My Florida History

From Tampa to the Moon with Jules Verne

2011-02-08T18:47:00.003-05:00

Today, Google’s homepage features an interactive doodle celebrating author Jules Verne’s 183rd birthday. Although the doodle features his well-known Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, his novel From the Earth to the Moon hits closer to home.

Writing in French for a young audience, Verne spun the story of man’s first moon shot. Published in 1865, the premise of From the Earth to the Moon is that industrialist members of the Baltimore Gun Club found themselves without purpose or relevance at the end of the Civil War. Club president Impey Barbicane proposes building the biggest, most powerful gun yet, one so immense that it could shoot a projectile to the moon. Over the course of the novel, the project turns into a manned space mission, with men traveling to the moon in a metal capsule, intending to return home safely.

While choosing a spot to build their tremendous gun, the Gun Club members narrow their search to either Texas or Florida. And within Florida, one place prevails: “Florida in its southern part reckons no cities of importance; it is simply studded with forts raised against the roving Indians. One solitary town, Tampa Town, was able to put in a claim in favour of its situation.” Barbicane visits Tampa to select a building site. Leaving Baltimore, he and his companions travel to New Orleans where they board a steamship to cross the Gulf of Mexico. Two days and 480 miles later, the Florida coast comes into view: “On a nearer approach Barbicane found himself in view of a low, flat country of somewhat barren aspect.”

Jules Verne sprinkled his text with authentic place names and scenic descriptions. As a Frenchman who visited the United States only once in his life, a brief trip to New York State after From the Earth to the Moon was published, how was Verne able to provide these details? The answer is in the story itself:

When the decision was arrived at by the Gun Club, to the disparagement of Texas, every one in America, where reading is an universal acquirement, set to work to study the geography of Florida. Never before had there been such a sale for works like Bartram’s Travels in Florida, Roman’s Natural History of East and West Florida, William’s Territory of Florida, and Cleland on the Cultivation of the Sugar-Cane in Florida.

These were popular natural histories of Florida published in the late 1700s and early 1800s, and provide descriptions of Florida that continue to be quoted and studied by scholars and historians today. Parts of From the Earth to the Moon echo the phrasing of these texts, with their mixture of florid descriptions of plants, flowers, and creatures alternating with prosaic scientific descriptions or measurements.

Although Verne went to some trouble to include accurate details, the truth suffers at times to advance the story. As a case in point, the site selected as a launch site is described as being less than a day’s ride from Tampa yet at an elevation of 1,800 feet above sea level. The highest point in the entire state of Florida is Britton Hill at 345 feet above sea level, and which is so far north it’s practically in Alabama. Furthermore, Barbicane is greeted in Tampa by 3,000 people, easily three times the actual population in 1865.

Verne’s descriptions of the Seminoles are reminiscent of a cowboys and Indians western. Here, Florida is the wild frontier. Once in Tampa, Barbicane decides to explore the country, looking for the best spot for the moon gun.

On the morrow some of those small horses of the Spanish breed, full of vigour and of fire, stood snorting under his windows, but instead of four steeds, here were fifty, together with their riders. Barbicane descended with his three fellow-travelers; and much astonished were they all to find themselves in the midst of such a cavalcade. He remarked that every horseman carried a carbine slung across his shoulders and pistols in his holsters.

On expressing his surprise at these preparations, he was speedily enlightened by a young Floridan who quietly said,--
“Sir, there are Seminole there.”
“What do you mean by Seminoles?”
“Savages who scour the prairies. We thought it best, therefore to escort you on your road.”
“Pooh!” cried J.T. Maston, mounting his steed.
“All right,” said the Floridan; “but it is true enough nevertheless.”
“Gentlemen,” answered Barbicane, “I thank you for your kind attention; but it is time to be off.”

Riding along, they came to an open area.

“At last,” cried Barbicane, rising in his stirrups, “here we are at the region of pines!”
“Yes! And of savages too” replied the major.
In fact, some Seminoles had just come in sight on the horizon; they rode violently backwards and forwards on their fleet horses, brandishing their spears or discharging their guns with a dull report. These hostile demonstrations, however, had no effect upon Barbicane and his companions.

Ultimately, the very act of building their projectile protects the men from Baltimore, as it “created a circle of terror which the herds of buffaloes and the war parties of the Seminoles never ventured to pass.” Technology conquers the wilderness.

The full text of Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon is available on Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=nskpAAAAYAAJ&dq=from%20the%20earth%20to%20the%20moon&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false. Compare the drawings on the plates following pages 66 and 82, “Tampa Town before the undertaking,” and “Tampa Town after the undertaking.”

Ballast Point Park in Tampa was originally named Jules Verne Park in recognition of the author’s selection of the town as a likely launch site.

Also available through Google Books:

William Bartram, Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida (1792)

Bernard Romans, A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida (1776)

Shuffling Away

2010-03-11T16:16:00.007-05:00

Shuffleboard courts in downtown Avon Park, Florida

Shuffleboard and golden days of retirement are entwined in Florida mythology. In the mid to late twentieth century, there wasn't a trailer court in the state worth a lick if it didn't have a shuffleboard court or two. This association with the elderly has been a bit of a public relations challenge in attracting new fans to the sport, although the St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club has a very popular Friday night session with live music.

Playing shuffleboard in St. Petersburg, back in the day (Florida State Archives)

The Kissimmee All States Tourist Club's shuffleboard courts will be torn down soon as part of the city's Lakefront Park redevelopment. Grass-roots efforts to save or at least commemorate the courts include the Facebook group Save Our Shuffleboard. KAST is the subject of the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Story of the Day today: Florida To Lose 1941 Shuffleboard Courts.

Happy Presidents Day, Florida!

2010-02-15T21:29:00.004-05:00

Brass band awaiting Grover Cleveland's arrival in Lakeland, Florida, 1894 (Florida State Archives)

Today, a U.S. president overlooks Florida at his own peril, but even before this state was a political battleground , our nation's leaders found their way here on a regular basis.

First was Andrew Jackson, who was Territorial governor of Florida before Florida was a state and before Jackson was president. Neither Jackson nor his wife Rachel were particularly fond of Florida, in fact, The Hermitage's website says that they "despised the climate."

