blue dome, of typical boom- time Spanish architecture, with bal-
conies and arched openings. It was willed by the late Charles F. Hamblen,
local businessman, as a clubhouse for workingmen, and is operated as a
social club.

18. The PLAZA DE LA CONSTITUCION (Place of the Constitution),
Cathedral St. between Charlotte and St. George Sts., and extending to
King St., is a landscaped parkway in the center of the town. It is named
for the shaft erected in 1813 to commemorate the adoption in Spain of a
liberal constitution. When in the next year Ferdinand VII was recalled to
the throne of Spain he violated his pledge to abide by the new document,
declared it null and void, and ordered the removal of monuments raised to
it. However, the monument still stands in St. Augustine. The translated
Spanish inscription on the base reads:

Place of the Constitution. Promulgated in this city of Saint Augustine of East
Florida on the lyth of October, 1812, the Brigadier Don Sebastian Kindalem,
Knight of the Order of Saint James, being the Governor.

For Eternal Memory. The municipal Government erected this monument under
the supervision of Don Fernando de la Plza Arredondo the young senior Alderman
and Don Francisco Robira.

Don Fernando's full name was Don Fernando de la Maza Arredondo,
but tradition has it he was so active in trying to get the monument set up
in the Plaza, that the Spanish jokingly called him 'Don Fernando de la
Plaza/ The name on the monument, 'Don Fernando de la Plza/ is chiseled
in such a manner that some think the sculptor started to inscribe the nick-
name, then thought better of it.

At the east end of the Plaza is the SLAVE MARKET, an open, shedlike
structure built in 1824 to replace the original market on this site which
dated back to 1598, and was used for public auctioning of provisions and
slaves. The present structure, with its low gabled roof, square cupola, and
simple square columns, is provided with tables for checkers, chess, and
dominoes.

19. The CATHEDRAL OF ST.AUGUSTINE (open daily), Cathedral St.
between Charlotte and St. George Sts., begun in 1793, was completed in
1797 and partially destroyed by fire in 1887. The structure has two fronts.
The restored original front of stuccoed coquina rock is of Spanish mission
style with pierced gable belfry and surmounting cross. The smallest bell is
dated 1682. In a niche above the entrance portal is the aluminum-coated
statue of St.Augustine. The portal is framed by coupled Doric columns
and topped with a classic broken pediment.

The adjoining tower, built in 1887, has a choir entrance, over the door
j}f which a sundial, stenciled on the facade, keeps time an hour earlier than
Eastern Standard, having been placed there before Florida changed from

Cities II

'^^'^

^ \V ; ^^ '^''f-y-j^'t-
""''" ^-I'^^ft^ix^irM .>fe

PJiofograpli Jby H. Kendall Williams
FISHING FROM MUNICIPAL PIER, ST. PETERSBURG

THE GREEN BENCHES, ST. PETERSBURG

A PARACHUTE JUMP, PENSACOLA

Phonograph by courtesy of United States Navy.

CAMP SCENE, SPANISH AMERICAN WAR, TAMPA (1898)
Photograph Jby courtesy of Burgert Brothers

Photograph by DcrHgreu
WINTER HAVEN

ST. PETERSBURG

TAMPA

INTERIOR OF TAMPA THEA 1

Photograph by courtesy of Burger* Brothers
UNIVERSITY OF TAMPA (FOHMERLY TAMPA BAY HOTEL)

STATE CAPITOL, TALLAHASSEE

AGRICULTURAL BUILDING, UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA, GAINESVILLE

REHEARSAL CIRCUS WINTER QUARTERS, SARASOTA

RINGLING ART MUSEUM, SARASOTA

ST. AUGUSTINE 255

Central Standard time in 1919. Higher on the tower a blue-faced clock
keeps the prevailing Eastern Standard time. Above the clock the tower
changes from square to octagonal, with heavier ornamentation of pilasters
and pediments, and is topped with a red tile roof surmounted by a gold
cross. The belfry is heavily ornamented with carvings and brass work,
now green with age.

In the interior stained-glass windows depict phases in the life of St.Au-
gustine. Ventilators beside the pews along the outer walls are opened dur-
ing hot weather. Adjoining the main entrance is the La Leche Shrine Shop,
where figurines of the saints are for sale.

The Cathedral Parish of St.Augustine is the oldest in the United States,
its records of births, marriages, and deaths dating from 1594.

20. The PUBLIC LIBRARY (open 9:30-5:30 weekdays), 5 Aviles St.,
owned by the St.Augustine Library Association, is a two-story coquina
and wood structure erected prior to 1785. When Florida was ceded to the
United States the house was rented to Joseph J. Smith, member of the
Florida supreme court, and here was born Edmund Kirby-Srnith, last of
the Confederate generals to surrender. The garden and fountain in the
rear patio are framed by Romanesque arches. The library contains 14,500
volumes in addition to the Ammidown Genealogical Collection, and the
Caldecott Collection of original drawings.

21. The FATIO HOUSE (open 9-5 daily), adjoining the Public Library on
the south, is a two-story stuccoed coquina building with a red tile roof,
owned by the Colonial Dames in Florida. It was built by Andrew Ximenez
between 1806 and 1821, in the style identified with the second Spanish
occupation. Its old slave quarters, Spanish kitchen, patio, and balconies
provide space for gift shops, artists 3 studios, and apartments.

22. The DON TOLEDO HOUSE (open 8-6 daily; adm. 2Sf), NW. corner
Aviles and Bridge Sts., a square, two-story coquina building with a low-
pitched gable roof, a small overhanging balcony, and broad windows with
faded red batten shutters, is typical of the houses erected during the sec-
ond Spanish occupation. It is entered through a side door of the kitchen
that opens upon a large room with a packed dirt and coquina floor. From
the kitchen a jointed wooden stairway, to be drawn up at night, leads to
an upstairs bedroom. The house contains relics, antiques, pictures, and
furniture used by former residents of the city.

23. The PONCE DE LEON HOTEL (open Jan. to Apr.), Cordova St.
between King and Valencia Sts. and extending to Sevilla St., together
with its landscaped grounds enclosed by a chain fence with spiked iron
balls in place of links, covers six acres. The monolithic concrete and co-
quina structure, with its red tile roof, many domes and spires, lavishly
decorated arched gateways and interior ornamentation, was built by
Henry M. Flagler. He sent Carrere and Hastings to study the architecture
of Spain, many details of which they incorporated in their eclectic design.
The Ponce de Leon opened in 1889, the first of the Flagler chain of Florida
east-coast hotels, and established St.Augustine as a fashionable winter re-
sort.

24. VILLA ZORAYDA (open 8:30-6 daily; adm. 25$, 83 King St., a vine-

FLORIDA

covered coquina and concrete structure of Moorish design, is trimmed in
bright red, blue, and yellow, the Moorish colors. The house was erected in
1885 by its architect-builder, Franklyn W. Smith, who based his design on
that of the Alhambra, as shown in the detail of the horseshoe arches and
the arabesque ornaments on the interior. A museum, the collection of the
owner, consists of inlaid and elaborately carved Oriental pieces, ancient
Egyptian hangings, valuable rugs, ancient firearms, and many Oriental
items.

25. The SHRIMP DOCKS, S. of King St. (US i) on the San Sebastian
River, are headquarters for the squat, pot-bellied boats of the shrimp
fleet. The fleet comprises approximately 120 Diesel-powered boats rang-
ing from 50 to 75 feet in length, with such names as Natal, Diddy Wa
Diddy, Old Glory, and Fortuna. Manned by Scandinavian, Italian, Portu-
guese, Spanish, and Negro crews, the vessels often remain at sea for days.

With the arrival of loaded, net-festooned boats, each followed by a
cloud of gulls, the docks present a colorful picture, best viewed from the
King Street bridge over the San Sebastian River. An army of shouting
Negro workers transfers the shrimp in great baskets from holds to the
cleaning sheds on the docks where Negro women and children decapitate,
shell, and clean the shrimp, receiving from 10^ to 15^ a bucket. A nimble-
fingered worker can shell 15 buckets a day. From the sheds the shrimp are
sent to near-by canning plants, or are loaded, fresh, into waiting trucks
and refrigerator cars for shipment North. The industry employs 2,000
workers, and the annual cargo is valued at $1,200,000.

26. The FLAGLER MEMORIAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (open
daily), NW. corner Valencia and Sevilla Sts., was built in 1890 by Henry
Flagler in memory of his daughter, Jennie Louise Benedict. This Venetian
Renaissance style structure in yellow and white terra cotta and yellow
brick, topped with a copper dome, is built in the shape of a Latin cross.
Mosaic floors are of Siena marble, relieved by plaques of breccia violet
marble. A domed MAUSOLEUM containing Flagler's remains adjoins the
church.

27. The SPANISH CEMETERY, Cordova St. between Orange and Sara-
gossa Sts., in a grove of oaks and cedars, was used as a burial place for
Spaniards in 1794, and for others until 1878. Dark, weathered coquina
crypts are built above the ground.

28. The HUGUENOT CEMETERY, NW. corner San Marco Ave. and
Orange St., surrounded by a coquina wall, is overgrown with moss-hung
cedars and magnolias. It was opened in 1821 during the yellow-fever epi-
demic. Despite the name, there is no record of Huguenot burials in the
cemetery, but it may have been so named because it was a Presbyterian
cemetery, and all Protestants were known to Spaniards as Huguenots.

29. NUESTRA SENORA DE LA LECHE (Our Lady of the Milk),
Ocean St., one block E. of San Marco Ave., a small coquina chapel of
Spanish mission type, built in a dense hammock on a tongue of land ex-
tending into an estuary of Matanzas Bay, commemorates the first mass
(Sept. 8, 1565) said in the settlement. A shaded drive encircles the chapel
.and the slopes of the quiet hammock are dotted with mossy gravestones.

ST. AUGUSTINE 257

The original chapel near the present site, destroyed in 1728, was called
N ombre de Dios (Name of God). When the miracle of the statue of the
Lady of the Milk occurred in Spain about this time, the chapel obtained
one of the statues that were adopted by many Catholic churches through-
out the world. The present chapel, designed after the original structure,
was erected in 1918.

At a little shop maintained in connection with the shrine, figurines of
the saints and other religious objects are sold.

30. In the FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH PARK (open 7-7 daily; adm. 25$,
Magnolia Ave., foot of Myrtle Ave., are landscaped gardens, and a repro-
duction of an Indian stockade and communal house after a LeMoyne
drawing of 1564, having an INDIAN BURIAL GROUND where more than 100
skeletons, uncovered and preserved, are displayed under green lights.
These burials are believed to have been made after the founding of the
city; crossed arms and other evidences indicate Christian Interment. A
well, in a missionlike grotto of coquina rock, is advertised as the Foun-
tain of Youth that Ponce de Leon may have visited in 1513. A MUSEUM
houses a collection of relics dating back to the sixteenth century.

POINTS OF INTEREST IN ENVIRONS

St. Augustine Lighthouse, 1.7 m. y Alligator Farm, 1.9 m. } Fort Matanzas, 13.9 m.^
Marine Studios, 17.5 m. (see Tour iA}.

St.Petersburg

Railroad Stations: Atlantic Coast Line Station, ist Ave.S. and 3rd St. for Atlantic Coast
Line R.R.; Seaboard Air Line Station, 2nd Ave.S. and gth St. for Seaboard Air Line Ry,
Bus Stations: Union Bus Station, Central Ave. and ist St. for Florida Motor Lines and
Tamiami Trails Motor Line; Transfer Station, Union Bus Station and Williams Park
for Pass-A-Grille Bus Line, fare 25^ lo-trip ticket $1.50. Uptown Union Bus Ticket
office. Central Ave. and 5th St. .

Airport: Albert Whitted Field, on Tampa Bay and 7th Ave.S., 10 blocks from business
district for National Airline System and blimp hangar.

Taxis: Fares 15^ per person for first zone, io# each additional zone of ic^blocks for any
number of passengers; same for each piece of hand baggage. City driving, $2 per hr.
Rate card and zone map obtainable at Chamber of Commerce.

Streetcars and Municipal Busses: All cars and busses enter and depart from Central
Transfer Station, Central Ave. and 6th St.; fares io until 6.30 P.M., afterwards 5^; to-
kens, 4 for 30^, i5-ride tickets, $i; pass for all day Sunday on all lines, 25^; weekly pass,
unrestricted, $i.

Ferry: Bee Line Ferry, slips S. end of 4th StS., 5 m. from Post Office; connects with
Tamiami Trail and points South; toll iojf per foot length of car; driver free; extra pas-
sengers over 14 yrs., 25^ each.

Traffic Regulations: First alley N. of Central Ave. is E. only; first alley S. is W. only.
Free parking except in spaces provided with parking meters. Meter charges for each
half-hour or hour, 5j, according to zone. Leaflet on regulations free at Police Dept,
rear of Chamber of Commerce.

Accommodations: 85 hotels; rates higher, Dec.-Mar.; several large trailer camps.

Information service: Chamber of Commerce, 4th St. and ist Ave.S.; A.A.A., 20 Beach
Drive N.

Radio Station: WSUN" (620 kc.).

Motion Picture Houses: 9, 3 equipped for legitimate performances. Negro gallery at
Plaza theater.

Swimming: Municipal Indoor Pool, 2nd Ave.N., at entrance to pier, 35^, with towel
40j; Spa beach, adjoining, free; Municipal solarium, 35^ (sun bathing), on Mole, 2nd
Ave.N".; Gulf beaches, 10 m. W. from business district.

Tennis: Municipal Courts, on the Mole, free, but permits must be obtained from Recre-
ational Bureau, 5th St. and 2nd Ave.N.; St.Petersburg Tennis Club, annual dues, adults
$3, juniors $1.50, Bartlett Park, 4th St. and iSth Ave.S.

Shuffleboard: StPetersburg Shuffleboard Club, annual dues $4, Mirror Lake Park, Mir-
ror Lake Drive at 7th St.; Sunshine Pleasure Club, E. end of ist Ave.S.
Roque: Roque Club, annual dues $10, Mirror Lake Park.
Bowling: Lawn Bowling Club, annual dues $10, Mirror Lake Park.
Chess: Chess Divan, annual dues $2, Mirror Lake Park.

Horseshoe Pitching: Sunshine Pleasure Club, annual dues $2 50, E. end of ist Ave.S.
Gun Club : Sunshine Rifle and Pistol Club, annual dues $5, range 47th Ave., E. of 4th St.
Baseball and Diamond Ball: Waterfront Park, E. end of ist Ave S.
Golf: Clark's Sunset Golf Club, Snell Isle; Jungle Country Club, Park St. and 5th
Ave.N.; Pasadena Golf Course, S. end of 64th StS., Gulfport. All 18 holes, greens fee
$i-$i 50 according to season.
Dog Racing: St.Petersburg Kennel Club, 6 m. N. on 4th St.N., Dec, to Apr.; adm. 25^.

25 s

ST. PETERSBURG 259

Annual Events: ELumquat Bowl football game, championship high-school teams, Jan.;
International Mid- Winter Lawn Bowling Tournament, Feb.; Florida Shuffleboard Asso-
ciation State Tournament, Feb. and Mar.; Sunshine Rifle and Pistol Club, National and
State Tournament, Mar ; Flower Show, Mar.; Festival of States, Apr.; St.Petersburg-
Havana Yacht Race, Apr.; Tarpon Roundup, June through July.

ST.PETERSBURG (41 alt., 40,425 pop.), Florida's fourth largest city
and the second in importance as a winter resort, occupies a semi-isolated
area of 58 square miles on the southern tip of the Pinellas peninsula, a 25-
mile projection between Tampa Bay and Boca Ciega Bay. US 19, entering
from the north, is its only free trunk highway. A toll bridge provides con-
nection with Tampa on the east, and a ferry, crossing the bay on the south,
carries traffic from central and southern points. Because of tolls the city is
sometimes referred to as a pay-as-you-enter playground.

St. Petersburg's front yard is a series of landscaped parks and driveways
paralleling Tampa Bay, a filled-in stretch of two miles embracing the city's
harbor, yacht basins, municipal pier, and major recreational attractions.
North and west of the pier lie North Shore, the pioneer residential section,
and Snell Isle, The latter, dredged from the bay, is reached by a short
bridge over Coffee Pot Bayou. Both are planted with a variety of palms,
Australian pines, and subtropical shrubs. Northward, following the irregu-
lar, pumped-in shores of Tampa Bay, is Shore Acres.

Five miles south around Pinellas Point, a newer residential district oc-
cupies the site chosen by the town's first white settler and overlooks the
main ship channel leading into the Gulf. Bordering the bay to the south-
west is Gulfport, a wedge-shaped municipality, its streets a continuation
of St.Petersburg's, and served by the latter's trolley lines. Carved from
the jungled western border of the peninsula, homes, many built upon In-
dian mounds, face shallow Boca Ciega Bay, across which lie the shimmer-
ing sand keys that are the city's Gulf bathing beaches. A green wall of
citrus groves and open pine woods form much of the northern border.

Central Avenue, the city's 'White Way,' extends rulerlike for 7 miles
across the peninsula, a loo-foot boulevard linking Tampa Bay with Boca
Ciega Bay, and the dividing line for north and south streets. Along its
lower reaches are faded brick and frame structures that make up the
town's original business area of the late 1 890*5. Westward from the water-
front Central Avenue presents an abrupt mounting skyline; closely
grouped hotels and business blocks of light brick and stucco emerge above
the trees to give the city a profile. The brick-paved streets and bench-lined
sidewalks are unusually wide, and although curbs are low, ramps are pro-
vided at nearly all downtown street intersections.

Here, in a compact area, open-air shops, often in ancient frame houses,
false-fronted for business, elbow lofty hotels and office buildings a con-
trast in style, size, and material rather than age, for the city is so young
that its pioneers still take part in community life. Fruit stands and fruit-
juice dispensaries abound; curio shops blossom with the tourist influx, of-
fering, among other novelties, live alligators, miniature turtles, and doll-
size green benches.

Branches of Fifth Avenue shops lift haughty eyebrows at less exclusive

260 FLORIDA

bazaars; health-food restaurants challenge glittering cafeterias, but do not
provide the latter's bargain breakfasts, music, and lucky number draw-
ings, nor do their menus include the ever-popular bowl of mush. In busy
arcades one's blood pressure is taken for a dime; one can invest in an
orange or tung-nut grove, dine at numerous nickel lunch counters, and
have the future foretold by a pseudo-gypsy.

Beyond Qth Street, Central Avenue is lined with one- and two-story
business buildings, filling stations, and residence property interspersed by
vacant lots. It traverses a low area known as Goose Pond, devoted to the
growing and selling of winter vegetables and flowers, and proceeds through
sparsely settled territory to end abruptly at Sunset Park, bordering Boca
Ciega Bay, where a small business district has developed around resort
hotels and a community of suburban homes.

Methodist Town, clustered about a church of that denomination, and
the adjoining colony on the south, both west of gfh Street, are Negro set-
tlements containing schools, churches, mercantile establishments, recrea-
tional centers, and one of the seven exclusive Negro hospitals in the State.
A few substantial brick and frame residences partly redeem the clutter of
dilapidated shacks. The block paralleling the railroad tracks on Second
Avenue is the night life bright-spot, with its upstairs dance halls, barbecue
stands popular with white patrons, and an array of small shops. There is a
limited Negro professional and business group, but the greater proportion
of the inhabitants are engaged chiefly as laborers, in domestic service, and
as waiters, bellboys, and porters in hotels. In 1939 a $1,000,000 Negro slum-
clearance project was under construction, west of the southside Negro
settlement.

St.Petersburg's architecture shows three distinct trends. Surviving are
scattered examples of the early spindle and lathe period of frame con-
struction; more pronounced is the effect of the pseudo-Spanish invasion
that came in with the real-estate boom. Present-day types show a gener-
ous employment of stone, brick, and native woods, and a liberal use of the
Romanesque design in public buildings, churches, and schools.

Conceived and publicized almost solely as a winter resort, St.Peters-
burg's leading industry is its tourist business, grossing more than $50,000,-
ooo annually. Its healthful location was approved as early as 1885 by the
American Medical Association, when one scientist completed records at
Pinellas Point showing the peninsula to be one of the sunniest regions in
the United States.

Although many Florida resorts have featured their abundant sunlight,
St.Petersburg alone has been shrewd enough to capitalize on 'Old Sol' and
to spend $1,000,000 advertising itself as the c Sunshine City.' To make the
name authentic, the publisher of the city's afternoon paper announced
that he would give away his entire edition every day the sun failed to show
its face up to 3 o'clock. In 26 years the paper was distributed free 123
times, an average of less than 5 editions a year. The record endurance con-
test was 546 days, ending on a Friday the 13 th in 1935. Letters addressed
f Sunshine City' are sent to St.Petersburg.

Having advertised its place in the sun, St.Petersburg provided its visi-

ST. PETERSBURG 261

tors with ample means of absorbing the ultra-violet and infra-red rays.
More than 5,000 green benches, in recreation centers and flanking the
sidewalks of the principal thoroughfares, have converted the city into a
park. Their color, size, and design are standardized by municipal ordi-
nance. These slatted divans serve as mediums of introduction, with the
weather the opening and principal topic. Operations, symptoms, and rem-
edies run a close second. The benches are the open-air offices of the pro-
moter, the hunting grounds of the real-estate 'bird dog,' a haven for the
lonely, and a matrimonial bureau for many. They have figured in fiction,
swindles, and divorce courts.

St.Petersburg's sunshine and green benches combine to create the illu-
sion that life gets off to a good start at 75, not 40. Although persons of ad-
vanced years predominate, the majority of bench warmers are not strictly
sedentary. The city is a place of energetic participation in outdoor recrea-
tion, and for the most part sitting is but an interlude. In fact those in the
higher age brackets, including guests of the expensive hotels, and trailer-
car transients, as well as those who own their winter homes, are banded to-
gether in the Three-Quarter Century Club, whose members top three-
score years and fifteen. These oldsters stage their own dances, theatricals,
boxing exhibitions, and ball games, always events of lively interest. So
while the city offers interesting sights to the stranger, it is in reality one of
organized activity rather than eye-filling vistas; lifetime habits of industry
reassert themselves here in channels of recreation.

In addition to its recreational and sports attractions, St.Petersburg's
cultural outlets offer a cosmopolitan blend found only in a city of diverse
population. The range of music reaches from operatic concerts by metro-
politan artists to daily band concerts in the downtown park. The band
with its soloists is composed almost wholly of former members of Sousa's
and Pryor's organizations and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Eighty
per cent of the members of the local Art Club are professionals. Several
magazine illustrators and a number of leading comic-strip artists make
St.Petersburg their permanent home and hold annual exhibitions.

The city has furnished locale and color for many professional writers.
The late Ring Lardner's short story, The Golden Wedding, was a Sunshine
City tale. Rex Beach, George Ade, and Sewell Ford have used St.Peters-
burg and its environs for fiction background. Since it plays host to two
major-league ball clubs each spring the New York 'Yankees' having
trained here since 1924 St.Petersburg perhaps datelines more baseball
copy than any other city in the State. Although it is the acknowledged
winter baseball capital of the Nation, and ranks highest among Florida
cities in gate receipts, including capacity Sunday exhibitions, nevertheless
several churches hold double services twice a day on Sunday to accommo-
date the overflow of worshippers.

Narvaez, Spanish explorer and commissioned governor of Florida,
landed in 1528 somewhere along the Boca Ciega waterfront and marched
across the peninsula to Tampa Bay, but the first recorded white settler did
not arrive until 1843, when Antonio Maximo set up a fish 'rancho' on a
point of land at the southern extremity of the peninsula, now called Max-

262 PL GRID A

imo Point. When his holdings were swept away by a hurricane five years
later he disappeared. The first house inside the present city limits was built
in 1856 by James K. Hay, who came to look after hogs and cattle for
Tampa stockmen.

Upon the outbreak of the War between the States, Union blockaders
stopped fish shipments, shelled one of the houses, and drove most of the in-
habitants to Tampa. A few returned at the end of the war, were joined by
squatters, and resumed their former occupations of fishing and farming.
Some of the first citrus groves were planted at this time. By 1876 a small
community, christened Pinellas, had sprung up around Big Bayou, several
miles south of Central Avenue; a post office was established, boat service
to Tampa was inaugurated, and the settlement became the largest on the
peninsula.

John C. Williams of Detroit, St.Petersburg's founder, acquired acreage
in 1876 which became the nucleus of the city. Williams, later given the
honorary title of 'General/ cleared some of the land and attempted to
farm, but finally turned his efforts to urban development. He made a deal
with Piotr Alexeitch Dementieff, a Russian exile of noble birth who simpli-
fied his name to Peter Demens upon his arrival in Florida, offering him an
interest in the land to build a railroad into the territory. The Russian's
road, known as the Orange Belt Line, reached St.Petersburg from Lake
Monroe, near Sanford, in 1888, when the community had a population of

Williams and Demens, according to the most popular story, tossed a
coin to decide upon a name for the new town. The Russian won and the
settlement was christened St.Petersburg in honor of Demens' birthplace.
Later Williams built the first large resort hotel at the corner of Central
Avenue and 2nd Street, calling it the Detroit, for his home town. Williams
died in St.Petersburg in 1892; Demens went to California in the go's and
never returned to the city he named.

St.Petersburg, with a population of 300, was incorporated in 1892.
Among early settlers were British from the Bahamas and Key West, later
joined by pioneers who arrived in response to land-exploitation campaigns
in England. From adjoining southern States came agriculturists, many of
Scottish ancestry.

Except for its one railroad, which became a part of the Plant System
and later was absorbed by the Atlantic Coast Line, the peninsula was still
isolated. Known as West Hillsborough, it remained a part of Hillsborough
County until 1911, when Pinellas County was created and the first major
land boom got under way. Central Avenue and a streetcar line were ex-
tended westward to Boca Ciega Bay and the city took in a mile-wide strip
paralleling it. Thousands of lots in this territory were sold from a plat at a
tent auction, the most spectacular sale in the history of the city, not ex-
cepting those of 1924-26 boom days.

The resort remained a one-railroad town until 1914, when the Tampa
and Gulf Coast Railroad, later taken over by the Seaboard Air Line,
reached the city. By 1920 St.Petersburg claimed more than 14,000 inhabit-
ants, and the population increased to 50,000 five years later. Miles of new

ST. PETERSBURG 263

roads were constructed, dozens of subdivisions laid out, and several mil-
lion-dollar hotels erected. A ferry began operating to Manatee County,
making possible a direct route to southern points, and the Gandy bridge,
spanning upper Tampa Bay provided a short cut to Tampa. Two free
causeways were built across Boca Ciega Bay to bring a belated boom to
the long neglected islands. Building permits during 1924-25 reached a high
total of $25,000,000. Meanwhile, in an extensive landscaping program,
miles of Tampa Bay waterfront were filled in, improved with sea walls and
promenades, and transformed into a string of municipal parks. In 1939
Central Avenue was extended by means of a causeway across Boca Ciega
Bay to the island Gulf beaches.

FOOT OR WHEEL CHAIR TOUR

This tour, of about two miles, traverses the scenic waterfront of the city
where the major points of interest are concentrated. All the avenues in the
downtown area lead to Tampa Bay, along which follow parallel prome-
nades, including a loop around the pier. It affords a pleasant trip on foot.
Ramps are installed at intersections for wheel chairs and street names are
posted.

(North from Central Ave. on Beach Drive North}

1. The ART CLUB OF ST.PETERSBURG (open 3-5 daily), occupies the
upper floor of a two-story city-owned building and has an active member-
ship of 100. Exhibits are continuous during season, representing applied
and fine arts, local and transient, including originals of magazine and
newspaper illustrations. Among prominent members and contributors was
the late George Inness, Jr.

(Right from Beach Drive North on 2nd Ave. North)

The MOLE, a continuation of 2nd Avenue North, lying between two
yacht basins, is the broad, landscaped fill that leads to the municipal pier.

2. MUNICIPAL BOAT SLIPS (R), extend the full length of the Mole,
bordering the CENTRAL YACHT BASIN. Here yachts, sloops, and fishing
and excursion boats are moored. Fishing trips and pleasure rides are of-
fered at all hours, with information and tickets obtainable at the different
slips. When the fishing boats return in the late afternoon, crowds collect to
greet the anglers and appraise their catches. Proud fishermen hang up their
largest fish or string of fish and strike a pose for the family photographer.
Bets are paid off amid good-natured raillery in which spectators often join.
Passengers carry home what fish they want, and licensed skippers dispose
of the surplus cargo to shoppers, who are always on hand with their mar-
ket baskets. Occasionally a shark, porpoise, or large whipray, harpooned on
the day's trip, is strung up on a rack, an exhibit that attracts many pro-
spective fares.

3. The ST.PETERSBURG HISTORICAL MUSEUM (L) (open 10-12,
2-5 weekdays; adm. 25$, founded in 1920, is housed in a one-story stucco

264 FLORIDA

building donated by the city for preservation of historical relics and rec-
ords. Among the exhibits are fossils, collections of shells, pottery, ancient
guns, butterflies, moths, and stamps; costumes of pre-Revolutionary ori-
gin, early almanacs and newspapers, antique dolls, and a collection of la-
dies 3 bonnets covering a period of 200 years. Archeological exhibits are from
mounds within the St.Petersburg area. An unwrapped mummy, said to be
that of an Egyptian princess, was brought into port by the captain of a
tramp schooner. . .

4. CHILDREN'S PLAYGROUND (L), (open 8 to dark daily] is equipped
with seesaws, swings, sand piles, and other amusement facilities.

5. MUNICIPAL SOLARIUM (L) (open 9-5 weekdays; adm. 35), a roof-
less enclosure with an Egyptian facade, provides facilities for nude sun
bathing. Classes in physical culture, with lectures, are held during the

6. MUNICIPAL SPA AND BEACH (L) (adm. to pool 35$ has an indoor
heated fresh-water pool, facilities for medicinal baths and massages, and a
white sand beach along the bay.

7. The SITE OF AIRLINE TERMINAL (R) is a triangular plot enclosed
by a white picket fence and occupied by a small, one-story building^ The
first regularly scheduled American commercial air line was established
here January i, 1914, operating between Tampa and St.Petersburg. The
first cargo was a ham. The pilot, Tony Jannus, lost his life while with the
Russian air forces during the World War, On January i, 1938, a bronze
tablet dedicated to his memory and the historical flight was placed on a
marker east of the blimp hangar.

8. MUNICIPAL PIER, foot of 2nd Ave.N., a steel and concrete structure
extending 3,000 feet into Tampa Bay, has four motor lanes, a streetcar
line, and wide promenades around the bench-lined pier head. Among other
things, it is the city's fishing grandstand. Fishing balconies are provided
along the pier. Feeding the pelicans, gulls, and ducks is a popular diver-
sion.

The pier head supports a Spanish-type CASINO, a stuccoed, arcaded
structure with red tile roof and low corner towers. It houses lunch and re-
freshment bars, indoor quarters for picnics arid card parties, and booths
for the sale of novelties. Fishing poles are for rent, and bait is sold. On the
second floor is a large ballroom for tourist dances, where community sings
are held each Sunday during the winter. Adjoining are the studios of the
municipal broadcasting station, WSUN, affiliated with the National
Broadcasting Company. Open balconies surrounding the station afford a
view of the St.Petersburg skyline. Northeast across the main ship channel
is Port Tampa with its towering phosphate elevators and oil storage tanks.

(Circle Casino and retrace 2nd Ave. North; Left on Bay shore Drive)

9. ST.PETERSBURG YACHT CLUB (R) Bayshore Drive between ist
Ave.N. and Central Ave. and overlooking Central Yacht Basin, is housed
in a two-story stucco building with gay striped roof containing ballroom,
dining room, bar and lounge. The club is headquarters for the Gulf Yacht-
ing Association.

ST. PETERSBURG

TO GANDY &&!CX3.

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POINTS OF INTEREST

1. Art Club of
SL Petersburg

2. Municipal Boat Slips

3. St. Petersburg

His toricd. Museum

4. Childai'* Playground

6. Municipal Spa and
Beach

7. Site of Airline Terminal

8. Municipal Pier

3. SL Petersburg Yacht
.Oufa

10. Federal Building

11. St Peterabuig lunior

1Z Public Library

13. Mirror Lake Park

14. St Mary's Church

15. Coast Guard Base
IS. AlBqatorFaun

17. Jungle Prado Mounds

265

266 FLORIDA

OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST

10. The FEDERAL BUILDING, SW. corner ist Ave.N. and 4th St.N., a
two-story structure of modified Mediterranean type, built in 1917, was the
first open-air post office in America. The exterior is of terra cotta with blue
and buff ornamentation. The roof is of red tile. Postal boxes and windows
face a wide, terraced loggia with travertine pillars that extend around
three sides of the building.

11. ST.PETERSBURG JUNIOR COLLEGE, SW. corner 5th St.N. and
Mirror Lake Drive, a two-story, red brick structure with white-columned
portico, was established in 1927 through the efforts of the late George M.
Lynch, superintendent of public instruction in Pinellas County, who served
as its first president. The co-educational college offers a three-year pro-
gram of study leading to B.A. or B.S. degrees, and a two-year premedical
course approved by the American Association of Medical Colleges. It was
admitted to membership in the Southern Association of Schools and Col-
leges in 1931 and became the first fully accredited junior college in the
State. The average annual enrollment is about 360.

12. The PUBLIC LIBRARY (open 9-9 weekdays), 5th St.N. and 3rd Ave.
N., is housed in a one-story buff brick building with white stone trim. The
exterior is adorned with a series of plain white pilasters and a stone cove
cornice. The library contains 32,000 volumes, and a section in the west
wing is devoted to Floridiana.

13. MIRROR LAKE PARK, facing Mirror Lake Drive between 5th and
7th Sts.N., is the city's liveliest playground, provided with facilities for
playing roque, shuffleboard, lawn bowling, chess, dominoes, and bridge.
The park is headquarters for the St.Petersburg Shuffleboard Club, with
116 courts and more than 4,000 members.

14. ST.MARY'S CHURCH, SW. corner 4 th St.S. and 6th Ave.S., con-
structed of red brick, is designed in the Romanesque style with a central
dome. The interior contains a baldachino over the altar, double- tier chapels
extending around the octagonal nave, framed by carved wooden arches and
panels. The art glass windows in the upper portion of the central dome rep-
resent figures of the Twelve Apostles. Henry L. Taylor, St.Petersburg,
was the architect.

15. COAST GUARD BASE (open 2-4 Wed.; 1-5 Sat. and Sun.), ad joining
municipal airport on Bayboro Harbor provides sea and air patrol along the
Gulf Coast from Panama City to Cape Sable. The base radio station main-
tains 24-hour contact with boats and planes on patrol, and ships at sea.
The air fleet includes three twin-motor amphibians with radio and air am-
bulance equipment.

16. ALLIGATOR FARM (open 9-5 daily; adm. 35$, 36th Ave.S. and 6th
St.S., has on exhibition 1,500 alligators, some just hatched, one reputed to
be 400 years old. The largest weighs 1,200 pounds. A small zoo contains
specimens of reptiles and Florida wild animals.

17. JUNGLE PRADO MOUNDS (private), Park St. and Elbow Lane, is
the site of a large Indian village. The mounds are overgrown except for a
small section where the street has been cut through. During this excava-

ST. PETERSBURG 267

tion a number of skeletons and a broken Spanish sword were found. Some-
where in the immediate vicinity Narvaez, Spanish explorer, landed in
April 1528, marched across to the head of Tampa Bay, and northward to
the neighborhood of Apalachicola, where he and his men built crude boats
and attempted to sail for Mexico. Narvaez and all but four of his men
were lost at sea.

Sarasota

Railroad Stations: E. end of Main St. for Atlantic Coast Line R.R.; Lemon Ave. and 7th

St. for Seaboard Air Line Ry.

Bus Station: 116 Central Ave. for Tamiami Trail Tours.

Airports: Municipal Field, 1.5 m E. on State 18; no scheduled service. Seaplane base,

Sarasota Bay, S. of Municipal Pier.

Taxis : i$i per passenger within city limits.

Accommodations: 17 hotels; numerous rooming and boarding houses, tourist camps on
main highways. Trailer sites, Sarasota Tourist Park, Ringling Blvd. at Atlantic Coast
Line R.R.; rates for two persons 50^ a day, $1.50 per week; electric current i$ to 50^
per day, 50^ to $2 per week.

Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, Municipal Pier, W. end of Main St.; Point
Welcome, 5 m. N. on US 41.

Motion Picture Hottses: 2.

Swimming: Lido Beach, 2 m. W. on State 18, free; Sarasota Beach, Siesta Key, 5 m.

SW. on US 41, free.

Golf: Bobby Jones Municipal Golf Course, E. end of i8th St., 18 holes, greens fee $i.

Tennis: Caples Park, Palm Ave. opposite Mira Mar Hotel; Gillespie Park, Osprey Ave.

and i3th St ; Auditorium Park, Bradenton Road and W.i4th St.

Shuffleboard Caples Park, Palm Ave. opposite Mira Mar Hotel, and Auditorium Park,

Bradenton Road and W i4th St.

Lawn Bowling: Gillespie Park, Osprey Ave. and i3th St.

Fishing: Numerous bridges and piers on mainland and islands; deep-sea fishing boats,

guides, and equipment at Municipal Pier.

Annual Events: Pageant of Sara de So to and Sarasota County Agricultural Fair, Mar.;
Winter-Fishing Tournament, Nov. to Mar.; International Tarpon Tournament, May
through July.

SARASOTA (18 alt., 8,398 pop.) is built along Sarasota Bay, an arm of
the Gulf of Mexico. Its area of approximately 17 square miles includes
landscaped islands, separating the bay from the Gulf, that provide miles
of white-sand bathing beaches. The city is a clean-swept resort town, its
wide thoroughfares and parks planted with royal, date, cabbage and coco-
nut palms, and Australian oaks and pines. The pseudo-Spanish stucco
houses, and the lofty tourist hotels that dominate the skyline, are for the
most part set against a bright background of oleanders, crotons, and a va-
riety of winter-blooming native and exotic shrubs.

In the heart of the business district around Five Points, permanent awn-
ings shade many of the downtown sidewalks. In this area cafeterias, fruit
and fruit-juice stands, and curio shops are wedged between imposing bank
fronts and showy real-estate offices. The popular downtown tourist attrac-
tion is the Municipal Pier, entered under a stucco arch, where deep-sea fish-
ing boats come and go, pelicans perform, and gulls wheel ceaselessly over-

268

SARASOTA 269

head. Beyond, spanning the blue bay, the Ringling causeway extends to
Longboat and Lido Keys low, palm-fringed islands that have become the
newer residential section.

The late John Ringling selected Sarasota as winter quarters for his cir-
cus in 1929 and made his home here. The fortune derived from many sea-
sons under the big top was spent on his art museum, his estate, the devel-
opment and beautification of the islands in the bay, and widespread civic
improvements. The city stirs into life each November with the arrival of
long trains that roll 'home J after a summer on the road. During the winter
the organization settles down to busy months of preparation and rehears-
als for the next season, and many members of the circus family become
home folk until the following April.

Sarasota's chief industry is its tourist business. The city is the home of a
number of retired army and naval officers, and its resident winter colony
of professional baseball players is the largest in the State. The outstanding
natural attraction that contributed to the resort's early growth was, and
remains, fishing. Anglers migrated here and pitched tents on the open
beach before a house had been built. They cast their lines for mackerel,
bluefish, kingfish, and that much sought sea warrior, the tarpon, and were
seldom disappointed.