Several places in Florida are named after presidents, including Polk County, which honors our 11th president, James K. Polk. Fort Pierce began as an actual fort, named after Lt. Col. Benjamin Pierce, the brother of President Franklin Pierce. The Herbert Hoover Dike holds the waters of Lake Okeechobee, and is named after the president who authorized the money to build the earthen dam after devastating hurricanes swepth through the Everglades in the 1920s. Manned space flights launch from the Kennedy Space Center, named after the president who challenged us to travel to the moon, not because it was easy, but because it was hard.

Dr. Mudd, who treated John Wilkes Booth's leg and was himelf accused of plotting against Abraham Lincoln, was held prisoner at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas. Fort Jefferson was named after our 3rd president, Thomas Jefferson.

Many presidents enjoyed fishing or hunting trips to Florida as breaks from the rigors of office. Several went as far as having second homes or "little White Houses" here - the Kennedy's had a family compound in Palm Beach, Nixon had a waterfront home on Key Biscayne, and Truman favored Key West.

So for all these presidents and more who have traveled to our sunny state, we wish you an Happy Presidents Day!

Miscellany, for Surfing on a Rainy Day

2009-07-03T06:00:00.000-05:00

10 Most Endangered Roadside Places, from Visual Ephemera

"Hav-A-Tampa Closes Its Factory" St. Petersburg Times, June 24, 2009

"Brunetti Jr., Soth, Testa to Hialeah Posts" Blood-Horse Magazine July 1, 2009 - Hialeah Race Track to open?

Busch Gardens' Hospitality House - 1963, from Electro's Spark

Vintage Busch Gardens, from Visual Ephemera, 1960s brochure for the amusement park

"These old houses keep turning heads" Tampa Tribune June 23, 2009 - Seminole Heights neighborhood in This Old House magazine

"Hit the bricks: a historical street-paving opportunity in Ybor City" Creative Loafing, June 14, 2009

"Tampa Bay World Records," from Sticks of Fire - World's Longest Golf Cart Parade

"The Tampa That Might Have Been," Creative Loafing, May 23, 2009

Hindu Temple of Tampa

2009-07-02T06:00:00.000-05:00

In the future, will the Hindu Temple of Tampa be a historic landmark?

The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) guidelines ask for buildings to be 50 years old before being considered significant. National Register Bulletin 15: How to Apply the National Register Criteria for Evaluation states "Fity years is a general estimate of the time needed to develop historical perspective and to evaluate significance." OK, I can go along with waiting 50 years before nominating the Hindu Temple of Tampa to the National Register, but I think that as long as it's still standing then, it will make the list.

I say that even though religious properties have to meet additional considerations, considerations designed to avoid the appearance of an endorsement of religion by the federal government. To be considered eligible for the NRHP, a religious property may have outstanding architectural merit, or have cultural significance. The Hindu Temple of Tampa represents the growth of the Hindu community in Florida, following the track that other immigrant groups have experienced in the United States. As permanent populations of Hindu Indians grow in the Florida, and the U.S., the temple is a means by which children may be taught Hindu cultural and religious beliefs and traditions (A Place at the Multicultural Table: The Development of an American Hinduism, by Prema A. Kurien, Rutgers University Press, 2007).

Architecturally, it is unique in Tampa. The earth-toned gopuram (the monumental tower at the temple's entrance) breaks above the tree line; the temple walls are covered with carvings and statuary. A team of ten men from India spent years working on these decorations.

The story of the temple's construction is told in an article from the October 24, 2003, St. Petersburg Times, "The Deities of Lynn Road." Difficulties included finding an appropriate site, and getting zoning permission for a building height of 70 feet.

Edward Heberton

2009-07-01T06:00:00.000-05:00

Edward Heberton is buried in the Laurel Grove Cemetery in Waldo, Florida. His marker is a rather plain marble stone: "Rev. Edward P. Heberton of Philadelphia, Pa. Born Aug 13, 1830, Died Aug. 22, 1883." Why was it so important to mention that he was from Philadelphia, and how did he end up so far away from home?

From the Necrological Reports and Annual Proceedings of the Alumni Association of Princeton Theological Seminary (Google Books is really a handy research tool), we learn that Edward Payson Heberton was the son of a minister. he attended college in New Jersey, studying the law, before a 12-year career with the U.S. Coastal Survey and U.S. Navy. Heberton was ordained as a minister after the Civil War, in 1868, serving at churches in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Duluth, Minnesota; Columbus, Ohio; and Deerfield, New Jersey. In 1882 he came to Florida as a missionary, became ill, and died in Waldo on August 20, 1883. He was 54 years old, and left behind a wife (Carrie) and five children.

What this biographical sketch doesn't tell us is what he thought of Florida, what it was like for his wife to follow him to a rural frontier. Who chose the tombstone, and why was it so important to mention that he was from Philadelphia?

Laurel Grove Cemetery: Grave Marker Symbolism

2009-06-30T06:00:00.001-05:00

Lillies are commonly associated with funerals in the United States - they are said to represent purity, but offer the practical aspect of being strongly scented. In the case of Lillie Martin's marker, the use of lillies may have been in reference to her name, rather than a symbolic gesture. Not only is the marker topped with a large bouquet of stone lillies, but the verse etched on the tombstone refers to the flower:

Lillie M. Kennard devoted wife of B. P. Martin, Sept. 26, 1875 - Oct. 6, 1900 / The angels gather such lillies for God.

Flowers also appear on H.N. Pettit's marker, which has evening primrose etched around the base. According to Stories in Stone: A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism and Iconography, by Douglas Keister (New York: MJF Books, 2004), the evening primrose represents "eternal love, memory, youth, hope, and sadness."

H.N. Pettit, born at Kaskaskia, Ill. Aug. 29, 1822 died July 13, 1893

Pettit's tombstone also features a hand pointing to the clouds and the bible verse "In my father's house are many mansions," which continues in the King James version: "if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." Again according to Stories in Stone, "a hand pointing up is usually an indication that the soul has risen to the heavens."

Urns were popular graveyard symbols in the nineteenth century, even though cremations were out of vogue. The urn symbolizes ashes, and is a classical decorative element.

Thomas M. Cauthen May 4, 1838 - Dec. 6, 1923

Grave markers in the shape of tree stumps are found across the United States, due largely to the Woodmen of the World. Woodmen of the World is a fraternal organization that provided burial insurance and pledged that no Woodman's grave would be left unmarked.

W.V. Paschall Jr. July 26, 1881 - Nov. 16, 1918 Gone But Not Forgotten

Main Street Daytona, More Than a Century Ago

2009-06-29T06:00:00.000-05:00

A circa 1895 cyanotype of Main Street Daytona
(photograph courtesy Paul Jones)

Laurel Grove Cemetery - William Gadsden Green

2009-06-17T06:00:00.000-05:00

William Gadsden Green
Co K
2 Regt
Fla Inf
CSA
1839-1918

This headstone is the type authorized by the federal government in 1930 to be placed on graves of Confederate soldiers, with a pointed top and the Confederate Cross of Honor inscribed above the soldier's name, rank, company, and regiment.

William Green's Confederate pension application (on file at the Florida State Archives) reveals some tidbits about his and his family members' lives. He was born April 7, 1839, in Nassau County, Florida. At the age of 23, on May 16, 1862, he listed in the Confederate Army, serving in Company K, 2nd Regiment, of the Florida Cavalry. Three years and one day later, he was discharged in Baldwin, Duval County, because the war was over. He and his wife Mary raised ten children in Bradford County, Florida. When he grew older, he applied for a pension from the State of Florida, claiming that his service had given him "piles" (hemarrhoids) and rheumatism.

After William's death on December 1, 1918, Mary applied for a Confederate widow's pension; however, she encountered difficulties in proving that she was actually married to William. The Bradford County Courthouse had burned in 1865, destroying the county's records. In her application is a letter from Mary Green, dated February 22, 1919, to the Hon. Ernest Amos, who served as State Comptroller from 1917 until 1933. Included with her letter were five affidavits from people who knew William and Mary Green to be married, along with two pages from the Green family bible recording William's birth and marriage. (Mary Green requested that the bible pages be returned to her, but as the scanned images are online with the rest of the pension application paperwork, this apparently did not happen.)

From these affidavits we also learn about Mary Johns Green, particularly from her cousin M.L. McKinney (their mothers were sisters): "...that the said mother of Mary Johns died while she was an infant and his mother raised Mary Johns, that affiant was five days old at the birth of Mary Johns, that Mary Johns was one of twins and his mother raised all three of them."

The Florida State Archives has scanned approximately 14,000 Confederate pension applications, and made them available online (http://www.floridamemory.com/Collections/PensionFiles/index.cfm). While some files have little information, others - such as that of William G. Green - reveal personal histories that might otherwise be unrecorded.

Waldo's Laurel Grove Cemetery

2009-06-16T11:15:00.004-05:00

An impulsive right-hand turn down a narrow and flooding side street in Waldo, Florida, led us to the Laurel Grove Cemetery. This country cemetery is modest, peaceful, and eclectic. Since it was Memorial Day weekend, the graves of veterans were decorated with flags. The cemetery is surprisingly large, covering gentle hills and encompasing a pond full of quite vocal frogs. The air was cedar scented.

The Laurel Grove Cemetery dates to 1883, with an expansion in 1897, on land owned by Idella and Samuel J. Kennard. A native of England, Kennard came to the United States in 1847. By 1860, he was a grocer in Waldo, and soon thereafter he served in the Confederate States of America Army during the Civil War. Kennard later was Waldo's postmaster, and his son was mayor. (For a more complete biography of Kennard and the original plat of the cemetery, visit the Laurel Grove Cemetery's webpage).

The cemetery is still in use today, and over the past 125 years, it has accumulated a great variety of grave markers, from elaborate marble statuary and ornate iron fence work, to handmade vernacular concrete memorials.

The Champion Iron Fence Company manufactured this fence.

Hands down, no questions asked, the most curious marker at Laurel Grove Cemetery is a homemade concrete elephant, complete with nails as tusks. This marker, unfortunately, did not include a name that I could see, so I have no way of knowing why an elephant (?!).

One of the most touching markers was also handmade, found on the grave of Caroline Kathleen Larson (October 12, 1949 - December 21, 2005), which reads simply "CAROL My Love."

Caladesi Lookout Tower

2009-06-10T10:51:00.004-05:00

From a February trip to Caladesi Island State Park...

"The concrete foundation before you once supported a 60-foot observation tower. The steel structure, donated to the park by the Florida Board of Forestry, was erected by park rangers in 1969. For almost 15 years it served as an observation point for park visitors and staff, offering panoramic views of the Gulf of Mexico and St. Joseph's Sound. The tower gradually deteriorated in the harsh condition of the island environment and was dismantled in the early 1980s."

30th Anniversary of the Miami Beach Art Deco Historic District

2009-05-14T06:00:00.001-05:00

Today is the 30th anniversary of Miami Beach Architectural Historic District's listing on the National Register of Historic Places. The Miami Design Preservation League has planned several events for celebration. For more information, vist their website, www.mdpl.org/Events/30thanniversary.html.

The Roux Libraries

2009-05-12T16:13:00.007-05:00

Frank Lloyd Wright did not design every building now on the Florida Southern College campus. Nils Schweizer, a Frank Lloyd Wright protege, designed the college's current library. The E. T. Roux Library faces the Waterdome, and has some stylistic elements in common with the surrounding Wright buildings, such as the trim and horizontal lines.

My FLW pilgrimage last month was spontaneous, absolutely without planning. We were on our way to St. Augustine for a spring break vacation and took a spur-of-the-moment right-hand turn at Lakeland. So after wandering around looking for the campus, then wandering around the campus looking for buildings of a certain appearance, we stumbled upon a parking lot by the chapels. From there, the Waterdome was pretty obvious, but the building behind it, I thought at first might be a Frank Lloyd Wright building, but then again.... So we went in and asked the student at the circulation desk, "Is this one of the Frank Lloyd Wright buildings?" "Huh?" Okay... good thing there was a stack of brochures and maps right there with a walking tour of the FLW buildings on campus. Thank you very much, and off we go.

Now, we still did not know that the library was by the above mentioned Nils Schweizer and that he had studied at Taliesin before coming to Lakeland and working on the Child of the Sun campus construction. Later, I learned that the Roux Library was finished in 1968, and that Schweizer had a successful career as an architect in Florida. The Nils M. Schweizer Fellows is a non-profit organization working to preserve mid-century modern architecture in Central Florida.

On the side of the Roux Library is the new Sarah D. and L. Kirk McKay, Jr. Archives Center, designed by Straughn Trout Architects and dedicated in February of 2009. Although obviously a 21st century design (click here for photographs), the archives builidng uses elements of the surrounding Frank Lloyd Wright buildings, such as the tapestry block, the rectangular cut-outs in the overhangs, and the round shape of the original E. T. Roux Library.