The city annually sponsors a Spanish fiesta and exposition known as the
Pageant of Sara de Soto and the Sarasota County Agricultural Fair. The
fiesta is based on a c legend * concerning Sara, alleged daughter of De Soto,
and her love for an Indian chief. During the celebration the city is gay
with decorations; citizens and tourists don Spanish regalia; the circus con-
tributes bands, clowns, elephants, and bespangled ladies to the glittering
street parade.

The local Negro settlement, east of the railroad, has its shops, churches,
recreation centers, and rows of shacks. The majority of inhabitants, 30 per
cent of the city's total population, are engaged in agricultural pursuits,
and a few find employment as hostlers and roustabouts with the circus, re-
turning to Sarasota in the fall to pick up odd jobs in canning factories,
packing houses, and as gardeners.

The origin of Sarasota's name has been variously attributed to Spanish
and Indian sources. It is possibly a corruption of the Spanish expression,
sarao sota, meaning f place of dancing.' The EHno de la Puente map of 1768
designated the site as Porte Sarasote, and a map issued by Laurie and
Whittle in 1794 marks the site as Sara Zota, a separation of the word Sar-
azota that appeared on the Bernard Romans map of 1774, which desig-
nated the inlet as Boca Sarazota.

In 1856, long before the advent of sportsmen to these shores, William
Whi taker of Tallahassee homesteaded a tract on a bayou afterward named
for him, and built a cabin there. During the War between the States he
planted the pioneer orange grove in the vicinity with seed brought from
Cuba. His half-brother, H.V.Snell, is credited with introducing the first
guavas into Florida, setting out several acres on an island in the bay.
Throughout this period Indian raids kept away all but the more venture-
some settlers and little of the surrounding territory was occupied.

270 FLORIDA

Much of the land in and around Sarasota was included in Hamilton
Disston's 4,ooo,ooo-acre purchase in 1881, but no use was made of the
property until three years later, when a Scotch syndicate,, headed by Sir
John Gillespie, of Moffatt, Dumfriesshire, bought 60,000 acres sight un-
seen, including the site of Sarasota. This induced 60 Scottish families to es-
tablish a colony on the holdings, adopting the name Sarasota by which the
area previously had been known. A post office, two miles south, was moved
to the new settlement, and the first hotel, the De Soto, was built. Trans-
portation was almost entirely by water, a boat running to Palma Sola,
where connections were made with steamers operating out of Tampa.

A son of Sir John, Colonel J.Hamilton Gillespie, arrived in Sarasota in
1886 to serve as resident manager of his father's organization. A veteran
golfer, he built one of the early courses in the State, a four-hole affair, later
expanded to nine holes, along Golf Street, east of Orange Avenue. With
the twin attractions of golf and fishing, the settlement increased in popu-
larity as a winter resort.

The first railroad, constructed in 1892, a crude pioneer line 12 miles long
connecting Sarasota and Bradenton, had one wood-burning locomotive
and a string of flatcars on which logs, freight, and passengers were carried.
The road had been in operation three years when employees destroyed
most of the track to force payment of overdue wages. As late as 1899 Sara-
sota was a community of only 20 houses without sidewalks, and its five,
block-long streets began and ended in the flatwoods. The Seaboard Air
Line Railway reached the city from Tampa in 1902. Seven years later elec-
tricity replaced kerosene street lights. Main Street was paved for several
blocks, and a narrow, hard-surfaced road was built to Bradenton.

In 1911, Mrs. Potter Palmer, Chicago society leader, purchased 26,000
acres east of Sarasota and developed part of it into small farms. The pro-
gram included road building, ditching and clearing the property, expert
farm supervision, and co-operative marketing facilities. The soil was
adapted to the production of early winter vegetables, particularly celery.
Experienced farmers moved in, and the territory claimed its place in agri-
cultural Florida. Although celery is the quick-money producer, citrus
ranks first in crop area and returns. Sixty-seven per cent of the county's
cultivated land approximately 2,600 acres is in orange, grapefruit, and
tangerine groves.

In 1921 Sarasota County was severed from Manatee by an act of the
legislature, and Sarasota was designated the county seat. During the boom
period of 1924-26, population doubled and housing construction was un-
able to keep up with the demand. Large tourist hotels and business build-
ings were erected, recreational facilities expanded, a 4,ooo-foot harbor
channel was dredged, and a causeway was built across the bay to connect
with the islands, which were cleared and landscaped.

Sarasota industries include the packing and shipping of celery, averag-
ing 1,200 carloads annually, other winter vegetables, and citrus fruits; pro-
duction of fertilizers, and the manufacturing of automobile trailers. An un-
usual industry is the mining and preparation of dolomite, a carbonate of
magnesium discovered in 1935, which serves as an antacid fertilizer.

SARASOTA 271

POINTS OF INTEREST

The JOHN AND MABLE RINGLING MUSEUM OF ART (open 9-
4:30 daily; adm. 25 f) , four miles N. of downtown Sarasota, is the largest in
the State. The showman spent 35 years collecting the 700 originals by old
masters. Estimated value of building and contents, willed to the State in
1937, exceeds $14,000,000. The collection contains examples of the great
periods of European art from classic to modern times, arranged according
to schools of art and chronological sequence.

The building, of modified Italian Renaissance design, ranging in height
from one to two stories, in itself a museum of architecture, was opened in
1931. J.H.Phillips of New York City was the architect. Its setting is a ter-
raced waterfront, landscaped with tropical shrubs and native pines. Di-
rectly beyond the iron-gate entrance, steps lead to a sunken court bor-
dered on three sides by cloistered wings. In the court are more than 80
original columns dating from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries, the
majority of the Florentine High Renaissance period. On the open side, ter-
races, balustrades, and fountains in which black swans swim separate the
building from the forest and bay. A balustrade topped with rows of statues
forms a parapet above the arcade. Along the frieze are architectural reliefs
of an early date, and within the ambulatory are bronze and marble statues
and fountain groups. The Fountain of the Turtles at the head of the court
is noteworthy.

Masterpieces of painting of the Renaissance in Italy and the northern
European countries are housed in the north wing, together with carved
wood altar pieces and early terra cottas. On display are examples of Filippo
Lippi, Luca Delia Robbia, Uccello, Giordano, Raphael and Titian, a lively
Annunciation of the school of Fra Angelico, and a fine head of the school of
Duccio. The exhibition of northern schools includes two small heads by
Lucas Cranach, and works by Frans Hals, Van Dyke, and Rembrandt, the
latter represented by his Descent from the Cross.

The museum's greatest treasure is its spectacular collection of the works
of Peter Paul Rubens, represented by a large exhibit of paintings, car-
toons, tapestries, and a sculptured piece, after his design. The museum
shares with the Louvre the distinction of owning cartoons and tapestries
prepared and executed by Rubens at the request of Sloavey, prime minis-
ter to Philip IV of Spain, for the monks of the Carmelite Convent at
Loesches. Some of the Rubens in this collection are magnificent examples
apparently executed in their entirety by the master himself, one of the fin-
est being the Departure of Lot", others, completed by his pupils, show in
parts the power and vigor of the master's brushwork and the splendor of
his color.

The south wing contains a collection of Spanish art, including examples
of El Greco, Goya, Zurbaran, Murillo, a portrait attributed to Velasquez,
together with a splendid example of Spanish wood carving. This wing also
houses examples of French Renaissance and English-school seventeenth-
and eighteenth-century paintings. Two complete rooms are incorporated
in this wing: one in gold and white paneling from Fontainebleau and one

272 PL GRID A

from the Palmiere Palace near Florence, where Boccaccio wrote the
Decameron.

The RINGLING BROTHERS-BARNUM AND BAILEY CIRCUS
WINTER QUARTERS (open 10-4:30 daily, Dec. to Apr.; adm. 25i], E.
end of 1 8th St., have ample parking facilities within the fenced-in grounds.
To the right of the long central road bisecting the area, the railroad yards
form a huge triangle. Here the four show trains are repaired, refitted, and
repainted during the winter.

The group of buildings consists of animal quarters, utility buildings akid
workshops, dormitories for workmen, executive offices, and a dining haJl.
The main animal barn, to the right of the roadway, beyond the railroad
yards, is lined with cages, the majority opening upon outside runways. In
the larger runways, occupied by lions, tigers, leopards, kangaroos, and
other animals, the ' cats 3 are trained and put through their acts each after-
noon at 2 130. On the upper floors are the tent, wardrobe, and harness-
making departments. Canvas workers are employed the year round in the
manufacture of 41 new tents required at the beginning of every season.

South of the animal house are outdoor cages for polar and American
brown bears, pongurs (dwarf mules), and giraffes. Adjoining are special
barns for 30 elephants, including pigmy species, that are rehearsed and ex-
ercised daily. Near by are quarters for rhinoceroses, orangutans, chimpan-
zees, and smaller varieties of the monkey family. Opposite is an aviary
housing exotic birds. At the east end of the grounds are stables for 700
horses and practice rings, where daily rehearsals are held. Adjoining are
runways for dromedaries, camels, and zebras.

The SARASOTA REPTILE FARM (open 9-6 daily; adm. 25 f), Fruit-
ville Rd. and Tuttle Ave., has a large collection of birds and animals in
cages, and reptiles in white-painted stone pens. Reptiles are most numer-
ous, including alligators of all ages, rattlesnakes, water moccasins, cop-
perheads, gila monsters, and many species of nonpoisonous snakes. The
animal collection includes monkeys, wildcats, opossums, ground hogs, and
squirrels. The bird cages contain love birds, parrots, pigeons, mourning
doves, barn and screech owls, and eagles. Two pelicans walk amiably about
the enclosure, or doze in the sun. Rattlesnake venom is extracted on
Thursdays, the time of day depending on the weather.

SARASOTA TOURIST PARK, Ringling Blvd. at Atlantic Coast Line
R.R., occupies a municipally-owned 3o-acre tract set with Australian
pines. Capacity of the park is 1,800 camping outfits, and as many as 4,000
persons have found accommodations here at one time. Numerous recrea-
tional facilities are provided, and an auditorium is devoted to theatrical
and social activities. The camp has water, light, garbage disposal, and san-
itary conveniences; police and fire protection, a post office, and stores.

In past years this park has been the site of the annual convention of the
Tin Can Tourists of the World, an organization of trailer and house-car
owners with a membership of 30,000. A giant parade of ' tincanners' and
the showing of new model trailers, house cars, and equipment were integral
parts of the convention.

A tourist camp presents a lively and typical American scene during the

SARASOTA 273

height of the season. Dusty cars and trailers bearing license tags of various
States roll in toward evening and park in their allotted 'yards. 7 This is ac-
companied by a certain amount of haggling over rates and choice loca-
tions. Old acquaintances are hailed and new ones made. The iceman,
baker, resort-plugger, and vendor of curios and myriad contraptions use-
ful to the modern-day gypsies make their rounds. Between periods of gos-
siping, womenfolk attend to their sewing and laundry; washings soon flap
on improvised lines; ironing boards are often set up in the open. Menfolk
congregate to swap tales of the road, of their experiences en route, and to
learn what accommodations are offered at anticipated destinations. Shuf-
fleboard courts, horseshoe pitching lanes, and card games attract their
devotees. Supper time is heralded by the clatter of dishes and the odor of
cooking food. After dark the recreational hall is thronged with young and
old who dance to new tunes and old, furnished, except on gala occasions
when an orchestra is hired, by a nickel-in-the-slot phonograph. Other
campers hurry into town to window shop, go to the movies, or attend more
inviting nightspots.

MUNICIPAL AUDITORIUM, Bradenton Rd. and W.i4th St., a steel
and reinforced concrete hangar-shaped building with a seating capacity of
3,200, is used for concerts, dances, and tourist conventions. The park sur-
rounding the building contains 40 shuffleboard courts, 9 tennis courts, and
2 grass bowling greens, all lighted for night play. The auditorium and park
were built in 1938 with WPA and city funds.

POINTS OF INTEREST IN ENVIRONS
Myakka River State Park, 8 m. (see Tour 4c).

Tallahassee

Railroad Station: Railroad Ave. for Seaboard Air Line Ry.

Bus Station: Terminal, 113 S. Adams St., for Southeastern Greyhound Lines, Gulf Cres-
cent Motor Line, Coleman Motor Line, Adar Coach Line, Lee Coach Line, Rooks Coach
Line, and Georgia Stages.

Airport: Dale Mabry Municipal Airport, 3.5 m. W. on US 19 for National Airlines, and
Eastern Air Lines.

Taxis: io# within i mile zone; ioff each additional passenger.

Street Order and Numbering: Park Ave. is the dividing line for N. and S. Sts., Monroe
St. for E. and W. Sts.

Accommodations: 4 hotels; rooming and boarding houses; tourist camps.

Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, Floridan Hotel, NW. corner N.Monroe
and Call Sts.

Radio Station: WTAL (1310 kc.).

Motion Picture Houses: 2.

Golf: Tallahassee Country Club, Country Club Estates, SE. of city, 18 holes, greens fee

50^.

Tennis: City courts, W.Park Ave. and N.Monroe St., free.

Annual Events: Legislature convenes, Apr. of odd years; Flower Show, Apr.; May Day
Celebration.

TALLAHASSEE (216 alt., 10,700 pop.), hilly capital of a lowland State,
lies 30 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico and approximately midway be-
tween Pensacola and Jacksonville. The city has three conspicuous land-
marks: the Capitol, the Florida State College for Women, and the Florida
Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes, each built upon a hill-
top.

The business district, confined to two wide streets, follows a ridge north-
ward from Capitol Square, and cross streets, shaded by oaks and magno-
lias, drop off precipitously into residential districts. Within and surround-
ing the area are old homes with spacious lawns that date back to Territo-
rial days, some of them converted into business property, and tall-steepled
brick and stucco churches that once sheltered citizens during Indian raids.
Out of the natural forest growth rise various State government buildings
of gray sandstone and yellow brick.

Red clay streets intersect many paved thoroughfares, and horse- and
mule-drawn vehicles are not uncommon sights. For two blocks, almost in
the shadow of the Capitol dome, Adams Street is a noisy, crowded trading
center on Saturdays when rural families attend to their weekly shopping.
Store windows are plastered with signs, banners advertise bargain sales,
and radios blare. Lunch counters and soft-drink stands do a brisk busi-

274

TALLAHASSEE 275

ness. Parked along the high curbs are shining motors with liveried chauf-
feurs and rickety farm wagons acting as carry-alls for produce, groceries,
and brown-faced children. Hitching posts and watering troughs still sur-
vive, and oats and baled hay are in demand along with gasoline.

Park Avenue, a two-way street separated by a parkway planted with
live oaks, and extending seven blocks across the town, is the dividing line
for north and south thoroughfares. Here the older homes of the columned
plantation type have served as models for newer residences. Some of the
suburban residential districts are occupied by bright-walled and tiled
stucco houses of the conventional Florida-Mediterranean architecture in-
troduced during the boom. But in general, Tallahassee, where an estab-
lished society similar to that in other sections of the storied South existed
in ante bellum days, has not succumbed to the cosmopolitanism of a tour-
ist State.

In pockets between many of the hills, and along the clay streets leading
toward the Agricultural College, are Negro colonies. Crowding the rear of
the Governor's mansion is the principal Negro settlement, French Town,
which owes its name to a French colony that once occupied the site. Many
Negroes are employed in domestic service, in farming, and at unskilled
labor, but some of the finest buildings in the city were erected by Negro
artisans. On South Boulevard is a municipal curb market where on Wed-
nesdays and Thursdays white and Negro farmers, occupying* stalls on
separate blocks, display their products on long counters beneath the oaks.

Tallahassee is predominantly an educational and political center; what
the annual crop is to most agricultural towns, the convening of the State
legislature and the opening of the colleges are to the city. For 60 days, be-
ginning in April of odd years when the State legislature meets in biennial
session, Tallahassee is a converging point for politicians, city and county
officials, members of the press, lobbyists, and those who come merely to
look on. Hotel accommodations are not to be had unless reserved months
in advance, and citizens open their homes to paying guests. Night clubs
and roadhouses in the outskirts unlock their doors, and with swing orches-
tras and floor shows inaugurate the two-month season.

The Indian meaning of Tallahassee is 'Old Town, 7 the name of the cap-
ital of the Apalachee Indians that was a flourishing settlement when De
Soto and his men reached it in 1539. Following the Spanish explorer's
departure in the spring of 1540, the territory was visited by a few mission-
aries and soldiers. In 1633 two Franciscan friars, led by a guardian from
St.Augustine, arrived in the Apalachee region to begin missionary work.
The rich fanning land became a source of food supply for St.Augustine,
and Fort San Luis, built about 1640, served as headquarters for seven mis-
sionary settlements.

Supply journeys were made by land from San Luis, and by water from
San Marcos, on the near-by Gulf coast, to St.Augustine. Although the
Indian population dominated, Spanish settlers moved in rapidly. The de-
velopment of an extensive trade with Cuba ended with the English occu-
pation of Florida.

Little was accomplished by the English between 1763 and 1783, except

276 FLORIDA

definition of the Tallahassee area as the dividing line between East and
West Florida. Repeated raids by Indians south of the border brought
Andrew Jackson into the area in 1818, where in retaliation he burned
many villages.

After 182 2, when the Territorial legislative body was formed, meetings
were held alternately in St. Augustine and Pensacola, but in 1824 a site was
chosen about a mile southwest of an area known as the Old Tallahassee
Fields, and the new government seat was approved that year. Although no
opposition was made by the Indians to the building of the government
house for the new territory, Governor Duval, learning that Neamathla, a
chief of the Seminole, was inciting his people to revolt, persuaded the In-
dians to evacuate the territory. After the Indians' departure, settlers came
in rapidly, and in November 1825 Tallahassee was incorporated as a city.
Streets were opened and named for national figures Adams, Monroe,
Calhoun, and Jefferson a square for Nathanael Greene of Revolutionary
fame, and another for Andrew Jackson. In January 1826 the cornerstone
for the Statehouse was laid and one wing of the building completed.

During this era leading families from other Southern States, attracted
by the possibilities for cotton culture, migrated here. In 1824, Prince
Achille Murat, who before the overthrow of his father, the King of Naples,
bore the title of Prince Royal of the Two Sicilies, came from Washington
and bought a large plantation near Tallahassee (see Tour 140), Shortly
afterwards he met and married Mrs. Catherine Willis Gray, grandniece of
George Washington.

The town became the center of a society reminiscent of the life of many
other southern communities. Prince Murat, writing of the elaborate dinner
parties, stated that the ladies attending were as beautiful and as well dressed
as any in New York, and in a journal reports: No news in town except a
wine party, or rather, eating, drinking, card playing, and segar smoking. 7
But Ralph Waldo Emerson, visiting the city in 1827, entered in his note-
book: c Tallahassee, a grotesque place, selected three years since as a suit-
able spot for the capital of the territory, and since that day rapidly settled
by public officers, land speculators and desperados . . . Governor Duval
is the button on which all things are hung.'

Tallahassee progressed industrially and culturally up to the time of the
War between the States; it was the center of cotton marketing even prior
to the building, in 1834, of Florida's first railroad, the Tallahassee-
St.Marks' Railroad, which was operated by mule power during its first
years. Cotton raised in middle Florida and much of that grown in Georgia
and Alabama was carried to port over this sytem until traffic was disrupted
by the war. Repeated attempts by Union troops on the coast to penetrate
this section were repulsed by Confederate forces.

Following the war, families from Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas
came to Tallahassee in increasing numbers, but as other sections of the
State were populated the city assumed less importance as a marketing cen-
ter. Northern politicians gained in power during the Reconstruction pe-
riod and for the first time Negroes held political office. Jonathan Gibbs, a
young Negro from Philadelphia, served four years under Governor Reed

TALLAHASSEE 277

as Secretary of State, and in 1872 was named the first State superintendent
of education. He served until his death, two years later. Throughout these
years Negroes served in the State legislature, 19 holding seats at one time.

Development of the back country, the employment of more persons to
direct State government activities, and an increasing enrollment at the col-
leges contributed to the city's growth. Since 1900, with the improvement
and extension of highways throughout the surrounding area there has been
widespread agricultural advancement. Aside from general farm crops, cot-
ton and tobacco are the leading products, but considerable acreage has
been given over to vineyards.

Selected as the capital of Florida when the site was a wilderness between
Pensacola and St. Augustine, the two Territorial centers of population,
Tallahassee has frustrated every attempt to remove the seat of Govern-
ment to a more centralized portion of the State.

POINTS OF INTEREST

i. The STATE CAPITOL, S.Monroe St. between W.Pensacola and W.
St. Augustine Sts., stands on a block-square terraced knoll overlooking the
business district. The native growth of live oaks has been supplemented by
magnolias, cabbage palms, bamboos, and oleanders. At the time the site
was chosen as the seat of government no town existed, and the legislative
council met here for the first time on November 8, 1824, in a crude log
cabin set in a forest clearing.

In 1826 the cornerstone of a more durable building was laid, a wing of
which was completed at a cost of $12,000, but work on the structure was
suspended because of litigation between the Territory and the contractor.
In March 1839 the Congress of the United States appropriated $20,000 to
f erect a suitable State house or public building for the use of the territorial
legislature, for the offices of the secretary of the Territory and for keeping
the public archives.' In January 1840, C.G.English, commissioner of the
city of Tallahassee, reported to the legislature that he had effected a con-
tract for the new capitol, and the building, though unfinished, was occu-
pied by the legislature and executive officers in January 1841. It was com-
pleted in 1845, the 7 ear Florida was admitted to statehood, and remained
without changes until additions were made in 1902. This was the only
Southern capitol that did not fall into the hands of Northern troops dur-
ing the War between the States.

In 1 9 2 2 east and west wings were added, and the interior was redesigned.
The spacious lobby and corridors, the marble stairs, the porticos and wide
steps, as well as the house and senate chambers were designed by H. J.Klu-
tho. The west portico was omitted to make room for the house chamber.
In 1935 a north wing was added, to provide larger quarters for the house^
chamber. Leo Elliott was the architect.

As seen today, the building is greatly changed from the embryonic capi-
tol of 1840. The general style of the edifice follows the Italian Renaissance
mode, a symmetrical cross-shaped building with central portico, project-
ing end pavilions, and a massive central dome surmounted by a classical

278 FLORIDA

lantern or cupola. The main entrance through the east portico is reached
by a night of granite steps, flanked on each side by massive abutments.
The pedimented portico is supported by six modified Doric columns with
simple caps and shafts. In the pediment is the seal of the State of Florida,
in stucco relief.

The building is planned with two principal stories above a raised base-
ment or ground story. The outer walls, crowned with a heavy classic cor-
nice and a balustraded parapet, are finished in buff painted stucco. The
large central dome is raised on a square rusticated base and drum. The
drum, pierced with triple windows, is adorned with Ionic columns, corner
niches containing classic urns, and topped with a balustrade similar to that
of the main structure. The design of the cupola, with its delicate arcading
and bell-shaped dome, suggests a more direct reference to the Georgian
Colonial mode than the rest of the exterior detail.

The west entrance, approached by a broad twin flight of steps, is ac-
cented by a slightly projecting pedimented portico supported by four cou-
pled Doric columns.

The interior is designed in a simple classic style, with two central corri-
dors running from the east .and west entrances, and from the north to the
south end of the building, intersecting under the dome. The floor of the
corridors and a high wainscot on the walls are finished in polished marble.
On the second floor is the STATE LIBRARY (open 8:30-1 Mon-Fri., 8:30-
9:30, 12-1, and 4-5 Sat.}, and other State offices. On the first floor are the
governor's suite and offices of his cabinet.

The senate and house chambers are on the second floor. In the house
chamber is a copy of a full-length Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Wash-
ington by Emmaline Buchholz, set in a pedimented wall screen behind the
speaker's rostrum.

In the southeast corner of the grounds a granite block marks the site of
the log cabin in which the first session of the legislative council was held in
November 1824. Near by is a lo-foot gray granite obelisk erected to the
memory of Captain John Parkhill, killed at Palm Hammock in 1857 while
leading his company against the Seminole Indians. In the northeast corner
of the grounds is a lo-foot white marble Confederate monument topped
with a granite urn.

2. The MARTIN BUILDING, S.Adams St. between W.Jefferson and W.
Pensacola Sts., a two-story buff brick structure of neoclassic design, con-
tains offices of many State departments, The main entrance is flanked by
two large white columns. The building, erected in 1927, bears the name of
a former governor.

On the ground floor the MUSEUM OF THE STATE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
(open 8:30-1 <md 2:30-5 Mon-Fri.; 8:30-1 Sat.) houses collections of Flor-
ida ^minerals and soils, vertebrate and invertebrate fossils. Among the ex-
hibits is an almost complete restoration of an American mastodon.

3. The COLUMNS, SW. corner N.Adams St. and W.Park Ave., built in
1835, is one of the oldest houses in the city. It is of red brick with a pitched
roof, a columned entrance, and wide vine-covered chimneys rising from the
gable ends. There is a tradition that a nickel was embedded in every brick.

TALLAHASSEE

VIRGIN lA-zSTKh

I |l

TENNESSEE STREET

279

280 FLORIDA

Stairs with Dominican mahogany rails lead from the rear hall to the sec-
ond floor. A story is told that the rich owner of the house built a stairway
down through his bedroom on the first floor to prevent his attractive
daughter from leaving the house at night without his knowledge.

4. The PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, NW. corner N.Adams St. and W.
Park Ave., in late Georgian Colonial design, is constructed of brick cov-
ered with white stucco and surmounted by a square clock tower. Built in
1832 and remodeled a century later, it is the oldest church in the city and
one of the first of its denomination in the State. The old slave gallery ex-
tending along three sides of the auditorium has been retained, and one
original pine pew remains. The silver plate, still in use, was a gift of the
congregation more than a hundred years ago. On several occasions the
church was used by women and children as a refuge against Indian attacks.

5. The WALKER MEMORIAL LIBRARY (open 10-4 weekdays}, 209 E.
Park Ave., is a boxlike red brick building, its main entrance flanked by
two white stucco columns with red Corinthian capitals. The library con-
tains 8,000 volumes and many mementoes of Prince Achille Murat. On the
balcony is a display of Indian relics and pieces of armor said to have been
worn by De Soto's men.

6. The MAY OAK, E.Park Ave. and Gadsden St., is Tallahassee's most
honored tree, around which annual May Day festivals have been held for
more than a century.

7. ST. JOHN'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH, NE. corner N.Monroe and Call
Sts., a red brick structure designed in the manner of an old English Gothic
church, was built in 1881, replacing the original frame building erected in
1838. The granite slabs forming the window sills and steps were taken from
Andrew Jackson's arsenal at Chattahoochee. Francis Eppes, a Territorial
official and grandson of Thomas Jefferson, was an early vestryman.

A tapering marble shaft on the left of the church entrance was erected in
memory of the Reverend J.L.Wort and his wife, who perished in the wreck
of the S.S.Pulaski, June 18, 1838. The marble shaft on the right commemo-
rates the death of Hardy Bryan Croom and his family, who perished with
the sinking of the S.S.Home near Cape Hatteras, October 9, 1837.

8. The WILLIAMS HOME (private), 217 N.Calhoun St., built in 1831, is
a two-story white frame house of post-Colonial architecture with six square
porch columns reaching to the roof. The gardens surrounding the residence
contain beds of azaleas, camellias, and roses, and large oleander bushes
and crape myrtle trees.

9. The GOVERNOR'S MANSION (private), 700 N.Adams St., a two-
story white-columned frame house of Southern Colonial type, occupying
block-square grounds, was built in 1908.

10. The GROVES, N.Adams St. and ist Ave., is a two-story brick build-
ing of post-Colonial design. Broad steps lead up to a portico supported by
four white wooden columns. The house, now a hotel, was built in 1825 by
Richard Keith Call, an early Territorial governor, on his 640-acre estate.
Brick for the mansion was made on the premises by slaves. The house is
called 'The Home of the Tallahassee Girl/ because it furnished the locale
for a novel, The Tallahassee Girl, written by Maurice Thompson in 1881.

TALLAHASSEE 2&1

11. FLORIDA STATE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN (buildings open dur-
ing school hours unless otherwise indicated), occupies an 8o-acre hilltop tract
on W.Jefferson St. between Copeland St. and Woodward Ave. The rolling
campus with a natural growth of pines and oaks, supplemented by hardy
palms and subtropical shrubbery, provides a year-round green setting for
22 administration and school buildings. The red brick buildings, ranging
from two to five stories, with red tile roofs, are of Collegiate Gothic design.
The college grants A.B. and B.S. degrees in education, arts and sciences,
commerce, accounting, and secretarial science, and offers a general business
course. Student publications include the Florida Flambeau, a newspaper is-
sued weekly during the college term, and the Distaff, published four times
each school year. Enrollment for 1938-39 was 1,850.

At investiture services held early in the fall, seniors, accompanied by their
'sophomore sisters' dressed in white, march up to the auditorium stage
where the college president places caps on the heads of the graduating
class. On Class Day, during Commencement Week, students carry palm
leaves, and at conclusion of the services the seniors remove caps and gowns
and present them to their junior sisters. During the Torch Night Cere-
mony, conducted in the manner of a Greek pageant, sophomores pass
glowing torches on to freshmen.

The State legislature in 1857 provided for the establishment of the two
State colleges, one to be located east, the other west of the Suwanee River.
The latter was established in Tallahassee that year and became the Florida
State College, continuing until 1905, when by an act of the legislature
male students were removed to Gainesville.

The JAMES D. WESTCOTT MEMORIAL BUILDING, facing a landscaped
plaza on Copeland St., a five-story structure housing the administration
offices, erected in 1910, is the oldest on the campus. In the west wing is an
auditorium seating 1,800. The building was named for James D. Westcott,
secretary of Territorial Florida (1830-34) and United States Senator
(1843-49), who bequeathed much of his estate to the college upon his
death in 1880.

The HISTORY BUILDING, on Jefferson St., largest of the academic build-
ings on the campus, houses the departments of history, political science,
geography, and journalism. The AUGUSTA CONRADI THEATER on the first
floor of the west wing is equipped for dramatic performances. It is also used
for concerts, religious services, and as a workshop and production room
for the department of speech and drama.

The LIBRARY BUILDING (open 8:15-6 and 7:15-10 weekdays; 2:30-5
Sun.), adjoining on Jefferson St., contains 65,000 volumes. The collection
of Florida material includes maps, documents, and original plantation
records and diaries, in addition to books of history, travel, and fiction. An
exhibition of historical subjects, maintained by the United Daughters of
the Confederacy, is in the main reading room, and a geological exhibit is
in the adjoining hall.

12. The FLORIDA AGRICULTURAL AND MECHANICAL COL^-
LEGE FOR NEGROES, Palmer Ave. between Perry and S.Boulevard
Sts., a group of 30 brick and frame buildings, occupies 375 acres on the

282 FLORIDA

highest of Tallahassee's hills. Opened as a State Normal School in 1887, it
was moved to the present site, formerly the plantation of Territorial Gov-
ernor William P. Duval, in 1891, and placed under the management of the
State Board of Control in 1905 as a co-educational college. It received its
present name in 1909. Enrollment for 1938-39 was 860.

The ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, SE. corner S. Boulevard St. and Palmer
Ave., a five-story red brick structure of Georgian Colonial design ; erected
in 1927, replaced a frame building destroyed by fire. The park opposite
contains an open-air theater.

The LUCY MOTON PRACTICE SCHOOL, right of the administration build-
ing, a two-story red brick building of Georgian Colonial type, provides
manual training., physical training, and home economics facilities for
teachers. A LIBRARY (open 8-10 a.m., 1:30-5 and 7-9 weekdays) is in the
east wing. The school was named for a former principal (1887) of the Mi-
nor Normal Training School of Washington, D.C., because of her educa-
tional work among the Negroes.

The CARNEGIE LIBRARY (open 8-10 a.m., 1:30-5 and 7-9 p.m. week-
days), center of the campus, built in 1906, is the oldest brick building on
the grounds. It occupies the site of Governor DuvaPs house which was
used by the college until burned in 1905. The library contains more than
1 2,000 volumes and bound editions of early magazines.

Tampa

Railroad Stations: Union Station, E. end of Zack St , for Atlantic Coast Line R.R. and
Seaboard Air Line Ry.

Bus Station: Marion and Twiggs Sts. for Florida Motor Lines, Tamiami Trail Tours,
and Gulf Coast Motor Lines.

Airports: Peter O. Knight Airport, Davis Islands, for National Airlines and Eastern Air
Lines.

Taxis: Jitney service loi per passenger to principal points in city; private cabs 25^
within 3-mile zone, 20^ each additional mile.
Streetcars: Fare $; to Port Tampa, IQJ.

Steamship Piers: Danzler Dock, Seddon Island, for Aluminum Line; Tampa Union Ter-
minal, i3th and York Sts., for Waterman Line; Port Tampa docks, for P.&O. Line.
Traffic Regulations: R. turn on red light except where otherwise marked. One-way
streets : Scott, Royal, Constant, Fortune.

Accommodations: 21 hotels, 2 for Negroes; tourist camps, rooming and boarding houses.
Tampa Municipal Trailer Park, 2300 N.Oregon Ave., $1.50 per week for 2 persons, 50^
per week for lights, 25^ extra for more than 2 persons.

Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, and A. A. A., Lafayette and Morgan Sts.;
Tourist Information Bureau, 429 W Lafayette St.; Ybor City Chamber of Commerce,
NW. corner gth Ave. and i4th St.; West Tampa Chamber of Commerce, Rey Park,
N.Howard Ave. between Palmetto and Cherry Sts.

Radio Stations: WDAE (1220 kc.); WFLA (620 kc ).

Auditorium and Motion Picture Houses: Municipal auditorium, Plant Park, lectures and
concerts; 13 motion picture houses, 2 for Negroes.

Swimming: Y.M.C.A. pool, Zack St. at Florida Ave ; Sulphur Springs pool, Sulphur
Springs, N. of city; Tampa Aquatic Club, Sligh and Ola Aves.; Davis Islands Pool,
Davis Islands, reached by bridge from Bay Shore Blvd. ; Cuscaden Park Pool, Columbus
Drive between i4th and isth Sts.

Golf: Macfarlane Municipal Park, Lisbon Ave. and Chestnut St., 9 holes, free; Airport
Golf Course, Occident St. near Drew Field, 9 holes, 50^; Davis Islands Club, 303 Bos-
porus Ave., 9 holes, 50^; Forest Hills Golf and Country Club, 7 m. N. on Armenia Ave.,
18 holes, 75; Temple Terrace Golf and Country Club, 12 m. NE. on Temple Terrace
Highway, 18 holes, 50^; Rocky Point Golf Club, 6 m. W. on Memorial Highway, 18
holes, $i; Palrna Ceia Golf and Country Club, Lisbon Ave. and Aquilla St., 18 holes, $2.
Tennis: Davis Islands Municipal Tennis Club, annual fee $3; Robles Park, Central Ave.
between Adalee and Emily Sts., free; Cuscaden Park, Columbus Drive between i4th
and i5th Sts., free; Plant Park, Hillsborough River at Lafayette St., free; Macfarlane
Municipal Park, Lisbon Ave. and Chestnut St., free; Hillsborough High School, Central
Ave., at Wilder St., free; Rey Park, N.Howard Ave. between Palmetto and Cherry
Sts., free.

Tourist Recreation Center: Community House, Plant Park, Hillsborough River at Lafay-
ette St., reading and lounging rooms; chess, checkers, cards, roque, shuffleboard, horse-
shoe pitching. Registrations by States.

Skeet: Forest Hills Country Club, 7 m. N. on Armenia Ave., open Sun. p.m. Ammuni-
tion and clay pigeons for sale.

Greyhound Racing: Sulphur Springs Dog Track, Nebraska and Waters Aves., Dec. to
Apr. ; adm. 30^.

283

284 FLORIDA

Fishing: Tampa Bay. Boats, guides, and equipment at 2 and St., Causeway, Ballast
Point Pier, Port Tampa Yacht Basin, Gandy Bridge, Davis Causeway.

Annual Events: Florida Fair, Plant Park, Feb., Gasparilla Carnival in connection with
fair; Verbena del Tobaco Fiesta, Feb. or Mar.; Tampa Horse Show, Tampa Yacht and
Country Club Riding Stable, Ballast Point, Mar.; Sailboat Races, Tampa Bay, Mar.;
Tarpon Tournaments, May through Aug.; US.S Tampa Memorial Observance, Plant
Park, Sept. 15; Old Timers' Picnic, varying sites, Oct.; Annual Cabaret, Centre Asturi-
ano, Ybor City, Nov.

TAMPA (15 alt., 101,161 pop.), third largest city in the State, is the Flor-
ida west coast's foremost port and industrial center. With a natural land-
locked harbor at the head of Tampa Bay, it has shipping service to mari-
time countries in all parts of the world.

Tarnpa is politically southern, industrially northern, and has a distinct
Spanish atmosphere. Although its port activities and cigar factories sug-
gest a cosmopolitan industrial city set down in an environment usually
dedicated to the sports and frivolities of a winter resort, Tampa has am-
ple facilities for seasonal visitors and large hotels to accommodate them.

The Hillsborough River and an estuary form a maritime horseshoe
around the city proper. In the estuary, an inner 'port within a port/ rust-
streaked cargo boats of many nations, tramp schooners, sloops piled high
with native fruits, fishing smacks, and often pretentious yachts rock side
by side in the basins. Along the busy piers are huge warehouses and steve-
dore concerns that supply labor for loading and unloading vessels; harbor
cranes load scrap metal into waiting holds, and chanting Negroes handle
cedar and mahogany logs, bales of tobacco, timber, and barrels of turpen-
tine and rosin. Inbound and outbound trucks rumble over waterfront
streets, and above and around wheel screaming gulls.

In the midst of this is Tampa's retail district. Franklin Street, the prin-
cipal shopping thoroughfare, bristles with neon and painted sidewalk
signs, marble and glass chain-store fronts, wide metal awnings, tall office
buildings, and portly bank structures. Scattered among them are two- and
three-story structures of faded red brick, with stone turrets and tin cupo-
las, bay windows, and stamped metal cornices, some bearing names of pi-
oneer residents and firms names that reach back to the i86o's and form
a visible web of Tampa's history. The venerable red brick courthouse, sur-
mounted by dome and minaret and set in a palm-dotted square with band-
stand and benches, dozes in the shade of a white city hall topped by a
clock tower.

Drawbridges lift to permit passage of river craft; locomotives huff and
puff across downtown thoroughfares, dragging strings of cars loaded with
phosphate rock and oil to and from the Port Tampa piers. The absence of
alleys, the numerous 'No Parking 7 signs in the retail section, and the strips
of red painted curbing in the wholesale districts that practically surround
the city add to the traffic problem.

The gleaming domes and minarets of the Tampa Bay Hotel, now oc-
cupied by the University of Tampa, rising above the oaks and palms that
cloister its huge bulk, are visible from the shopping and near-by residential
districts. The hotel had its effect in shaping the city's cultural growth, and

TAMPA 285

symbolizes cherished memories and traditions. Hyde Park, adjoining the
hotel grounds, was the original restricted residential section, and here are
scrolled and spindled dwellings most of them now genteel rooming and
boardinghouses fronting on quiet shaded streets.

Immediately south of Hyde Park, reached by a short bridge, are Davis
Islands, a boom-time creation, and Tampa's newest close-in residential
area. Landscaped parkways and drives provide a subtropical setting for
hotels, apartments, and houses of pseudo-Spanish, Moorish, and Italian
architecture. Bayshore Boulevard,, sweeping south along Hillsborough
Bay, with its double paving, landscaped parkways, and balustraded
sea-wall promenades, traverses another urban residential section. Here
substantial frame and brick houses of Georgian Colonial type are set back
on deep, terraced lawns, overlooking the water.