The original E. T. Roux Library? Oh yes, the one built by Frank Lloyd Wright. What was the campus library is now the Thad Buckner Building, and houses the Child of the Sun Visitor Center. Which is where if I had planned my trip, and had the visitor center been opened, I could have visited the gift shop and learned more about the very buildings I was there to see. The Buckner building was built during World War II - the students provided the construction labor, including the co-eds. It's interesting to compare photographs of construction of the Buckner Building with photographs of construction of the McKay Archives building, with their circular shapes.

(The windows are quite unusual.)

And who was this E.T. Roux fellow? Edwin Timanus Roux was a Florida banker and businessman who was on the board for the college's early years. Before Florida Southern College came to Lakeland, an earlier campus burned. Roux helped the college find a temporary home in Clearwater Beach while new facilities were built on Lake Hollingsworth in 1922 (A Guide to Historic Lakeland by Steve Rajtar, The History Press, 2007).

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Other buildings by Nils Schweizer

Polk County Science Building

2009-05-11T12:02:00.005-05:00

From the Pfeiffer Chapel, I could see the Polk County Science Building. This is really several large, low, horizontal buildings connected by covered esplanades. The dome at the end is the only Frank Lloyd Wright-designed planetarium to be actually built. The ventilation system on the roof was added during recent renovations. The book The Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright at Florida Southern College has a photograph taken from a similar perspective (page 112) when the Polk Science building was under construction in the 1950s.

This was the last of the Frank Lloyd Wright buildings built on the Florida Southern College campus. It was built partly below grade, which caused problems with leakage and drainage (not an uncommon problem with Frank Lloyd Wright buildings...).

Walkway at Polk Science with aluminum-clad supports

Frank Lloyd Wright's Annie Pfeiffer Chapel

2009-05-09T17:00:00.000-05:00

It's shameful. I've been living in Florida, studying its history and architecture for years and years and it wasn't until last month that I finally visited Florida Southern College's campus in Lakeland with its grand collection of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings.

The photograph above is of the William Danforth Chapel (front) and the Annie Pfeiffer Chapel. The original campus was in an orange grove on this hill overlooking Lake Hollingsworth, but the trees are gone now. Too bad, because the campus was glaring and hot even in April, especially with the concrete block buildings.

The Annie Pfeiffer Chapel was the first of Wright's buildings to be constructed at Florida Southern College. At its dedication, Annie Pfeiffer (wife of the founder of Pfeiffer Chemical Company) reportedly said, "They say it is finished," perhaps in reference to the metal bars forming a spire or steeple. Sometimes the chapel is referred to as "the bicycle rack."

FSC students provided labor for the construction of the Frank Lloyd Wright buildings on campus, including this chapel. Natural light inside the chapel comes primarily from the large skylight above. The walls are made of a special concrete block called tapestry block. The tapestry blocks have small squares of colored glass embedded in them, creating moving spots of red, blue, and amber on a sunny day.

The book Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright at Florida Southern College (Arcadia 2007) contains fascinating photographs of the chapel's construction and traces some of the changes in the building's interior and exterior over the years. Some of the major changes came after a 1944 hurricane shattered the skylight and parts of the building collapsed. During reconstruction the tapestry blocks above the first floor were stuccoed on the exterior to make them more weather proof.

Muffler Man Sighting in Zephyrhills

2009-05-07T15:45:00.000-05:00

Highway giants are larger than life men, dinosaurs, elephants, large statues placed by the roadside to attract tourists and customers. Such giants are found across the nation, not just in Florida, but their fanstasical nature is well suited to our state.

Muffler men date to the 1960s and 1970s, and were large statues of men holding mufflers meant to advertise a muffler or auto repair shop. In Roadside Giants (Stackpole Books 2005), authors Brian and Sarah Butko explain that most muffler men were built by Prewitt Fiberglass of Venice, California. Later known as International Fiberglass, the company made unusually large statues of humans and animals up into the 1970s. Owners, particularly new owners, often give their muffler men new clothes and new items to hold, depending what is to be advertised.

The muffler man at Muffler City on Highway 301 in Zephyrhills is fairly traditional in his appearance and choice of accessory, a wrench. This shop has an example of another type of muffler man as well, the kind made out of old car parts - there he is, leaning against the sign post. Give him a wave next time you're passing by!

Florida Muffler Men

National Muffler Man Tracking Chart and Map

Roadside America's Muffler Man Homepage

Visual Ephemera - Roadside Giants Found!

Hong Kong Willie

2009-05-01T10:25:00.002-05:00

On the corner of Fletcher Avenue and Morris Bridge Road in Tampa is possibly the largest collection of styrofoam buoys I've ever seen unattacted to a fishing fleet. This is Hong Kong Willie. Surrounded by an interstate highway, a corporate business park, and national chain hotels, the orange helicopter on a flat-bed truck festooned with a web of fairy lights does catch the eye. The Hong Kong Willie blog has links to interviews and news stories outling the Hong Kong Willie philosophy of reuse, and tracing the evolution from bait shop to art studio.

Hong Kong Willie Preservation Art Group (audio / slide show from WUSF)

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Added May 2, 2009

My husband took an unblurry photo of the helicopter, so I've added it here:

Most Endangered Historic Sites - Miami Marine Stadium

2009-04-28T14:33:00.002-05:00

Today the National Trust for Historic Preservation released their 2009 list of the Most Endangered Historic Sites in the United States. On the list is Miami Marine Stadium. To learn more about the stadium, or to help preserve this landmark, visit the Friends of Miami Marine Stadium's website, http://www.marinestadium.org/.

Should we Floridians be proud or ashamed that Florida landmarks make this list so often? In 2008, it was Vizcaya and Bonnet House. In 2007, it was Hialeah Park Race Course. We skipped 2006, but there was the Belleview Biltmore Hotel in 2005.

Crystal Springs Roller Rink

2009-04-27T13:57:00.003-05:00

Crystal Springs Roller Rink on YouTube

"Rolling Back Time" St. Petersburg Times, February 6, 2005

The Old Spanish Trail's Zero Marker

2009-04-14T10:10:00.004-05:00

The Old Spanish Trail is not really Spanish, nor is it particularly old, at least for St. Augustine. The "trail" began in 1915 as a transcontinental highway for automobiles, connecting St. Augustine in the east to San Diego in the west. The Old Spanish Trail Association began in Mobile, Alabama, where they saw the commercial benefit of having an east/west highway connecting the new north/south Jackson and Dixie highways. Thus, the Old Spanish Trail began in a city known for its French heritage.

These new highways brought automotive tourists and their money to the communities along the roadways. During World War I, advocates of the Old Spanish Trail (and other national highways) promoted its importance as a military road, vital for national security and defense, anticipating Eisenhower's Interstate Highway system by several decades. In the 1920s, Harral B. Ayres, the Old Spainish Trail Association's director, encouraged the notion that the highway followed old Spanish roads, using the romance of the past to promote tourism.

The terrain the highway was to cover in the southeastern United States hampered construction - bridges were needed over the many rivers and swamps of the coastal South. The Old Spanish Trail was not completed until 1929, an event marked by a three-day celebration in St. Augustine, and the dedication of this commemorative marker (which since has been moved twice).

Each year, on the last weekend of April and the first weekend of May, Crestview, Florida, holds the Old Spanish Trail Festival. This year will be the event's 53rd anniversary, and is only 11 days from now!

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The Story of the Old Spanish Trail, by Harral B. Ayres (Old Spanish Trail Centennial)

Welcome to the Waterdome Redux

2009-04-13T18:01:00.004-05:00

I finally had a chance to see the Waterdome at Florida Southern College in action, nearly a year and a half after its rebirth! It was bluer and smaller than I expected, although a nearby sign detailed a schedule of when the fountain is off, at partial power, and full blast. We were there on a Saturday afternoon -- at least half the people we saw were like us - wandering around staring at the Frank Lloyd Wright buildings. Even though it has been a cool spring season, there's enough concrete and metal on that part of the campus to make a water feature like the fountain a welcome sight.

Welcome to the Waterdome (October 2007)

Frank Lloyd Wright Water Dome / Florida Southern College

Rodriguez-Avero-Sanchez House in St. Augustine

2009-04-08T12:41:00.003-05:00

Here is the Rodriguez-Avero-Sanchez House at 52 St. George Street in St. Augustine. The first rooms of this house were built sometime around 1760 or 1761. In 1761 it was the home of a former member of the Spanish garrison, a Galician named Fernando Rodriguez. When he died in 1762, Antonia de Avero inherited the property. Over the years, the house passed from one owner to another - some British, some Spanish, some members of the Avero family, some not. Between 1791 and 1802, Juan Sanchez built the two-story coquina-block portion of the house that fronts onto St. George Street today.

The National Park Service's Historic American Building Survey documented the Rodriguez-Avero-Sanchez House in the 1960s, providing a detailed history of the house and a description of the building. The HABS documentation includes 1960 photographs of the house before its restoration as well as 1965 "after" images.

The 1965 images of the Rodriguez-Avero-Sanchez House were taken by Jack Boucher, whose career as a photographer for the Historic American Building Survey is featured in the Spring 2009 issue of Common Ground. Common Ground is a free publication of the National Park Service.

Cat Statue

2009-03-31T10:16:00.003-05:00

Back in 1991, I visited Key West for the first time, and one highlight of the trip was the Hemingway House. The tour guide casually pointed out a ceramic statue sitting on top of a cabinet, a gift from from Pablo Picasso to Ernest Hemingway. Years later I heard that the statue had been stolen, which honestly wasn't surprising considering it was a cool Picasso statue just sitting on a cabinet in a house.

Years later, while going through boxes of old photos (oh, the pre-digital days), we came across this picture from that 1991 trip. According to the Hemingway House museum's website, the cat was found in a box in the 1970s, and Hemingway's wife said that it was a gift from Picasso to Hemingway. The two men had become friends when living in Paris in the 1920s. The statue was stolen during or shortly after a house tour in November 2000, and recovered a month later when the thief tried to use it as a deposit for a small boat. Unfortunately, the statue was badly damaged. The statue now on display in the house museum is a replica.

(Sources included the Hemingway House website, the Dec. 11, 2000 Miami Herald, and the Jan. 26, 2001 Palm Beach Post)

A Florida Fresh Market

2009-03-26T17:03:00.005-05:00

Primed by promises of fresh, local produce, I visited a local fresh market this week for the first time in a long while. I surmised that since a lot of vegetables are grown in Florida, that a fresh market in Florida would have little room for foreign fruit. So I was disappointed to see Chilean grapes and California avocados.

I acknowledge my hypocrisy in expecting local produce in Florida, a state whose vast agricultural economy is based on selling to people who live elsewhere. For centuries, Florida farmers have made their livings by selling oranges and green beans and strawberries to people far, far away. Pioneering farmers loaded citrus onto steamboats and trains so that hotels in New York City might serve sectioned fruit to their guests. Thousands of men were lured to Florida by the promise of a better life as a gentleman farmer, with ten acres in the country and a house in town.

Indeed, there were several local products available at the Oldsmar Fresh Market that I do not see at my local Publix or Wal-Mart Supercenter. There were fresh breads from a local bakery, fresh Gulf seafood, and honey from local bees. Of course there were Florida strawberries, and Ruskin tomatoes. There was a table of Florida citrus, and not the shiny perfect fruit that gets mailed away in gift baskets, but the duller, lumpier fruit Floridians keep for themselves because it tastes so good. Here were the Florida grapefruit, the Temple orange, and the Honey Murcott. The Temple and the Honey Murcott oranges are both tangors, crosses between tangerines and sweet oranges. The Temple orange gave its name to the city of Temple Terrace, where larges groves of the fruit once grew. The Honey Murcott orange is named after Charles Murcott Smith who first planted groves of this variety nearby in Pinellas County.

"Home cooking: Surviving for a week on locally grown food" (St. Petersburg Times, October 24, 2008)

Kate DiCamillo

2009-03-25T20:18:00.003-05:00

Today is author Kate DiCamillo's birthday (Happy Birthday!). Although her more recent books - The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, The Tale of Despereaux, the Mercy Watson series, and the forthcoming The Magician's Elephant - don't offer much proof of it, she is a Florida writer.

Born in the north, Kate experienced poor health as a child. Her doctor recommended the time-honored cure of moving to Florida, and she came to Clermont with her mother and brother. Her first novel, Because of Winn-Dixie, is set in North Florida, although I've pondered whether the setting is integral to the plot. I think the story could be set elsewhere in the South just as easily. On her website, however, DiCamillo writes that the story arose at least in part from her homesickness for Florida during a cold Minnesota winter. Nor is her second book, The Tiger Rising, particularly dependent on its Florida setting for meaning. It does, however, incorporate the timeless Florida theme of new beginnings and second chances.