Architecturally, Tampa records the waves of its growth. Old frame
dwellings, many of them false-fronted for business purposes, are scattered
throughout the retail district. Primitive one-story houses, occupied chiefly
by Latin cigar workers and Negroes, surround the business section. In nu-
merous subdivisions are typical American shingled and weatherboarded
bungalows, and stucco and tile houses that came in with the boom. Some
sections have been influenced by their Spanish, Cuban, and Italian popu-
lations, but the Latin trend has been more toward the Havana type dwell-
ing than the Mediterranean stucco, flat or tile roofs, grilled balconies,
and courts and patios.

Tampa is noted for its cigar industry, established in 1886 when manu-
facturers in Key West, experiencing labor troubles, moved here with thou-
sands of Spanish and Cuban employees. Ybor City, the pioneer colony
founded by and named for Vicente Martinez Ybor, lies to the east of the
business district, bordering Ybor estuary and McKay Bay. On the west,
.across the Hillsborough River, is newer West Tampa. Originally separate
municipalities, both are now within Tampa city limits. They retain their
native customs, their squalor and beauty, their picturesque festivals, and
contribute to the city's gayety and color.

The majority of Tampa's 21,000 Negroes live in the thickly populated
' Scrub > section north of the business center; the name originally referring
to its natural setting. Early settlers, building close to Fort Brooke, as-
signed less protected territory among the oaks to the Negroes. Later this
group was augmented by Cuban and West Indian refugees and cargoes of
contraband slaves. After the War between the States, southern planters
brought freed slaves to Tampa because of the fishing and shipping in-
dustries.

The Scrub has its newspapers, schools, churches Protestant and Cath-
olic a library, and municipal hospital. A theater features ' all-colored'
productions, and numerous business enterprises are conducted by and for
Negroes. Many of the inhabitants are skilled cigar makers and work in
factories side by side with Cuban and Italian workers, but the greater pro-
portion are employed as laborers and in domestic service. They have a
jargon of English, Spanish, and Cuban, spiced with ancestral dialects and
interpretations. The Tampa Urban League, % civic organization led by

286 FLORIDA

Negroes, has the co-operation of the city government and acts as a clearing
house for economic and social problems of the race in Tampa.

Ranking third among Gulf ports for inbound traffic, and eleventh in the
United States for volume of exports in 1937, Tampa handles $86,000,000
worth of cargo annually. The average year's volume of traffic exceeds
3,600,000 tons. Approximately 90 per cent of Florida's canned grapefruit
and 85 per cent of the world's mined phosphate are shipped from this port.

Each year in February during the Fair the pseudo-pirate, Gasparilla,
and his motley ' crewe ' descend upon the city from the Plant Park docks
amid popping guns and corks, in festivities that mark the peak of Tampa's
social season. Based on the life and alleged depredations of Captain Jose
Gaspar, the celebration includes parades, pageants, and balls, climaxed by
the crowning of a King and Queen who rule for the ensuing year.

The meaning and origin of the word Tampa is uncertain, and it is not
known when Espiritu Santo Bay, so christened by De Soto, first became
known as Tampa Bay. Fontenado included Tampa in a list of Indian
towns in 1580, and De Laet's map of 1625 apparently applied the name to
an Indian village.

The earliest authenticated arrival of white men in the Tarnpa vicinity
was that of an expedition headed by Narvaez, commissioned governor of
Florida, who reached here in 1528. His journey northward was the first
white exploration into the interior of the United States. Even more exten-
sive was the enterprise of De Soto, who sailed into Tampa Bay in 1539 and
took possession of an Indian village.

Fort Brooke, a log fort, was established in 1823, marking the pioneer
American settlement in the Tampa region. The fort was named for Colonel
George Brooke, its first commander. His son, designer of the ironclad Mer-
rimac, was born there. Protection of the garrison encouraged immigration
and the settlement grew throughout the Seminole Wars. A post office
called Tampa Bay was established in 1831, and the name was changed to
Tampa three years later. The Government donated 40 acres of land north
of Fort Brooke, a block of which was reserved for the courthouse and the
remainder sold to finance its construction. Later, because of vast pastures
and convenient water transportation, Tampa became the center of the
territory's cattle industry. Trade with Cuba prospered until the outbreak
of the War between the States.

Four companies left Tampa in 1861 to join the Confederate Army. The
defenseless town was blockaded and shelled in 1863, an d was later oc-
cupied by Federal forces in an effort to stop cotton-running to Cuban
ports. Soldiers returned to Tampa after the war to find slaves free, money
of little value, and plantations in weeds. Yellow fever swept the area in
1873, and Tampa suffered severely.

Population dwindled; the building of a railroad from Fernandina on the
Atlantic to Cedar Keys on the Gulf shifted the economic order in the
Tampa Bay region. For several years the city was merely a port of call for
schooners operating between Cedar Keys and Key West.

A stagecoach line was established in 1877 between Tampa and Gaines-
ville, but the comparative isolation of the town lasted until 1884 when

TAMPA 287

Henry Plant's narrow-gauge South Florida Railroad, later the Atlantic
Coast Line, reached Tampa; it was extended 9 miles southwest to Port
Tampa the following year. There Plant built a causeway and piers to deep
water with capacity for berthing 26 ocean steamships.

In 1889 a wooden bridge across the Hillsborough River at Lafayette
Street supplanted a hand-operated ferry, and a second railroad, the Florida
Railway & Navigation Company, now the Seaboard Air Line, entered the
city. From then on expansion was rapid. By 1890 population had increased
to 5,000, and in the next decade reached 15,000. Discovery of neighboring
phosphate fields gave impetus to its growth, for Tampa was the nearest
deep-water port, and the greater portion of the product was exported.
Meanwhile the cigar industry moved from Key West to Ybor City, and
the pioneer factory attracted others. In 1891 Plant completed the building
of his Tampa Bay Hotel, extravagant in size, plan, and furnishings. De-
termined to make the city a fashionable winter resort and outdo Henry
Flagler on the east coast, he spent more than $3,000,000 on the hotel in
less than two years. The opening, a social sensation, was attended by
2,000, among them princes, dukes and duchesses, and celebrities of the
financial, theatrical, and literary world. The guests were entertained by a
symphony orchestra and grand-opera artists, and toured the illuminated
grounds in rickshaws. This was a red-letter day for a city of less than 6,000.

During the Spanish-American War, with some 30,000 troops encamped
in and around Tampa, the hostelry was headquarters for American officers,
among them Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, who trained his Rough Riders
in the backyard of the hotel, now the South Florida Fairgrounds. Richard
Harding Davis, war correspondent, strutted the hotel corridors and turned
out copy for Hearst and the London Times. Accompanying him was
Frederic Remington, doing his early pen and charcoal sketches.

Tampa was a source of front-page news, with a preponderance of Cuban
sympathizers. All the town whistled and sang, 'There'll Be a Hot Time in
the Old Town Tonight. 7 An epidemic of typhoid fever exacted heavy mor-
tality among the troops, and its persistence hastened demobilization when
peace was declared. Throughout this period, Clara Barton, founder of the
Red Cross in the United States, maintained headquarters in the city.

Following the Spanish-American War began an era of rapid growth for
the 'squalid, sand-blighted city/ as Richard Harding Davis described
it. Population increased to 40,000. Steel and concrete bridges replaced
wooden structures over the Hillsborough River, and the Government ap-
propriated large sums for dredging and improving the harbor and deepen-
ing the main ship channel into the Gulf.

Cigar manufacturing reached its peak shortly before the World War,
prior to the introduction of machines that revolutionized the industry, but
Tampa continued to lead the world in production of high-class, handmade
clear Havana cigars.

During the boom period numerous downtown hotels and apartment
buildings were erected, Davis Islands were created, and increased recrea-
tional facilities were provided for tourists. Gandy Bridge, completed in
1924., spanning Tampa Bay and connecting with St.Petersburg, reduced

288 FLORIDA

the driving distance by half, and gave Tampa a direct highway to Gulf
beaches. It also opened virgin territory on the west, which was rapidly de-
veloped for residential purposes. Davis Causeway across the northern end
of Tampa Bay, opened in 1934, provided a short route to Clearwater and
the Gulf beaches.

Owing to the increased production of winter vegetables, canned grape-
fruit, and grapefruit juice in the Tampa area, the American and Continen-
tal Can Companies erected plants here, and in 1938, after two decades of
idleness, Tampa shipyards were awarded a $7,000,000 contract for the
building of four large cargo boats.

POINTS OF INTEREST

(Tampa)

i. PLANT PARK, laid out in 1888 by Henry Plant as a setting for his
Tampa Bay Hotel, occupies 20 acres in the heart of the city, fronting on
the west bank of the Hillsborough River between Lafayette and Cass
Streets. Purchased by the city in 1905, and converted into a municipal
park, it is headquarters for tourist activities. Its live oaks, palms, bam-
boos, and other subtropical plantings are alive with songbirds, pigeons,
and squirrels. Parking places are provided, but points of interest must be
visited on foot.

The UNIVERSITY OF TAMPA, established in 1933, occupies the former
Tampa Bay Hotel building, an ornate, sprawling red brick structure of
Moorish architecture, two blocks long and varying from two to five stories
in height, designed by J. A. Wood and completed in 1891. Its decorations of
wood, stone, cement, and wrought iron culminate in an intricate wooden
filigree of Moorish horseshoes that extends for hundreds of feet along its
wide porches. The twelve domed towers and bulbous minarets are topped
with silver crescents. The main entrance has clusters of slender columns
forming a portico that rises in a maze of Moorish pendants. The building
contains 402 rooms, a solarium, music and ballrooms, and lofty corridors,
one of which runs the length of it. The university is co-educational, and
has an average yearly enrollment of 500.

On the main floor is the TAMPA MUNICIPAL MUSEUM (open 10-3 Mon.~
Fri.), containing exhibits of rare furniture, rugs, Venetian mirrors, paint-
ings, and tapestries. A bronze figure of Esmeralda, the dancing girl in Vic-
tor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame, stands in the rotunda.

The TAMPA BAY CASINO (open by permission) NE. of the university, a
one-story cream-colored frame building, is occupied by the Tampa Post of
the American Legion. It was formerly a playhouse and swimming pool for
the Tampa Bay Hotel, and celebrities of the stage entertained guests here
during the gay 9o's.

The DE Soxo OAK stands opposite the E. entrance of the university.
Under this tree legend says De Soto parleyed with the Indians. Under-
neath the oak is Au Coup de Fusil, by Maurice de Nonvilliers, a lifesize
bronze of two dogs pointing for the shot.

The HENRY PLANT MEMORIAL, E. entrance of the university, a foun-

TAMPA 289

tain designed by George Gray Barnard representing Transportation, is trie
source of a small stream that winds through the park. Along the stream are
pens and cages of a small zoo, containing alligators, otters, and bears.

The MUNICIPAL AUDITORIUM, NW. of the university, a two-story oc-
tagonal buff brick building built in 1925, has a seating capacity of 2,500.
On the second floor is the TAMPA BAY MUSEUM OF ANTIQUITIES AND NAT-
URAL HISTORY (open 2-5 Wed. and Fri.) containing archeological, geologi-
cal, and natural-history specimens.

The TOURIST RECREATION CENTER (annual membership $1-$2.50), N.
end of Park, municipally owned, includes playgrounds, shuffleboard,
roque, tennis, and croquet courts, and horseshoe-pitching lanes.

The FLORIDA STATE FAIR GROUNDS, adjoining the park on the NW., is
a 5o-acre tract containing 23 permanent exhibition and administration
buildings, a race track, and an athletic field which is a spring training
ground for big-league baseball clubs.

2. DAVIS ISLANDS, reached by bridge from Bay Shore Blvd. near the
intersection of Plant Ave. and De Leon St., a group of three man-made is-
lands, is Tampa's most spectacular real-estate development. These islands,
covering 800 acres, separated by bridged lagoons and canals, were named
for their creator, D.P.Davis. A concrete sea wall was built around sub-
merged land at the mouth of the Hillsborough River and sand from the
bottom of the bay pumped into the area. Deposits were made on lots still
under water, and down payments at the opening sale amounted to
$3,000,000. The exceptionally wide streets, a maze of interlacing curves,
are bordered by palms, Australian pines, and subtropical plants. Mediter-
ranean types of architecture prevail throughout the islands.

Tampa Municipal Hospital, the municipal yacht basin, a golf course,
numerous parks, a swimming pool, and recreational centers are on the is-
lands. The Peter O. Knight Airport and Seaplane Base occupies the south-
ern tip of the property.

TONY JANNUS ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, completed in 1938, out-
standing structure at the airport, is a two-story stone building faced with
key limestone blocks and ornamented with coping bands of glazed
black tile. The sawed surfaces of the limestone blocks, quarried on the
Florida Keys, reveal cross-sections of shellfish, sea plants, and coral
formations. An open balcony extends entirely around the second story
of the building. The corners of the walls are adorned with projecting
sculptures of eagles in flight, their wings flat against the surface, their
heads emerging in full relief. The third story is formed by an octagonal,
glassed-in observatory, above which a glass and metal lantern, designed
to represent the lamp room of a lighthouse, supports an aerial beacon. The
rotunda walls are decorated by seven murals by George Hill of St.Peters-
burg, commemorating the landing of Tony Jannus at Tampa, January i,
1914, after the world's first commercial air flight (see St. Petersburg) .

3. The SITE OF FORT BROOKE, SW. corner Platt and Franklin Sts.,
is indicated by a bronze plaque, marking the site of the first fort estab-
lished in the Tampa area in 1823 for protection against the Indians.

4. SACRED HEART ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, SE. corner

290 FLORIDA

Twiggs St. and Florida Ave., dedicated in 1905, is distinguished by its
marble front, Munich windows, and costly fittings. A huge arched loggia
takes up two- thirds of the front; below are three smaller arches, one over
each entrance, flanked by a cluster of four marble columns ; At the sides of
the main arch are octagonal towers of unpolished Georgia marble. The
lower exterior walls are of granite, the upper walls of marble. Below the
peaked gable in the upper circle of the big arch is a large rose window and
above the central entrance is a heroic marble STATUE OF THE RISEN
CHRIST. W J.Clayton of Galveston, Texas, was the architect.

5. The ORANGE GROVE HOTEL BUILDING (private), 806 Madison
St., is a two-story frame building now used by the Seaboard Air Line Ry.
as freight offices. Built for a home in 1843 by William Hooker, one of the
cattle kings of south Florida, it was later converted into a hotel, where
Confederate and Union officers in turn were quartered during the War
between the States. Here Sidney Lanier, poet of the South, wrote 'Tampa
Robins'; J.A.Butterfield composed the music for ' When You and I Were
Young, Maggie'; and Henry Wilde wrote 'My Life Is Like a Summer
Rose,' a line of which reads: 'My life is like the prints which feet have left
on Tampa's desert strand.'

6. OAK LAWN CEMETERY, a four-block area with an entrance on
Harrison St. between Morgan and Pierce Sts., is enclosed by a brick and
concrete wall, and the grounds are shaded by ancient oaks and cedars.
During the yellow-fever epidemic in 1873, Tampa citizens died in such
numbers that there was no time to dig graves, and bodies were buried in
hastily dug trenches, now blank spaces surrounded by gravestones.

7. The TAMPA PUBLIC LIBRARY (open 9-9 weekdays), 7th Ave.
between Tampa and Franklin Sts., erected in 1915, is a one-story-and-
basement buff brick building, its entrance framed by a marble archway with
white Doric columns. The library, founded by a Carnegie fund, contains
64,000 volumes. On exhibit is a clay tablet said to have been found in
southern Babylonia, written in cuneiform characters about 2350 B.C. It
records the receipt of various animals.

8. TAMPA UNION TERMINAL (open 10-3 weekdays) on waterfront at
13 th St., is a mammoth plant, including cold-storage warehouses, where
citrus fruit is graded and packed. Boxes for export are conveyed into
ships' holds by endless belts. Other freight is shipped from the terminal at
all seasons, and activities can be observed from an elevated walkway.

(Ybor City)

YBOR CITY (pronounced E-bore; colloquially E-bo), extending ap-
proximately two miles east from Nebraska Avenue, and south to Ybor
estuary and McKay Bay, is the larger and older of Tampa's two Latin
settlements. More than half of Tampa's 29,000 Latins live in this area of
two square miles. With its clubs, restaurants, theaters, Spanish news-
papers, and its own chamber of commerce, Ybor City is a self-contained
unit. Spanish is the common tongue, and few outside the present genera-
tion speak or read English. In many shops are signs reading: 'English
Spoken Here/

L 12TH 5iP^yU5UJ

2. Davis Islands

3. Site ol Fort Brooke

4. Sacred Heart CHurch

5. Orange Grove Hotel

6. Oak Lawn Cemetery

7. Tampa Public Library

8. Tampa Union Terminal

9. Leimtm-Weldman Box Plant
ID. HarsHX-Tampa Cigar Factory

11. L'tTnion

12. Centra Espafiol

13. Circulo Cubano

14. Cento Asturiano

15. DelCanlroEspafiol

16. Cuesta-Rey Cigar Factory

291

2Q2 FLORIDA >,

Spanish restaurants provide chicken and rice, yellow with saffron, steak
catalana, black-bean and garbanzo soups, crawfish, and spaghetti, with
wine from native vineyards. These delicacies even the Cuban sandwich,
a local institution that is a five-course meal blanketed between huge slabs
of hard-crusted bread are served with gracious smiles, stringed music,
and, in season, floor shows.

9. LEIMAN-WEIDMAN BOX PLANT (open by arrangement], SW.
corner 22nd St. and 2nd Ave., is one of the largest cigar-box factories in
the United States. Approximately half a million feet of Spanish cedar is
imported annually from Mexico and Honduras. The logs are ripped into
slabs of required thickness, milled into uniform box lengths, buffed, and
automatically nailed together. The highly colored labels, which are pasted
on the boxes by women workers, are printed here.

10. The HAV-A-TAMPA CIGAR FACTORY (open 8-11 a.m., and
12:30-3 p.m. weekdays; guides), SE. corner loth Ave. and 2ist St., a four-
story frame building, is one of Ybor City's largest factories. It employs
1,100 workers and produces 500,000 cigars a day, most of them machine-
made. The plant is American owned and practically all employees are na-
tive Americans.

11. L'UNIONE ITALIANA (ITALIAN CLUB) (private), 17 31 E.Broad-
way, is a three-story buff brick structure of Italian Renaissance design,
built in 1918. Circular balconies with iron-grilled railings extend from the
upper windows and a grilled marquee projects over the main entrance.
The club contains a theater, cafe, and recreation room, and furnishes-
members medical and hospitalization service.

12. CENTRO ESPANOL (SPANISH CLUB) (private), 1536 E.Broad-
way, erected in 1912, is a block-long red brick building, with an ornate
iron grillwork balcony over the entrance. Members are furnished amuse-
ments, all club facilities, and hospitalization for a few cents a week. Its
large auditorium and stage are used for public speaking, plays in English
and Spanish, and motion pictures. There is a cantina in the basement, and
a hospital is operated in connection with the club.

13. CIRCULO CUBANO (CUBAN CLUB) (private), SW. corner loth
Ave. and i4th St., is a three-story buff brick building with two-story
wings. The murals of Cuba Libre on the ceiling of the ballroom, and the
leaded glass windows, are noteworthy. This was known as El Club Na-
tionale Cubano before Cuba was made a Republic.

14. CENTRO ASTURIANO (SPANISH CLUB) (private), SE. corner
Nebraska and Palm Aves., a two-story rectangular buff brick building of
neoclassic design, was erected in 1913. It contains a library, club rooms,
ballroom, and a theater in which plays and operas in English and Spanish
are produced, often by artists from Cuba and Spain. Members are chiefly
of Spanish blood, but others are admitted. The club, a branch of the or-
ganization in Havana, maintains a general hospital.

(West Tampa)

15. CENTRO ESPANOL, West Tampa Branch (private), NW. corner
N.Howard Ave. and Cherry St., is a two-story red-brick Spanish club

TAMPA 293

building with a towerlike facade of modified Moorish design over the wide-
arched main entrance. Interior facilities include a theater, presenting
Spanish and American films, a ballroom, and recreation lounge.
16. CUESTA-REY CIGAR FACTORY (open 9-10 a.m. and 1-3 p.m.,
Mon. to Fri.; guides), SW. corner N.Howard Ave. and Beach St.,, a three-
story brick building surrounded by a brick wall, is West Tampa's pioneer
establishment. It produces handmade cigars almost exclusively, many of
which are exported. This factory was commissioned as purveyor of cigars
to the King and Court of Spain during the reign of Alfonso XIII, and its
founder was knighted by the King in 1915.

The tobacco is brought from bonded warehouses and kept in air-condi-
tioned rooms. A bale consists of 80 manojos or 320 gamllas, the latter
known in English as 'hands/ each containing up to 50 leaves. Stems are
removed from leaves by 'strippers' and the tobacco delivered to c grab-
bers' or boncheros who make up the inside of the cigar known as the
' bunch/ filler, or tripa. The wrappers or choice leaves are picked by
' selectors ' and passed on to the cigar makers, men and women, who make
the finished product.

Cigar makers, or tabaqueros, work at long tables in double rows. These
are grouped in units, each known as a vapor, the Spanish word for ship.
Each worker is permitted to take out, free, three cigars a day, provided
they are carried in plain sight, and allowed to smoke as many as he pleases
on the job. The finished cigars are tied in bundles of 100, known as a
rueda or 'wheel/ and graded by experts, resagadors, according to color
that ranges from claro claro, very light, to Colorado, red, and maduro, dark.
The embossed bands and cellophane wrappers are applied by machines,
and the cigars are packed into labeled boxes by hand. The tobacco left
over from the making of cigars, called mogolla, is ground into small pieces
for scrap or filler. All those who prepare the tobacco are known as clerks or
dependientes. Readers, or lectors, who formerly read to the workers were
abolished in 1933 because of the introduction of radical literature, but in
many factories radios have replaced them.

A cigar that does not taper is called a ' straight/ and a tapering one is
known as a ' shape/ The end of the cigar placed in the mouth is the cabeza,
or head, the lighted end is the 'tuck/ the flare, or the campana, meaning
bell. In making tapered cigars, a cutting process where the worker em-
ploys a special knife, a chabeta, is referred to as an 'operation. 3 Cigars are
made in various shapes and sizes, the more popular known as 'blunts/
'panetelas/ and 'perfectos.'

POINTS OF INTEREST IN ENVIRONS

Ballast Point, 5.4 m., Rattlesnake Canning Plant, 11.3 m. (see Tour 20).

PART III
'The Florida Loop

Tour i

(Waycross, Ga.) Jacksonville St.Augustine Daytona BeachNew
Smyrna Melbourne Fort Pierce West Palm Beach Fort Lauder-
dale^Miami Key West. US i and State 4A.
Georgia Line to Key West, 569 m.

Hard-surfaced roadbed throughout, mainly concrete- and asphalt-paved; watch for

cattle along the highway.

Route paralleled by Atlantic Coast Line R.R. between Georgia Line and Jacksonville;

by Florida East Coast Ry. between Jacksonville and Florida City; and by Seaboard Air

Line Ry. between West Palm Beach and Homestead.

Accommodations of all kinds; numerous tourist camps.

US i, and its extension State 4A south of Miami ; the longest and most
heavily traveled route in the State, enters north Florida over the St.Marys
River, runs along the coast, and goes to sea to reach Key West, Florida's
southernmost coral island, only 90 miles from Cuba. For most of its length
it runs close to a chain of salt lagoons, separated from the ocean by low-
lying islands and narrow reefs. These lagoons, connected by canals, form a
section of the Intracoastal Waterway, a popular yacht and motorboat
route to and from southern Florida waters.

With each mile, as the route proceeds southward, the vegetation be-
comes more tropical. Birds and marine life not found in other parts of the
United States inhabit marshes and rivers. Almost every side road leads to
a sandy bathing beach or to a resort with fishing and sailing facilities. And
with each mile southward the temperature rises; the winter visitor, top-
coated on entering the State, is often in shirt sleeves on reaching Miami.

Almost every Florida town along US i is a winter resort; boom towns of
the i92o's stand between settlements that flourished in the lyoo's; night
clubs are within tee-shot of crumbling ruins built when Florida was a part
of the Spanish Empire. Smoky pine woods, dense cypress hammocks,
marshes, and glittering sand dunes relieve the flatness of the coastal re-
gion.

Section a. GEORGIA LINE to JACKSONVILLE; 38.7 m. US i

In this section US i crosses a level region of pine forests and cut-over flat-
woods; occasional hardwood hammocks mark the courses of sluggish
streams. The country is sparsely settled, but near Jacksonville appear
dairy and poultry farms, and filling stations of various sizes, colors, and
styles.

The highway presents an interesting study of American roadside ad-
vertising. There are signs that turn like windmills; startling signs that

297

298 FLORIDA

resemble crashed airplanes; signs with glass lettering which blaze forth at
night when automobile headlight beams strike them; flashing neon signs;
signs painted with professional touch; signs crudely lettered and mis-
spelled. They advertise hotels, tourist cabins, fishing camps, and eating
places. They extol the virtues of ice creams, shoe creams, cold creams; pro-
claim the advantages of new cars and used cars; tell of 24-hour towing and
ambulance service, Georgia pecans, Florida fruit and fruit juices, honey,
soft drinks, and furniture. They urge the traveler to take designated tours,
to visit certain cities, to stop at points of interest he 'must see.'

US i crosses the Georgia Line, m., on a bridge over the St.Marys
River, 38 miles south of Waycross, Ga. (see Georgia Guide , Tour 4).

The St.Marys River is here a deep narrow stream, winding its way from
its source in Okefenokee Swamp, Georgia, to Cumberland Sound, at Fer-
nandina (see Tour 30). Its waters move peacefully seaward in tiny swirls
and eddies except after heavy summer rains when they become a raging
torrent. Bay, oak, and cypress grow along the sandy banks. In the early
eighteenth century ship chandlers made regular trips up the river to obtain
water, selling it to ship masters at Fernandina docks for i a gallon. Be-
cause of its acid content, the water remains fresh for many months when
placed in casks.

South of the bridge is (R) a small granite MONUMENT TO ROBERT E.
LEE. The inscription on the bronze plaque states that this highway, here
called the Dixie, is dedicated to his memory. At this point Florida soldiers
departed to join other Confederate forces during the War between the
States.

HILLIARD, 7 m. (66 alt., 550 pop.), a small poultry and truck-farming
center, comprises a group of frame houses and stores on the crest of a low
hill. The town began as a trading post in the early iSoo's, when cotton and
tobacco were the principal crops of the surrounding farms. Lumber and
naval-stores industries have since supplanted agricultural pursuits.

South of Hilh'ard tall cabbage palms fringe a large hardwood swamp.
The soil remains sandy, and the surface flat, covered with shortleaf , slash,
and pond pines, which supply raw material for pulp mills at Fernandina
(see Tour 30). The countryside provides good grazing for free-range cattle.

CALLAHAN, 17.7 m. (26 alt., 637 pop.), the only community of any
size between the Georgia Line and Jacksonville, has brick stores, attrac-
tive houses, and rich truck gardens. Here on narrow Alligator Creek, 300
American cavalry under Colonel Elijah Clarke attacked 450 British Red-
coats on June 30, 1778, but were forced to withdraw with a loss of 13 men;
the British lost 9.

Callahan is at the junction with State 13 (see Tour 30).

An outdoor SWIMMING POOL (R), 20.3 m., is popular with residents of
the vicinity.

The pine forests south of Callahan are under fire protection of the Flor-
ida Forest Service (see Tour jo) ; an occasional lookout tower rises above a
group of white frame buildings. The tall broom sedge that grows in ditches
on both sides of the highway is cut and sold to Jacksonville plants as fillers
for brooms.

TOUR I 299

DINSMORE, 28 m. (26 alt., 708 pop.), consists of weathered frame
houses, small stores, filling stations, and a turpentine camp (see Tour 36).

Between Dinsmore and Jacksonville a forest of second-growth slash pine
extends to a gently rolling area of taller pines and sycamores. Proximity to
Florida's largest city is indicated by the increasing number of filling sta-
tions and tourist camps. Hitch-hikers of all ages and both sexes, with bag-
gage and without, stand along the road, hoping to thumb a lift south in
fall and winter, or a ride north in spring.

JACKSONVILLE, 38.7 m. (25 alt., 129,549 pop.) (see Jacksonville).

Points of Interest: Naval Stores Yard, Cotton Compress, Hemming Park, Memo-,
rial Park, and others.

Jacksonville is at the junctions with US 17 (see Tour 20, and &), US 90
(see Tour 7 a), and State 78 (see Tour iA).

Right from Jacksonville on State 47 is SAN JOSE, 7 m., a suburb of Jacksonville,
with attractive houses, carefully landscaped grounds and parkways. The former San
Jose Hotel is now occupied by the BOLLES SCHOOL, a military academy.

At 11 m. is a junction with a paved road; R. here 2 m. is MANDARIN (16 alt, 645
pop.), on the east bank of the St. Johns River, a village founded during the English oc-
cupation of Florida (1763-83). In the vicinity stood Thimagua, an Indian town vis-
ited in 1564 by Laudonniere, French explorer of the St. Johns. During the Spanish re-
gime in Florida, the village was known as San Antonio. It was named Mandarin for a
variety of orange of that name introduced here from China.

Mandarin was not incorporated until 1841. During the latter part of the War be-
tween the States a Union gunboat shelled the village in an offensive against Confed-
erates who sought to block transportation of Federal soldiers down the river. One can-
non ball remains lodged in a tree. After the war the village flourished. In 1885 it had a
population of 1,200, a boardwalk along the riverfront, large estates, and three steamer
landings. As was true of Enterprise, Picolata, and other St. Johns River towns, a de-
cline began with the cessation of heavy water traffic at the advent of railroads.

For many years Mandarin was the winter home of Harriet Beecher Stowe (1812-
96), author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, who moved here in 1867. During following winters
she completed Palmetto Leaves, Our Plantation, and other works. Mrs. Stowe and her
husband, Professor Charles B. Stowe, taught in the Episcopal chapel, dedicated
November 4, 1883. The one-room chapel of perpendicular pine siding, with an open
conical belfry, contains a Tiffany window to the memory of Mrs. Stowe, contributed
by popular subscription under the sponsorship of the magazine Outlook.

Section b. JACKSONVILLE to DAYTON A BEACH; 97.1 m. US i

South of Jacksonville the route is bordered by pinelands, broken by oc-
casional marshes and cypress hammocks. Cabbage palms grow thickly
along rivers and creeks; the undergrowth is often dense and impenetrable.
At intervals the road crosses low sandy ridges, forested with black-jack
oaks, and skirts cypress ponds, their dark waters studded with tiny yellow
flowers. Thistles, ferns, and blue flag flourish in roadside ditches. Cattle
graze in the woods and the landscape is dotted with small white mounds
thrown up by salamanders, an animal resembling the western gopher. The
Florida gopher is a land turtle. Along the highway, all but lost among bla-
tant neon lights flashing ( Whiskey' and ' Dance and Dine/ are crudely
daubed warnings erected by itinerant evangelists, announcing that ' Jesus
is soon coming/ or exhorting the traveler to 'prepare to meet thy God.'

300 FLORIDA

In JACKSONVILLE, m., the route crosses the St Johns River bridge
(25i car and passengers), connecting the business section and South Jack-
sonville.

BAYARD, 17.9 m., (25 alt., 225 pop.), was named by Henry M. Flagler,
builder of the Florida East Coast Railway, for his friend, Thomas F. Bay-
ard, Ambassador to Great Britain (1893-97), the first American of that
rank at the Court of St. James's,

South of Bayard the route closely parallels the Florida East Coast
tracks. Section houses, depots, and other railroad buildings are painted
bright yellow with green trim. Blue iris, sacred to the Indians who used its
roots for medicine, colors the marshes in spring. On higher ground grows
the grenadilla, or passion flower, so called by Spanish missionaries to
whom it symbolized the Passion of Christ. In the center of the blossom is a
cross; the five stamens represent the five wounds of Christ, and the 72 fila-
ments, the traditional number of thorns in His crown. Commonly known
as maypop, the flower is a native of America; its succulent and edible fruit,
large as a hen's egg, is highly perfumed.

The dense stands of pine between the road and the coast have long been
slashed for turpentine and still provide a livelihood for wood choppers, tie
cutters, and small sawmills. The highway cuts across a typical Florida
flatwoods swamp, 25 m. ; hammocks on both sides of the highway rise in
towering pyramids of swamp flora from a fringe of low pinewoods and
reedy cypress ponds. Tall trees crown dark masses of undergrowth; woody
vines and gray Spanish moss form a canopy through which shafts of sun-
light fall on white lilies floating in stagnant water amid a profusion of ferns
and wild flowers. Among the trees are maple, gum, the bald cypress with
fluted base, and the slender- trunked pumpkin ash.

The entrance to ST. AUGUSTINE MUNICIPAL AIRPORT (L), 33.7
m., is marked by two coquina gate posts.

ST.AUGUSTINE, 39 Am. (7 alt., 12,111 pop.) (see St. Augustine] .

Points of Interest: Fort Marion, City Gates, Old Schoolhouse, Old Spanish Treasury,
Oldest House, Slave Market, Fountain of Youth, and others.

St.Augustine is at the junction with State 78 and State 140 (see Tour
r.4).

Right from St.Augustine on State 95 to the FLORIDA NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL IN-
STITUTE, 2 m., junior college for Negroes, a group of 12 brick and coquina buildings of
Spanish design. The school has four divisions: liberal arts and science ; teacher train-
ing, home economics, and high school. Enrollment in 1938 was 536. The institute was
organized at Jacksonville in 1892 as the Florida Baptist Academy and removed here
to the i,ooo-acre Hanson plantation in 1917; its name was changed the following year.
The Orange Blossom Quartette and the Jubilee Singers of the School are well known
for their Negro songs and spirituals.

TOCOI (Ind.j water lily) 17 m., (8 pop.), is a fishing settlement on the site of an In-
dian village and Franciscan mission during Spanish occupation. Shortly after the War
between the States, a crude combination mule-drawn and steam railway connected
Tocoi and St Augustine. This road caused the decline of Picolata (see below), but fell
into disuse when Flagler completed a railroad from Jacksonville to St.Augustine.

Right from Tocoi, 6.5 m., on an improved road is PICOLATA (Sp., broad bluff), a
turpentine camp on the east bank of the St. Johns River, at a point where a Spanish

TOUR I 301

trail once crossed the river. A square tower, 30 feet high, with a moat, guarded the
crossing. On January i, 1740, this site was captured by the English under Oglethorpe
during an assault on St.Augustine. William Bartram, naturalist, had an indigo plan-
tation here in 1766. During an Indian insurrection in 1835 a small wooden blockhouse
was built for protection of settlers; some of the breastworks still remain.

MOULTRIE, 45.7 m. (500 pop.), on the bank of a tidal inlet bordered
with salt marshes, was named for John Moultrie, lieutenant governor of
Florida during the English occupation (1763-83), who lived near by in a
large stone mansion on his plantation, Belle Vista. When England re-
turned Florida to Spain in 1784, Moultrie moved to the Bahamas with
many other British settlers.

Right from Moultrie on a sand road through dense pine woods to a marker (L),
0.8 m., commemorating the capture of Osceola, great leader of the Seminole (see
Tour 21). On October 20, 1837, Osceola and a party of 71 warriors, 16 women, and 4
Indian-Negroes, set out for Fort Peyton (see below) to confer with General Joseph M.
Hernandez regarding the release of King Philip, imprisoned Seminole chief. Osceola
had sent by Wild Cat, son of King Philip, a white plume and pipe, the Indian equiva-
lent of a flag of truce, but the American commander, Thomas S. Jesup, instructed
Hernandez to seize the Indians and bring them to St.Augustine. When Osceola real-
ized that he had been tricked, he turned to a companion and said, ' You must talk; I
am choked/ Public opinion denounced the flagrant breach of faith, and the New
York Herald described it as the 'perfidious capture of Osceola^ when the chieftain was
engaged in an honest parley which, it is believed would have terminated the War.'

At 1.5 m. is the SITE or FORT PEYTON. Nothing remains of the old wooden fort and
blockhouse erected in 1836. William Tecumseh Sherman, who won distinction in the
War between the States, was stationed here as a lieutenant during the last days of the
Seminole War.

South of Moultrie the highway traverses a typical cypress swamp. One
of the most symmetrical of trees, with silvery tapering trunk, the bald cy-
press reaches heights of 100 feet and attains great age. In its heavy
branches herons and water turkeys often nest. The function of its 'knees/
smooth conical shapes rising from the main roots, is not definitely known;
some have suggested that they absorb air for the root system.

BUNNELL, 71 m. (23 alt, 671 pop.), a lumber and turpentine town,
lies in the heart of an extensive potato-growing area. From January to
March an important industry is the cutting and shipping of palmetto
leaves used in Palm Sunday ceremonies. Averaging 3 feet in length, the
leaves are piled on wet sand and covered with damp burlap while awaiting
shipment; so protected, they remain fresh for several months. The average
price of leaves is $12 a thousand; approximately 350,000 are shipped from
Bunnell annually.

Bunnell is at the junction with State 28 (see Tour 19).

Pine and palmetto thin out as the highway tunnels into dense hammock
growth of moss-bearded oaks, cabbage palms hung with vines, and swamp
cypress, with isolated citrus groves in occasional clearings.

KORONA, 77 m. (31 alt., 100 pop.), a potato and winter vegetable cen-
ter, was settled in 1912 by a group of Polish families from Chicago and
vicinity. As little has been done to maintain proper drainage, flood waters
here destroy many crops. Polish families retain their Old World customs
and still use their native language, although children are taught English.

302 FLORIDA

The RUINS or TISSIMI MISSION (L), 81.4 m., are almost hidden from
view in an undergrowth of woods and vines. Reputedly built about 1696
by Franciscan Friars, the mission was one of a chain of 44 erected in Flor-
ida. The original structure, destroyed by the English in 1706, was later re-
built and used as a sugar mill during the British occupation of Florida. Old
fire boxes for sugar pans remain, along with pits supposedly used as ovens,
and arches that may have framed windows in early days. Tall chimneys
suggest gigantic gate posts; alongside are other flues, the purpose of which
is unknown.

Broad reaches of salt marsh appear as US i crosses TOMOKA RIVER
(Ind., lord, ruler), 86.3 m., which offers good fishing (bass, perch, bream).
In the lowlands along both banks live marsh hens, wild turkey, and deer.
Herds of wild horses, called marshtackies, roamed this region as late as
1918. These horses, perhaps descended from the animals brought over by
the first Spanish settlers, could traverse almost inaccessible swamps and
lowlands, and were in demand by native stockmen who preferred them to
western cow ponies. They were especially useful in rounding up the semi-
wild Florida razorback hogs that forage the woods for acorns and roots.

INDIAK BURIAL MOUNDS, 87.6 m. y have been excavated by the Smith-
sonian Institution, and a number of skulls and bones recovered.

The highway runs under a continuous arch of large oaks, with the HAL-
IFAX RIVER occasionally in sight (L) through the foliage. The river, like
the city of Halifax in Nova Scotia, was named for George Montague Dunk,
second Earl of Halifax (1716-71), who in 1747 was head of the Board of
Trade of the American Colonies. In June 1751 he sought to have the West
Indies placed under the jurisdiction of the Board with himself as third Sec-
retary of State, in command of this territory, but the King refused. At his
death Halifax was Secretary of State in the ministry of Lord North.