Hiram Hampton, Pistol Packing Doctor

2009-02-27T15:11:00.006-05:00

(Florida State Archives)

Dr. Hiram J. Hampton owned and operated the Tampa Heights Sanitarium in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, advertising his services "for the cure of CANCER, RUPTURE, SCROFULA and Kindred DISEASES, and all cases requiring SURGICAL ATTENTION. No Mercury Used In This Institution. Tape Worm Positively Removed." His wife Emma at times assisted as his nurse. The 1903 Transactions of the National Eclectic Medical Association of the United States recognize Dr. Hampton as member of the Eclectic Medical Examiming Board for Florida.

In Tampa today, Dr. Hampton is most widely known for the unique character of his and Emma's grave sites in Woodlawn Cemetery. The crypts are topped with at least life size seated statues of the couple, and local lore oft repeats the story that the Hamptons' backs are turned deliberately to the city.

My, How You've Changed...

2009-02-26T18:51:00.003-05:00

Tucked away on a side street off Ybor's Seventh Avenue is a white building with distinctive, large windows.

It's obviously old,
and looks like it might have been a church,
but now it's a nightclub.

Here are links to photographs of the building when it was the Clark Memorial Baptist Church and Baptist Goodwill Center -- back when it was much taller!

1947 Burgert Brothers photograph (church entrance)

1947 Burgert Brothers photograph (church with children in front)

Burgert Brothers photograph showing the side of the church as well (click on thumbnail image for larger view)

Showmen's Rest Cemetery - Tampa

2009-02-25T15:38:00.004-05:00

In the far corner of Tampa's Woodlawn Cemetery lies the Showmen's Rest Cemetery, dedicated to circus, carnival, and outdoor amusement workers. Some of the more famous people interred here include Edmondo "Papa" Zacchini (Human Canonball), Carl J. Sedlmayr (Royal American Shows), and Grady Stiles (Lobster Boy).

Despite living lives of flair and flourish, the Showmen's Rest is rather calm and traditional. Founded in 1952 by the Ladies' Auxiliary of the Greater Tampa Showmen's Association, the cemetery was built in a modern style for that time. It is a memorial park bordered by a sandstone wall, with individual grave marked by small rectangular slabs. A garden mausoleum stands in the southern portion of the cemetery (for more about cemetery styles, read David Charles Sloan's The Last Great Necessity). The cemetery is indeed a peaceful place for showmen to rest.

Cortez Commercial Fishing Festival

2009-02-23T21:36:00.006-05:00

This weekend was the annual Cortez Commercial Fishing Festival, in the fishing community of Cortez, of course. Lots of people, lots of seafood, some music, some art, and a nice time. We had peel-and-eat shrimp down on the fish house docks, while watching the pelicans, seagulls, and egrets stir up a ruckus. MoJo (Morris Johnson)'s paintings made me smile. He's a clam farmer and a folk artist, and with that combination, I suspect a sense of humor comes in handy.

Here is the 1912 Cortez Rural Graded Schoolhouse, once used as a school, then as an art school, and as the home and studio of weaver Robert Sailors. In 1999, Manatee County purchased the school, and recently renovations were completed. It is now the home of the Florida Maritime Museum.

Here's a boat used by Cuban refugees to cross the Straits of Florida. It's been fixed up by the craftsmen at the museum's boat works- you can see a "before" picture on their website.

The festival is a great time to visit Cortez, but then, any day is. Stop by sometime and visit the museum, learn how to make a wooden boat, have lunch at the docks, and take some fresh seafood home for dinner.

Hillsborough River Bridge at Fort Foster

2009-02-12T06:00:00.001-05:00

In Letters from the Frontier, Major General George A. McCall wrote of his experience as a young officer working to open a military road from Tampa Bay to what is today Ocala in Marion County. This was the Fort King Road, traces of which can still be seen through central Florida's palmetto and pine forests.

In a 1828 letter to his brother, McCall recounted a story about building a bridge over the Hillsborough River

"...I was with my men one morning before breakfast; two of the three trestles upon which the bridge was to rest being set erect and pinned together temporaily, simply by boards tacked on to them and to a log upon the bank to keep them in position until the third trestle was raised, which the men with ropes were at that moment bringing to its upright position; I observered our most worthy and esteemed Surgeon seated on the trestle nearest to me. I had just thought of walking up the steep board leading from the river-bank to the trestle where the Surgeon sat, in order to have a little pleasnat chat with him before breakfast, when the third trestle, which the men were in the act of raising, and which our chief carpenter Plew, stanking on the middle trestle, was preparing to fasten to the one on which he stood -- lo and behold! trestle No. 3 swings beyond its perpendicular, through the over-strain upon the rope in the hands of the men on the opposite bank, who were raising it. It throws the men who hold the guy, by a sudden jerk, into the river, and striking with its great weight the middle trestle, drives that against No. 1 with sufficient force to send it with double velocity against the bank. The Doctor, who, as I have said, sat upon the last trestle, described the arc of the circle, still seated and with perfect composure, until the trestle rudely strikes upon the bank, when he is precipitated backwards into the water six or eight feet deep. As he rises again to the surface, I, with one of the men, spring to the spor, and we draw him out unharmed, though thoroughly chilled and minus his gold spectacles. Plew, who was on the highest trestle, at least twelve feet from the water, boldly jumped clear of the debris and swam to shore. The odd fellow, a private of company C, was lifted up the bank by some of the men, when the first words he uttered, as he shook himself like a great Newfoundland dog, were: "Chalk and all gone!" it having so happened that his chalk and line, which were lying on the trestle, were swept down the current, and could not be replaced short of Fort Brooke. The Doctor's spectacles were afterwards found by an Indian at the river-ford below, to which point they had been carried by the swiftness of the current and there stranded. I should add, that my excellent friend, the Surgeon, experienced no serious inconvenience from the accident; and, except that occassioned by the loss of his glasses, looked upon the thing as a fair subject for a good hearty laugh."