ORMOND, 91.2 m. (6 alt., 1,517 pop.), a quiet and conservative town,
with pleasing houses and well-kept lawns and gardens, was established in
1875 by the Corbin Lock Company of New Britain, Conn., as a health cen-
ter for employees threatened with tuberculosis. Originally called New Bri-
tain, the name was changed to Ormond in 1880 in honor of Captain James
Ormond, a Scotsman from the Bahama Islands, who in 1815 settled a short
distance to the north on a 2,ooo-acre plantation granted him by the Span-
ish Governor of Florida; Ormond was killed by a runaway slave in 1835.

The ORMOND TROPICAL GARDENS (adm. 25 j), Division St. and Granada
Ave., comprise 116 acres planted with 250,000 subtropical and tropical
trees and shrubs.

Left from Ormond across a wooden bridge spanning the Halifax River to OR-
MOND BEACH, 1.2 m. 9 (see Tour xA).

HOLLY HILL, 93 m. (6 alt., 1,146 pop.), a suburb of Daytona Beach,
named because of the holly trees that once grew here, is a part of the old
Turnbull land grant (see below) .

Right from Holly Hill to HOLLY HILL JTTNGLE GARDENS (adm. 25 f), 1m., a. 7-acre
tract containing one of the largest plantings of Easter lilies in America, producing
45,000 bulbs annually.

TOUR I 303

DAYTONA BEACH, 97.1 m. (7 alt., 16,598 pop.) (see Daytona Beach}.

Points of Interest: Ocean Beach, Broadwalk, Pier, open-air Auditorium, Bethune-
Cookman College (Negro), alligator and ostrich farms, and others.

Daytona Beach is at the junction with US 92 State 21 (see Tour So) and
State 140 (see Tour lA).

Section c. DA YTONA BEACH to FORT PIERCE; 136.2 m. US i

This section of US i passes through the heart of the East Coast citrus
country, celebrated for its Indian River oranges. The highway skirts In-
dian River, a broad reach of salt water separated from the ocean by outly-
ing keys ; the so-called river is part of the Intracoastal Waterway (see Intra-
coastal Waterway.)

Pine, palmetto, and cabbage palm still dominate the landscape; the fish-
ing and tourist motif remains, but orange and grapefruit groves, dark
green masses along the highway, appear more and more frequently, some-
times within towns and cities. In spring the blossoms perfume the country-
side. Later, heavy trucks loaded with fruit rumble along the highway day
and night, breaking the stillness of the pine woods. Two drivers usually al-
ternate at the wheel and frequently resort to caff ein and other pills to keep
awake during long nonstop trips as far as Memphis, Chicago, and New
York. At packing houses and city warehouses, where trucks line up for
loading, drivers lean against their trucks, virtually asleep on their feet.
Filling stations and refreshment stands remain open all night during the
shipping season and seek to attract patronage of drivers by advertising
free coffee.

Many citrus groves are bordered with Australian pine windbreaks; in
some are beehives between the rows of trees; in others are stacks of pine-
wood ready to be lighted as a protection against frost. Some advertise ' All
the fruit juice you can drink for a dime/ A few offer free orange juice to en-
tice the motorist to stop and buy a box or red-meshed bag of fruit.

South of DAYTONA BEACH, m., US i passes a short distance west
of the old Dixie Highway. The new highway traverses open sparsely set-
tled territory, has few dangerous curves, and is not washed by the storm-
driven seas that often damage sections of the old road.

PORT ORANGE, 4.9 m. (12 alt., 678 pop.), a shrimp and oyster center
on the west bank of the broad Halifax River, was established in 1861. Dur-
ing the Seminole War the Battle of Dunlawton was fought along the river-
front at Port Orange. Under General Putnam the defenders, refugees of
neighboring plantations, were forced to withdraw from the vicinity, while 1
the Indians under King Philip destroyed a sugar mill and near-by settle-
ments.

Although the citrus culture to which the town owes its name is still of
consequence to the community, it has been superseded by the cultivation
of oyster beds in the Halifax River, and by shrimp fishing.

In Port Orange (follow markers) are the RUINS or THE DUNLAWTON Su-

304 FLORIDA

GAR MILL (adm. 25), reputedly built during the early eighteenth century,
later destroyed, rebuilt, and improved many times. Known to have been
used as late as 1880, it is one of the largest coquina ruins in the vicinity.
Two tall chimneys overtop the trees, and the walls are overrun with vines.
Most of the machinery remains on its foundations, coated with rust. Dur-
ing the War between the States, Edward Archibald McDonald, founder of
the settlement, transported salt water from the Halifax Elver and used the
huge kettles of the mill to make salt for the Confederate forces.

Southward along the coast grows the coontie or komptie plant, a mem-
ber of the cycad family, its roots providing an arrow-root starch used by
the Seminole and by American pioneers to make bread when corn was not
available. The roots were pounded in water, and the white sediment was
dried and used as flour. The Indians regarded the coontie as sacred to the
Great Spirit, and used it during their feast at the annual Green Corn
Dance (see Archeology and Indians) .

The highway winds around lagoons of the Halifax River; sea gulls float
on the surface, and the low green growth of mangrove indicates the pres-
ence of salt water. Oyster beds are exposed at low tide, and sometimes a
lone heron appears. The papaya fruit was discovered in Florida in this re-
gion. Andre Michaux, a French botanist, found it growing wild near the
coast in 1778. In appearance and texture the papaya resembles a canta-
loupe, having been described as ' the glorified melon that climbed a tree. J It
is cooked as a vegetable when green, and served as a fruit when ripe. The
presence of papain, a drug similar to pepsin, renders its juices remedial in
stomach disorders. Tough cuts of meat become tender when wrapped for
24 hours in papaya leaves.

NEW SMYRNA, 14.5 m. (10 alt., 4,149 pop.), has a business section
with square false-front buildings shaded by arcades of wood and corrugated
iron to protect shoppers from sun and rain. Old frame houses, chiefly of the
post- Victorian era, sit back from the street behind moss-hung oaks and
Washingtonian palms. Fishing and shrimp fleets, citrus groves, packing
houses, and the Florida East Coast Railway shops provide the income of
New Smyrna residents.

Scattered through the town are many reminders of New Smyrna's long
history sunken stone piers, ruins of a Spanish mission, foundations of an
old fort, and canals that start deep in heavy undergrowth and run through
the town to the river. The first known settlement on the site was the In-
dian village of Caparaca. Spanish missionaries arrived in 1696 and estab-
lished the Mission of Atocuimi (see below) .

In 1767 Dr. Andrew Turnbull, a Scottish physician, brought 1,500 colo-
nists here. About 1,200 were from the Island of Minorca, east of Spain; the
others were Italians and Greeks. The British Government provided a
sloop of war and gave a bounty of 4,500 to promote the settlement, which
had many powerful backers. Lord Grenville, First Lord of the Treasury,
was a partner ex officio. Grants of more than 100,000 acres of land were
made to the colony. The colonists found pioneering anything but idyllic,
but they accomplished a great deal in the nine years of settlement, build-
ing an elaborate system of canals to drain the rich hammock land. Indigo

TOUR I 305

raised on the fertile soil found a ready market in England. Roads were laid
out, some of which are still used.

By the time of the American Revolution many of the settlers had died,
and discontent prevailed. Charges and counter-charges about the adminis-
tration of the settlement flew thick and fast; troops were brought in to
maintain order. With the appointment of Tonyn as governor in 1776, all
who wished to do so were granted permission to leave the settlement; the
majority moved to St. Augustine, where many of their descendants live.

In 1803 Spanish grants of land were given to the Martin and Murray
families. Subsequently, though harried by Seminole raids and blockade-
running in the War between the States, the town experienced a slow
growth, stimulated by the advent of the railroad and later by highway im-
provements and the completion of the Intracoastal Waterway.

The FOUNDATIONS OF AN OLD FORT, Hillsborough St. between Washing-
ton and Julian Sts., were discovered in 1854 when an Indian mound was
excavated. Their origin and history remain unknown.

The TURNBULL CANAL, 10 feet deep and 10 feet wide, excavated in
places through solid coquina, extends 4 miles west from the boat slips at
the river's edge and is still used for drainage purposes. In some parts of the
city the canal is roofed over with sidewalks and streets.

The RUINS OF THE MISSION ATOCUIMI (adm. 25 ji), Canal St., built in the
1690% are owned by the Florida State Historical Society. In 1696 the Jo-
roro Indians rebelled against an order of Fray Luis Sanchez, a priest, who
forbade their observance of certain tribal customs. The priest and two of
his Indian converts were slain, and the church ornaments stolen. The mis-
sion was used as a sugar mill during the British regime.

Left from New Smyrna over the Washington St. Bridge spanning the Halifax River
and connecting several small mangrove islands to the ANGLERS' CLUB (private), 0.2
m., a fishing and boating organization which holds annual meets from November to
April. Ample dock facilities and a marine way are provided for small boats In the
club building (open) is a collection of Indian relics. At the east end of the bridge is
(R) DUMMITT MOUND, named for Captain D.D.Dummitt (see Tour iB), New
Smyrna's first port collector, who lived at one time on the bluff.

Straight ahead on Flagler Ave., landscaped with palms, flowering shrubs, and Aus-
tralian pines, to CORONADO BEACH, 1.6 m. (2 14 pop.), an ocean resort Neighbor-
ing beaches are frequented by fishermen; a day's catch consists chiefly of channel
bassy-some of which weigh as much as 40 pounds. In the distance to the north, on the
far side of Ponce de Leon Inlet, is PONCE DE LEON LIGHTHOUSE.

Right from CORONADO BEACH on Turtle Mound Road, 7 w., to ^ TURTLE
MOUND, rising 50 feet above the beach, now under the protection of the Florida State
Historical Society. Called Mount of Surruque by the Indians, it was charted on Flor-
ida maps as early as 1564, and Spanish galleons stopped here for repairs, wood, and
water. A fishing camp and picnic grounds are near by.

A COAST GUARD AND LIFE-SAVING STATION, 12.5 m., faces the ocean, and so nar-
row is the peninsula here that its rear door opens on the inlet.

In this area both Spanish and English colonists planted indigo, a bushy
shrub of the pea family. It was cut with reaping hooks when in full bloom,
immersed in vats of water until fermentation took place, decanted, treated
with lime, and churned until blue flakes were precipitated in the form of a
blue powdery sediment. Pressed into blocks and dried, this became the in-

306 P L R I D A

digo of commerce. Formerly exported in large quantities, indigo was grad-
ually supplanted by the more profitable cotton. Wild indigo, bearing both
white and blue flowers, is found in many sections between the ocean and
the St. Johns River.

During the English occupation of Florida, cochineal, a commercial dye,
scarlet in color, was made from cooked bodies of the cochineal insect found
on several species of cacti growing along the east coast above Palm Beach.

England urged her people to establish colonies in Florida, and as early
as 1669 a pamphlet was issued in London entitled A Brief Description of
the Province on the Coasts of Florida, undoubtedly the first promotion litera-
ture printed in English on Florida real estate. The pamphlet described
with what profit indigo , tobacco, cotton, limes, oranges, and lemons could
be grown in 'this place so desirable . . . seated in the most temperate
clime, where the neighborhood of the golden light of heaven brings many
advantages and his convenient distance secures them from the inconven-
iences of his scorching beams/

Addressing itself to c any younger brother whose spirit is elevated above
the common sort, and yet the hard usage of our country hath not allowed
suitable fortunes/ the circular suggested that he 'leave his native soil to
advance his fortunes equal to his blood and spirit, and so ... avoid the
unlawful ways too many of our young gentlemen take to maintain them-
selves according to their high education/ The circular concluded: 'Those
that desire further advice ... let them repair to Mr.Mathew Wilkinson,
the ironmonger, at the Sign of the Three Feathers in Bishopgate Street,
where they will be informed when the ships will be ready/

OAK HILL, 27.3 m. (18 alt., 457 pop.) packs citrus, and from apiaries in
the vicinity ships many pounds of orange and palmetto honey annually.

At 29.5 m. is the junction with State 219, a paved road.

Left on this road is ALLENHURST, 8 m. (50 pop.), a settlement of fisherfolk.
Here is the Haulover, a narrow channel dug to connect Mosquito Lagoon with upper
Indian River. Formerly, small schooners bound from the lagoon into the Indian River
were hauled almost a half mile across the sand by means of rollers and skids.

The road curves across a lowland meadow, over a concrete railroad over-
pass, and along a fill barely 3 feet above the water level. It traverses part of
a vast salt marsh, yellow with sunflowers in spring, pink with rose mallow
in the fall. Ibises, herons, and other waterfowl feed beside the causeway in
the early morning and late afternoon. Kingfishers perch warily on tele-
phone wires, plunging like a rocket for minnows. Tall graceful Australian
pines appear at intervals, serving as windbreaks for citrus groves. From
higher ground the Indian River (L) shimmers in the distance.

Sometimes at night, and especially before a heavy rain, the river glows
with a phosphorescent light; waves whipped up by a stiff breeze resemble
leaping flames ; myriad fish appear to be bathed in fire ; boats passing leave
a luminous trail in their wake a phenomenon caused by the presence of
trillions of minute luminous organisms, both protozoa and protophyta.

Before 1600 the Indian River was known as Ais (Ind., deer), named by
the Ais Indians who were among the earliest of Florida tribes. The river is
actually a lagoon, from i to 5 miles wide, open to the Atlantic at many

TOUR I 307

points, and extending to Stuart (see below} more than 100 miles south. For
its entire length it is a section of the Intracoastal Waterway.

TITUSVILLE, 47 m. (14 alt., 2,089 pop.), seat of Brevard County, is
one of many citrus shipping centers along the east coast. Large packing
houses operate day and night throughout the season, and from December
to April loaded trucks and trailers stream northward along the highway.
Small dealers visit the packing houses daily to buy fruit and rush it to
widely scattered points in the South.

The head of navigation on the Indian River, Titusville was a flourishing
port in the i88o's, when a wooden- tracked railroad, powered by mules, car-
ried goods as far inland as Sanf ord.

The town was named for Colonel H.T.Titus, an early resident. Local in-
dustrial plants include 5 citrus packing houses, a barrel factory, and a
crabmeat packing plant. A Western Union relay station transmits mes-
sages from northern points to Miami, Cuba, and South America.

SAND POINT IMPROVEMENT PROJECT, a 67-acre park and recreation cen-
ter built along the river on reclaimed swampland, contains a yacht basin
and a swimming pool. Louis Coleman, a pioneer settler, was the owner of
this property when Henry M. Flagler sought to buy it in the early iSgo's.
Coleman placed an extravagant price on it, and Flagler chose Palm Beach
for his planned development.

Titusville is at the junction with State 119 (see Tour iB).

Between Titusville and Indian River City, the highway parallels Indian
River, bordered at intervals with tall oleanders.

INDIAN RIVER CITY, 50.9 m. (19 alt., 120 pop.) formerly called
Clark's Corner, consists of a few stucco houses, filling stations, and a post
office, overlooking the broad reaches of the river.

Indian River City is at the junction with State 22 (see Tour 9).

South of Indian River City dense growths of palms and pines flank US i ;
palmetto thickets and low green shrubbery add to the beauty of the water
views.

COCOA, 66.2 m. (26 alt., 2,164 pop-)> is a citrus shipping center, with
groves bordering some of its principal thoroughfares. Orange trees in near-
by hammocks have borne fruit, it is said, since 1868. Incorporated in 1895
and named for the coco plum growing abundantly hereabouts, Cocoa was
an outgrowth of Rockledge (see below). For more than a half -century the
town has been popular with fishermen, who can be seen casting from the
side platforms of the Indian River bridge, along the Banana River beyond,
and in the ocean surf. Pine lands west of town offer a variety of small game.

Left from Cocoa on the old Dixie Highway is ROCKLEDGE, 1.1 m, (29 alt., 551
pop.), shaded by oaks and palms, named for its site on a coquina rock formation rising
as high as 20 feet above the water.

South of Cocoa small palm-studded peninsulas jut out into Indian River,
its quiet waters reflecting the ever-changing sky and cloud formations.

EAU GALLIE, 83.3 m. (19 alt., 871 pop.), a name compounded of
French and Indian words meaning rocky water, was christened by W.H.
Gleason, who, shortly after the War between the States, was commissioned

308 FLORIDA

by the Federal Government to make a topographical and agricultural sur-
vey of Florida for the purpose of ascertaining whether it was suitable for
Negro colonization. Discovering that the natural resources of the country
required capital for successful development, he reported adversely; but in
1866 he settled here himself.

Lying on the shores of Indian River and Elbow Creek, Eau Gallic was
once a busy port; in 1890 material for Flagler's Royal Poinciana Hotel was
brought by rail to this point and transshipped by water to Palm Beach (see
Palm Beach} .

MELBOURNE, 87.7 m. (22 alt, 2,677 pop-), named by an Australian
for his native city, contains buildings more rococo in style than other In-
dian River communities. The town is a point of departure for hunting par-
ties going inland to the headwaters of the St. Johns River, where small
game and an occasional deer and bear are found (guides available; inquire
at sporting goods stores). Both fresh- and salt-water fishing attract anglers
throughout the year. Melbourne has a golf course (greens fees $1.50), and
the annual International Motorboat Races are held here during the winter.

Melbourne is at the junction with US 192 (see Tour 10).

Left from Melbourne on a bridge across Indian River to INDIATLANTIC, 2.5 m.
(see Tour iB), and MELBOURNE BEACH, 4.5 m., (72 pop.) (see Tour iB).

Between Melbourne and Fort Pierce are scattered groups of cabbage
palms and moss-bearded water oaks between the highway and the river;
rows of oleanders have been planted here and there along the waterfront,
and rickety piers project into the bayous. On the more substantial piers are
fish markets and restaurants specializing in fish dinners. Gulls wheel over
the water, and occasionally appears a solitary motionless heron, engaged
in his own tireless vigil for fish. Many pleasure craft move southward
along the Intracoastal Waterway early in winter, and north again after the
season is over.

MALABAR, 94.6 m. (26 alt., 138 pop.), named for Cape Malabar on the
African coast, consists of several white families and a colony of Negroes
employed in a local sawmill.

MICCO (Ind., chief), 103.4 m. (25 alt, 100 pop.), has many old houses
facing the river, each with its sulphur artesian well. Citrus culture and
commercial fishing are the chief occupations.

The new concrete SEBASTIAN RIVER BRIDGE, 105 m., replaced a narrow
wooden span that proved to be the Waterloo of south Florida's most noto-
rious band of desperadoes. In November 1924, John Ashley, Hanford Mob-
ley, Ray Lynn, and Bob Middleton, members of the Ashley gang, met
death here in a battle with deputy sheriffs after 14 years of bank robbing,
highjacking, and rum-running; they were stopped at the bridge by a red
lantern and chain, and shot when they resisted arrest.

The SEBASTIAN INLET (L) was dredged by the joint efforts of near-
by communities, to provide convenient passage for small shrimp and fish-
ing boats from ocean to river.

SEBASTIAN, 108.8 m. (21 alt., 386 pop.), named for StSebastian, is a
tourist settlement. Tall cabbage palms and Australian pines grow along

TOUR I 309

the waterfront. Piers, racks for drying nets, fish houses, and crab-picking
shacks on the river bank contrast with the neat cottages and landscaped
lawns that border the opposite side of the highway. In Sebastian, one of
the oldest trading posts on the East Coast, river steamers formerly tied up
at the foot of Main Street, where pilings of old docks still stand.

Opposite Sebastian is PELICAN ISLAND, a Government bird sanctu-
ary, in which thousands of pelicans and terns spend the winter months.

WABASSO, 113.4 m. (20 alt., 300 pop.) is sustained by citrus groves,
packing houses, and a sawmill. The Guale Indians migrated to this section
from Ossabaw Island, Ga., and the name of the town is Ossabaw spelt
backwards.

WINTER BEACH, 115.8 m. (31 pop.), surrounded by dark green
groves protected by windbreaks of Australian pines, is a citrus center with
several large packing plants. Many of the surrounding groves are owned
by tourists who spend the winter here.

GIFFORD, 119 m. (19 alt., 500 pop.), was named for F.Charles Gifford,
credited with having selected the site for Vero Beach (see below). He de-
layed the extension of the Florida East Coast Railway, so the story goes,
by placing an excessive price on his land; in retaliation the railway started
a settlement here exclusively for Negroes, and named it Gifford. The rail-
road was built around the Gifford holdings, and the town became the Ne-
gro section of Vero Beach.

VERO BEACH, 121.4 m. (19 alt, 2,268 pop.), seat of Indian River
County, a citrus shipping point, extends across Indian River, known here
as The Narrows, to the ocean. The broad streets of its residential section
are bordered with coconut, royal and date palms, and a profusion of tropi-
cal shrubs.

Among skeletal remains found here along Van Valkenburg's Creek by
Dr.E.H.Sellards in 1916 were those of the so-called f Vero Beach Man/
who for a time was believed to be prehistoric and became the subject of
much speculation and controversy among scientists. Later the bones were
pronounced those of an Indian of Algonquin origin. Excavations, however,
brought to light remains of many extinct mammals, including those of a
mastodon.

POCAHONTAS PARK, i4th Ave., and 2ist St., a tourist center, offers rec-
reational facilities. An avenue lined with royal and coconut palms, hibis-
cus, and oleanders, crosses the Intracoastal Waterway to the ocean beach
(casino, bathhouses, fishing) .

Vero Beach is at the junction with State 30 (see Tour n).

US i crosses one of several drainage canals, 123.3 m., carrying overflow
from bottom lands west of the road. These canals and lateral ditches are
part of the Indian River Drainage District projects, covering more than
50,000 acres. The drained lands produce pineapples and winter vegetables.

The McKEE JUNGLE GARDENS (adm. $1; children under 14, free; guides
for parties), 124.2 m., were opened in 1931 by Arthur G. McKee, an
Ohio industrialist, who during his travels made a hobby of studying tropi-
cal plant culture. On an 8o-acre tract of jungle here he cleared away only
the trees and underbrush required to make room for 2^500 varieties of

310 FLORIDA

tropical and subtropical flora. Along winding paths grow thousands of
exotic plants, brought from many parts of the world. In the jungle depths
flourish rare varieties of orchids, ferns, and flowering vines. In the pools
and lagoons float water lilies with unusually large pads. There is a bou-
gainvillea glade, an azalea garden, a mirror pool, and a watery maze. Alli-
gators, parrots, monkeys, and other denizens of the jungle live in an en-
closure; many native birds have found sanctuary in the garden.

FORT PIERCE, 136.2 m. (24 alt., 4,803 pop.), seat of St.Lucie County,
is a citrus and vegetable center; it ships large cargoes of fruit, winter vege-
tables, fish, and lumber, and receives incoming cargoes of miscellaneous
goods for distribution along the central east coast. From a large new pier
and warehouse, with pre-cooling facilities for perishable products, steam-
ers sail regularly five times a week to Baltimore and New York. Fertilizer
and seed stores, with farm implements displayed for sale, reflect Fort
Pierce's interest in agriculture. Occasionally barefoot gayly skirted Semi-
noles visit the town to do their shopping, hurrying straight to the dime
stores, their favorite haunts.

Sixteen cannon and four coral-encrusted anchors were salvaged in 1929
from wrecked vessels lying on a reef north of the town. Because of the
heavy encrustations, it has been difficult to determine their exact origin.
Dim mouldings on the cannon indicate that they may have been part of
the armament of an early French or Spanish vessel. When raised, the can-
non were covered with coral and oyster shells, which also encased several
large round stones used as ballast in early days. The cannon and anchors
were scraped, painted with aluminum, and mounted on the City Hall
lawn, in various parks throughout the city, and before the Chamber of
Commerce.

Fort Pierce received its name from the fortification built here in 1838 as
a link in a chain of east coast defenses against the Indians. It occupied a
strategic position on the St.Lucie Inlet, which afforded easy communica-
tion by water to the north. Settlers fought off Indian attacks and remained
to set out citrus groves and cultivate winter vegetables. Prior to the World
War, pineapples were grown extensively in the vicinity. Although disease
and adverse tariffs practically ruined local pineapple growers, they have
made a new start with the planting of hardier varieties, eradication of
pests, and the use of colloidal phosphate fertilizer.

Fort Pierce is at the junction with State 8 (see Tour 12).

Section d. FORT PIERCE to MIAMI; 122.2 m. US i

This section of the route runs the length of what is sometimes called
'Florida's Gold Coast/ a narrow strip of land between the Everglades and
the ocean, the State's most popular tourist playground, marked frequently
by an ostentatious display of wealth. For long stretches near the larger
cities US i becomes a veritable Midway, with innumerable signs and loud-
speakers ballyhooing sights and sites, amusements, foods, patent medi-
cines, trailer camps, and roadside cabins ranging from one-room frame
shacks to elaborate two- and three-room stucco dwellings. Souvenir stands

TOUR I 311

offer carved coconuts, sea shells, honey, guava jelly, and a miscellany of
bewildering edibles and mementoes; nurseries exhibit subtropical plants
for sale; deep-sea fishing camps, Indian villages, and tropical gardens are
blatantly advertised.

South of FORT PIERCE, m., the prevailing vegetation continues to
be pine, scrub palmetto, and cabbage palm, varied occasionally with dwarf
cedar. Prickly pear grows along the highway, bearing astonishingly large
yellow blossoms early in spring. Dodder, a parasitic plant, extends its tan-
gle of golden threads over weeds and undergrowth.

From August to October, Floridians of this section are hurricane-con-
scious. One day the newspapers report on an inside page the gathering of a
tropical storm, usually somewhere in the West Indies, the hurricane incu-
bator of the hemisphere. If the storm is of dangerous intensity and pro-
ceeding toward Florida, it ' makes ' the front page the following day. As the
storm approaches within a few hundred miles of the coast, the news is
1 boxed/ accompanied with a diagram charting the storm's course. Radio
programs are interrupted by announcements from the weather bureau. On
the mainland the wind blows steadily toward the storm center, but the sun
shines and people go quietly about their business. If the hurricane shows
no signs of shifting its course or diminishing in volume, police and welfare
agencies prepare for action. Trucks and busses are sent to evacuate people
in outlying sections; they come with their bedding and cooking utensils to
set up housekeeping in churches, auditoriums, and other buildings. Mer-
chants remove signs and board up shop windows. Home owners brace their
weaker trees, trim off limbs that might fall on roofs. Chimneys are capped
and window and door crevices plugged, for the torrential rain does more
damage than the wind. Bathtubs and all available receptacles are filled
with water for drinking purposes in case the town's pumping plant is dis-
abled; oil lamps and stoves are brought out and filled; stores sell candles by
the dozens.

Few outward signs of excitement appear along the streets; citizens move
about calmly, listen to sidewalk radio reports, and consult barometers. As
the storm strikes inland, the towns along its path, one by one, are cut off
from communitation with the world as wires go down. A heavy sky and
scurrying dirty gray clouds block out the sun. A drizzle begins and turns
to rain, followed by a deluge as the wind gradually increases to a lashing
gale, accompanied occasionally by lightning and a continuous rumble of
thunder scarcely discernible above the roar of wind and rain. All electric
power is cut off to avoid danger from live wires. Palms bend to the ground
under the howling blast, shaking free their 'hula skirts 7 of dead fronds;
pines are snapped or twisted off; sheds and flimsy roofs fly into space;
streets become rivers; stalled cars are abandoned.

Some of the more reckless don bathing suits and venture out, but it is
difficult to stand up against the wind. Guests in hotels gather in candle-lit
lobbies and hold 'hurricane parties/ but most people remain at home to
look after their property.

After a dozen hours at the most, the worst is over, but rain and unsettled
weather may continue for several days. Householders and city trucks clean

312 FLORIDA

the debris from lawns and streets; fallen trees and poles are removed, and
wires restrung. Roofing concerns do a rushing business, carpenters and
painters work overtime, until reconstruction is completed. As a rule, the
normal community routine is disrupted for several weeks.

WHITE CITY, 5.1 m. (32 alt.), second largest community in St.Lucie
County, was settled shortly after 1893 by Danish immigrants from Chi-
cago, who became interested in citrus culture here after reading a series of
articles on the growing of oranges, written by a Danish newspaperman
covering the Chicago World's Fair. They named their one street the Mid-
way for the thoroughfare of that name at the fair, and called their little
community White City, for Negroes were excluded. Children and grand-
children of the old settlers still tend the orange and grapefruit groves
planted more than 40 years ago.

Between White City and Stuart, US i skirts (L), the JENSEN SA-
VANNA, a low grassy plain dotted with small lakes and ponds, and
drained by creeks and branches of the St.Lucie River. This wild territory
is popular with hunters of small game and fresh-water anglers (guides
available at Stuart).

At 15.5 m. is the junction with State 140, paved:

Left on this road is JENSEN, 0.5 m. (23 alt., 419 pop.), a resort; in this vicinity
Menendez (see History] established Fort Santa Lucia in 1568 and left a garrison. In-
dians killed so many of the soldiers that the survivors mutinied, abandoned the fort,
and fled to St.Augustine.

The ST.LUCIE INLET, 17.1 w., the southern end of Indian River, is the
eastern terminus of the St.Lucie Canal, a link in the Cross-State Canal (see
Tour 13), by which small craft of six-foot draft can pass from the Atlantic
to Lake Okeechobee, and thence down the Caloosahatchee River to the
Gulf,

STUART, 18.4 m. (14 alt., 1,924 pop.), is important for its fishing
grounds. Shark fishing is a profitable occupation here. All varieties of
shark tiger, sand, nurse, hammerhead, and shovel-nose are sought for
their flesh, hides, teeth, bones, livers, fins, and eyes, the lens of which are
crystallized and sold to a large market as insets for rings. Barreled in ice
and shipped to extracting plants, shark livers yield from 2 to 14 gallons of
oil, with higher vitamin-A content than cod liver oil. The tough thick
hides are soaked in brine, tanned, and manufactured into novelties. The
fins are shipped to China, where they are relished as a delicacy when prop-
erly aged and pickled. The flesh is chopped up and utilized as fertilizer.

Sea gulls assemble at the railroad bridge whenever passenger trains are
due, impatient to pounce on scraps thrown from the dining cars. Long be-
fore a train is sighted by human eyes or before a whistle sounds, the gulls
begin to assemble as if familiar with the timetable; freight trains are ig-
nored.

South of Stuart the route traverses extensive sawgrass marshes criss-
crossed by drainage ditches, their banks lined with cattails and willows; it
bisects pine and palmetto flatlands scarred by fire, and proceeds through
another marshy area, the haunt of white and blue herons, which stand in

TOUR I 313

lagoons or roost in the tops of bushy mangroves. Crossing rolling sand
dunes, white in the sun, the highway runs along the Intracoastal Water-
way, fringed with cabbage palms and mangroves.

HOBE SOUND, 32 m., bordered in places with Australian pines, ap-
peared on maps under its present name as early as 1699. The name is prob-
ably a corruption of Jobe (Sp., Jupiter), although the Indians called it Hoe
Sound.

At 39.4 m. is a junction with an improved road.

Left on this road to the red brick JUPITER LIGHTHOUSE, 0.5 m., first lighted on
July 10, 1859. The lighthouse occupies the SITE OF FORT JUPITER, built by early
settlers in 1838. Here Thomas Jesup, a commander in the Seminole War, imprisoned
678 Indians and Negroes until they were transported to reservations in the West. The
fort was abandoned about 1842, and construction of the light began in 1855. The
lighthouse was dark from 1861 to 1865 when all lighthouses along Southern coasts
ceased to function at the order of the Confederacy.

JUPITER, 39.9 m., (12 alt., 176 pop.), on the south shore of Jupiter In-
let, is a small trading community (fishing guides, boats, tackle).

South of Jupiter the highway offers an almost unobstructed view of the
ocean for several miles. The beach is wide and gently sloping, with a sweep
of curling white surf; myriad gulls wheel and cry above the long rollers;
farther out are fishing boats and often a school of porpoises. Coastwise ves-
sels bound south stand in close to shore here to avoid the powerful current
of the Gulf Stream. Sprawling sea grape and palmetto grow on the dunes
below the highway. Fields of yellow sea oats ripple in the breeze; cut when
fully headed and sprayed with many colors, this grass is sold in curio and
souvenir shops. Inland, the dunes sweep up, wave upon wave, covered
with scrawny pine, palmetto, and other low green growth, the whole re-
sembling evergreens on an expanse of drifted snow.

A small stone MONUMENT TO THE CELESTIAL RAILROAD (R) commemo-
rates the 8-mile, narrow-gauge road, so called because it connected Jupi-
ter (see above} with the near-by settlements of Neptune, Mars, Venus, and
Juno (seat of old Dade County from 1889 until superseded by Miami in
1891) . A wood-burning locomotive pulled three or four cars up the line and
backed them down again, for the road had no switches or turntable.

The SEMINOLE GOLF CLUB (private), 45 m., borders the road (L); op-
posite (R) is the SEMINOLE POLO FIELD (private).

RIVIERA, 52.1 m., (19 alt., 811 pop.), lies on the western shore of
LAKE WORTH, actually a lagoon 18 miles long, named for Major General
William J. Worth, who won the confidence of the Florida Indians and
terminated the Seminole War.

The main street is lined with stores, souvenir stands, jooks, filling sta-
tions, and a post office. Along the lake front are fish houses, boat sheds,
net racks, and wharves. Here lives a colony of Conchs, so named for the
variety of shellfish they eat. Other Conchs inhabit the Florida Keys (see
Key West) ; both groups are of English stock. Those on the Keys are part
Spanish while some of the Riviera Conchs bear evidence of Negro blood,
having dark skins, kinky hair, thick lips, and heavy features. Many are
descendants of English fishermen who during and after the World War

314 FLORIDA

left the Bahamas and settled on Singer's Island, opposite Riviera. The
Conchs left their island settlement and removed to the mainland here
during the 1920*5, when a 'land shark 7 extravagantly raised rents on
Singer's Island.

The men are fishermen; the women and children weave native palmetto
into baskets, rugs, purses, and head bands, and fashion fish scales into
trinkets, delicate ornaments, and artificial flowers, for sale to tourists.
They also import Nassau straw hats from the Bahamas on crawfish boats.
These hats are woven from the tender inner fronds of the silver-top and
the Bahama palmettoes, more durable than those of Florida. Shredded
into long strips of the desired widths, the fronds to be woven into straw
hats are first baked in rock ovens until white and properly cured, and then
laid out in the open until night dews restore their pliability.

WEST PALM BEACH, 56.9 m. (14 alt., 26,610 pop.), occupies a ribbon
of land 8 miles long and approximately 2 miles wide along the western
shore of Lake Worth. Although it is the business and railroad center for
Palm Beach (see Palm Beach) on the opposite shore, West Palm Beach,
with its large hotels and recreational facilities, is a popular winter resort
in its own right. Three ornamental bridges and a ferry connect the two
communities.

Coconut palms flourish throughout the business and residential dis-
tricts; thousands more are set out every year by civic organizations. Bi-
cycles are a popular means of conveyance, but in the closely built-up busi-
ness area, motorcar congestion has necessitated extensive one-way traffic
regulations. Through traffic, southbound, passes over the Old Dixie High-
way, and northbound, over US i, one block to the east. Curio shops dis-
play articles fashioned locally of native woods, grasses, shells, and clays.
Among the winter attractions is the sailfish fleet, with bases on both sides
of the lake, which carries anglers to the Gulf Stream fishing grounds.

A small proportion of the population is of Scandinavian origin, descend-
ants of artisans who were brought here to build the first Palm Beach ho-
tels; others are descendants of New Englanders whose forbears pioneered
the district. Negroes live in a colony west of the railroad and find employ-
ment as field hands, as gardeners and housemen on Palm Beach estates,
and in the hotels of both cities during the winter season.

In 1880, Irving E.. Henry homesteaded 130 acres of land embracing all
of the present business section. His application for registry stated that his
nearest neighbor was 3 miles away, that most of his land was a sandy
waste encumbered with swamps, and that he had improved 5 acres at a
cost of $500. Thirteen years later Henry Flagler, pioneer railroad builder,
having selected the island opposite as the site of his new resort, Palm
Beach, purchased Henry's tract and developed it as the commercial sec-
tion of the new community.

Streets were laid out through the flatwoods; waterworks and other im-
provements were installed; a post office and schools were established.
Stores sprang up rapidly, particularly after the coming of Flagler's East
Coast Railway in 1893. When the settlement was incorporated in 1894, it
had a population of approximately 1,000, composed almost wholly of

TOUR I 315

workers engaged in building the Royal Poinciana Hotel at Palm Beach.

Wishing to exclude all business enterprises from Palm Beach, Flagler
proposed to develop the new town merely as an adjunct to his fashionable
colony, but West Palm Beach has long since outgrown its subsidiary posi-
tion. Until Lake Worth was spanned in 1895, passengers leaving trains in
West Palm Beach were ferried across to Palm Beach hotels. The wooden
railroad bridge was replaced with the concrete FLAGLER MEMORIAL
BRIDGE in 1938.

In 1909 Palm Beach County was created by division of Bade County,
and West Palm Beach was designated as the county seat. Although the
population grew from 1,700 in 1910 to more than 8,000 in 1920, it retained
the atmosphere of a small town. In 1924-26, West Palm Beach shared in
the real-estate boom. Approximately 100,000 visitors stormed the city and
vicinity, many remaining to become permanent residents. Accommoda-
tions were inadequate in spite of the erection of 4,000 new houses, hotels,
and apartments. Lots in the outskirts originally priced at $250, sold for
$1,000, and then soared to $50,000. The population increased to 30,000.
For a time the city limits, expanded to include mushroom developments
laid out in fiatwoods and on built-up swampy areas, embraced n miles of
Lake Worth waterfront and included part of the Everglades.

Two projects contributed materially to the city's steady growth. In
1925-26 the WEST PALM BEACH CANAL (see Tour 13), extending
from Lake Okeechobee to the Atlantic, made the community a focal point
of the Everglades reclamation district. In addition to drainage facilities,
the canal, deepest and widest in Florida, provided a short water route for
small craft between the lake and east coast resorts. At the same time the
Seaboard Air Line Railway built its cross-State extension, linking Tampa
with the east coast cities; this line opened a rich and hitherto neglected
agricultural territory, and West Palm Beach became the outlet for its
products.

Tourist trade supplies the major part of the city's income, and the sail-
fish fleets provide a livelihood for a large number of people.

Tropical storms occasionally sweep the Palm Beaches; those of 1926 and
1928 were notably destructive, but loss of life was largely confined to the
region around Lake Okeechobee (see Tour 13) .

FLAGLER PARK, Flagler Drive between Poinciana and Myrtle Sts., given
to the city by the Henry M. Flagler estate in 1907, contains recreational
facilities, a municipal amphitheater seating 5,000 (concerts during winter
season), and the Memorial Library (open 11-10 weekdays), dedicated in
1934 to local World War veterans. The library contains 15,000 volumes.

The CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH, foot of Okeechobee Rd., of neoclassic
design, has walls of artificial limestone, manufactured locally, with grilles
and exterior openings of wrought and cast bronze, and a roof of dark blue
terra-cotta tile.

The DOCKMASTERS MUSEUM (open daily 8-6), on the Municipal Dock
at the foot of 2nd St., has an exhibit of shells, coral, seagrasses, and
sponges found in the vicinity.

The DIMICK MONUMENT, corner Railroad Ave. and sth St., was erected

316 FLORIDA

in 1922 in honor of Elisha N. Dimick, : A Pioneer Who Served His Com-
munity Well. Legislator, Developer, and Friend. 1849-1919.'

WOODLAWN CEMETERY, Acacia Rd. and S.Dixie Hwy., was deeded to
the city in 1914 by the Henry M. Flagler estate. On the arch that spans
the entrance is the inscription, 'That Which Is So Universal As Death
Must Be A Blessing. 3 In the northwest corner of the cemetery a single
headstone marks the graves of 69 persons who lost their lives in the Lake
Okeechobee area during the hurricane of 1928.

West Palm Beach is at the junction with State 25 (see Tour 13) .

LAKE WORTH, 61.5 772. (21 alt., 5,940 pop.), a tourist town of many
bright-colored stucco residences, extends along both shores of the lake of
the same name. A municipally owned CASINO (bathhouses) faces the ocean.
Revenue from municipally owned ice, cold-storage, electric-light, and wa-
ter plants pay almost all of the town's operating expenses. A municipal golf
course (greens fee 75^) is at the foot of Lucerne Ave. The main business
section, consisting of several blocks of commercial structures, lies west of
US i.

An OSTRICH AND ALLIGATOR FARM (adm. 25), 63.2 m., has alligators of
all ages, ranging from babies just hatched to a battle-scarred veteran esti-
mated to be 400 years old. Ostriches, crocodiles, monkeys, lemurs, kanga-
roos, and snakes are also to be seen.

LANTANA, 63.6 m. (n alt., 188 pop.), a tourist community on Lake
Worth, was named for a subtropical shrub, common throughout Florida,
which bears umbellate heads of small red, yellow, and white flowers.

Left from Lantana 1 m, on a paved road and causeway crossing Lake Worth and
Hypoluxo Island to LANTANA BEACH.

HYPOLUXO (Ind., hapo, mound, and poloski, round), 64.7 m. (12 alt.,
43 pop.), settled in 1873 is one of the oldest communities on Lake Worth.
Part of the village is built on a thickly wooded island of the same name,
on which are several private estates.

BOYNTON, 67.7 m. (19 alt., 1,121 pop.), is a trading center on a sandy
ridge in an area of rich farmland extending westward to the Everglades.
Many Finnish farmers have settled here.

Left from Boynton 1 m. on State 195 across the Intracoastal Waterway to BOYN-
TON BEACH (bathhouses, casino, refreshment stand).

DELRAY BEACH, 72.2 m. (20 alt,, 1,053 pop.), settled in 1901, is a
tourist resort and the center of an area producing beans, peppers, toma-
toes, sugar cane, and citrus fruit. Many Michigan farmers of German
ancestry have bought farms in the vicinity.

On Atlantic Ave. is DELRAY COUNTRY CLUB AND GOLF COURSE (greens
fee 50$. CITY PARK, Atlantic Ave. and Canal, provides picnic and recrea-
tion grounds. MUNICIPAL BEACH, foot of Atlantic Ave., offers surf bathing
and fishing (boats and equipment available for deep-sea fishing) .

Left from Delray Beach on Ocean Boulevard to SUNKEN GARDENS (adm. 35^;
guides), 1.8 m. 3 exhibiting such curiosities as the dainty lipstick flower, the silk-cotton

TOUR I 317

tree, the pelican flower, and the jack-knife tree, bearing fruit often 40 pounds in
weight.

GULF STREAM, 2 m. 9 a small settlement, clusters about the wealthy GULF
STREAM CLUB (private) and its i8-hole golf course. Roads branching from the boule-
vard are lined with tall Australian pines, coconut palms, and pink and white olean-
ders. Clumps of royal and cabbage palms grow along the fairways. West of the club is
the POLO FIELD, and winding in and out among the trees and shrubbery are bridle
paths leading to the stables maintained primarily for polo ponies.

BOCA RATON (Sp., rat's mouth), 80.3 m. (17 alt., 447 pop.), a resort,
bears the name of an inlet just south of the community. On the landscaped
waterfront (L) is the BOCA RATON CLUB (private), approached by a wide
driveway planted with royal and coconut palms, crotons, bougainvilleas,
hibiscus, and oleanders. Originally designed as a hotel by Addison Mizner
(see Palm Beach], it is an excellent example of Spanish-Gothic architecture
treated in the Mizner manner. The club has 650 rooms, 5 patios, an out-
door ballroom, and a swimming pool. A dredged channel connects Lake
Boca Raton with the ocean, and permits yachts to moor at the clubhouse
docks. The club maintains an i8-hole golf course, riding stables, and gun
traps for its members.

DEERFIELD, 82 m. (15 alt., 1,483 pop.), center of a farming com-
munity producing green beans and peppers as its chief winter crops, was
originally called Hillsborough, but adopted its present name about 1907
when deer were plentiful in the hammocks west of the town. Negroes
brought here to work the once large pineapple plantations comprise about
two- thirds of the population; many have prospered as land owners.

At 88.2 m. is the junction with a paved road.

1. Right on this road is POMPANO, 1.2 m. (15 alt., 2,614 pop-)? originally a fishing
village on the ocean but moved inland to its present site after suffering damage in the
1928 hurricane. An engineer surveying the area for the railroad in early days was so
delighted with the flavor of a fish served him at dinner that, on learning it was called
pompano and abounded in near-by waters, he wrote ' Pompano ' on the map as the
community's name. The pompano, also known as butterfish for its fine-textured flesh
and delicious flavor, is Florida's rarest and choicest food fish, and brings the highest
market prices. It can be caught with hook and line, but nets are usually employed.
Pompano papilotte, baked in a sealed paper bag with an aromatic dressing of herbs, is
a dish to please the most fastidious epicure. Somewhat belying the town's name, truck
gardening is of first importance. When winter crops of beans and peppers are har-
vested, northern buyers arrive, and the town's loading platforms and warehouses, de-
serted for months, become centers of great activity.

2. Left on this road to HILLSBOROUGH LIGHTHOUSE, 3.7 w., on Hillsborough Inlet,
named for the Earl of Hillsborough, who was given large land grants here during the
English occupation. The lighthouse, completed in 1907, and rising 136 feet above the
water, contains a 5,500,000 candlepower light, marking the northern limit of the Flor-
ida reef, an underwater coral formation paralleling the lower east coast.

At 95 m. is the entrance to the CLYDE BEATTY JUNGLE Zoo, where wild
animals are bred and trained for circuses. The animals roam at large in
rock grottos, beside reflecting pools and in a Veldt area surrounded by a
waterfilled moat, across which the animals never venture.

FORT LAUDERDALE, 97.2 m. (10 alt., 8,666 pop.), seat of Broward
County, popular winter headquarters of yachtsmen and anglers, occupies
the approximate site of a Seminole War fort constructed in 1838, and

3l8 PL OR IDA

named for its commander, Major William Lauderdale. NEW RIVER,
lined with many piers, flows through the city; its deep slow-moving wa-
ters mirror the white hulls, mahogany trim, and gleaming brass of numer-
ous pleasure boats. Tarpon are occasionally caught within the city limits.
New River Inlet did not exist until shortly before the American Revolu-
tion. William de Brahm (see Literature), surveyor for the king of England,
described its creation, reporting that 'the great Rains . . . filled this
River to its marshes with so much water that its weight within and the sea
without, by force of the N.E. gales, demolished the N.E. bank and made
this inlet between the 25th and 30th of May, 1765.'

More than 100 miles of natural and artificial waterways wind through
Fort Lauderdale. Some canals were dug to stimulate commerce and agri-
culture; others were designed to enhance the charms of boom-time subdi-
visions containing artificial islands reached by Venetian bridges.

When the roads are dry in winter, Seminole come into Fort Lauderdale
to sell hides and game, see the sights, and shop for food and such bright
wares as the dime stores display. Along the streets the men, aloof and
stolid, stride ahead of the women. The skirts of the women are fashioned of
narrow strips of bright-colored cotton cloth, c&lledjock-see-kees, and reach
to their ankles. High-necked blouses of the same material and pattern fall
in folds below the waist. Every woman coils her shining black hair, and
wears strands of red, yellow, and blue beads around her neck; rhinestone
brooches and jingling silver coins decorate her blouse. The men have
adopted the white man's trousers and slouch hats, but cling to their own
bright blouses. Shoes are seldom worn, and only by men. The dress of the
children resembles that of their elders.

COLEE MONUMENT stands in a little wooded park on the shore of Tar-
pon Bend in the New River. Here, in the heart of Colee Hammock, now a
residential section of Fort Lauderdale, occurred a massacre (1842) by
Seminole Indians under the leadership of Arpeika, known also as Sam-
Jones-be-Damned, a powerful medicine man of the Mikasuki. A member
of the tribe had been friendly with the whites and was caught while trying
to warn them of the attack; bound to a tree, he was forced to witness the
slaying of his friends and then had his ears cropped, upper right and lower
left. Deprived of his Indian name, Crop-ear Charlie, as he came to be
called, was driven into the Everglades, with only a hunting knife and a few
rags, and told that after seven years he might approach the camp 'and ask
for another trial. Seven years later, in June, at the time of the Green Corn
Dance, when the council met to pass on violations of tribal laws, Crop-ear
Charlie appeared and was given permission to live near the tribe, although
forbidden to eat, sleep, hunt, or marry with his people, and was denied his
Indian name. To all questions about him the required answer was, C I don't
know anything/ Crop-ear Charlie lived beyond the century mark/ dying in
a shack near the present town of Dania (see below).

Near Las Olas Boulevard is the HOTEL AMPHITRITE, built of the remod-
elled superstructure of the Amphitrite, one of three monitors constructed
by the Federal Government about 1893 for coastal defense. When moni-
tors were found difficult to manage, the Amphitrite. was sold and converted

TOUR I 319

into a sea-going night club ; as such, it plied up and down the Florida coast.
In 1935, while anchored near the local Coast Guard Base, a hurricane tore
it loose from its moorings, hurled it across the Intracoastal Waterway, and
beached it high on the sand. In 1936 it was removed a few hundred feet
east to its present site and transformed into a hostelry.

U.S. COAST GUARD BASE No. 6, at Las Olas Beach, succeeded one of the
houses of refuge constructed by the Federal Government in 1888 at 25-mile
intervals along the lower Florida east coast, which was then poorly charted.
The houses sheltered not only shipwrecked sailors, but travelers and local
residents during hurricanes.

Left from Fort Lauderdale on the old Dixie Highway, which approximately follows
the Capron Trail, built during the Seminole War. Cut bit by bit through dense jungle,
the trail connected Fort Dallas (see Miami) with Fort Capron, erected by Captain
Erastus Capron 5 miles north of Fort Pierce (see above). Having served its purpose in
cutting the Seminole off from their source of supply in Cuba, the trail was abandoned
at the end of the war and, in many places, became obliterated. Travel between Palm
Beach and Miami continued to be very difficult until the building of the railroad in
1896. The traveler had either to go by boat or to walk 66 miles along a lonely beach.
Those who walked usually accompanied the postman who carried the mail from Palm
Beach to Miami on foot, for he was the only one who knew the trail, having boats
hidden at the numerous inlets, across which he ferried his passengers. The postman
received $5 from each traveler who made the trip.

At 99.1 m. is the junction with a rock paved road.

Left on this road to PORT EVERGLADES, 3 m , a port of call for vessels in the
European, Cuban, and South American trade. A swampy wasteland in 1926, Port
Everglades has been transformed into one of Florida's more prosperous ports. Local
contributions financed the $4,500,000 dredging and reclamation operations that have
created here a 35-foot harbor, a large turning basin, and a channel 200 feet wide.
Warehouses, gasoline tanks, and storage sheds line the waterfront; docks and piers,
the largest 1,200 feet long, project into the harbor.

Unlike most Florida ports, Port Everglades is not engaged primarily in coastwise
commerce. With the exception of petroleum products, the bulk of its traffic is with
foreign ports, its freight moving usually in tramp steamers and ships under special
charters, but it is a regular port of call for ships of the French Line plying to Antwerp
and Marseilles, of the Pan American Steamship Company operating to Cuba, of the
Refrigerated Steamship Line, and numerous tanker lines transporting oil for the
Standard Oil Company, American Oil Company, Belcher Oil Company, and Shell
Petroleum Corporation. Since 1935, when a hurricane washed away the railroad to
Key West, Port Everglades has been the terminus of the Florida East Coast Railway
car ferries to Havana, Cuba.

South of Fort Lauderdale appear outcroppings of Miami oolite, a lime-
stone used as road material and railroad ballast. Limestone rarely supports
much vegetation, but on higher and drier parts of this sandy, cross-bedded
deposit grow forests of Caribbean pine and saw palmetto,

A BANYAN TREE (L), 99.7 m., is known as the i two-million-dollar tree.'
This native of East India has a large smooth trunk, and from its limbs
sends down slender, vinelike branches that take root and develop into sec-
ondary trunks, in time forming a whole grove. A boom-time yarn relates
that a tourist offered $2,000,000 for the huge tree, provided that it could
be transplanted to his estate in the north, and provided also that it sur-
vived the cold.

320 FLORIDA

DANIA, 101.9 m. (12 alt., 1,674 pop.), a tomato-growing center, occu-
pies part of an area known during the Seminole Wars as Five Mile Ham-
mock. Of the many Danish families who migrated here in 1896 and subse-
quently named the town, little trace remains.

Right from Dania on Davie Road to the SEMINOLE INDIAN RESERVATION,
4 m,, where Indian affairs of the entire State are managed. THE DEPARTMENT OF
INTERIOR BUILDING, a large white frame house with a high gabled roof, contains the
office of the Indian agent. Its austere architecture contrasts sharply ^with the pre-
dominating styles in southern Florida. The dozen or more small, white, one-room-
and-porch houses occupied by the Seminole here are totally unlike their palmetto-
thatched huts in the Everglades (see Tour 5). The reservation has a businesslike air;
here the Seminole are not on display, along with alligators and rattlesnakes, as in
amusement parks in Miami. Jobs are provided for the Indians, who live here per-
manently or for as long as they desire.

THE FIRST SEMINOLE BAPTIST CHURCH was built by the Indians at the reservation
with contributed materials, and dedicated in the summer of 1936. In charge of the
ceremonies was Holy Canard, an Indian from Oklahoma, who distributed printed
business cards declaring that he held a formal commission from the President as
t principal chief of the Creek nation.'

HOLLYWOOD, 104. 8 m. (7 alt., 2,869 pop.), founded in 1921 by Jo-
seph W. Young and associates from California, is another tailor-made '
city; the business and residential districts were platted before the man-
grove swamps and salt marshes on which they rest were filled in. A city of
hotels, apartment houses, attractive shops, pleasant houses, and beach
cottages, Hollywood is a popular winter resort. The prevailing style of its
houses and buildings in white, buff, and pink stucco, with gray and red
roofs, is the conventional Florida-Mediterranean.

Hollywood's history is typical of that of many towns founded during the
real-estate boom of the i92o's. Some have become ghost towns in the flat-
woods; some of the more fortunate, like Hollywood, withstood the violent
strain of deflation and have survived.

During early days of development here, 1,500 trucks and tractors were
engaged in clearing land and grading streets; two blocks of pavement were
laid each day. Hollywood Boulevard, the first to be cleared, was in its time
the widest paved thoroughfare in Florida. A cement broadwalk two miles
long was built along the waterfront; two yacht basins, designed by Gen-
eral George Washington Goethals, chief engineer in the construction of the
Panama Canal, were dredged and connected with the Intracoastal Water-
way. A large power plant was installed, and when the city lights went on
for the first time, ships at sea reported that Miami was on fire, and their
radio alarms and the red glow in the sky brought people to the rescue from
miles around.

Hollywood had a fleet of 21 busses constantly on the road, traveling
1,000 miles and more to bring in prospective purchasers of lots, who were
given free hotel accommodations, refreshments, and entertainment, 'with
no obligation to buy.' They were driven about the city- to-be on trails
blazed through palmetto thickets; so desolate and forlorn were some
stretches that many women became hysterical, it is said, and a few fainted.
A large tent served both as office and auditorium, in which guests received
lectures twice a day. Society leaders and titled personages of Europe were

TOUR I 321

given choice sites to induce others to purchase lots near by. Golf, swim-
ming, and tennis champions were brought in to demonstrate their prowess
and act as instructors at new courses, pools, and courts. Men prominent in
business, politics, and the arts were hired to stimulate sales, either by pep
talks or personal contacts. Some became so enthusiastic, perhaps influ-
enced by their own oratory, that they organized ' cities 3 of their own.
Every salesman had his 'bird dogs/ who met trains and busses, talked to
passing motorists at filling stations, restaurants, and hot-dog stands, or
roamed at large, rounding up prospects.

Auctions were popular, both for the Grand Opening, and whenever sales
lagged. Patrons were attracted by blaring bands, free banquets, vaude-
ville shows, and the drawing of lottery tickets. Doctors, dentists, mer-
chants, barbers, and motormen abandoned professions, trades, and pros-
perous businesses to become real-estate salesmen. Anyone could obtain a
license, either to set up on his own or to join a large sales organization. To-
day, as a result of past experience, applicants for a license must have been
a resident of the State for 6 months, must furnish character references and
credentials detailing their activities for the preceding 10 years, and must
pass a rigid examination on real-estate law and finance.

At the beginning raw land could be bought at $100 to $1,000 an acre; the
cost of grubbing ranged from $30 to $100; the surfacing of streets and the
laying of sidewalks added $500 to $1,000 to the cost of an acre, which was
usually divided into five so-foot lots. Landscaping costs ran as high as the
promoter's imagination and purse allowed him to go. Whole developments
were planted with 2-foot Australian pines at ioi each; others, with 2o-foot
royal palms at $100 to $200 each. Spectacular publicity campaigns were
launched locally and on a national scale. One promoter with a lavish devel-
opment in south Florida spent $3,000,000 on advertising in less than a
year.

On the ocean is the municipal BATHING CASINO, with three bathing
pools, two for children, and one for adults. The MUNICIPAL GOLF COURSE
(green fees $1) lies west of 36th Ave.

RIVERSIDE MILITARY ACADEMY, Hollywood Blvd., occupies a boom-
time hotel; it holds winter terms here, and fall and spring terms in Gaines-
ville, Ga.

At the MUNICIPAL BAND SHELL, in Center Park, concerts are given
throughout the season by the Riverside Military Band and others. FIRE-
MAN PARK, Polk and igth Ave., is interesting for its rose gardens, rock gar-?
den, and pool containing rare lilies and tropical fish. Facilities for shuffle-
board and horseshoe pitching are provided in TOURIST CLUB PARK, Taylor
St. and 1 8th Ave.

On Hollywood Blvd. between igth and 2oth Aves., is a GROVE or CAJ:E-
PUT TREES. This tree, also known as the punk tree, provides the green caje-
put oil used in salves, ointments, and oils for treatment of coriza and other
respiratory troubles; its thick, creamy, parchmentlike bark is sometimes
used for polishing furniture and floors, and for mops. In late autumn the
cajeput bears aromatic white flowers, shaped like a bottle brush. A quick-
growing ornamental tree, it is in demand for landscaping purposes.

322 FLORIDA

OJUS (Ind., plentiful), 109.8 m. (13 alt., 600 pop.), originally an Indian
trading post, was so named because of the luxuriant vegetation in the vi-
cinity. A large quarry and a concrete block manufacturing plant are in op-
eration here.

GREYNOLDS PARK, on the western edge of town, was built by CCC labor.
Above stone walls rises the castlelike turret of an OBSERVATION TOWER,
patterned on an Aztec temple, with a ramp spiraling to the top. Sweeping
green lawns surround a stone pavilion, a structure architecturally in keep-
ing with the English stone cottage of the caretaker. To the west are picnic
grounds in a hammock covered with large stands of glossy Caribbean pines.

NORTH MIAMI BEACH, 110.2 m. (522 pop.), formerly Called Ful-
ford for an early settler, changed its name in the hope of becoming the rail-
way terminal for Miami Beach, which lacks such facilities.

The NORTH MIAMI Zoo (open 9-6:30 daily; adm. 25ji children 15j), NE.
2nd Ave. and 13 2nd St., was formerly known as the Opa Locka Zoo. It has
more than 200 exhibits, including 3,000 tropical birds and animals, and a
reptile collection of unusual variety. An animal show is conducted every
afternoon at 4 o'clock and hourly on Sunday afternoons, when trained
monkeys, ponies, dogs, and birds are exhibited. Giant Galapagos turtles
were sent here by the New York Zoological Society in an effort to prevent
the species from becoming extinct. Many of these mammoth land turtles,
although still relatively young, weigh 200 pounds. When brought to the
zoo, they weighed about 7 pounds and may eventually attain a weight of
800 pounds.

At 111 m. is the junction with Golden Glades Road, also called Sunny
Isles Road.

Left on this road 2 m. across salt marshes to SUNNY ISLES CLUB (private) ; near by
Is a fishing pier (nominal charge) .

Right from Sunny Isles Club on State 140 3.7 m. to BAKER'S HAULOVER (boats,
bait, fishing tackle), a bridge crossing an outlet of upper Biscayne Bay, where a long
stone jetty extends into the ocean. Before the outlet was dredged, fishermen hauled
their boats on rollers across the narrow sand strip between the ocean and bay, both to
escape storms and to avoid a long sail around the end of the spit.

At 112 m. is a junction with the old Dixie Highway, heavily traveled
during the boom but seldom used today.

Right on this road to ARCH CREEK NATURAL BRIDGE, 0.5 m., a geological
formation carved in oolitic (Latin, egglike) rock. The bridge has been used since early
Spanish days. A hundred years ago, it was part of the Capron Trail (see above), over
which United States soldiers marched in their successful efforts to cut off the Seminole
from their source of supply in Cuba, thus ending the long war. At the south end of the
bridge is (R) the SITE or Luis THE BREED'S STONE HOUSE AND MILL, where Seminole
and Federal troops engaged in one of many bitter battles during the war. Luis, part
Indian and part Cuban, was a link in the line of communication between the Seminole
and Cuba; within his stone walls he stored supplies for the Indians. Advised of the
fact, General W.S.Harney and his men advanced to destroy the base. The Seminole
took shelter behind the walls, in the near-by woods, and in canoes in the black
shadows beneath the bridge, but General Harney succeeded in routing them and de-
molishing the house and mill. In the melee Luis was killed, and the demoralized In-
dians retreated into the Everglades. No plaque marks the spot.

TOUR I 323

The route crosses ARCH CREEK, 112.9 m., as it courses through a
pleasant valley.

MIAMI, 122.2 m, (10 alt., 110,637 pop.) (see Greater Miami).

Points of Interest: Old Fort Dallas, Miami Aquarium, International Airport, Hialeah
Race Track, Ocean Beaches, Indian villages, and others.

In Miami is the junction with US 94 (see Tour 5).

Section e. MIAMI to KEY WEST; 174.8 m. State A, A

An extension of US i, State 4A, known as the Overseas Highway, crosses
the southeastern fringe of the Everglades to Card Sound, over which it
passes to Key Largo, first and largest link in the long chain of islands termi-
nating at Key West, more than 100 miles out in the Gulf. The highway al-
most literally 'puts to sea' to reach its destination, crossing great expanses
of water on a ribbon of concrete laid on long causeways and bridges. The
waters of the Atlantic (L) and the Gulf (R) are frequently in view, an
opalescent sheen of lilac, aquamarine, and indigo, reflecting towering cloud
formations of blue and rose at sunset.

The history of the Overseas Highway, formally opened on July 4,
1938, is closely linked with that of the overseas extension of the Florida
East Coast Railway, completed by Henry M. Flagler to Key West in 1912,
at a cost of $50,000,000 and the lives of 700 workers. As early as 1831 pro-
posals and abortive attempts had been made to construct a railroad along
the keys.

Flagler, an associate of John D. Rockefeller and a pioneer railroad
builder (see St. Augustine and Palm Beach] began the project in 1905. Men
of many nations were employed Scandinavians; Spaniards and Cubans;
Negroes from the Bahamas, Lesser Antilles and Grand Cayman; deep-sea
divers from Greece; and a large number of Americans. Several hundred
deaths and long delays in construction were caused by hurricanes in 1906,
1909, and 1910, leading many Floridians to name the project Flagler J s
Folly.' Every kind of construction, from the simplest piling and rock filling
to the reinforced viaduct at Long Key, was used. The foundation for one
pier required a mixture of sand, gravel, and cement, equal in bulk to the
cargo of a five-masted schooner. The opening of the line was celebrated in
January 1912, and in 1915 train service to Cuba was instituted by means
of a large car ferry between Key West and Havana.

The real-estate boom of the 1 920*3 stimulated a demand for the con-
struction of a highway parallel to the railroad. In 1923 the Dixie Highway
was extended southeast from Florida City to the coast, and by 1928 it had
been extended to Key West, except for a 40-mile gap, across which ferry
service was maintained. The State legislature created the Overseas Road
and Toll Bridge District in 1933 to bridge the water gap. World War vet-
erans were brought in by the FERA in 1934 to aid in the construction of
the project. Hundreds of the veterans were drowned (see below) in the hur-
ricane of September 2, 1935, which swept away 41 miles of Florida East
Coast tracks and trestles. This led the company to abandon its extension;
its bridges and right-of-way were purchased for $640,000.

324 FLORIDA

Financed by a $3,600,000 loan from PWA, the work of converting rail-
road bridges into highway spans began in November 1936; the first section
was opened on January i, 1938, and the entire road six months later. As
the nearest fresh-water supply was 100 miles distant, specifications allowed
salt water to be used in mixing cement. Rock was quarried along the route;
sand was brought in by barge.

In the 44-mile stretch between Lower Matecumbe and Big Pine keys are
13 miles of bridges. All rest on concrete piers anchored to bedrock, some in
30 feet of water.

If and when the proposed eastern branch of the Pan-American Highway
is established, the Overseas Highway will form an important part of the
route planned to link Labrador and Guatemala City. As projected, the
highway will carry vehicles from the Florida mainland to Key West,
whence they will be ferried 90 miles across the Gulf to Cuba. Crossing the
island on the Cuban National Highway, they will be ferried no miles to
the Yucatan Peninsula; and proceed 500 miles southwest to Guatemala
City, where the highway will connect with the present Pan-American
Highway, which enters Mexico at Laredo, Texas.

South of MIAMI, m., State 4A runs through the fertile Redlands sec-
tion, producing citrus fruits and winter vegetables.

At 6.3 m. is CORAL GABLES (n alt., 5,697 pop.), an elaborate devel-
opment, its architecture predominantly Florida-Mediterranean, one of the
few boom- time cities to survive (see Greater Miami) .

SOUTH MIAMI, 9 m. (1,160 pop.), originally named Larkins for an
early storekeeper, was given its present name the day after his death. Sev-
eral plants here pack tomatoes, truck crops, and citrus for shipment to
market. South of the town are abandoned limestone quarries (L), filled
with clear water and used as swimming pools.

KENDAL, 11.5 m. (13 alt., 345 pop.), a citrus settlement, contains the
BADE COUNTY HOME AND HOSPITAL.

PERRINE, 16 m. (13 alt., 1,054 pop.), was named for Dr.Henry Per-
rine, physician-botanist, who in 1835 equipped a plant laboratory on In-
dian Key (see below) , on which to conduct experiments with tropical plants;
he introduced the sisal (Agave rigida), popularly called the century plant,
which now has spread over south Florida.

PETERS, 17 m. (13 alt., 175 pop.), was named for Tom Peters, an early
tomato grower, who in pre-railroad days ran a mule tramline to Cutler,
whence he shipped his produce north by boat. The hamlet remains a
tomato-growing center.

At 20 m. is the junction with paved road.

Right on this road to the TROPICAL MONKEY JUNGLE (adm. 25f), 0.8 m., in which
Java monkeys run wild in a gumbo limbo hammock.

GOULDS, 22 m. (12 alt., 490 pop.), is a packing-plant town. Neighbor-
ing citrus groves and truck gardens provide a steady stream of produce to
be crated and packed for shipping. Irish potatoes are one of the principal
crops.

PRINCETON, 24 m. (12 alt., 300 pop.), a citrus and winter vegetable

TOUR I 325

center, was known as Modello until 1905 when several university gradu-
ates established a sawmill here and erected a large sign bearing the name of
their alma mater, Princeton. The sign was repeatedly removed and as fre-
quently reappeared, until the Florida East Coast Railway finally adopted
the name.

1. Right from Princeton on Coconut Palm Road is the REDLAND FAUM LIFE
SCHOOL, 2.3 m., attended by pupils from a large area.

2. Left from Princeton on Coconut Palm Road to the ALLAPATTAH GARDENS (Ind.,
alligator), 2 m., where, in winter, acres of sweet peas bloom.

At 26 m. is the junction with Newton Road.

Right on this road 5 m. to the FENNEL ORCHID JUNGLE (open daily during winter;
adm. 25 jf), containing hundreds of varieties of orchids, both native and transplanted.
Among the more brilliant are the large Cattelya hybrid, with splashes of deep purple
about a vivid yellow center; the Phalaenopsis, mottled with white; the Calanthe, with
wine-colored hearts in the center of its small white blossoms; and the Albino, yellow-
throated, with long curving petals. New varieties are developed here by cross-pollina-
tion.

The seeds, about i ,000,000 to the pod, are so minute that a podful can be held in a
teaspoon. The seeds are planted in a bell-shaped container on a layer of specially pre-
pared jelly, which supplies food for their initial growth. Sterilized to exclude fungus
growths that might destroy the seeds, the container is placed in a glass incubator.
One year after planting, the tender shoots are but a fraction of an inch high. They are
then transplanted to pots filled with fiber. By the fifth year, perhaps one in twenty
will blossom. Some do not bloom until the tenth year, a few not until the fifteenth.

HOMESTEAD, 30 m. (9 alt., 2,319 pop.), the trading center of the Red-
lands fruit and winter- vegetable area, developed rapidly from a primitive
backwoods town into a modern community with the coming of the rail-
road in 1904. In the rich muck soil here on the border of the Everglades
flourish many fine groves of oranges, grapefruit, kumquats, limes,
avocados, and papayas, and extensive fields of tomatoes and potatoes. The
HOMESTEAD AVOCADO EXCHANGE ships several thousand carloads of the
fruit each season.

The SUBTROPICAL EXPERIMENTAL STATION, Waldin Drive, conducted
by the University of Florida and the Dade County Commission in con-
junction with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, devotes itself to re-
search on the problem of raising citrus, avocados, and winter vegetables un-
der subtropical conditions. Its experiments in cross-pollination have pro-
duced such hybrids as the tangelo, a cross between the tangerine and the
pomelo, or grapefruit; the tangor, sprung from the tangerine and orange;
and the limequat, from the lime and kumquat.

The JOHNSTON PALM LODGE (open), Krome Ave. and Avocado Rd., is
the estate of Colonel H.W.Johnston, formerly a hardware merchant of
Lebanon, Kentucky, who came to Homestead in 1912 and adopted horti-
culture as a hobby. The estate has on its 20 acres more than 8,000 varieties
of tropical plants and trees, including more than 1,500 varieties of palms.
Here grows the sago palm, said by scientists to have been the first plant to
appear on earth millions of years ago. From its seeds is made the finest
starch. Almost 270 kinds of tropical fruits are grown here, from which al-
most 100 different jellies and preserves are made and offered for sale, in-

326 FLORIDA

eluding East Indian mango chutney, a potpourri of 40 fruits and spices.
About the base of the Java Jak tree lies its tremendous fruit, piled up like
wine kegs, for a single fruit often weighs 100 pounds. Around the trunks of
many of the trees winds the thin stem of the tall climbing orchid that pro-
duces the bean from which vanilla is extracted.

FLORIDA CITY, 31 m., (9 alt., 452 pop.), its main street lined with
royal palms, was incorporated in 1913 ; it was called Detroit until the Post
Office Department objected.

Right from Florida City on State 205 is ED'S PLACE (10$, 1 m., a house of oolitic
rock equipped with huge rock furnishings; it has massive chairs weighing from 700 to
1,500 pounds, a 3,ooo-pound rock couch, tables, beds, and rocking chairs. A map of
Florida has been hewn from a one- ton slab, in which a punch bowl filled with clear
water represents Lake Okeechobee.

The road crosses the eastern boundary of ROYAL PALM STATE PARK, 14 m., a
4,ooo-acre tract of dense hammock, set aside as a wild-life sanctuary. The State Fed-
eration of Women's Clubs acquired the initial 960 acres in 1915 through a grant from
the Florida legislature, and added 960 acres donated by Mrs. Mary Lily Kenan
Flagler in the same year. The legislature added 2,080 additional acres in 1921. Al-
though under State jurisdiction, the Federation supervises and cares for the area,
which will become part of the proposed Everglades National Park (see Tour 5). Wild
turkey, quai! 3 waterfowl, raccoon, opossum, skunk, otter, bear, wildcat, and deer
abound in the park; more than 140 varieties of birds have been identified in the sanc-
tuary. Alligators wallow in the swamps, poking their snouts out of water. Multi-
colored tree snails and strangely marked butterflies, including the rare sleeping Heli-
coniidae, add their brightness to the scene.

State 205 leads into PARADISE KEY, a 30o-acre hammock on the eastern edge of the
park, surrounded by glade water and covered with luxuriant growth. Much of the
vegetation is West Indian in character, and may have been seeded here by migratory
birds or hurricane winds. Giant royal palms rise from enlarged bases, their pale gray
trunks, tinted with orange, stretching upward to full crowns of 10- and 1 2-foot leaves,
high above the surrounding forest. Great oaks, more than 60 feet high, support
orchids with stalks 3 feet thick and leaves 5 feet long. There are 3 1 varieties of ferns,
some 27 feet high, with 1 5-foot fronds. Seeds of strangler figs, dropped by birds on the
branches of trees, grow into small air plants that send threadlike roots to the ground.
Gripping the host tree, the roots grow and thicken, squeezing it to death; then the
roots grow up and around the dead tree, 'swallowing' it, forming a false outer trunk.

At 14.2 m., in the interior of the hammock, is the ROYAL PALM LODGE (open all
year; free picnic grounds). South of the Lodge the route is paved for 26 miles, and
thereafter is an unimproved road, following the southernmost drainage canal of the
Everglades. The banks (R) are flanked for nearly 35 miles with buttonwood trees, and
gallberry and elderberry bushes. In the distance are cypress hammocks and islands
formed and covered by mangroves. In places forests of dead mangrove trees, their
trunks twisted grotesquely, reveal the devastating power of the hurricane that swept
the region on September 2, 1935.

On the shore of FLORIDA BAY is the rebuilt hamlet of FLAMINGO, 48.5 m. (21
pop.), the southernmost settlement on the Florida mainland. In 1930 it contained 25
nouses and shacks occupied by fishermen who seined the near-by waters. Destroyed
by the 1935 hurricane, it now consists of 6 buildings raised on stilts for protection
against high water. On weekdays fishermen spread their nets in shallow Florida Bay
for channel bass, mullet, grouper, salt-water trout, and mackerel. The catch is carried
back to the fish houses and iced to await the arrival of large refrigerator trucks from
Miami.

Grouper, trout, and tarpon in Florida Bay provide excellent sport fishing (equip-
ment and guides available at Flamingo; no accommodations; camp sites). Food and
water should be carried, for the only drinking water is rainwater from the roofs of
shacks, and is not always plentiful.

TOUR I 327

The flamingo, for which the settlement was named, was once a familiar sight in the
region, although native to the West Indies. John J. Audubon, the naturalist, noted
them along the coast here in 1832, but found no evidence of a nesting colony. 'Their
lovely forms/ wrote Audubon, 'appeared to be arrayed in more brilliant apparel than I
have seen before, and as they gamboled in happy playfulness among the bushes, or
glided over the light green waters, we longed to form a more intimate acquaintance
with them.' Between 1890 and 1902 flocks aggregating 1,000 birds were observed
along the shallow bays to the west. The last recorded capture of a flamingo occurred
at Lake Worth (see above) in 1905; small flocks have been seen recently (1938) near
Cape Sable.

The flamingo has a small oddly shaped body, with a long neck, slender yellow legs,
webbed feet, and a broad curved bill, colored black and orange. Fledglings are cov-
ered with fuzzy white feathers, which gradually change to rose red within a year. The
flamingo lives on small shellfish dug up in shallow water and swallowed whole, and
twists its neck in such a way when feeding that its head is upside down.

Southeast of Florida City the highway runs in a straight line across a
yellow-green flat savanna, with scattered rises of darker hammock, the
southern extremity of the Everglades prairie. Herons feed in the canal
along the road; an occasional eagle or hawk sits on a near-by mangrove;
red-winged blackbirds and boat-tailed grackles are numerous.

On CARD SOUND BRIDGE, 43.7 m., the highway crosses from the main-
land to KEY LARGO, some 30 miles long and less than 2 miles wide, the
northernmost of the chain of limestone and coral islands that extend in a
sweeping curve to Key West, more than 100 miles out in the Gulf. The
northern half of the chain consists of an old coral reef on the edge of the
peninsular plateau, along which runs the Gulf Stream. The southern half
formerly consisted of a single large limestone island, raised above the sea
during the first Pleistocene era and later partially submerged.

Key is an English modification of cayo (Sp., small island). The designa-
tion in French patois is similar (aux cayes), which is also the name of a city
in Haiti, renowned in early days for its rum. Pronounced c O. K./ it is said
by some to be the source of the American slang expression. Others contend
that the expression gained currency because Andrew Jackson, when presi-
dent, endorsed official documents with the two letters, signifying that the
documents were ( Oil Korrect. 7 Competent authorities, however, derive the
term from the Choctaw oke, or hoke, (yes, it is).

All Florida fruits grow on the keys coconuts, bananas, oranges, grape-
fruit, lemons, limes, tangerines, pineapples, guavas, avocados, papayas,
mangoes, pomegranates, breadfruit, coco plums, tangeloes (see above) , and
kumquats, the smallest of the citrus family. Rarer fruits include the
spherical roseapple; the acid-flavored tamarind, slightly curved, with
glossy seeds; red berrylike Chinese dates; sticky Chinese limes; orange-
yellow eggfruit, sweet and pasty; the Natal plum, with firm red pulp;
juicy green-skinned Spanish limes; refreshing yellow loquats, or Japanese
plums; purple star apples; spicy red Surinam cherries; and sugar apples,
sweet and custardlike.

Very little is known of the aboriginal inhabitants of the keys. The Ara-
wak and Caribee tribes were probably the first in the region, as evidenced
by the discovery of pottery with incised designs in the many mounds along
the keys. These tribes were driven out by the Calusa, who were skilled sea-

328 FLORIDA

men, fishermen, and fierce fighters. The Calusa are known to have had at
least two villages on the keys, Cuchiyago and Guarugunve, in which they
accumulated much gold from wrecked and pillaged vessels.

Just north of Key Largo lies BLACK CAESAR'S ROCK (accessible only
by boat), a tiny island between Old Rhodes and Elliott Keys, once a pirate
stronghold. Although many different and conflicting tales are told of his
depredations. Black Caesar, it is generally agreed, was a Negro who es-
caped from a wrecked slave ship. For a time he engaged in wrecking ships
single-handed, having captured his first prize in that way ; pretending to be
adrift in an open boat, he was picked up by a small sloop and soon disposed
of its captain and those of the crew who refused to join him. On the Island,
embedded in the rock, is a huge iron ring, reputedly used by Caesar to heel
over his ship so that its masts could not be seen by passing vessels.

Black Caesar became a trusted lieutenant of the notorious Teach, better
known as Blackbeard. Flying the skull and crossbones, their ship, the
Queen Ann's Revenge, was captured by Lieutenant Robert Maynard in
1718. Teach was killed during the battle, sustaining 25 wounds before he
fell dead. Caesar attempted to blow up the ship and all on board by drop-
ping a match into the powder magazine, but one of the men prevented him.
Taken to Virginia, Black Caesar was hanged.