Since the bridge facilitated troop movement along the Fort King Road, it had strategic value during the Second Seminole War. It was rebuilt, but continued to be threatened by the Seminoles. On Christmas morning 1835, Major Dade was delayed on his journey from Fort Brooke to Fort King when his troops discovered that the bridge had been burned. The men managed to cross the river, only to meet their deaths near Bushnell on December 28. The Army built a wooden fort at the bridge, Fort Foster, to protect the river crossing.

Today Fort Foster and the wooden bridge are part of the Hillsborough River State Park; both have been recreated and are open to the public. Timbers from the 1835 bridge over the river are on display at the park. On February 14 and 15, 2009, re-enactors will stage a battle between the U.S. soldiers and the Seminoles at the bridge -- for more information, please visit the Fort Foster website.

Don't Look Down

2009-02-11T06:00:00.000-05:00

On display in the Rocket Garden at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center is the service arm used by Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to get aboard the Apollo 11 command module on July 16, 1969. Just days later, Armstrong and Aldrin were walking on the Moon.

This service arm stood more than 30 stories above the ground when it was attached to the massive Saturn 5 rocket. The black no-slip walking surface was not there in 1969, and if the astronauts looked down when they crossed, they could have seen through the metal grate to the ground. The gantry led to the White Room where crew men checked the astronauts' suits and helped them into the module. After making sure everything was hooked up correctly, the crew men shut the door and descended the launch tower, leaving the three astronauts to their historic journey.

Googie Space Ship

2009-02-10T08:00:00.000-05:00

Check out the antennas on this old Soviet space craft on display at the Kennedy Space Center visitor center:

Space travel and technology was a major inspiration for the Googie style popular in the 1950s and 1960s.

Penny Pines at Hillsborough River State Park

2009-02-08T12:57:00.005-05:00

On a recent trip to Hillsborough River State Park, I spied two stone markers. From across the parking lot, they looked like tombstones, so morbid curiosity led me to take a closer look. Turns out they are commemorative markers for the Penny Pines and Millenium Forest projects at the park.

"A Penny Pines Forest
Planted by the
Florida Society,
Daughters of the American Revolution
Dedicated to Posterity
1940"

The Penny Pines program was a national program to raise money to plant trees in national forests. The program was the brainchild of Margaret March-Mount, who is also credited for getting the support of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The second marker is an update on the status of the Penny Pines at Hillsborough River

"In 1940, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution the Florida State Society DAR planted at this site a 'Penny Pine Forest,' comprised of commercial timber.

"Starting in 2002, the Florida State Society DAR began the project of replanting this forest among the descendants of the 'Penny Pines' using native trees and shrubs typical of a long leaf pine habitat. the goal of this reforestation project is to create a natural forest that would have existed centuries ago.

"Forest dedicated on February 22, 2003"

Further reading: "Planting plan blends forestry, genealogy" Brandon Times, February 21, 2003

Nike Hercules Missile Base Open for Tours

2009-02-03T08:24:00.002-05:00

Nike Hercules Missile Base HM-69 in Everglades National Park is now open for tours. This missile base was built in the isolation of the Everglades, yet only 160 miles from Cuba and less than one year after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Now the missile base serves as a reminder of the roles played by Florida and Cuba in that chapter of the world's history.

The Everglades National Park has tours available each Saturday from now until March 28. For more information, please read the park's news release.

I first learned about these tours through the National Park Service's Heritage News, a newsletter available on the web or through an e-mail subscription.

For further reading, I also recommend the Cold War in South Florida Historic Resource Study (pdf) by the National Park Service's Southeast Regional Office. This report describes the sites used in South Florida during the Cold War, and includes a history of air defense in South Florida.

There's a What?

2009-01-21T15:35:00.002-05:00

Today the Tribune reported that the police raided a grow house in Tampa. But that's not what caught my eye. It was that the grow house was hidden in an old Army Air Corps underground ammunition bunker, which is now evidently part of somebody's yard!

The house is in the Drew Park neighborhood, east of the airport and west of the stadium. During World War II, Drew Park was part of Drew Field, an Army Air Corps training base.

Every house has a story. Some are more eventful than others.

Sundries

2009-01-11T06:00:00.002-05:00

From other blogs:

Gulfstream Park Opens, 1944 (Colin's Ghost) History of the horse racing track at Gulfstream Park

Frostproof (The South Florida Watershed Journal) The Floridian winter wonderland

Bites of the Alligator (The Keeper's Blog) A steamboat wreck on the St. Johns River

Ringling's Isles (Architecture Research) Development of St. Armand's Key

From newspapers:

"Busch Gardens to end 50-year flow of free beer" St. Petersburg Times, January 6, 2009

"Old Pinellas school could become teacher housing " St. Petersburg Times, November 12, 2008

"Couple buys 80-year-old penthouse of Babe Ruth" St. Petersburg Times, January 2, 2009

"Citrus grove grew with owner's passion " St. Petersburg Times, January 2, 2009

Cuban Bread

2009-01-07T22:47:00.002-05:00

Somewhere, hopefully, there is a sociologist or anthropologist studying how and why local traditional foods appear on local public school menus. Growing up in Texas, it was burritos; teaching in north Florida it was sweet potato casserole. But today I'd like to draw that sociologist's, that anthropologist's, attention and yours to the case of Cuban bread in Tampa's school cafeterias.

For decades, Ybor City's La Segunda Bakery has made fresh, crusty loaves of Cuban bread for nearly 200,000 students in the Hillsborough County School District. Recently, demands to eliminate trans-fats from the lunchroom threatened to end this tradition. Fortunately, the bakery was able to tweak the recipe, cut the lard, and keep the contract.

The scent of Cuban bread has been a part of Ybor City for over one hundred years. In the nineteenth century, Cuban bakers stretched dough into long loaves, allowing more slices to be cut from a single loaf. Immigrants brought this bread style to Florida, where it lent itself to the creation of the Cuban sandwich. A palm frond placed on each loaf before it is baked creates a natural split the length of the bread. For decades, family-owned bakeries turned out hundreds of loaves each morning. The loaves were trundled down brick and dirt streets on carts or trucks to deliver families' daily bread. On each porch a nail stuck out from the wall by the front door, and upon this nail the delivery man impaled the bread.

Although many of the bakeries have gone out of business, a handfull still produce fresh Cuban bread to accompany each meal. Friends, neighbors, acquaintances, and business associates linger in cafes of a morning, dunking toasted and buttered slices of bread into steaming cups of cafe con leche. By enjoying local Cuban bread with their lunches, Tampa's students are partaking in a tradition that has been this city's the staff of life for more than a century.