Black Caesar's cruelty, his love of luxury, his passion for jewels, and his
ambition to rule these waters have become legendary. More than 100
women, it is said, graced his harem. Some evidence exists for the story that
in the vicinity of Elliott Key he maintained a prison camp, incarcerating
his prisoners and enemies in stone huts. Later, he abandoned the camp,
leaving the prisoners to starve. Almost all perished, but a few small chil-
dren escaped to wander about the key, subsisting on berries and shellfish,
and in time developing a primitive language of their own. These savage
creatures may account for the Seminole legend that the region was haunted.

Southward, the aspect of the key changes as the highway enters rolling
hammock country. Only a few scattered houses appear along the road, al-
though sand trails lead through dense forests of hardwood to secluded
farms and groves along the waterfront. In the spring the shoulders of the
road are bright with wild flowers. Huge grapevines and other creepers all
but conceal the trees that support them.

On the keys grow 27 varieties of hardwood, some so heavy they will not
float in water notably, the madeira, tamarind, mahogany, crabwood, sa-
rilla, granadilla, and black ironwood, a cubic foot of which weighs 81
pounds. Among the toughest of woods is the gnarled, silver-barked lignum
vitae, used in the manufacture of mallet heads and bowling balls. Button
^odisjisecUojca^ intense heat and little smoke.

South of the hammock," lime grdvesT>order"fEe highway TwitirwfhHam-
arind and other hardy trees as windbreaks. The groves, haphazardly
planted, are not always recognized by those familiar with the straight rows
of trees in citrus groves farther north. Limes, the chief fruit of the keys, are
small and quite juicy. The tree flourishes in leaf mould, thin soil, or
equally well in rock crevices. A good grove yields an annual profit of more
than $100 an acre, but hurricanes are ever a menace.

TOUR I 329

ROCK HARBOR, 64.9 m. (12 alt., 131 pop.), a fishing village sur-
rounded by lime groves, has (L) a 3o-foot observation tower, a square
stucco structure anchored by cables to bedrock. From the tower is a wide
view of Florida Bay and the Atlantic, their shores lined with racks on
which fishing nets hang drying in the sun.

TAVERNIER, 71.3 m. (10 alt., 91 pop.), was named for the creek that
winds past the southern end of Key Largo, said to have been a favorite
hiding place of Tavernier, associate of Jean La Fitte, the pirate. 'Tavern-
ear/ as local people call their hamlet, was merely a railroad station* until
the boom of the i92o ? s, when an enterprising promoter purchased much
land here, installed public utilities, built a lumber shed, a moving-picture
theater, and other facilities.

At Tavernier are some of the 'hurricane-proof* houses built on the keys
by the American Red Cross and the FERA. The average four-room house
of reinforced concrete construction contains approximately 80,000 pounds
of steel; steel rods anchor the house to solid rock. The roof, floors, and
walls are of concrete, the walls a foot thick. All partitions extend from the
roof through the house to bedrock. Window sashes are of steel, with double-
strength glass and double shutters. Wood is used only in the triple-strength
cypress doors. Drain pipes run from the roof to a cistern cut in the bedrock
under the house, providing water in emergencies.

PLANTATION KEY, 72 m., (9 alt., 53 pop.), named for the pineapple
and banana plantations that once flourished here, was first settled by
Conchs, who migrated here from Key Vaca and Indian Key in search of
farm land. Settlers lived along the bay shore, off which they anchored
their center-board sloops. A few Bahaman Negroes are employed season-
ally as field hands and subsist the remainder of the year on shellfish and
produce from small garden patches.

Here, as elsewhere on the keys, plantation owners were handicapped by
the remoteness of markets. Pineapples grown here could not compete with
those..grown in Cuba, and their cultivation was found to deplete the soil
ragidly.JEurricanes periodically devastated and depopulated the islands.
The advent of the railroad, completed to Key West in 1916, stimulated
production, but the destruction of the railroad by the hurricane of 1935
had a deflationary effect.

The highway crosses SNAKE CREEK, 77 m., to WINDLEY ISLAND,
77.3 m. (18 alt.), highest of all the Florida Keys, and named for an old set-
tler. On a broad expanse of low prairie (L) is the SITE OF WORLD WAR
VETERANS' CAMP NUMBER i, one of three destroyed by the 1935 hurricane
(see below). Quarries here produce Key limestone, used extensively as ex-
terior and interior trim in buildings throughout the State.

UPPER MATECUMBE KEY, 79 m., popular with anglers seeking
bonefish, obtained its name, according to some authorities, from an Indian
corruption of the Spanish mata hombre, kill man, which was also the mean-
ing of Cuchiyaga, the Indian name for the island. The Hme and pineapple
groves that once grew on the island have all been destroyed.

In ISLAMORADA (Sp., purple isle), 79.9 m. (10 alt., 180 pop.), the
only settlement on Upper Matecumbe Key, stands (R) the HURRICANE

330 FLORIDA

MEMORIAL, dedicated to the memory of the World War veterans who lost
their lives on the keys during the hurricane that struck on Labor Day,

1935-

The veterans had been members of the Bonus Army which assembled in
Washington in 1934 to demand immediate payment of their bonus certifi-
cates. Offered $30 a month wages, hundreds were transported to the keys
to work on the Overseas Highway (see above). One camp was established on
Windley Island (see above), and two on Lower Matecumbe.

Hujrricane signals began to fly on September i, 1935. The next day a
relief train was dispatched from Miami to remove the men from the low-
lying keys to the mainland. With the gale increasing, the train steamed
into Homestead (see above), and the engineer backed his string of empty
coaches into the danger zone. Here at Islamorada a tidal wave over-
whelmed the train, leaving only the locomotive on the rails. Wind and
waves crushed the frail wooden shacks of the veterans. Many tied them-
selves to boats at anchor in an effort to survive. Miles of railroad embank-
ment were washed away. Entire towns were obliterated; more than 500
bodies were recovered immediately after the storm subsided, and for
months unidentified corpses were found in the mangrove swamps. The
number of victims was estimated at 800.

While its path was relatively narrow, the hurricane was one of the most
violent on record; the wind reached a velocity of 200 miles an hour, driving
a tidal wave more than 12 feet high far inland, sweeping over many of the
keys. The barometer dropped to 26.35 inches, the lowest sea level reading
in the history of the U.S. Weather Bureau.

The FLORIDA KEYS MEMORIAL, designed by the Florida division of the
Federal Art Project and erected by the WPA of the State, rises from a
broad stone and concrete base; up five steps is a quadrangular platform,
with stone benches on three sides. In the center of the platform, extending
deep into bedrock, is a large crypt in which are buried the remains of a few
veterans whose bodies were found after the storm. The crypt is faced with
ceramic tile, on which appears a map of the chain of islands from Key
Largo to Key Vaca, with Matecumbe half way between them.

Directly behind the crypt rises an 1 8-foot shaft. At the base is a bronze
plaque inscribed with an account of the storm and the toll of lives it ex-
acted. Carved in the shaft is a symbolic representation of the hurricane,
depicting the palms as they bent under the force of the wind and the waves
that swept the islands.

At 83.3 m. is the CARIBEE YACHT BASIN (gasoline, refreshments, and,
charter boats available).

Off the southern tip of Upper Matecumbe is (L) TEATABLE KEY (ac-
cessible only by boat), 1 m., used as one of several naval bases along the keys
during the Seminole War.

Visible (L) from the highway bridge connecting Upper and Lower Mate-
cumbe is Alligator Light, about four miles offshore. In the foreground is
INDIAN KEY (accessible only by boat), used as an Indian trading post by
the Spanish. Early mariners feared this and other islands for their many
hidden reefs. Their terror was heightened by reports that the Calusa In-

TOUR I 331

dians tortured shipwrecked sailors to death. Here, it is said, 400 ship-
wrecked Frenchmen were slaughtered about 1755, as a result of which the
key for a time bore the name of Matanza (Sp., slaughter).

In 1835, because of Indian troubles, Dr.Henry Perrine (see above) chose
Indian Key, instead of south Florida land granted by Congress, to con-
duct experiments in tropical plants and trees. He set out lime trees, date
palms, and sisal plants, a number of which survived. He planned also to
experiment with sugar cane, oranges, grapefruit, bananas, pineapples,
coconuts, avocados, and mangoes, but Perrine's work was cut short when
Indians raided the island in 1840 and killed him and several neighbors.
Perrine's wife, son, and daughter escaped by hiding in a turtle crawl under
the burning house, standing in water up to their shoulders; in the end
they fled from the key in a boat and were picked up by a passing schooner.

On LIGNUM VITAE KEY (accessible only by boat), 2 miles west (R) of
Upper Matecumbe, are stone fences, wells, pieces of carved wood and
wrought iron, the ruins of what is believed by some to have been a Spanish
village. The island is bright with sea lavender (Limonium braseliense),
with myriads of rose-colored flowers, and a native leadwort (Plumbago
scandens), which sprawls over rocks and shrubs and bears clusters of large
pale flowers.

LOWER MATECUMBE KEY, 85.6 m., was the site of two of the
three camps of the World War veterans destroyed by the 1935 hurricane
(see above). In the days when the dangerous reefs along the keys were un-
chartered, wreckers had their headquarters in the Matecumbes because of
their central position in the string of keys.

Wreck a-s-h-o-r-e ! ' was a familiar cry here, a clarion call that instantly
aroused all inhabitants, as the 'good news' was relayed from key to key
by plaintive signals blown on conch horns.

At 89.8 m. is the OVERSEAS ROAD AND BRIDGE TOLL STATION, (car and
driver $1; two-wheel trailer $1; each passenger 25^; trucks $1 to $4.50; motor-
cycle 50^; pedestrians 25 f). This section of the Overseas Highway (see above},
built for the most part on the abandoned fills and bridges of the Florida
East Coast Railway, was opened in July 1938.

CRAIG, 91.3 m., consisting of a filling station and a group of fishermen's
shacks strung along the causeway, appeared in Robert Ripley's ' Believe It
or Not ' cartoon series as a c town built on a highway, instead of a highway
built through the town.'

On several long bridges and causeways the highway crosses LONG
KEY and tiny CONCH KEY to GRASSY KEY, 100.2 m., named for an
early settler and not for its vegetation. Rumors that pirates buried^ treas-
ure here were substantiated in 1911 when 61 gold pieces in a goatskin bag
were unearthed on the key.

On CRAWL KEYS, 107.2 w., are many, tuitlejaawls^ Jarge pens ex~
tending, intqjhallow water, in which turtles are^kept until, shipped to mar-
ket, All" of the keys are breeding and nesting grounds for the green hawk-
bill, loggerhead, and trunk turtles; the first two are sought for soup and
other dishes, and the hawkbill is valued also for its shell. The trunk turtle,
with a pelicanlike pouch, often grows to an enormous size but is seldom

332 PL GRID A

eaten. Many are captured when they come ashore in the spring to lay their
eggs, which are round and small, with a soft shell. Many persons gather
the eggs and eat them. Occasionally turtles are harpooned for sport;
larger turtles will tow a boat for miles before expiring. Most turtles are
captured in seines. While cruising along the keys in 1832 on the sloop Lady
of the Green Mantle, Audubon watched the seiners as they stretched their
nets across the moutlis of streams and from them bought turtles to feed
herons which he was carrying back to friends in Charleston.

West (R) of Crawl Keys is BAMBOO KEY (accessible only by boat), 1 m. } a small
irregularly shaped island said to have fewer mosquitoes than other keys because of a
malodorous parasitic plant, Cusc^ita umbalata, which thrives there; the scientific valid-
ity of this theory has not yet been proved. East (L) of Crawl Keys is FAT DEER
KEY, formerly the range of a deer peculiar to the keys. Once numerous on all the
islands from Key West to Key Largo, the deer have been hunted in and out of season
until, in 1938, the Audubon Society estimated that but 50 remained, largely con-
centrated on Big Pine Key (see below). To save the Key deer from extinction, a 1939
legislative act prohibited hunters from shooting them.

At 110.8 m., is the junction with an unimproved road.

Left on this road to an EMERGENCY LANDING FIELD, 1 m., graded from smooth
prairie land near the ocean shore.

KEYVACA (Sp.,cow) 7 111.7 m., named for the cattle that once roamed
the island, early attracted settlers interested in its fertile farm lands and
many fresh-water wells. This is the southernmost key on which fresh water
can be obtained by drilling.

MARATHON, 119.3 m. (7 alt., 100 pop.), the trading center of Key
Vaca, was a boisterous settlement during the construction of the railroad.
Liquor boats enjoyed a prosperous trade with the labor camps here and
elsewhere on the keys. Church leaders sent a ' gospel boat' from Key West
to the camps; services were held nightly, and thousands of religious tracts
distributed.

LONG BRIDGE, 121.3 m., almost 7 miles long, consists of five sections.
The guard rail is constructed of old railroad rails, cut and welded together.
The bridge spans PIGEON KEY, inhabited by several families occupying
old houses built by the railroad, and named for thej^MterCro^ned^wild
pigeon., native to the West Indies and fairly numerous along the keys. It
has bluish-black plumage; the upper part of its head is white, edged with
deep brown at the sides of the crown. Its presence on the keys was first
noted by Audubon, who painted one sitting on a bough of the rough-leaved
cordia, or geiger tree. On his visit to the keys Audubon also discovered and
named the Key West pigeon, with plumage of brilliant and constantly
changing metallic hues; he pronounced it c the most beautiful of woodland
cooers.'

A ramp leads from the bridge down to PIGEON KEY FISHING CAMP. Here
are parking spaces for cars and trailers; facilities for shuffleboard and
horseshoe pitching; picnic grounds; boats for outside fishing.

BAHIA HONDA KEY (Sp., deep bay), 129.6 m., marks the point of
geologic transition from the upper to the lower keys. From this point to
theory Tortugas, all islands are of white oolitic limestone, known as Key

TOUR i 333

West limestone, with tangles of mangroves holding together the soil of old
islsmcTs and gradually building up new ones. These lower keys have a scant
covering of topsoil, but lime trees grow in crevices of the limestone, and
some tomatoes, okra, and melons are grown. The waters of Bahia Honda
offer .exceptionally good tarpon fishing. Specimens weighing 190 pounds
<nave beeirlanded here.

On WEST SUMMERLAND KEY, 132.8 m., listed on geodetic charts
as Spanish Harbor Keys, the roseate spoonbill, a beautiful wading bird
nearly extinct in Florida (see Animal Life), feeds in the shallows along the
highway.

BIG PINE KEY, 134.9 m. (8 alt., 53 pop.), one of the largest of the
keys, is covered with Caribbean pines, dense growths of palmetto and
cacti, and a few scattered^ hammocks. The key has been characterized as
' the most remarkable natural cactus garden east of the American deserts.'
Five genera grow here, including three arboreal species, one with a col-
umnar Trunk as large as a man's body. The fires that occasionally sweep
the lower keys destroy the hammocks and leave only the Caribbean pine,
native to the West Indies, which is highly fire-resistant. The Caribbean
pinejs of little economic value. Its resin is too thick and gummy to permit
satisfactory tapping; as lumber, it splits easily and warps badly; to cut it,
saws must be flooded with kerosene to prevent gumming.

Occasionally highway and bridges are covered with armies of land crabs,
which. jLeg from, mangrove swamps during bad weather and high water.
These migrations, it is said by some, portend a hurricane; i& any case, the
wandering crabs are a nuisance, for their spiny shells frequently puncture
automobile tires.

At 137.5 m. is THE BIG PINE KEY TOLL STATION, for northbound traffic
on the Overseas Highway.

BIG PINE INN, 139.5 m., is a sportsmen's lodge (boats t guides, fishing
equipment) .

At 140.2 m. is a junction with a paved road.

Right on this road to NO NAME KEY, 3.0 m., formerly a ferry terminus. No
NAME LODGE (lodging, guides, boats, tackle, bait) has a business card reading, No
Name Lodge, No Name Key, Phone No Name No. 1.'

LITTLE TORCH ( KEY, 142.6 m., and MIDDLE TORCH KEY, 144.5
m., were named for the resinous torchwood tree. The soapberry tree, from
the seed hulls of which comes a soaplike substance used as a cleaner, also
flourishes here. Early settlers sprinkled the crushed seeds in small streams
and inlets; the seeds stupefied the fish, which floated to the surface and
were easily gathered, a practice since declared illegal.

Crossing RAMROD KEY, 144.9 m., (25 pop.), and SUMMERLAND
KEY, 147 m., with many lime and other citrus groves, the highway
reaches CUD JOE KEY, 149.2 m., the name a contraction of 'Cousin
Joe's.'

SUGARLOAF KEY, 152.1 m., was named for the sugarloaf pineapples
once cultivated here. Experiments in growing sponges (see Tour 6b) are
carried on in the waters of Sugarloaf Sound.

334 FLORIDA

PIRATE'S COVE FISHING CAMP, 152.9 m. a is one of the better-known
camps on the lower keys (boats, guides, equipment, Jan. -May).

Fishing along the keys has world renown among sportsmen, for the tides
here bring together the game fish of both the Atlantic and the Gulf. In the
Gulf Stream, about 7 miles from shore, lives the blue and white sailfish,
one of the most beautiful and spirited of sea creatures. When hooked, it
provides a rare thrill: with its high dorsal fin gleaming in the sun, it races
along the surface of the water like a torpedo. Somewhat less numerous, the
swordnsh is a large and able fighter. Amberjack, bonita, Spanish mackerel,
tuna, and kingfish are also found in the Gulf Stream.

BARRIER REEF, an underwater coral wall paralleling the Atlantic shore of
the keys, is the feeding ground of white groupers, 3oo-pound black groupers
(Jewfish), hog fish, muttonfish, and many others, including the barracuda,
known as the ' tiger of the sea. ; Armed with powerful jaws and sharp teeth,
the barracuda strikes viciously and is a rapid and powerful swimmer.

The tarpon, or silver king, the prize sought by every deep-sea angler,
is caught in the swift-running passes between the islands. Hooked, it leaps
repeatedly from the water, shaking its great body, and at times apparently
walks along the surface on its tail, its large iridescent scales shining like
burnished silver.

Shallower waters are frequented by bonefish. Weighing from 4 to 8
pounds, the f steel spring of the deep/ as it is called, is regarded by many
as the most cunning and tenacious fighter of its size.

Bottom fishermen drop hacks in sheltered inland channels and lagoons
to catch snappers, grunts, p orgies, and scores of other fishes. Anglers fish
from the rails of the wooden bridges that connect the many small islands
between this point and Key West. Some have the most complete and elab-
orate tackle; others do quite as well with a cheap bamboo pole or hand
line; few go home empty-handed, for here, as one old fisherman observed,
'you can catch most anything you want to bait up for.'

The highway spans SUGARLOAF CREEK, 158.5 m. } and winds in a
series of hairpin curves across SADDLEBUNCH KEY. Much of the road
is cut through mangrove and buttonwood thickets. The burning of man-
groves to produce charcoal, which is sacked and sold in Key West, is car-
ried on in the vicinity. Spires, of smoke by day and rosy beacons by "night
indicate the site of burners on the lonely keys. " """"" """""

Frequently in view, the opalescent waters of the Atlantic and the Gulf
change hues with the shifting sun and passing clouds. Scattered greenjs-
lands^gleam like emeralds on an azure field. On the distant horizon (t)Jthe
(j^Stream pencils j, line of indigo, with here and there above it a smudge
qgray_smpke from the funnels of a passing steamer.

Rumrunning and smuggling of aliens were once thriving enterprises
here. Men familiar with the reefs and channels piloted their small open
boats across the dangerous go-mile passage to Cuba, took on cargoes of
liquors or aliens, recrossed the channel, and landed at Key West or on one
of the more isolated keys. The boats were often so heavily laden that only
a few inches of free board stood above the water line. Storms and rough
water frequently forced them to cast part or all their cargoes overboard,

TOUR i 335

but only as a last resort; overloading caused frequent capsizing of boats
and drownings.

The smugglers led customs officers and the Coast Guard a busy life.
They traveled at night without lights so that Federal officers could detect
their presence only by the sound of their muffled engines. When discovered
far from shore, the rumrunners attempted to outdistance pursuers; if cap-
ture seemed certain, they dropped their cargo overboard. When they were
caught empty-handed, the only charge against them was running without
lights. If they escaped, they ran for shore, slipped into secret channels
dug into the heart of the mangrove thickets, and covered their boats
with branches, making it almost impossible to see them, even from the
air.

Highjackers were a constant menace to the smugglers. Some operated in
gangs and would surprise smugglers in their hiding places, or at sea, and
seize their cargo. The less venturesome were known as 'Pelicans/ because
they would spy on rumrunners to discover where their contraband was
dropped in shallow water so that they could fish it up when the owners dis-
appeared.

Smuggling of aliens Cubans, Mexicans, Spaniards, and Chinese, for
the most part was less popular and far more hazardous than rumrunning.
Although few boatmen on the keys have read Ernest Hemingway's novel,
To Have and Have Not (1937), some contend that the chief character is
more or less a portrait of a smuggler of Chinese, who on occasions pro-
ceeded to Cuba, shipped a company of ' monks > (Chinese), collected pas-
sage money, put to sea, and returned to the keys with no passengers. In
those years Federal officers rounded up many aliens left stranded for days
on deserted islands; others were found clinging to buoys. One group of
Chinese was picked up at sea in a drifting boat bearing also the bodies of
the white skipper and mate, who had been killed, perhaps not without ex-
tenuating circumstances.

Crossing PELOTA CREEK the route traverses BOCA CHICA KEY
(Sp., little mouth), 165.6 m. } and runs within 100 feet of a dazzling white
beach, bordered with coconut palms, Australian pines, and clumps of
green seagrape. This is a popular spot for surf bathing and picnics. At the
lower end of the beach are cottages and a fishing camp (boats). From the
high bridge over Boca Chica channel the three radio towers of the U.S.
Naval Station in Key West are visible (see Key West).

STOCK ISLAND, 169.5 m., was so named because in early days Key
Westers kept their cattle here. On the KEY WEST MUNICIPAL GOLF
COURSE (greens fee $1), 171.2 m., players tee off within sight of the Gulf
and face the Atlantic at the 8th hole.

Adjoining the fairway (R) is the KEY WEST BOTANICAL GARDEN, estab-
lished as part of the Key West rehabilitation program, planted with thou-
sands of exotic trees and shrubs furnished by the U.S. Plant Introduction
Station. Among them are the sausage tree, bearing hard sausagelike fruit
on long slender stems; the Norfolk Island pine, a tall pyramidal tree with
spreading up-curved branches; the white orchid tree, covered with pale
white flowers delicately veined with green; the soap tree; and the woman's-

336 FLORIDA

tongue tree, with long slender pods in which the seeds rattle monotonously
at the slightest breeze.

The highway forks right and left, 171.5 m., providing two routes into
Key West.

KEY WEST, 174.8 m. (6 alt., 12,831 pop.) (see Key West).

Points of Interest: Fort Taylor, Martello Towers, U.S. Naval Radio Station, Bahama
houses, Home of Ernest Hemingway, southernmost house in the United States,
sponge docks, turtle crawls, Aquarium, and others.

Tour \A

Jacksonville Jacksonville Beach St.Augustine Daytona Beach; 102.7
m. State 78 and State 140.

Hard-surfaced roadbed except for occasional short stretches of shell road; watch for cat-
tle and sand drifts.
Good accommodations.

This route, an alternate between Jacksonville and Daytona Beach, fol-
lows the coast, passing a number of resorts. For the most part, it runs
within sight or sound of the ocean, although occasionally it turns inland to
thread its way among hammocks of oak, palm, bay, and cedar.

Construction of the highway between Jacksonville and the beach pre-
sented a novel problem. The county bond issue to finance the project stip-
ulated the construttion of two parallel one-way highways. Instead, a single
broad road was decided on. To meet the stipulations of the bond issue, two
narrow lanes of concrete were constructed and the intervening space was
later paved with asphalt.

Two expeditions one French and one Spanish landed within 50 miles
and two days of each other on this section of the Florida coast late in the
summer of 1565. Captain Jean Ribaut commanded the French expedition,
which consisted of 600 colonists sent out to reinforce the 300 Frenchmen
who had settled at Fort Caroline the previous year. The expedition led
by Menendez consisted of 600 Spaniards, who had embarked, according
to Menendez, to Christianize the Indians.

Each force knew of the presence of the other, and both prepared for hos-
tilities immediately upon landing. The French disembarked at Fort Caro-
line on the St. Johns River; Menendez and his men established themselves
farther south, founding St.Augustine. The French decided to attack and

TOUR i A 337

put to sea, only to be struck by a hurricane. Menendez seized the opportu-
nity and marched quickly overland to seize Fort Caroline and the few men
left behind to guard it. Returning to St.Augustine, Menendez was in-
formed by Indians that the main body of the French had been ship-
wrecked not far away at Matanzas Inlet.

Menendez advanced to meet Ribaut and his shipwrecked force. While
history is not clear on the negotiations between them, Spanish accounts re-
veal that almost all the French were executed not as Frenchmen, but as
Lutherans after they had surrendered unconditionally.

Philip II, the Spanish monarch, was so pleased with the turn of events
that he wrote Menendez: 'Of the great success that has attended your en-
terprise we have had the most entire satisfaction; and as to the retribution
you have visited upon the Lutheran pirates ... we believe that you did
it with every justification and propriety. . . .' The story of the massacre
at Matanzas Inlet (Sp., massacre) was told throughout Europe by the few
who managed to escape, but the Huguenots were denied the retaliation
they asked in a petition submitted to Charles IX, King of France.

JACKSONVILLE, m. (25 alt., 129,549 pop.) (see Jacksonville}.

Points of Interest : Naval Stores Yard, Cotton Compress, Hemming Park, Memorial
Park, and others.

Jacksonville is at the junction with US i (see Tour la and b} , US 1 7 (see
Tour 2a and 6), and US 90 (see Tour ja). State 78 branches east from US i
at Atlantic Boulevard.

Almost hidden among cedar trees (L), 3.3 m., a gray stone marker indi-
cates the SITE OF FORT SAN NICHOLAS, which was 1,500 feet north on the
St. Johns River. Don Manuel de Monteano, Spanish Governor, built it
about 1740 when threatened with attack by James Oglethorpe, leader of
the English in Georgia.

At 10.8 m. is the junction with an asphalt road.

Left on this road to FULTON, 5 m. (4 alt.), a popular fishing resort. Right from
Fulton 1.5 m. to ST. JOHNS BLUFF, at the approximate SITE OF FORT CAROLINE,
built in 1564 by Laudonniere, French explorer, and captured in 1565 by Menendez
(see above) . The site of the fort has been washed into the river. The English established
a settlement near the bluff in 1782, naming it St Johns Town. Many Tories took ref-
uge here at the end of the Revolutionary War. The town declined when Florida again
passed into the possession of Spain, and by 1817 most of its 300 buildings had disap-
peared. Today, no vestige remains of either the fort or the town.

State 78 crosses the Pablo Creek drawbridge over the Intracoastal Wa-
terway (see Intracoastal Waterway}, 16.1 m., a sheltered inland route fol-
lowed by yachts and smaller craft sailing to and from southern Florida wa-
ters. Between the bridge and Mayport Road (see below}, dark spiny Span-
ish bayonets line both sides of the road; in early days they were planted
about Spanish fortifications as defense entanglements, hence the name. In
late spring they send up tall pyramids of white blossoms, often called ' Ma-
donna candles.'

At 17.3 m. is the junction with a road, known locally as the Mayport
Road.

338 FLORIDA

Left on this road is EAST MAYPORT, 4.5 m. (10 alt.), a small settlement in a
dense subtropical forest. In this dell-like section fig trees grow along the roadside.

WONDERWOOD (R), 5.1 m., once a landscaped estate, now consists of a cluster
of cottages, an inn, a fishing pier (boats for rent}, and a riding academy. Huge oaks,
magnolias, and oleanders shade many bridle paths. RIBAUT MONUMENT, 5.2 m.,
erected on a small knoll, commemorates the arrival of Huguenot colonists here in
1562. Masonic sunrise services are held here each Easter.

MAYPORT, 6 m. (8 alt., 511 pop.), a fishing village near the mouth of the St Johns
River, has docks providing moorage for a shrimp fleet and a number of small cratt
chartered for fishing in the channel close by and on^the snapper banks 18 miles out.
On the shore are drying nets, and an abandoned red lighthouse.

ATLANTIC BEACH, 18.6 m. (13 alt., 164 pop.), is a summer resort
patronized by Jacksonville residents. When the tide is low, it is possible to
drive along the smooth wide beach three miles north to the St. Johns River
mouth, and six miles south, as far as Ponte Vedra (see below}.

Once a part of Jacksonville Beach, NEPTUNE BEACH, 19 m., is now
an incorporated town; the beach is flanked with a concrete bulkhead.

JACKSONVILLE BEACH, 21.5 m. (10 alt., 409 pop-), has a concrete,
mile-long boardwalk along the ocean front. An amusement park, bath-
houses, hotels, apartments, and cottages provide facilities for summer vis-
itors. A Red Cross Volunteer Life Saving Corp and a U.S. COAST GUARD
RADIO STATION (open) are quartered here.

The entire beach section from Atlantic Beach to Ponte Vedra is the
largest resort area in northeast Florida. Some 40,000 vacationists relax
and play here during the summer. The municipalities have grown to-
gether, presenting an unbroken stretch of cottages, apartment houses and
hotels atong the highway for over six miles. Jacksonville Beach, with its
varied carnival enterprises, is the midsummer center of activity.

PONTE VEDRA, 24.9 m., now a restricted seaside development, with
bath club, hotel, cabanas, and golf course (greens fee $1), was originally the
National Lead Company's ' Mineral City. 7 For a number of years minerals
used in the manufacture of their products were obtained from the sands
here. Operations halted when the State obtained an injunction on the
ground that the beach, a public highway, was being destroyed.

In 1916 two young chemical engineers from Harvard University sailed
along the Atlantic coast from Brunswick, Ga., to Cape Canaveral (see
Tour iB), landing at intervals of 10 miles to take samples of beach sand.
When analysis of the samples revealed the presence of many valuable
minerals, they built a plant at Ponte Vedra to extract the minerals by an
electrical process. During the World War the Federal Government took
over the plant and produced ilmenite and rutile, both used in the manufac-
ture of munitions. Zircon, monasite, and a silicate of aluminum also were
found in the sand. After the War the mill and other properties were pur-
chased by the lead company. All traces of 'Mineral City 7 have vanished.

South of Ponte Vedra the road skirts PALM VALLEY, rich hammock
land covered with oaks, magnolias, and palms. This fertile area was once
known as Diego Plains, named for Don Diego de Espinosa, who built a
small fort some distance west of the highway in the early lyoo's to defend
his cattle ranch. The fort was strengthened in 1740 against Oglethorpe's

TOUR i A 339

expected attack on St.Augustine, but on May 9 of that year the Georgia
Governor seized it, capturing 57 men, n cannon, 70 small arms, and much
ammunition. Oglethorpe reported that the timber and underbrush in the
territory was so dense that his men were compelled to march single file.
The area, practically uninhabited today, is penetrated by a few sand
roads. Palm Valley was a moonshine distilling center during the prohibi-
tion era; Palm Valley ' 'shine' was flavored with palmetto berries and was
much in demand in this section.

MICKLER'S PIER, (adm. 25fi, 30.9 m., extending 300 feet into the ocean,
is popular with fishermen (bait and tackle for pier and surf fishing) .

Between Mickler's Pier and St.Augustine the route runs between the
ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway. The hard white beach with its curl-
ing surf lies hidden (L) behind high rounded sand dunes, covered with pal-
mettoes, scrub oaks, and pines. Slat fences are strung along at intervals to
prevent the dunes from ' walking' across the road. Low dense scrub ex-
tends (R) from the highway to the Intracoastal Waterway. In summer the
road shoulders are carpeted with yellow partridge peas and pink horse-
mint, through which the gilia thrusts its vivid scarlet spears.

VILANO BEACH (L), 48.7 m., has a small group of cottages for
summer visitors. A wooden drawbridge with fishing platforms spans the
NORTH RIVER, 49.2 m., to Kurth's Island, originally caUed Isle of Tolo-
mato (boats, bait, and fishing equipment). The highway crosses the island
and returns to the mainland on a short bridge and causeway.

ST.AUGUSTINE, 51.2 m. (7 alt., i2,,m pop.) (see St. Augustine).

Points of Interest: Fort Marion, Catholic Cathedral, Flagler Memorial Chapel,
Trinity Episcopal Church, old residences, and others.

St.Augustine is at the junction with US i (see Tour ib}.

South of St.Augustine the route follows State 140, crossing Matanzas
River to ANASTASIA ISLAND on the BRIDGE OP THE LIONS, named for
the two marble lions at its western entrance. The island is some 3 miles
wide and extends southward 14 miles to Matanzas Inlet.

Monkeys and alligators, live and mounted specimens of birds, reptiles,
and fish are exhibited at the MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY (open 8:30 to
6; adm. 25$, 51.8m.

On ST.AUGUSTINE BEACH (bathhouses, collages}, 52.9 m., the
ST.AUGUSTINE LIGHTHOUSE rises 165 feet in a clearing amid scrub oak, its
light visible 20 miles at sea. In 1586 Drake saw here a Spanish signal-
tower; the present lighthouse dates from 1874. The ST.AUGUSTINE OS-
TRICH AND ALLIGATOR FARM (open 8 to 6; adm. 25jzf), 53.1 m., contains
6,000 alligators of all ages and sizes, as well as ostriches, live snakes and
turtles, and a museum of marine curiosities.

All that remains of a barracks, used by the men who quarried coquina
for St.Augustine houses as well as for the construction of Fort Matanzas
(see below} and Fort Marion (see St.Augustine}, is the SPANISH CHIM-
NEY (L), 54.4 m. This and the old well near by are probably two of the
oldest Spanish relics in the StAugustine section. CRESCENT BEACH,

34-O FLORIDA

61.3 m., is marked by a scattering of old frame houses on the high dunes
along the shore.

PORT MATANZAS NATIONAL MONUMENT (R), 65.1 m., is a
Government reservation established in 1915. A short distance south of the
entrance a tablet (R) marks the SITE OP THE HUGUENOT MASSACRE (see
above).

Right from the reservation entrance on a graveled road to a boat landing, 0.2 m.,
where an outboard motorboat (free) is available at all times for transportation to
RATTLESNAKE ISLAND, near the west bank of the Matanzas River. On the is-
land stands old FORT MATANZAS, a coquina structure 40 feet square and 30 feet
high, built by the Spaniards about 1736. The fort replaced a tower erected to prevent
enemy ships from moving up the river.

The highway crosses MATANZAS INLET, 66.1 m., popular with both
bridge and surf fishermen. Here sea oats and seaside morning glories, with
green ropelike stems spread over the sand on the sweeping beaches. An
expanse of green marshes and lagoons, suggestive of water hazards on a
golf course, spreads southward from the inlet.

MARINELAND, 68.6 m., in a landscaped ocean-front setting, is cen-
tered about the MARINE STUDIOS (open 9-6; adm. $1), a cream-colored
concrete aquarium, pitted with tempered glass portholes, and resembling a
stranded Caribbean cruiser. Two great tanks, one round, the other rectan-
gular, contain many varieties of deep-sea life. Through the portholes visi-
tors see porpoises, sawfish, sharks, giant green turtles, shrimp, the manta
(devilfish), and numerous common food fish. Brilliantly colored tropical
fish swim in sea gardens of coral and algae, while penguins brought from
Robbin Island off the African coast paddle on the surface.

At ii a.m. and 4 p.m. daily guides lecture over a loud-speaker system as
the fish are fed by a sailor who calls them with a dinner bell. Porpoises fre-
quently leap 6 feet out of water to snatch fish from the sailor's hands.
When the dinner bell was first used, the fish fled to the opposite side of the
tank, but they soon learned that it meant food, and they now rush toward
the keeper at its first peal.

When the tanks were first stocked (May 1938), experts were unable to
predict which species would live amicably together. They found that por-
poises, sharks, and sawfish can share the same tank. A black grouper, how-
ever, recently swallowed a shark. The menhadens are not attacked because
of their odor.

The clarity of the water, affording distinct views of even the very small
creatures, is maintained by stations that pump in more than 5,000,000 gal-
lons of water every 24 hours, effecting 6 complete changes during that pe-
riod. Men in diving helmets, carrying underwater vacuum cleaners and
brushes, clean the tanks. The sawfish and manta stay away from the com-
motion, although it is said a porpoise is apt to steal the dust cloth.

The studios are managed by Ilia Tolstoy, Russian scientist and explorer,
who is also vice-president of the organization. Arthur Francis McBride,
formerly a staff member of the American Museum of Natural History and
now curator of the aquarium, is studying the lives and life cycles of the fishes.

South of Marineland the highway plunges into the shade of cabbage

TOUR I A 341

palms, oaks, cedars, and bay trees for 6 miles before returning to the shore.
The ocean is screened from view, but its presence is indicated by the roar
of the surf and the flight of pelicans in single file. Palmetto flats stretch
away (R) to the high sand banks of the Intracoastal Waterway; farther in
the distance appear smoky-blue forests of pine.

FLAGLER BEACH, 83.8 m. (198 pop.), a resort frequented by Flori-
dians of near-by inland towns, has many old stucco houses and a 6oo-foot
municipal fishing pier (bass, pompano, Spanish mackerel, sea trout, whiting,
drum fish, and flounder). Hand lines, bamboo poles with line attached, and
rods with reels to cast plugs and other artificial bait are used in angling for
all these.

ORMOND BEACH, 97.8 m., (43 pop.), is a winter resort with many
large estates along both the Halifax River and the ocean front. Its develop-
ment began in 1875 when John Anderson built a large and rambling frame
hotel on the wooded banks of the river. Purchased and enlarged by
Henry M. Flagler, pioneer railroad and resort promoter (see Palm Beach),
the HOTEL ORMOND still stands on the John Anderson Highway, a winding
and shaded drive along ,the river, affording fine views of its blue waters and
white beaches. The hotel, built, owned, and operated by the Florida East
Coast Railway, is painted bright yellow, with green trim.

Adjoining the hotel are the ORMOND BEACH GOLF LINKS (greens fee
$2.50), a favorite of the elder John D. Rockefeller (see below).

Opposite the hotel is THE CASEMENTS, winter home of John D. Rocke-
feller (1839-1937), a relatively small and notably unpretentious house,
with gray shingled walls and many large windows. Tall and spreading
hedges of Turk's-cap enclose its two acres of ground, beautifully land-
scaped in a series of terraces descending to the Halifax River. Guards stood
watch at all gates up to Rockefeller's death, and many gardeners tended
its lawns and flower beds.

Much of the latter part of Rockefeller's long life was identified with The
Casements. The elderly vacationer known to Ormond Beach was a re-
markable transformation of the vigorous and relentless businessman who
in the earlier days of his career had been prosecuted by the Government
and vehemently denounced by the press as a ruthless exponent of Big Busi-
ness, the first and perhaps the greatest of the trust builders, creator of a
vast and efficient economic empire that in time encircled the globe. In Or-
mond Beach he was happy to be known merely as ' Neighbor John/ inter-
ested in local enterprises and institutions.

For many years Rockefeller presided over the annual charity bazaar at
the Hotel Ormond, attracting large crowds to bid generously on the odds
and ends he auctioned for the benefit of the local poor. On Sunday morn-
ings he attended the nondenominational Ormond Union Church, and after
the service stood on the lawn distributing bright new dimes to eager chil-
dren, advising thrift and savings if they would amass a fortune. Every
year, on the day he ordered his private railroad car for his journey north
after the winter season, Rockefeller placed in the hands of the local pastor
an envelope with money to pay his salary and all church expenses for the
ensuing year.

342 FLORIDA

Until he was almost go, Rockefeller continued to play golf here with a
few cronies and an occasional guest. He was usually accompanied by a
servant with an umbrella to protect him from the sun. When younger, he
had bicycled from stroke to stroke, followed by two valets, one with milk
and crackers, the other with his golf clubs and a blanket to be spread on
the ground when he wished to rest. For golf, as for church and for ordinary
wear, he wore a special wig. He usually wore a vest of Japanese paper, to
keep out the wind, and a straw hat, held securely in place by a large shawl-
like handkerchief tied under his chin.

Rockefeller's pride in his golf is reflected in his remark in 1928, when
finally forced at the age of 89 to reduce his physical exertions, that it was
better to play well for six holes than like a dub for eight. He liked to win;
after a game on one occasion with Will Rogers, the humorist, the latter
said, ' I'm glad you beat me, John. The last time you were beaten, I no-
ticed that the price of gasoline went up two cents a gallon/ Rockefeller's
trouser pockets were always filled with newly minted coins, nickels in one,
dimes in the other, the stock of each being replenished by a valet promptly
at 7:00 each morning. The nickels were 'to encourage the downcast 5 ; the
dimes were " to reward the triumphant who beat him at golf.'

1 Be deliberate ! B e deliberate ! Take lessons ! Play better ! ? was his advice
to defeated opponents on the links. Of his partner in a foursome he de-
manded both skill and concentrated attention, being outspoken equally in
criticism and praise. ' If money wasn't so scarce,' he exclaimed to a partner
just after the 1929 crash, c l'd give you a nickel for that drive.' Lost balls
were always a matter of serious concern to him. On seeing a foursome aban-
don their search after beating the brush for an hour, he commented with
interest, ' Those fellows must have plenty of money.'

Guests at The Casements received not only a new dime but a card on
which was printed a bit of inspirational verse. Some bore these lines, be-
lieved to be the one original stanza from his pen:

I was early taught to work as well as play;
My life has been one long, happy holiday
Full of work, and full of play
I dropped the worry on the way
And God was good to me every day.

Rockefeller had his first airplane ride here in Ormond Beach in January
1930. The plane taxied up and down the beach, but did not leave the
ground. His last years were devoted to a passionate but methodical strug-
gle to live at least to the century mark. He limited his physical activities to
sitting in the sun a few hours a day or to a half-hour ride in his maroon au-
tomobile, so designed that it could be converted almost instantly from an
open into a closed and warmly heated car. On his infrequent walks male
nurses stood at either elbow. For the most part, he used a wheel chair or
was carried by attendants to preserve every ounce of strength and energy.
His diet was largely vegetable; he ate small 'quantities of food, carefully
measured for calories and vitamins, at frequent regular intervals. In The
Casements, as in his other residences used at different seasons, were ma-
chines to test basal metabolism, fluoroscopes, and all the equipment of a

TOUR IB 343

small hospital. Even his automobiles and his private railroad car carried
oxygen tanks. But Rockefeller was denied his greatest ambition; he died
here at The Casements on May 23, 1937, little more than two years before
his looth birthday.

On Granada Avenue, main thoroughfare of Ormond Beach, is the
HOTEL COQUINA, of modified Spanish style, built of local coquina rock, a
soft whitish limestone formed of broken shells and coral cemented to-
gether by the processes of nature. At the end of the avenue a ramp leads
down to the white firm beach, along which motorists can drive at low tide
to Daytona Beach (see below).

Right 1 m. from Ormond Beach on a bridge across the Halifax River to ORMOND
(see Tour i&).

South of Ormond Beach the highway parallels a long ridge of sand dunes
matted with palmetto; red and white oleanders border the highway. A
number of rutted roads cut through the dunes (L) to ramps leading down
to the beach.

DAYTONA BEACH, 102.7 m. (7 alt., 16,598 pop.) (see Daytona Beach).

Points of Interest: Ocean Beach, Broadwalk, open-air Auditorium, Bethune-Cookman
College (Negro), alligator and ostrich farms, and others.

Daytona Beach is at the junction with US i (see Tour ib and c) and US
92-State 21 (see TourSa).

Tour

Titusville Merritt Island Indiatlantic Melbourne; 55 m. State 119
and State 2 1 9.

State 119, asphalt-paved; State 219, good sand or shell surface, two lanes wide.
Accommodations at towns of Merritt Island and Cocoa Beach.

This route traverses part of Canaveral Peninsula and Merritt Island, a
water-bound area with an unusual variety of temperate and tropical flora.
The peninsula, a sand barrier from 200 yards to 4 miles wide, extends
southward 100 miles from Ponce de Leon Inlet, opposite New Smyrna. Be-
tween the mainland and Cape Canaveral lies Merritt Island, approxi-
mately 40 miles long and 6 miles wide, with the Indian River on the west
and Banana River on the east.

344 FLORIDA

State 119 branches east from US i (see Tour ic) at TITUSVILLE, m.,
crossing the Indian River on a wooden bridge to the CANAVERAL PEN-
INSULA, 1.5 m. A thin blurred line of trees appears ahead as the highway
enters grassy marshland. Presently the trees take shape as scattered
clumps of cabbage palmettoes. Ferns and wild flowers grow abundantly
along the edge of the marsh, and bright-colored butterflies zigzag across
the highway.

At 2 m. is a junction with a sand road.

Left on this road to DUMMITT GROVE, 5 m., one of the early orange groves in
Florida. Planted between 1830 and 1835, the trees are still bearing; the largest is
4 feet in circumference and 30 feet high. Douglas D. Dummitt, planter of the grove,
whose parents had settled in St.Augustine in 1807, later established other plantations
in New Smyrna (see Tour ic). Dummitt was commissioned a captain in 1845 as leader
of the ' Mosquito Roarers' during the Seminole War. He was a familiar figure as he
plied the river here in a dugout paddled by six sturdy Negroes or in a larger dugout
rigged for sails.

Dummitt obtained budwood from a grove near Port Orange, which in turn had
been budded from seedling stock brought to Florida by the Spanish. Dummitt's
grove became widely known, and the Dummitt, Indian River, and seedless Enter-
prise oranges originated here. Among the RUINS OF THE DUMMITT HOUSE only the
coquina chimney still stands; the old well near-by furnishes an ample supply of water.

Dummitt Grove passed in 1881 to an Italian nobleman, Eicole Tamajo, Duke of
Castlellucia, who had married an American heiress, daughter of a St.Louis brewer.
The duke completed the present house in the grove, known as DUKE'S CASTLE, a two-
story octagonal structure built of timber from a ship that went aground near Daytona
Beach. The vertical exterior planking consists of pieces more than 30 feet long and
10 inches wide; ship beams serve as corner uprights; with the exception of a rectangu-
lar reception hall and a billiard room upstairs, all rooms are octagonal in shape. The oc-
tagonal design of the house was adopted, it is said, as a streamlining measure against
gales and hurricanes. Even gables were narrowed to lessen exposure to the winds. In-
side the house, stout ship spars rise from two sides of the reception hall and lounge,
and about them wind two staircases to the second floor. On a wall under one of the
staircases is a penciled notation that JJ.Conwar of New York was the architect of the
castle, and December 15, 1881, the date of its completion.

The duke entertained foreign and American friends at elaborate hunting parties
here. Coffee was served to visitors at n in the morning and 4 in the afternoon at the
COFFEE HOUSE, a small octagonal-shaped frame structure north of the castle. The
duke supervised work in his well-kept victoria, driven by a liveried coachman. Failing
health led him to sell the castle and leave Canaveral Peninsula in the early 1900*3.

Continuing eastward, State 119 enters a palm savanna, carpeted with
tall, dark, switch grass. Only an occasional cry of a water bird breaks the
silence. Trees gradually thin out, and the road traverses a vast sandy
wasteland of palmetto and wire grass. Here and there a lone group of Aus-
tralian pines stands out against the sky, advance guard of the ornamental
trees planted on Merritt Island (see below}.

At 8.1 m. is (R) the junction with State 219, identified by a sign reading
1 To Tower Farms.'

Left (straight ahead) on partly paved State 119 to TITUSVILLE BEACH, 9 m., a
small swimming resort on the ocean.

The route continues (R) on State 219, a smooth sand road that leads
through a dense palmetto thicket. In this dry region are fields of bright
wild flowers inhabited by many land birds.

TOUR IB 345

At 10.5 m. the road forks; State 219 continues straight ahead. A short
wooden bridge across BANANA CREEK, 12.5 m., connects the peninsula
with MERRITT ISLAND, 12.6 m., named for an early settler to whom
Spain granted the entire island about 1800. Its northern section is some-
what desolate and sandy, but stands of Caribbean pine and small farms
appear as the road proceeds southward. Almost all the islanders are en-
gaged in vegetable farming and citrus culture.

ORSINO, 17 m. (100 pop.), northernmost trading center on the island,
has a store, post office, filling station, and church. Here the road forks; the
route continues (R) on undesignated State 219, with alternate stretches of
sand and shell. Beyond an outlying orange grove, 17.4 m., appear a few ba-
nana plants, their vivid green leaves shining in the sun. In some places
towering jungles of hardwoods, cedar, and pine crowd the road; in others,
great gnarled Caribbean pines rise in the distance above cabbage palms.
Abrupt swift changes of scenery follow; each turn of the road reveals small
pine forests, sandy flats, shallow marshes, and tropical forests.

COURTENAY, 24.5 m. (61 pop.), a settlement that seems a part of the
dark enveloping jungle, has old orange trees occupying almost all space be-
tween its weathered frame stores and houses.

South of Courtenay, State 219 is surfaced with asphalt. The many sub-
stantial dwellings along the highway have bright gardens of flowering hi-
biscus, bougainvillea, and allamandas. Bamboo, coco plumosa palms, and
tall Australian pines border the road.

INDIANOLA, 29.3 m. (50 pop.), is another community with buildings
dwarfed by the towering jungle about it.

MERRITT ISLAND, 32.3 m. (200 pop.), chief trading center of the is-
land, has bright stucco houses set in well-kept lawns among ornamental
shrubs.

1. Right from Merritt Island on paved State 206, which crosses Indian River to
the mainland, to COCOA, 1.2 m. (26 alt., 2,164 pop.) (see Tour ic).

2. Left from Merritt Island on an asphalt-paved road through a variety of road-
side palms and a forest of Caribbean pines to NEWFOUND HARBOR, dividing the
southern part of the island into two tongues of land. Here are many lagoons and
grassy ponds, the feeding grounds of blue and white herons, bitterns, terns, and gal-
linules.

At 2.5 m. is the junction with a paved road; R. here along the Banana River, a
shining arm of the sea separating Merritt Island and Canaveral Peninsula, tp a
wooden bridge, 6.3 m. Scattered groups of sun-browned fishermen are met along the
way, angling in the shallow water, speckled blue and white. From the bridge the great
bowl of the sky is impressive above the flat smooth horizon, broken only by thin green
spires of Australian pines to the east. Crossing back to Canaveral Peninsula, 7.8 m.,
the highway passes sparkling blue lagoons studded with tiny islands; the whole
trackless wilderness resembles a landscaped park.

COCOA BEACH, 9.3 m. (31 pop.), is a small ocean resort built on a dune ridge
along the shore. A large SEA SHELL COLLECTION (free), in Ocean Lodge (R), exhibits
specimens of the rare pearly nautilus. Here, as elsewhere on the peninsula, sunsets are
of exceptional beauty, particularly after thunderstorms in the late afternoon, when
the western sky flushes rose behind the dark screen of Australian pines above the
beach as the eastern heavens merge with a cobalt sea. A rainbow fragment is perhaps
reflected momentarily in jade-green water; under the darkening sky the tumbling surf
grows wine-dark, and a final touch of color is often added as a line of tropical birds
rises, low and far away, and drops from view.

346 FLORIDA

Left from Cocoa Beach on shell-surfaced State 140, through extensive thickets of
myrtle, hickory, and scrubby live oak, interspersed with large saw palmetto, cactus,
and wild lantana, to ARTESIA, 15.6 m., a post office in a farmhouse setback from
the road amid a tropical jungle, its white sand yard planted with blossoming shrubs.
In summer, when land breezes now and again waft in great singing clouds of mos-
quitoes from the lagoons, residents spend much of their time indoors.

The SYLVAN TROPICAL NURSERY (free), 17.2 *., lies in the jungle (L) a short dis-
tance from the road. The nursery contains some 500 plants collected over a period or
15 years, including century plants, night-blooming cereus, wild moonflower, terrestrial
orchids, bignonias attaining heights of 20 feet, and 75 varieties of bougamvillea, one
with yellow blossoms having been developed here. Among flowering shrubs of fantas-
tic beauty is the flame o' the woods.

At 17.5 m. is the junction with State 273, a sand-and-shell road; R. on State 273 to
CANAVERAL HARBOR FISHING PIER, 19.2 m., with Cape^ Canaveral Lighthouse (see
below) to the northwest. \

A road at 20 m., marked with a sign bearing the name of the company, leads (K) to
the CAPE FISHING COMPANY PLANT, 21.5 m., a group of weatherbeaten buildings sur-
rounded by racks for drying nets. Fishermen here put to sea for shark with chain,
rope, and shark hooks (see Tour id). ^

Left from the company plant (inquire about road conditions] to CAPlL CANA-
VERAL (Sp., reedy point), first noted in 1513 by Ponce de Leon, who called it Cape
of Currents. It appeared as Canaveral on LeMoyne's map of 1564. Shipwrecked here
in July 1572, Menendez walked to St.Augustine, arriving in late fall, having escaped
death at the hands of Indians by telling them that a large Spanish force was following.
CAPE CANAVERAL LIGHTHOUSE, banded white and black, rises 145 feet above sea
level and has a 430,000 candlepower light visible 18 miles at sea.

South of the town of Merritt Island, State 219 (asphalt-paved) winds
through a rich agricultural region. Passing through Caribbean pine woods
and small orange groves, between border plantings of red and white olean-
ders, hibiscus, and wild flowers, the road climbs over a low hill from which
is a view (R) of the Indian River. The orange groves on the rolling terrain
contain trees so large that it is difficult to see beyond the first row. Several
groves of mangoes and a great variety of shrubs appear; at intervals scar-
let hibiscus grows along the road. In the background, between groves, are
glimpses of pines hung with long strands of Spanish moss.

The highway is a densely shaded tropical drive. Palms, oaks, and cedars
border the road. In this jungle, and elsewhere on southern Merritt Island
where the land has not been cleared, are found trees growing more than
200 miles north of their native habitat on the Florida Keys. C.T.Simpson,
naturalist, has noted 43 tropical and 25 warm temperate varieties; among
others, ironwood, gumbo limbo, soapberry, torchwood, strangling fig,
paradise tree, pond apple, and necklace bean. This varied flora is attri-
buted to the narrowness of the island, washed on both sides by tides that
carry warm water into the bays and sounds.

Emerging from the jungle, the highway skirts several unfenced orange
groves and plunges into a stand of low trees with branches forming an arch
over the road. As the island narrows, both the Indian and Banana rivers
come in view; front yards of farmhouses run down to one river, their back
yards to the other. Tapering to a width that a man can straddle, the tip of
the island emerges from dense shrubbery as a wall of coquina 6 feet high.

The road crosses a narrow reach of the Banana River on a toll bridge
(25 j), 48.6 m. } and traverses a marshy section of the peninsula.

At 50 m. is the junction with State 101, an asphalt-paved road.

Right on State 101, crossing the Indian River on a wooden bridge, to EAU GAL-
LIE, 2.2 m. (19 alt., 871 pop.) (see Tour ic).

South of the junction with State roi, the route cuts through level sandy
pine flats.

INDIATLANTIC, 53.5 ;;/., has a beach frequented by residents of Mel-
bourne.

Left (straight ahead) from Indiatlantic on a paved road to MELBOURNE
BEACH, 1.5 m. (72 pop.), a swimming resort.

West (R) of Indiatlantic, the route follows Melbourne road.
MELBOURNE, 55 m. (22 alt, 2,677 pop.) (see Tour ic), is at the junc-
tion with US i (see Tour ic).

Tour 2

(Brunswick, Ga.) Jacksonville DeLand Winter Park Orlando
Winter Haven- Arcadia Punta Gorda; 320.1 m. US 17.

Hard-surfaced roadbed throughout, mainly concrete- and asphalt-paved; watch for

cattle.

Route paralleled by Seaboard Air Line Ry. between Georgia Line and Jacksonville, by

Atlantic Coast Line R.R. between Jacksonville and Arcadia, by Atlantic Coast Line R.R.

and Seaboard Air Line Ry. between Arcadia and Fort Ogden, and by Atlantic Coast

Line R.R. between Fort Ogden and Punta Gorda.

Good accommodations.

US 17, main artery of passenger and truck travel between north and
central Florida, serves thriving resort centers, large citrus- and vegetable-
growing areas, cattle ranges, and phosphate-mining regions. Leaving the
pine woods of north Florida, it parallels the western bank of the St. Johns
River between Jacksonville and Palatka, and traverses the citrus belt of
central Florida, a region of lakes and hills. Through the broad valley of
Peace River it continues southwest to Charlotte Harbor, an arm of the
Gulf of Mexico.

Section a. GEORGIA LINE to JACKSONVILLE; 30.6 m. US 17

Between the pine flatwoods of northern Florida and Jacksonville, this
heavily traveled route is lined with billboards, filling stations, roadside eat-

348 FLORIDA

ing places, fruit and pecan stands, and tourist cabin camps. The ' Free Ga-
rage' advertised by some is so attached that the cabin can be entered di-
rectly from a car. This type is said to be popular with patrons from near-by
cities; others specify for ' Tourists Only.'

US 17 crosses St.Marys River, the Georgia Line, ?;/., 44 miles south of
Brunswick, Ga. (see Ga. Guide, Tour i) . On being expelled from the Georgia
Territorial Assembly for seditious utterances in 1755, Edmund Grey fled
to the banks of the St.Marys and founded a colony of outlaws and malcon-
tents, later dispersed by British forces. When Spain ceded Florida to Eng-
land in 1763, the boundary between Georgia and Florida was in part estab-
lished along the river. Many Revolutionary War skirmishes were fought
near by, and in 1783 when the American Colonies achieved independence,
the St.Marys was confirmed as the southeastern boundary of the new Na-
tion.

A railroad trestle (R) parallels the bridge over the St.Marys; sandy pine
flats stretch back from the marshy banks. The broad thickly- turf ed shoul-
ders of the highway slope off into shallow ditches. Saw palmetto, one of the
strangest of plants, is the prevailing growth, as in many other parts of Flor-
ida. Originally an inhabitant of the swamps, it developed a system of roots
running down from its trunk to prevent its being washed away. Later, it
invaded the woods and met a new enemy, fire, which it escaped by chang-
ing its direction of growth from the more or less vertical to the horizontal,
learning to creep along the ground. As it advances, it sends down more
roots and frequently branches. These branches in turn send clown roots,
and, as the old parent trunk and roots die, become independent new plants,
and thus spread over wide areas by a process of parturition.

YULEE, 9 m. (39 alt. T 155 pop.), a scattered settlement along the high-
way, was named for David L. Yulee, "U.S. Senator from Florida (1845-
51 ; 1855-61). After election he had his name changed by act of the State
legislature from David. Levy to David Yulee. Although he frequently
denied that he favored secession, Yulee and his colleague, Senator Mai-
lory, jointly requested from the War Department a statement of muni-
tions and equipment in Florida forts on January 2, 1860, and he wrote to a
friend in the State, ' the immediately important thing to be clone is the oc-
cupation of the forts and arsenals in Florida.' The New York Times blamed
'the railroad class > of Florida for seeking secession and accused them of
wishing to wipe out debts owed to the North. At this time the Florida Rail-
road, of which Yulee was president, owed one firm in New York $750,000.
Later., when the Confederate army impressed some of the equipment of the
road, Yulee instituted a civil action and obtained an injunction to prevent
its removal.

At the end of the war, Yulee was arrested for aiding in the escape of Jef-
ferson Davis, and was imprisoned at Fort Pulaski, Georgia. He was re-
leased several months later. During the Reconstruction the Republicans
accused Mm of influencing the votes of employees of the railroad. He re-
plied that the allegation was ' unfounded and untrue/ but added that, if
the company had done what is alleged, it would have done only what it
had a right to do.'

Agriculture

CITRUS GROVE, NEAR WINTER HAVEN

'ICKING GRAPEFRUIT
>hotograph by BcrhJgren

Photograph by courtesy of Respess Engraving Company

DUSTING COTTON, NORTH FLORIDA

PLANTING CELERY, NEAR SANFORD
Photograph by courtesy of Farm Security Administration

STRAWBERRY PICKERS, STARKE

TRANSPORTING SUGAR CANE FROM FIELDS, IN THE EVERGLADES

Photograph by courtesy of Florida Photographic Concern, Ft Pierce

BEAN PICKERS, HOMESTEAD

Photograph by courtesy of Farm Security Administration

Photograph by Paul Diggs
STRAWBERRY PICKERS RETURNING FROM THE FIELD

4-H CLUB BOYS MILKING GOAT

Photograph by courtesy of Department of Agricultural

IN THE POTATO FIELD, DADE COUNTY
Photograph by Ted Ramsey

Photograph by courtesy of Department of Agriculture

FARM HOUSE

FARMER'S MARKET, MIAMI

Photograph by courtesy of Department of Agriculture

CUTTING PALMETTOS

TUNG TREE

TOUR 2 349

Yulee is at the junction with State 13 (see Tour 30).

Saw palmetto and longleaf pine grow profusely along the curving high-
way, once part of the Kings Road, built by subscription in 1765 between
New Smyrna and Colerain, Ga., running by way of St.Augustine and Cow-
ford, as Jacksonville was then called. The highway crosses the NASSAU
RIVER, 13.1 m.; during the American Revolution large plantations were
developed along its banks by refugee Tories from the Colonies (see His-
tory). Salt marshes extend on both sides of the road for several miles,
similar to those of Georgia described in Sidney Lanier's 'Marshes of
GlynnJ

The JACKSONVILLE MUNICIPAL AIRPORT (L), 23.9 m., is the point of en-
try for Florida airline traffic. A white concrete station fronts a wide brick
drive bordering the western edge of the runway; to the north stands a large
hangar, repair shops, first aid and fire stations, and a power plant.

At 25.2 m. is the junction with Hecksher Drive.

Left on this road is the JACKSONVILLE CITY Zoo, 0.5 m., an n-acre tract on the
Trout River, a tributary of the St. Johns. At the entrance (R) stands the small brick-
and-stucco JACKSONVILLE AIRWAY RADIO STATION, which broadcasts weather infor-
mation at half-hour intervals for aircraft approaching the Jacksonville Municipal
Airport.

Right from the entrance is a drive lined on both sides with open-air cages, pools,
and well-spaced animal houses. A circular pond (R) contains ducks, geese, and swans.
Passing a pond for alligators (R), the driveway curves (L) along the river front Here
a smooth slope under oaks and pines provides a grassy breeze-swept picnic ground.
Turning (L) from the river, the drive passes a group of white and orange frame build-
ings, including the elephant house (L), a small bird house (R) filled with chirping
canaries and love birds, and (R) a row of cages. Among the caged animals are a man-
dril baboon from West Africa; a smaller chacma baboon from South Africa; a coati
mundi, related to the raccoon, having brown and white fur, large piggish eyes, and a
flexible snout; 'Snookums,' a lethargic sloth; ill-tempered wildcats; a honey bear;
monkeys; and a Sphinx baboon from West Africa. There is a cage of bald eagles, and
others for pheasants, peacocks, Florida's rare snowy egret, and a striking blue-black
curassow from South America. Not far away are the cages (R) of the lions Mike and
Minnie, Leo, Mildred, and Tarzana.

At 0.6 m., in the center of Hecksher Drive, is a toll house (round, trip to Fort George
Island: passenger cars, 75; coupes, 5Q). Beyond the toll house Hecksher Drive winds
seaward through dense woodland; a salt-water marsh (R) lies between the highway
and the St.Johns. Seagulls, fishhawks, and herons rise from the marshes, circling over
the river. Bulky freighters and small ships are often within 500 feet of the road, plow-
ing through the swift current. On both sides of the river are square and diamond-
shaped wooden markers, range-finders used for navigation. Swinging their craft
around a bend, pilots sight identical markers and by bringing them in line, maneuver
their ships through the channel.

PILOT TOWN, 15 m., with a dock and several weathered shacks, is a settlement
of fishing guides, who live in small wooden houses and rent boats ($i) to anglers. A
guide fishes with the incoming tide, making a daily check of the fishing grounds. Fall
is his best season, and Sunday brings him the most customers. His regular patrons are
year-round residents of Jacksonville. His income ranges from $12 to $15 per week.

East of Pilot Town the road follows a mile-long paved causeway across the marsh
to FORT GEORGE ISLAND, 16 m. t near the mouth of the St.Johns River. In 1568
French soldiers crossed here to attack a blockhouse, built beside the river by the
Spanish before 1567; in 1600 the mission of San Juan Del Puerto on Fort George
Island had 500 Indian parishioners. James Oglethorpe, English general and Colonial
leader of Georgia, invaded Florida, camped here in 1736, and in 1815 John Mclntosh,
President of the short-lived Republic of Florida (see Tour 30), was a resident. Many

350 FLORIDA

of the buildings still standing were built by Zephaniah Kingsley, a prominent slave
trader. He brought Negroes from Africa in his own ships. In 1817 he purchased land
on the island and cultivated a large plantation which remained in the Kingsley family
until 1868, when it was sold to John Rollins of Dover, N.H. On his arrival at Fort
George, Rollins found many of the former Kingsley slaves still residing in cabins. He
did much to develop the Mandarin orange and the shaddock, a forerunner of grape-
fruit. Later, when orange groves were not bearing and conditions for fruit and truck
farming were poor, he built two large hotels, one on the present site of the Ribaut
Club, the other fronting the St Johns River; both were destroyed by fire. Today the
entire plantation is owned by the Fort George Club, which uses the old plantation
house (see below) as headquarters. Another tract on the island is owned by the Ribaut
Club (see below).

At 16.6 m. the road forks; R. here to the RIBAUT CLUB (private), 20 m., a Southern
Colonial style house of white-washed brick.

The KINGSLEY PLANTATION HOUSE (private), 22 m., is a two-story white frame
building, with a porch extending around all four sides. The attic contains two small
slave prisons; the doors are heavily studded with nails, and have large strap hinges
and padlocks. The basement of the house was also used as a prison. A narrow stair-
case leads from the second floor to a mirador, said to have been used as a lookout to
watch for approaching vessels. The old well, adjacent to the house, formerly equipped
with sweep and bucket, was used by everyone in the neighborhood. Immediately to
the rear i3 the whitewashed two-story brick MA'AM ANNA'S HOUSE, so designated by
island residents in recollection of the name given Anna Madegigine Jai, wife of King-
sley. The front room is believed to have been Ma'am Anna's dining room, with a
kitchen in the rear. Two rooms are on the second floor one, her sleeping room; the
other for children. Anna, daughter of a chief of Senegal, was married to Kingsley by
native ritual when the latter was purchasing slaves in Africa. Tall, slender, and dig-
nified, she insisted on following the native custom of serving her husband's guests, al-
though she had many slaves.

Approximately 200 yards south of Ma'am Anna's House is the stable, consisting of
a small white-washed brick structure and a tabby coquina-rock building, which
many believe stands on the site of barracks built by James Oglethorpe about 1740. A
few yards southeast of the stable are the foundations of a circular building known as
the grist mill, the exact history of which is unknown. It was constructed of 'tabby'
(see St. Augustine) , a material made of lime and shells.

Approximately 2.5 miles south of the house are the slave quarters, a semi-circle of
34 roofless huts built of oyster shell. The two cabins nearest the road, each with two
rooms, were used by 'drivers, 3 the Negro leaders of the slaves. A tabby house, be-
lieved to have been built on foundations of a mission, stands at the southern tip of the
island.

JACKSONVILLE, 30.6 m. (25 alt, 129,549 pop.) (see Jacksonville).

Points of Interest: Naval Stores Yards, Cotton Compress, Hemming Park, Memorial
Park, and others.

Jacksonville is at the junction with US i (see Tour la and 6), US 90 (see
Tour 70), and State 78 (see Tour iA).

Section b. JACKSONVILLE to DELAND; 110.1 m. US 17

South of JACKSONVILLE, m., the route offers frequent views of the
broad St. Johns, a river of horizons; white bay, live oak, dogwood, and
holly grow in the dense forests along its banks. Farther south, the highway
crosses undulating sandy ridges covered with pine and gnarled blackjack
oaks, with an occasional orange grove.

YUKON, 9.3 m. (400 pop.), was the site of an extensive plantation es-

TOUR 2 351

tablished by A.M.Reed. Many Negroes living here today are descendants
of the slaves who remained loyal to their owner during the War between
the States, and were given property by Reed.

Left from Yukon on a paved road to CAMP FOSTER (fishing, crabbing), 1 m., on the
shore of the St. Johns River. The camp was built during the World War and is now
used by the National Guard. In 1939 the camp and adjoining properties were pur-
chased by Duval County for the $15,000,000 Southeastern Air Base of the United
States Navy.

At 12.5 m. is a junction with a brick-paved road.

Left on this road is the old residential section of Orange Park (see below), 1.5 m., af-
fording views of the wide reaches of the river.

MOOSEHAVEN (R), 1.7 m., is the national home of the Loyal Order of Moose, a tract
of 87 acres along the river. Its 39 buildings, ranging from five-room bungalows to
large halls, house 200 old people, one-fifth of whom are women. Those who desire it
are given light employment.

ORANGE PARK, 14.1 m. (24 alt, 661 pop.), occupies land granted by-
Spain in 1790 to Zephaniah Kingsley (see above), who was largely responsi-
ble for the early development of this area. Kingsley Avenue, with its dou-
ble row of live oaks, traverses a part of Laurel Grove, the original Kingsley
plantation.

The YALE ANTHROPOID EXPERIMENTAL STATION (closed to public), es-
tablished in 1929 by the Yale University Laboratory of Primate Biology ,
houses about 30 chimpanzees used for the study of primate reproduction,
genetics, behavioral adaptation, hygiene, and pathology.

Right from Orange Park on a paved highway is MIDDLEBURG, 16 m. (35 alt.,
150 pop.), one of Florida's forgotten ports; during the 1840*5 cotton was brought here
in ox carts. Black Creek here is narrow but deep enough for sea-going vessels. A
wagon trail led from the settlement to roads connecting with Tampa, Tallahassee,
and other points. The wooden METHODIST CHURCH is said to have been used for regu-
lar worship since its construction in 1847. The CLARK HOUSE (private), north of the
post office, built in 1835, was occupied by officers under Generals Scott and Jesup
during the Seminole Indian campaigns, and housed Union officers during the War be-
tween the States.

The highway crosses DOCTOR'S INLET, 15.1 m., so named on Florida
maps of the English period (1763-83). A fishing camp in an orange grove
(L), 15.5 m., marks the SITE OF AN OLD PLANTATION HOUSE built in the
second Spanish period (1784-1821). During the Patriot's Rebellion against
Spain (see Tour 30), the owner was ordered to move across the river, but
refused. The Spaniards burned the house.

At 20.9 m. is the junction with a macadam-paved road.

Left on this road to the HTBERNIA PLANTATION, 0.5 m., remnant of a large Spanish
grant of 1790 to the Fleming family, whose descendants live in the well-kept planta-
tion house. The white structure along the river was one of the few to escape damage
during the War between the States. Square columns, two stories high, support gal-
leries along its north and east sides, and the high gabled roof is shaded by a patri-
archal oak.

BLACK CREEK, its name corrupted from Rio Blanco (Sp., white river) ,
is spanned by a concrete bridge at 22.7 m. (boats for fishing and crabbing,

352 F LORI DA

MAGNOLIA SPRINGS (free mineral water), 24.8 m., was established
before the War between the States. A large river-front hotel, which burned
in 1920, was popular among tourists during the i88o ; s and 1890*3, and
numbered President Cleveland among its guests. The President, it is said,
had the spring water sent regularly to the White House. Between the
springs and the highway is a neglected MONUMENT TO UNION SOLDIERS
who died in the Florida campaigns. The small stone shaft, surrounded by
weeds and bushes, stands in an abandoned cemetery, said to have been
used by whites before the war and as a burial plaCe of Negro yellow-fever
victims during the Reconstruction.

GREEN COVE SPRINGS, 27.6 m. (28 alt, 1,719 pop.), seat of Clay
County, is a small resort centered around a spring that flows 3,000 gallons
a minute, impounded to form a large swimming pool. Residents obtain
fresh water from the spring every day, believing it loses its medicinal qual-
ities and strength in 12 hours.

Green Cove Springs was a fashionable spa in the late iSyo's and So's.
Steamers from Charleston and Savannah came up the St. Johns River and
landed passengers at the resort piers. Band concerts were held daily during
winter months. President Grover Cleveland (1885-89) and well-to-do
northerners came annually. Gail Borden, condensed milk manufacturer,
and J.C.Penney, chain-store magnate, bought property here and took an
active part in the development of the town. Penney also established a farm
colony 6 miles to the west (see below).

With the coining of railroads and the development of resorts farther
south, the village lost most of its out-of-state patronage, but continues to
attract visitors from various parts of Florida. Fishermen find black bass
plentiful in the brackish waters of the St. Johns.

Augusta Savage, distinguished Negro sculptress, lived here in her child-
hood. When she was five years old, her father, a Methodist minister, chas-
tised her for 'making graven images.' Now a resident of New York City,
she has gained international recognition for her figures of whites and Ne-
groes.

1. Left from Green Cove Springs on a sand road to the SITE OP FORT ST. FRANCIS
DE PUPA, 3 m., erected by the Spaniards in 1737. Destroyed by the British under
Oglethorpe in 1740, the fort, originally of wood, was replaced with a stone structure.
Although all traces of the building have been obliterated, the site is well defined by
earthen embankments.

2. Right from Green Cove Springs on State 48 is the PENNEY FARMS MEMO-
RIAL HOME COMMUNITY, 8 m. (366 pop.), a group of buildings of French Nor-
man design containing 96 apartments and a chapel. It was built by J.C.Penney as a
memorial to his father, the Reverend James Cash Penney, and his mother, Mary
Frances Penney, and was dedicated in 1927 as a home for retired religious leaders of
all denominations.

3. Left from Green Cove Springs on State 48 to SHANDS BRIDGE (fishing boats), 4 m.,
spanning the St. Johns River. This bridge is 2.5 miles in length.

East of ORANGEDALE, 6.5 m, (29 alt., 50 pop.), State 48 continues to
ST.AUGUSTINE, 26 m. (7 alt., 12,111 pop.) (see Tour i&).

Between Green Cove Springs and Palatka the country is sparsely set-
tled. The pine woods along the way abound in small game. Large tracts are

TO UK. 2 353

owned by non-resident cattle and lumber interests, and for many years
farmers who attempted to fence and cultivate land were warned to leave
the county. Along the roadside are many varieties of wild flowers, notably
the fly catcher, or pitcher plant; insects, attracted by a sweet fluid exuded
by its veins, fall into its pitcherlike leaves and are unable to crawl out.

US 17 crosses the old BELLAMY ROAD, 33.4 m., part of an early highway
between Pensacola and St.Augustine. Initially proposed at the first Flor-
ida Territorial Convention in 1832 and approved by Congress two years
later, the road was constructed by John Bellamy (see Tour 76) from Deer-
field, on Pensacola Bay, along an Indian trail to the Choctawhatchee
River, thence to Ochesee Bluff on the Apalachicola River, and finally to
St.Augustine. The length of the road was measured by counting the revo-
lutions of an ox-cart wheel.

BOSTWICK, 43.1 m. (34 alt., 200 pop.), is a turpentine and truck-
farming settlement, once the site of a large stock farm. Truck loads of cab-
bages roll out of this section in spring; signs posted along the highway di-
rect truck drivers to farms when the crop is ready for market.

The cabbages are planted in straight furrows cut by mule-drawn plows,
harrows, or discs. They are picked in the early spring by Negroes living in
the vicinity of the farms, who bargain for wages ranging from $i to $4 a
day. The pickers cut the cabbage heads from the stalk with a knife and
toss them into field crates which, when full, are carried to a packing shed
in one corner of the field. Here the heads are trimmed, crated, and stacked
to await the truckers. Truck drivers usually buy loads in bulk, paying the
farmer by the ton.

PALATKA, 51.7 m. (25 alt., 6,500 pop.), seat of Putnam County, built
at an elbow turn of the mile-wide St. Johns River, has been an important
shipping center and port since the iSyo's. Lumbering is the dominant in-
dustry; a cypress mill, one of the largest in the United States, cuts 40,000,-
ooo feet annually.

Some of the town's wide streets are paved with brick. In the shade of
large oaks and magnolias are many old houses built in the period immedi-
ately following the War between the States, when Palatka was a popular
tourist resort and river traffic reached its height. On the menu of one of the
fashionable hotels of the day, patrons were offered ' adolescent chicken. 7

The trading post established here on the river in 1821 took its name
from the Indian word pilaklikaha (crossing over). On March 10, 1864, Pa-
latka was occupied without resistance by Federal troops, supported by
gunboats. After a number of skirmishes the Federals withdrew, but late in
May landed another force 8 miles to the south from the steamer Colum-
bine. While Confederate spies watched, the Federal troops set off overland
for Volusia. As soon as they had disappeared, Confederates trained light
artillery on the boat, which soon raised the white flag. Eighty-two Fed-
erals were killed and 65 taken prisoners; the Confederates suffered no
losses. On August 3 Union troops abandoned the vicinity.

A dispatch in the Tallahassee Floridian of April 26, 1867, noted that a
Union League had been formed in Palatka : with a view of making a strict
division in politics.' In December of that year a council of the ELu Klux

3S4 FLORIDA

Klan was organized, according to its constitution to 'counteract the evil
influences now being brought to bear on politics by the Union League.'
The hand-written document, now in the State archives at Tallahassee, in-
cludes a diagram showing where each of the officers was to sit during con-
claves.

From the late 1870*3 until the early i goo's, when railroads were extended
into the territory, the St Johns River carried quantities of timber, naval
stores, and citrus fruit to market. Luxurious passenger steamers from as
far as the Mississippi brought tourists up the river. As almost all vessels
were wood burners, an extensive industry was founded on supplying them
with fuel. Criblike piers were built out into the channel at intervals, and
on them wood was stacked. During the day someone was on hand to check
deliveries and receive tickets for the wood taken, but at night boat crews
deposited tickets in a locked box or keg on the dock. Signed by the master
or purser of the boat, these tickets passed for currency among river-town
merchants and were redeemable in cash at Jacksonville.

In the AZALEA RAVINE GARDENS (admission, $1), Twigg St. between
Division St. and Mosely Ave., 85 acres developed with the assistance of
FERA and Civil Works Administration labor, more than 100,000 azaleas
and thousands of palms, roses, flame vines, crape myrtles, magnolias, and
other subtropical trees and shrubs are planted. Foot trails wind across the
steep slopes and through the lush cool depths of the natural ravine, encir-
cled by a 5-mile loop drive. Fed by springs and spanned by a number of
suspension bridges, the creek widens frequently into quiet pools covered
with lilies and other flowering plants.

ST.MARKS EPISCOPAL CHURCH, cor, Madison and 2nd Sts., erected about
1850, is a frame structure with a single steeple, vertical weatherboarding
and battens, and small stained-glass windows. The building was designed
by Richard Upjohn, designer of New York City's Trinity Church. Union
troops used the structure during the War between the States.

The giant oak, on Rivers St., was formerly the scene of exciting political
rallies. ' Governors were made and unmade beneath its branches/ it was
said. At a big rally here in the iSyo's orators first called Palatka the ' Gem
of the St. Johns. 7 In later years the Gem City Guards and their band, part
of the National Guard, were renowned throughout Florida.

The CONFEDERATE MONUMENT, in Courthouse Square, has at its base a
4o-pound cannon ball fired during the Battle of Palatka in 1864 (see above).

The MESSMER HOUSE, 224 ist St., was erected by the Union army
during the War between the States and periodically used as an officers'
headquarters. The one-story structure, 90 feet long and 40 feet wide, is
built of hand-hewn pine, and has pillars of coquina, said to have been
hauled by oxen from St.Augustine.

The MULLHOLLAND PLACE (open), at the north end of ist St., was the
home and estate of Judge Isaac H. Bronson (1802-55). A Palatka social
center in the i85<D 7 s, the square two-story house, with porch supported by
tall square columns, sits back from the road amid old shade and fruit trees.
Because of its strategic position on the river it was occupied in turn by
Union and Confederate troops during the War between the States. Sol-

TOUR 2 355

diers wrote fierce challenges to their enemies on the walls, it is said, but al-
ways made certain the house was unoccupied before venturing into it.

Palatka is at the junction with State 28 (see Tour 19), which unites with
US 1 7 for 5. 6 miles.

EAST PALATKA, 53.4 m. (17 alt., 1,000 pop.), on the east bank of the
St Johns River, is a shipping point for vegetables, fruit, and lumber. The
road runs through a high hammock where dark green bay and magnolia
trees predominate. The town was the northern terminal of the St.Johns &
Halifax Railway, a primitive logging road that ran south to Garfield in
1886. In 1889, Utley J. White, owner of the road, disposed of it to Henry
M. Flagler, who extended the line to Ormond and Daytona, and inaugu-
rated passenger service (see Transportation).

Left from East Palatka on State 14 is HASTINGS, 8.5 m. (10 alt., 673 pop.), an
unusually large early-potato market. During 1937 approximately 15,000 acres in the
vicinity yielded 2,092 carloads of Spaulding Rose, Green Mountain, and Red Bliss
varieties, valued at $1,882,800. In 1918 a scarcity of potatoes in northern markets
boosted the price to $20 a barrel. Growers here harvested an unusually large crop, and
buyers and commission men from all parts of the country rushed in and paid cash for
their purchases. So heavy were deposits in the small local bank that the town officials
called out the Home Guards to protect the building and its contents. Uniformed men
patrolled the streets each night and remained on duty until armored trucks arrived to
transfer the cash to Jacksonville banks. A field laboratory of the Agricultural Experi-
ment Station of the University of Florida, under the direction of the State Board of
Control in Tallahassee, is maintained here for experimental work in the study of
potato diseases.

SAN MATEO, 56.8 m. (69 alt., 175 pop.), on a high bluff above the
St.Johns River, contains fine orange groves, old frame houses, and many
large oaks and magnolias. The fertile countryside has been cultivated for
nearly two centuries; many orange groves have been bearing fruit for more
than 50 years. Experiments were conducted here as early as 1912 in pro-
tecting citrus groves from frosts. Today some growers employ a skeleton
structure of water pipes raised above the ground, with cross-pipes forming
a roofing frame, which furnishes not only protection but irrigation. The
method is not used extensively, however, because of its relatively high cost.

In 1760 the townsite was included in a land grant of 20,000 acres to
Denys Rolle, a wealthy member of the British parliament. The village of
Rollestown, called Charlotia by its visionary founder, was established in
1765 on the St.Johns River about a mile from San Mateo. Here Rolle
brought a motley crew of men and women from the slums and streets of
London, intending to rehabilitate these unfortunates, create a Utopia, and
make Charlotia its capital. Disease, dissatisfaction, and desertion soon de-
creased the ranks of the colonists. Undaunted, Rolle purchased additional
land until he controlled 80,000 acres; he worked his plantations with slave
labor, and struggled along for several years, shipping rice, corn, beef, lum-
ber, and naval stores. In one season he exported 1,000 gallons of orange
wine. When Florida was returned to Spain in 1783, Rolle abandoned his
plantation and removed with his slaves to the Bahamas.

San Mateo is at the junction with State 28 (see Tour 19).

SATSUMA, 63.1 m. (78 alt., 155 pop.), named for the orange grown

356 FLORIDA

throughout north Florida, is a small trading center in a citrus and truck-
growing area. Rambling old two-story farmhouses sit back from the road,
their driveways bordered with vine-draped oaks, their yards bright with
flowering shrubs.

Right from Satsuma on State 308 is WELAKA, 7 m. (26 alt., 409 pop.) ; here is the
FLORIDA STATE FISH HATCHERY AND GAME FARM (open), a 2,5oo-acre reservation de-
veloped by the Resettlement Administration with the State Board of Conservation.
The shad hatchery on the river front annually releases millions of fingerlings into the
St. Johns River. The aquarium contains various species of fresh-water fish native to
Florida; 24 large outdoor brood ponds capable of holding 3,000 bass have been con-
structed. Adjoining the hatchery are the deer park, the quail farm, an aviary, and
well-arranged exhibits of Florida bird life.

CRESCENT CITY, 76.4 m. (955 pop.), is built on a bluff overlooking
Crescent Lake; orange groves crowd into the center of town. CRESCENT
LAKE (L) and LAKE STELLA (R) offer good fishing and bathing.

SEVILLE, 84.8 m. (53 alt., 585 pop.), in the 'midst of the high pine and
citrus belt, faces Lake Louise. On fertile hammocks of this section the
small Seville orange grows wild; the trees are said to have been imported
and planted by the Spaniards.

Between Seville and Barberville extensive orange groves border both
sides of the highway. The Seville orange tree is unusually tall and wide
spreading. While its fruit is smaller than other varieties, manufacturers of
marmalade prefer it. Several small hamlets cluster around barnlike citrus-
packing houses; occasionally a turpentine camp with a scattering of Negro
shanties is passed. During winter when hickory trees are bare, large clumps
of mistletoe among the boughs are gathered and sold by local people.

In the Florida scrub country east of the highway, tales are told of the
dance of the whooping crane, a spectacle described by Marjorie Kinnan
Rawlings in her novel The Yearling (1938). Assembling in marshlands, the
cranes move in formations as if dancing a cotillion. Two of the birds stand
apart, making strange not unmusical sounds. Others, silent, shuffle slowly
in a circle about a group that moves counterclockwise. The dancers flap
their wings and lift their feet, dropping and raising their heads from their
white breasts. When the two ' musicians' finish and drop back into the
outer circle, another pair takes their place, and the performance is re-
peated. After perhaps an hour the dance ends and the birds depart,
whooping their strange harsh cries, forming a great circle that straightens
into a long wavering Hne as they disappear beyond the horizon.

A large turpentine colony, 89.7 m., consists of makeshift Negro cabins
grouped about a smoke-blackened still. Barrels of turpentine and rosin line
the roadside awaiting transportation to the nearest shipping point.

On Saturday nights many Negroes congregate in ' jooks ' (see Folklore) to
sing and dance. Some of the merrymakers prefer to gamble; others attend
to meet women from other camps. Occasionally the music is broken by the
crack of a pistol; at other times differences are settled with knives, not-
withstanding signs reading, 'No Guns or Knives Aloud/ Patrons are also
warned, 'You can DRINK in here, but go outside to get DRUNK! ' Some
jooks announce, 'No women allowed en hear; this don't mean Bob, it
means you I'

TOUR 2 357

BARBER VILLE, 95.2 m. (44 alt., 357 pop.), a trading community for
farmers, was founded on the site of an old plantation. The settlement was
at first without stores, and women are said to have driven ox teams over
Indian trails to the Atlantic seaboard to obtain salt.

Barberville is at the junction (R) with State 19 (see Tour 21).

DE LEON SPRINGS, 102.6 m. (450 pop.), is a quiet village known
chiefly for the PONCE DE LEON SPRINGS, on a short drive (R) through an
arch and a dense growth of trees. The springs form a subterranean stream
flowing approximately 94,000 gallons per minute, part of which is im-
pounded in a large circular pool flanked by a concrete retaining wall. Ex-
cess water cascades over spillways into a lake and eventually flows to the
St. Johns River, 7 miles to the west. A casino stands at the edge of the pool;
a boathouse faces the lake below the springs. Near by are the RUINS or A
SUGAR MILL; according to local tradition, it was built by Spaniards previ-
ous to 1763, and additions to the mill were made by the British after Flor-
ida was ceded to them in 1763. Partly demolished by Indians during the
Seminole War, the mill was rebuilt in 1854, only to be destroyed by Fed-
eral troops in 1864.

In 1819, when Florida became a Territory, this area, then known as
Spring Garden, was exchanged for 50 Negro women, and the land planted
to corn, sugar cane, and indigo. John James Audubon, the naturalist, vis-
ited here in 1832, traveling by horseback along sandy trails. He wrote of an
old water wheel, a duplicate of which is in operation; he described a pair of
ibises that he shot, the wild orange trees, and his wanderings along the
creek and streams leading to the St. Johns River.

At 108 m. is a junction with US 92-State 21 (see Tour 8), which unites
with US 17 for 2.1 miles.

DELAND, 110.1 m. (27 alt, 5,246 pop.), seat of Volusia County and
center of a fertile citrus area, is also a college town. Many of its activities
revolve about the campus of Stetson University.

DeLand was founded in 1876 by Henry A. DeLand, baking powder
manufacturer, who planted water oaks 50 feet apart along prospective
streets. So determined were early settlers to make their community no-
table for shade trees that in 1886 the city council ruled that property own-
ers would be allowed a 50^ tax rebate for each tree two inches or more in
diameter, planted by them along the streets. The response threatened to
bankrupt the town, and the ordinance was repealed less than two years
later.

Lue Gim Gong, a Chinese known as the Luther Burbank of Florida, set-
tled here in 1886 and soon gained recognition as a citrus culturist. In 1889
he introduced a new variety of orange, for which the U.S. Department of
Agriculture awarded him the Wilder medal, and in 1892 perfected the Gim
Gong grapefruit, which withstands 10 degrees greater cold than other va-
rieties. He pollinated a currant with a grape to create the cherry currant,
which attains the size of a cherry; perfected a peach for growth in green-
houses ; and produced a salmon-colored raspberry.

Stetson University was established by DeLand in 1886, as DeLand Uni-
versity, with the financial assistance of John B. Stetson, hat manufacturer.

358 FLORIDA

Co-educational and non-sectarian, it was incorporated as a university un-
der its present name in 1889. The school is sponsored by a conference of
Baptist churches. Many of its 1,000 students are from northern states.

The HULLEY MEMORIAL TOWER, a square red brick campanile 80 feet in
height, rising from a dressed limestone base, stands on the campus as a me-
morial to Lincoln Hulley, a former president of the school, and his wife,
Eloise. In the CARNEGIE-SAMPSON LIBRARY (open 7:30-10 p.m.), gift of
Andrew Carnegie, are the library and the sorority and class rooms for
women students. The Sampson Annex contains Government documents
and spacious reading rooms.

ELIZABETH HALL, a two-story red brick structure with a square tower
and an open arched and columned belfry, houses an ART MUSEUM (open
daily, 9-5; free), established in 1910 by friends of Stetson. It contains sev-
eral hundred paintings of American, French, and Italian Schools. The
SCHOOL OF TECHNOLOGY AND HALL OF SCIENCE, opposite Elizabeth Hall,,
is a two-story gray stucco building set in landscaped grounds.

The DELAND PUBLIC LIBRARY, 449 E.New York Ave., founded in 1912,,
contains 13,000 volumes, and was given to the city by Seward W. Baker.
The TOURIST COMMUNITY HOUSE AND RECREATION CENTER (open Sept.
to May), City Hall Square, has assembly rooms, a checker pagoda, a bowl-
ing alley, shuffleboard and roque courts. In the attractively landscaped
CITY PARK, Indiana Ave., is a municipal bandshell; in winter concerts
are given (free) by the Stetson University Band on Sunday afternoons.

The ROYAL FRENCH MUSEUM (open daily 2-5; adm. 25), S.Spring Gar-
den Ave. and Camphor Lake, was formerly the home of John B. Stetson.
The paneling of its interior was once part of a French chateau. The mu-
seum contains documents and relics of medieval Europe, including the
Shrine of the Bishops of Liege; the library of Louis XVIII of France and
his cousin, Count d'Avaray; a will bearing the seal and signature of Louis-
XVIII; and rare books, furniture, tapestries, jeweled prayer books, crosses,
prayer rings, and other objects.

DeLand is at the junction with US Q2-State 21 (see Tour So).

Section c. DELAND to RAINES CITY, 79.9 m. US 17

Between DELAND, m., and Haines City the route penetrates the
heart of Florida's winter-celery region and traverses a rolling lake-studded
area Covered with large citrus groves. Large cypress swamps and stretches
of pine forests, worked by turpentine and lumber interests, are inter-
spersed among the farms.

ORANGE CITY, 5.6 m. (35 alt., 572 pop.), founded in the i8 7 o's by
three families from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, attracted by the possibilities of
citrus culture, was originally known as Wisconsin Settlement.

Left from Orange City 4 m. on a paved road to CAMP CASSADAGA, conducted by the
Cassadaga Spiritualist Association, which was founded by George B. Colby in 1893.
The first meeting of the association was held here in that year. Within a fenced area of
25 acres, deeded to the association by the founder, are a stucco auditorium seating
2,000, a frame two-story hotel, apartment houses, and many one- and two-story

TOUR 2 359

cottages on shaded .lanes along the shores of small lakes. The post office, general store,
and other residences lie outside the enclosed tract.

^The camp is the second largest of its kind in the United States, ranking just below
Lily Dale, New York, described in its literature as 'the fountain head of modern
spiritualism.' To Cassadaga come mediums, who charge for seances in their own resi-
dences, and followers of spiritualism, eager for spiritual advice, messages from the
other world, and the opportunity of public worship in the auditorium. During the
November-to-April season the program includes lectures, public and private seances,
and demonstrations in spiritual healing. Camp literature advertises, 'Lectures and
message words by the Highest Talent Obtainable.* Typical also are: 'Following the
Lily Dale Triumph! Moon Trail. Through the Trance Intermediaryship of Horace S.
Hambling, on his second visit to the United States from London, England. Will be in
Cassadaga the entire season. 7 'P.L.O.A. Keeler, Noted Slate Writing Medium, will
be in Cassadaga during February and March. 7

The Cassadagan, published semi-monthly during January, February, and March,
carries advertisements of mediums available for private appointments. 'Psychic
power can be yours/ reads one, 'an amazing discovery enables anyone to develop
psychic power ... by means of the wonderful psychas . . . used with equal bene-
fit by both ladies and gentlemen, singly or in groups/ An editorial declares that Cas-
sadaga 'welcomes spiritualists, investigators, and all who are "thinkers" in the midst
of a creed-bound world.'

The camp rules provide that 'all ordained spiritualist ministers may use the title of
"reverend," and give spiritual advice and messages, and fulfill the duties and powers
belonging to the pastorate of a recognized church. Certified mediums may exercise
any and all phases of mediumship, trance, clairvoyance, clairaudience, trumpet, heal-
ing, etc., but not the duties of a pastor. The local board of directors shall specify the
qualifications of their ministers, mediums, lecturers and healers, and shall duly certify
the same when found satisfactory. 3

At 7.4 m. on US 17 is the junction with a paved road.

Left on this road is ENTERPRISE, 3m. (27 alt., 250 pop.), on Lake Monroe, for-
merly called Benson Springs, and once the southern terminus of St. Johns River ship-
ping. The town was founded in 1841 by Cornelius Taylor, cousin of Zachary Taylor.
Until 1888 it was the seat of Volusia County. Here is the FLORIDA METHODIST
ORPHANAGE, in which approximately 400 children are cared for.

Right from Enterprise 1 m. on a paved road to GREEN SPRINGS, in a basin 50 feet
wide and 100 feet deep. The near-by woodlands offer inviting spots for picnics. The
rear yard of the old STARKE HOUSE, 1.8 m., built in 1880 by Dr. James Starke, is the
basin of a dried-up spring, the floor of which is carpeted with ferns. His gardener had
been in the employ of Queen Victoria. An avenue of cedars leads from the house to a
sink containing rare aquatic plants.

Along the St Johns River the deer's tongue, a fragrant shrub, grows wild
in the woods; its leaf is used in the preparation of smoking and chewing to-
baccos.

The highway crosses the St. Johns River on a drawbridge, 13.6 m.; here
the river is a narrow stream, its coffee-colored waters lined with thick
woods. In spring and summer, water hyacinths become packed against
the bridge underpinning, and often obstruct navigation, despite the
effoits of government engineers to check its growth. The hyacinth, a
native of Brazil, was introduced into America in 1884 when specimens
were exhibited at the New Orleans' Cotton Exposition and carried from
there to many parts of the lower South. A woman of San Mateo on the
St. Johns River placed it in her garden pool where it multiplied so rapidly
that she had to dump the excess into the river.

360 FLORIDA

The highway swings (L) in a long sweeping curve along the shore of
LAKE MONROE, which was lined with piers and warehouses in the
i88o's. A large cypress swamp borders the road for nearly two miles a
gloomy, moss-draped mass of trees that seem dead in winter, but come to
Sf e again in the spring. Cypress, magnolias, gums, and occasional cabbage
palms are unusually large here, and many of their trunks are swathed in
ivy, woodbine, and wild grape vines. Clumps of willows, bright green in
spring, and pools of water, covered with pale blue h}^acinths and ivory
white lilies, carpet the floor of the jungle swamp.

SANFORD, 17.9 m. (31 alt., 10,100 pop.), capital of the Florida celery
belt, lies on a rich alluvial deposit 30 miles square. According to the report
of the State Marketing Bureau for 1937, Florida shipped some 3,325,000
crates of celery to market, a large part of which were from this section.
Land here is valued at $1,000 an acre. In the spring even the yards of city
houses are planted to celery and lettuce.

Subirrigation systems utilize the abundant supply of water from flow-
ing wells. Tile is laid with open joints about 18 inches below the surface of
the fields, and water running through it is turned on and off as needed.
Seed beds are planted during November and December, and the seedlings
transferred to the fields a month later. The crop is planted, dug, trimmed,
washed, tied in three-stalk bunches, and packed for shipment by Negro
workers.

Sanford is an outgrowth of Mellonville, a trading post established in
1837 in the shadow of a frontier fort. The SITE OF FORT MELLON is marked
by a stone monument, Mellonville Ave. and 2nd St. This outpost was the
scene of many encounters with the Indians.

In 1871 General Henry R. Sanford, former U.S. Minister to Belgium,
bought 12,000 acres here, including the townsite, and brought in 60 Ne-
groes from central Florida to clear the land and plant citrus groves.
Whites in the vicinity protested, and one night, armed with shotguns,
attacked the camp, and drove the Negroes off, killing one and wounding
several.

Unable to obtain other labor, Sanford sent an agent to Sweden who re-
cruited 100 workers, offering them passage and all expenses in return for a
year's work. This also aroused opposition, particularly in Jacksonville,
where a campaign was begun against what was termed a disguised form of
slavery. The Swedes were encouraged to run away; agents sent after them
were arrested; lawsuits and other difficulties followed. But the majority of
Swedes remained and fulfilled their contract, and Sanford gave each of
them a 5-acre grove. In 1881 more Swedes arrived and soon prospered. The
freeze of 1894-95 struck the community a hard blow, and it turned from
citrus culture to truck gardening. Many of Florida's groves, however, bene-
fited from the extensive and carefully conducted experiments that San-
ford carried on here in the early years.

The MUNICIPAL PIER extends into Lake Monroe to a bandshell, 300 feet
from shore; the approach to the pier is landscaped with coco plumosa
palms and flowering shrubs. On Lake Shore Blvd. is a small Zoo with out-
door cages.

TOUR 2 361

At 24.3 m. is the junction with two roads.

1. Right from this junction to a parking space, 2 m., where a marker indicates a
foot trail leading to the BIG TREE, a cypress estimated to be more than 3,000 years
old, 47 feet in circumference at the base and 125 feet high. The tree was named 'The
Senator' for M.O.Overstreet, State Senator (1920-24), who donated the tree and the
land surrounding it to Seminole County as a park.

2. Left from the junction to the SEMINOLE DRIVING PARK, 2 m., a club established
by sportsmen as a training course for harness-racing horses. Every winter from 50 to
150 horses are trained here; Rosalind, the 1936 winner of the Hambletonian, a classic
among harness races, was put through her paces here. In the park are stables, a train-
ing track, and a grandstand seating 2,000.

FERN PARK, 28.6 m. (120 pop.), is inhabited largely by employees of
a large fernery which borders both sides of the road. Asparagus plumosus,
Boston, and maidenhair ferns are grown in slat houses, cut, packed in dry
ice, and shipped to northern florists. Many of the scattered dwellings are
interesting because of their steep roofs, round shingled towers, and mul-
lioned windows, very different from the pseudo-Spanish architecture of the
boom period.

MAITLAND, 33.2 m. (91 alt., 511 pop.), was settled before the War be-
tween the States on the site of Fort Maitland, built in 1838, and named for
Captain William S. Maitland of the U.S. army. A group of Union veterans,
including Louis F. Lawrence, Captain Josiah Eaton, and E.C.Hungerford,
settled here in the early i88o's. When they decided in 1884 to incorporate
the settlement and found that the law required 30 registered voters, they
induced Negroes employed in the groves to become residents. The Negroes
soon outnumbered the whites, and some were elected to office. Lawrence
asked the Negro leaders to start a community of their own, and offered
them a tract at a low price. They accepted and moved to a new settlement,
Eatonville (see below). In the latter part of the same decade Maitland, then
the terminus of the South Florida Railroad, became a popular resort.

Maitland was the center of Florida's fruit-fly campaign in 1929-30,
when intensive and successful efforts to rid the State of the pest were led
by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Infested fruit was first discovered
on a grapefruit tree in Orlando (see Orlando), but the section about Mait-
land was hardest hit. All groves were inspected and sprayed, as were trucks
leaving the area. Fruit stores and all freight cars and trucks passing
through were screened. All fruit shipments were sterilized by steam. Crews
of men cut, picked, or uprooted other plants harboring the destructive
Mediterranean fruit fly, alias ceratitis capitata. This pest bores a hole in
fruit and there lays its eggs in great numbers, for the fly is most prolific.
The larvae consume the pulp, causing the fruit to drop. The larvae then
burrow into the earth to emerge in time as flies and continue their life cy-
cle. When the campaign closed, the pest had been eradicated.

Right from Maitland on a paved road to EATONVILLE, 1 m., (136 pop ), dating
back to 1886, one of the first towns incorporated by Negroes in the United States. It
was named for Captain Josiah Eaton of Maitland (see above), a friend of H.W.Law-
rence, who built an Odd Fellows Hall and a church, and gave them to the community.
Among early buildings still in use is the HUNGERFORD NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL
SCHOOL FOR NEGROES, erected and supported by E.C.Hungerford, of Maitland, in

362 FLORIDA

memory of his nephew, a physician, who died of smallpox contracted while treating
Negroes during an epidemic. Eatonville is the birthplace and home of Zora Neale
Hurston (1903- ), and the locale of her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God
(1937). This is Eatonville in her eyes:

'Maitland is Maitland until it gets to Hurst's corner, and then it is Eatonville.
Eight in front of Willie SewelPs yellow-painted house the hard road quits being the
hard road for a generous mile and becomes the heart of Eatonville. Or from a stran-
ger's point of view, you could say that the road just bursts through on its way from
TJS 1 7 to US 441, scattering Eatonville right and left.

' On the right, after you leave the Sewell place, you don't meet a thing that people
live in until you come to the Green Lantern on the main corner. That corner has al-
ways been the main corner, because that is where Joe Clarke, the founder and first
mayor of Eatonville, built his store when he started the town nearly sixty years ago,
so that people have gotten used to gathering there and talking. Only Joe Clarke sold
groceries and general merchandise, while Lee Glenn sells drinks of all kinds and what-
ever goes with transient rooms. St.Lawrence Methodist church and parsonage are on
that same side of the road between Sewell's and "the shop" and perhaps claim the
soul of the place, but the shop is the heart of it. After the shop you come to the Widow
Dash's orange grove, her screened porch, "double hips," and her new husband. Way
on down at the end of the road to the right is Claude Mann's rilling station and be-
yond that the last house in Eatonville, the big barn on the lake.

'Take the left side of the road and except for Macedonia Baptist Church, people
just live along that side and play croquet in Armetta Jones' backyard behind the huge
camphor tree. After the people quit living along that side of the road, the Hungerf ord
Industrial School begins and runs along the road as far as the land goes. The inade-
quate buildings stop short in the cleared land on the fringe of Eatonville proper. And
west of it all, beyond village and school, everybody knows that the sun makes his nest
in some lonesome lake in the woods back there and gets his night's rest.

'But all of Eatonville is not on the hard road that becomes Apopka Avenue as it
passes through town. There are back streets on both sides of the road. The two back
streets on the right side are full of little houses squatting under hovering oaks. These
houses are old and were made of the town's first dreams. There is loved Lake Sabelia,
with its small colony of very modern houses, lived in by successful villagers. Away in
the woody rises beyond Sabelia is Eaton ville's Dogtown that looks as if it belonged on
the African veldt. Off the road on the left is the brown-with-white-trim modern pub-
lic school, with its well kept yards and playgrounds, which Howard Miller always
looks after, though he can scarcely read and write. They call this part of town Mars
Hill, as against Bones Valley to the right of the road. They call the tree-shaded land
that runs past the schoolhouse West street, and it goes past several small groves until
it passes Jim Steele's fine orange grove and dips itself in Lake Belle, which is the home
of Eaton ville's most celebrated resident, the world's largest alligator '

This legendary alligator, it is said, is no other than a slave who escaped from a
Georgia plantation and joined the Indians during the Seminole War. When the In-
dians retreated, he did not follow but instead made big medicine' on the lake shore,
for he had been a celebrated conjuring man in Africa. He transformed himself into an
alligator, the god of his tribe, and slipped into the water. Now and then he resumes
human form, so people say, and roams the country about Eatonville. At such times
all the alligators in the surrounding lakes bellow loudly all night long. * The big one
has gone back home/ whisper the villagers.

WINTER PARK, 36.5 m. (96 alt., 3,686 pop.), a suburb of Orlando,
built around Lakes Maitland, Osceola, Virginia, and Killarney, has been
called 'a town that has become a university/ because of the part Rollins
College, a progressive co-educational school, played in the life of the com-
munity. The town was founded as Lakeview in 1858, its name being
changed to Osceola in 1870 and to Winter Park in 1881, when New Eng-
landers laid out a new 6ooacre townsite according to a city plan which has
since been followed.

T O U R 2 363

ROLLINS COLLEGE, established in 1885 by the General Congregational
Association, was named for Alonzo W. Rollins, a wealthy dry-goods mer-
chant of Chicago, who with his family gave much money to the institu-
tion. Denominational affiliations have now been relinquished. The 600-
acre campus, on the shore of Lake Virginia, is shaded by live oaks and
pines. The newest buildings are of Spanish-Mediterranean style; the thick
masonry and hollow-tile walls, window grilles, balconies, tile roofs, and
walled gardens represent an adaptation of Spanish architecture of the
Middle Ages.

The school's experiments in educational techniques include a conference
plan of teaching, allowing the student during his two-hour class periods
either to study, to confer with his instructor, or to join in group discussion;
an achievement plan of graduation permits more time for specialization;
the annual tuition fee is computed by dividing the actual cost of operating
the school by the number of students. The enrollment is limited to 500 stu-
dents. Dr.Hamilton Holt, former editor of the Independent, is president

The KNOWLES MEMORIAL CHAPEL, Interlachen Ave., of modified Span-
ish Renaissance design, was erected in 1932 by Mrs.Frances Knowles War-
ren in memory of her father, F.Bangs Knowles, one of the founders of Rol-
lins College. The entrance is a deeply recessed doorway under a paneled
arch, and above is a stone carving picturing a Franciscan friar planting a
cross in the earth between two palms, with a group of conquistadores on one
side and Florida Indians on the other; in the background are two Spanish
caravels riding at anchor. The interior of the chapel reveals a wide lofty
nave with narrow side aisles divided by massive piers with round arches.
All interior structural stone is a warm-colored Florida travertine. The rear
gallery, seating no, is lighted by a large circular stained-glass window of
Renaissance design.

The ANNIE RUSSELL THEATER, joined by a loggia to the chapel, har-
monizes with the larger structure, both having been designed by Ralph A.
Cram of Boston and Richard Kiehnel of Miami. Its facade is a triple-
arched open loggia, above which is an arcaded porch reaching to the tile
roof. Flanking loggias, poly chromed rafters, and ornamental Florida tra-
vertine embellish the interior. The stage is flanked by a single box and
crowned by a plain proscenium. Mrs.Edward W. Bok of Philadelphia gave
the playhouse to Rollins.

The WALK OF FAME is constructed of more than 450 steppingstones
taken from birthplaces or former homes of distinguished men and women,
including Benjamin Franklin and Buffalo Bill.

During Founders' Week, celebrated annually in February, outstanding
contemporaries talk on topics of the day in what is called the Animated
Magazine. Among others who have contributed to these programs are
former Attorney General Homer C. Cummings, Secretary of State Cor-
dell Hull, Willa Gather, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, and the late Jane Addams.

An INDIAN MOUND, cor. Interlachen and Knowles Aves., stands in a
small park among many trees with Indian markings. This is said to have
been a favorite camping ground of Osceola, Seminole leader (see History).

364 FLORIDA

ORLANDO, 38.2 m. (in alt., 27,330 pop.) (see Orlando) .
Points of Interest: Zoo, Eola Park, Sunshine Park, old residences, and others.

Orlando is at the junction with State 22 (see Tour 9) and US 441 (see
Tour 21).
At 42.6 m. is the junction with Gatlin Ave.

Left on Gatlin Ave. to the SITE or FOE.T GATLIN, 1.5 m., marked by a square gran-
ite column. The fort, established in 1837 and abandoned in 1848, was named for
Dr. John S. Gath'n, Assistant Surgeon, U.S. Army, who lost his life in the Bade M&s-
(see Tour 22).

PINECASTLE, 44.1 m. (421 pop.), on the shores of Lake Con way, was
so named in the early iSyo's when Will Wallace Harney, Orlando poet,
built an octagonal house here and called it Pinecastle. Later settlers had
their mail sent to Harney's, and when a post office was established it was
named for his home.

At 46.3 m. is the junction with paved State 286.

Left on this highway to DAETWYLER'S NURSERY, 1.2 m , a botanical park that con-
tains more than 150,000 azaleas in 130 varieties, 75,000 palms, and many species of
ornamental trees and plants, among them Australian tree ferns and Bird of Paradise
plants.

TAFT, 47 m. (296 pop.), was called Smithville prior to 1909, when it was
renamed in honor of President William Howard Taf t, who was inaugu-
rated that year. The land immediately south of the town is well adapted to
cattle grazing, and during fall and winter stockmen burn over thousands of
acres to furnish new pasturage for stock. Partridge peas and other vegeta-
tion bring quail and dove to the territory. The Florida Field Trial Associa-
tion holds trials here annually for bird dogs.

KISSIMMEE, 57.7 m. (70 alt., 3,163 pop.), known colloquially as Cow
Town, stands at the head of Lake Tohopekaliga in one of Florida's chief
cattle areas. Its broad main street, lined with two- and three-story brick
buildings, is divided by a parkway landscaped with cabbage palms. Many
spacious old frame houses with galleries and wide porches, built and occu-
pied by wealthy cattlemen more than half a century ago, still stand. Some
are surrounded by large lawns as open as the range; others, far back from
the road, are almost concealed by towering moss-hung oaks and clumps of
bamboos and oleanders. High-booted cowhands invade the shopping dis-
trict on Saturday nights; stores display saddles, spurs, 1 6-foot cow whips,
and broad-brimmed felt hats. The first bars in America built to enable
horsemen, to take a drink without dismounting were popular in Kissim-
mee about 1870, a decade before they were introduced into the West.

During the second Spanish occupation of Florida, particularly between
1813 and 1821, many settlers, impressed with the success of the Indians in
raising cattle, made requests for Spanish grants of land, which they stocked
with cattle brought from the Old World, together with herds driven down
from Georgia and the Carolinas. Gradually the pasturage of the Kissim-
rnee Valley attracted stockmen, and as fast as the Indians retreated, cat-
tlemen moved in.

TOUR 2 365

Before 1825 there existed as a recognized type the Florida woods cow,
descendant of the original Spanish stock. Unprepossessing in appearance,
of outstanding value for neither beef nor milk, ridiculously small, weigh-
ing much less than 500 pounds, she could survive here where blooded cat-
tle perished. She was content with 10 to 20 acres of pasturage; in dry
weather she knew how to live in swamps, and in wet weather she could do
well on higher ground; she required no feed other than what she could find
for herself; snakes did not harm her; sand spurs she relished as dessert. On
a visit to the region in 1895, Frederic Remington, writer and painter re-
nowned for his Western scenes, described the cattle range here as 'flat and
sandy, with mile on mile of straight pine timber, each tree an exact dupli-
cate of its neighbor tree, and underneath the scrub palmettoes, the twisted
brakes and hammocks, and the gnarled water oaks . . . the land gives
only a tough wiregrass, and the poor little cattle, no bigger than a donkey,
wander half starved and horribly emaciated in search of it.'

In sharp lines Remington etched the portrait of the Cracker cowboy of
the time: 'Two emaciated Texas ponies pattered down the street/ he
wrote, 'bearing wild looking individuals whose hanging hair, drooping
hats, and generally bedraggled appearance would remind you at once of
the Spanish moss which hangs so quietly and helplessly to the limbs of the
oaks out in the swamps . . . They had about four dollars' worth of
clothes between them, rode McClellan saddles with saddlebags, and guns
tied on before.' The cowboys, he added, did not use ropes but worked their
cattle into strong log corrals about a day's march apart, assisted by large
fierce curs trained to pursue cattle and 'even take them by the nose.' Cat-
tle stealing was common, and cowmen shot and stabbed each other for pos-
session of 'scrawny creatures not fit for a pointer-dog to mess on.' Owners
of ranches never ventured into the woods alone or to their doors at night,
and seldom kept a light burning in their houses. The almost unexplored
Everglades lay close by and with a half -hour's start a man who knew the
country was safe from pursuit. As one man cheerfully confided to Reming-
ton, 'A boat don't leave no trail, stranger.'

The railroads that early penetrated the open ranges had their troubles
with claims made against them for maiming or killing livestock. A long-
haired Cracker would drop into the nearest station, with his rifle and pis-
tox, and ask the telegraph operator to pay immediately an extravagant
sum for a lean cow killed on the tracks. If the railroads raised objections,
cowboys lined up in the brush on dark nights and pumped their Winches-
ters into the trains, and 'it took some considerable "potting" at the more
conservative superintendents,' according to Remington, 'before the latter
could bestir themselves and invent a "cow-attorney," as the company ad-
juster was called.'

The dialect of the Eassimmee cow country today resembles that of the
southern Appalachians; one frequently hears the mispronunciation of 'it'
as 'hit.' Feed for livestock is shipped here in cotton bags which farm wives
bleach and convert into dresses, table covers, bed sheets, and even under-
wear. The women of the family still boil clothes in the back yard in black-
ened kettles. Grits are served regularly for breakfast, not as a cereal, but

366 FLORIDA

as a sponge for gravy. There are many double cabins with roofs over the
passageway, known as ' dog trot' cabins in the Piedmont States, but local
cowmen call them 'breeze ways,'

Before the extension of the railroad from Orlando in 1881, Kissimmee
had been a trading post for settlers farther south. Small sailing vessels
plied Lake Tohopekaliga, but had difficulty navigating the tortuous river
channel. Not until the Disston land purchase in 1881 (see Tour 10), when
drainage and dredging projects made possible the establishment of sugar-
cane plantations and sugar mills, did the new settlement begin to flourish.
Foundries, machine shops, and shipyards were built along the river;
freight and passenger boat lines ran on regular schedule south through the
river and chain of lakes as far as Lake Okeechobee, the Caloosahatchee
River, and the Gulf of Mexico.

Kissimmee is at the junction with US 192 (see Tour 10).

South of Kissimmee the route follows a stretch of old brick highway,
-often inundated during heavy summer rains. During the construction of
the road through the swamp in 1916-17, workmen supplemented their
wages by catching baby alligators and selling them to curio shops.

INTERCESSION CITY, 64.9 m., was named Interocean City when
platted in 1924, because it was midway between the Atlantic Ocean and
the Gulf. Apartments, office buildings, and houses begun here during the
boom were never completed; and the boom's puncture left only a silhou-
ette of crumbling pink and tan stucco structures. In 1934, J.W.Wile of In-
dianapolis gave 5,000 acres of land, including the townsite, to the House of
Faith, a nondenominational Christian sect with tenets based on the origi-
nal teachings of John Wesley. The group has built a small orphanage and
a vocational school for young men and women; a canning plant and gar-
ment factory are under construction (1938). Lots and small farms are sold
on a penny-a-day plan. During the winter a loo-day camp meeting is held
here with the assistance of visiting evangelists and ministers of many de-
nominations.

Gophers, the Florida land tortoise, are often seen crawling along the
road in this region. Many are crushed by passing cars and their carcasses
attract squadrons of ever-vigilant buzzards. Made into stews, gopher meat
is relished by local people. A Negro legend thus explains the origin of the
gopher and accounts for its name :

One day God was sitting on Tampa Bay making sea-things and throw-
ing them into the water. He made a shark, tossed it in, and it swam off. He
made a mullet, then a stingray, finally a turtle, and they all swam off. The
Devil, watching Him, said he could make a turtle. But God shook His
head. ' That's somethin' ain't been done before and nobody can't do no
creatin' but Me, not even a simple lookin' thing like a turtle. But if you
thinks you can do it, go ahead an' try,' said God.

So the Devil went away and came back presently to show God what he
had made. 'This ain't no turtle what you done,' God told him; ' but just to
show I'm fairminded I'll blow the breath of life into it for you.' God blew
on it and threw it into the sea, and it swam ashore. He tossed it in again,
then again, and each time it quickly crawled upon land.

TOUR 2 367

'I told you you couloVt make no turtle/ said God. ' A turtle is a sea-thing
an 7 lives in the water, an' this thing you made won't even stay no longer
than he can swim out.' The Devil, realizing he couldn't out-argue God,
said: 'Well, if it ain't no turtle it'll go fer one sure enough, and folks'll eat
him for a turtle.' From the c go fer' came the animal's name.

DAVENPORT, 75.2 m. (650 pop.), center of a prosperous citrus region,
has several fruit-packing and canning plants. A CITRUS CANDY FACTORY
(open) makes crystallized fruit peel. Workers wash, size, and slice grape-
fruit and oranges, and then boil the peels in syrup, color them with vege-
table dyes, and cut them with machines. The pulp is returned to the
grower as fertilizer. From 5,000 to 8,000 pounds of this candy are made
weekly during the winter season.

HAINES CITY, 79.9 m. (166 alt., 3,037 pop.), surrounded by hills cov-
ered with orange and grapefruit groves, is dominated by a lo-story hotel
of gray stucco. Early settlers in the vicinity planted tomatoes and grapes,
but by 1900 the majority were engaged in citrus culture. Most of the fruit
is shipped through two co-operative marketing associations. Springing
from an early settlement called Clay Cut, the city adopted its present name
in 1887. The name was changed to Haines City, according to l