_________

Further Reading:

Cuban Bread Video from Mauricio Faedo's Bakery Tampa Florida USA

"Dough! Not My Job: Cuban Bread Maker" (Tampa Tribune, April 30, 2007)

Kitchen Warfare's Cuban Bread (Tampa Style)

Visit the Ybor City Museum State Park to see a historic bakery and its oven (the museum is in the former Ferlita bakery), as well as the nail by the casita door where bread was delivered.

Oh Christmas Tree

2008-12-26T13:16:00.005-05:00

A photograph of St. Petersburg's Christmas Tree going up in North Straub Park shortly after Thanksgiving this year, with the bay in the background:

Part of waterfront holiday decorations and celebrations that included a Glice skating rink.

Straub Park is named in honor of William L. Straub, the St. Petersburg Times editor who campaigned for public ownership of the waterfront. He endlessly promoted St. Petersburg and understood that an attractive waterfront would attract more tourists. Of the cities on the bay, with Tampa to the east, St. Petersburg to the west was the less industrial, the more reliant on tourist dollars. It was the "Sunshine City." In the 1910s and 1920s Straub pushed St. Petersburg's citizens and leaders to use urban planning and to invest public money in the environment to ensure the current and future prosperity of St. Petersburg and Pinellas County.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T06:00:00.001-05:00

Art Deco in Miami Beach

2008-12-24T11:55:00.003-05:00

Here is a video from the Miami Design Preservation League featuring the Miami Beach's art Deco district: Saving Art Deco.

Churches on Scott Street in Tampa

2008-12-19T13:44:00.005-05:00

Once upon a time Scott Street was in the middle of Tampa's Central Avenue District, which was the core of the city's African American community. Today the brick street rumbles by mostly vacant, fenced lots, where the Central Park Village public housing stood from 1954 until 2007.

But, as blue as the sky, still stands the Paradise Missionary Baptist Church. Built in the early twentieth century as the Allen Temple A.M.E. Church, this church now also houses a museum dedicated to the community it served. Just a few doors further down the street is the red brick Ebenezer M.B. Church, which when built in 1922 served Tampa's first African-American Seventh-Day Adventist congregation.

Paradise Missionary Baptist Church, as it appears today:

1926 photograph of the Allen Temple AME Church (courtesy USF Libraries):

Ebenezer M.B. Church on Scott Street:

Further Reading:

Tampa's "Central Avenue Remembered" by James Tokley (video)

"Central Park Village Demolished," Tampa Tribune, July 31, 2007

"Plans for Perry Harvey Sr. Park in Tampa Go Nowhere," St. Petersburg Times, December 12, 2008

"Displacement and Deconcentration in Tampa" Anthropology News, Dec. 2008

A Guide to Historic Tampa, by Steve Ratjar (The History Press, 2007)

Images of Hialeah

2008-12-13T06:00:00.001-05:00

Recent slideshow/video of Hialeah Park:

Congratulations and Best Wishes

2008-12-12T09:13:00.004-05:00

Florida's governor Charlie Crist is getting married today at St. Petersburg's First United Methodist Church. He is the third governor of this state to marry while in office in the past 100 years.

In June 1949, Fuller Warren and Barbara Manning were married at a private home in Los Angeles.

In February 1967 Claude Kirk and Erika Mattfield were married at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach.

Best wishes and congratulations to the bride and groom!

(Photos from the Florida State Archives)

Story Corps Coming to Ybor City

2008-12-11T17:03:00.003-05:00

NPR's Story Corps is coming to Ybor City to record oral histories with local residents.

"StoryCorps To Collect Interviews In Tampa" (Tampa Tribune, December 11, 2008)

Oral history projects have been completed in Ybor City before, beginning in the 1930s when the WPA recorded stories and life histories of cigar workers.

Florida Folklife from the WPA Collections, 1937-1942

American Bungalow in Seminole Heights

2008-12-11T16:59:00.003-05:00

Tampa's Seminole Heights neighborhood was recently featured in American Bungalow magazine. Here is a link to the article: Seminole Heights.

Taft Richardson, Jr.

2008-12-03T08:52:00.002-05:00

Folk artist Taft Richardson, Jr., known for his community service as well as his sculptures made from animal bones, passed away in Tampa earlier this week. Spirituality infused his work, which is well illustrated by this website by Folkvine.

Further reading:

"Taft Richardson Jr.: Bones spoke to artist " (St. Petersburg Times, December 3, 2008)

"Bones of invention" (by Jeff Klinkenberg, St. Petersburg Times, August 13, 2006)

From the library:

Extraordinary Interpretations: Florida's Self-Taught Artists (by Gary Monroe, University Press of Florida, 2003)

Just Above the Water: Florida Folk Art (by Kristin G. Congdon and Tina Bucuvalas, University Press of Mississippi, 2006)

Vacation Photos

2008-12-02T06:00:00.001-05:00

Really, nothing to do with Florida, but here are some pictures from a recent trip to Chicago.

Calder's Flamingo reflected in Mies van der Rohe's Loop Station post office

Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House

The Rookery Building

Sears Tower

The house in LaGrange where David Hasselhoff lived when he was in high school

Places To Go, People To See

2008-12-01T06:00:00.000-05:00

The Florida Humanities Council sponsors events statewide and year round presenting Florida culture and arts. For example, on December 4, Robert Wrigley and Campbell McGrath will be reading and discussing their work at FIU's Biscayne Bay Campus in North Miami.

For a calendar of events, go to the Florida Humanities Council's website.

Temple Terrace Holiday Tour of Homes

2008-11-29T06:00:00.000-05:00

Next Saturday, December 6 (10 am to 2 pm) is the Temple Terrace Historic Homes Tour, presented by the Temple Terrace Preservation Society. The tour begins and ends at the 1920s Club Morocco Casino (now the Florida College Student Center, see map), and features four 1920s Mediterranean Revival houses and four 1950s - 1960s Mid Century Modern houses.

History of Temple Terrace

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T06:00:00.000-05:00

Photographs from the Florida State Archives:

Underwater Thanksgiving at Rainbow Springs (1953)

Governor Collins' daughter Darby with Thanksgiving turkey at mansion (1959)

St. Petersburg's Pier

2008-11-26T11:11:00.005-05:00

Then

(Florida State Archives)

Now

History of The Pier

Hot War to Hot Dogs

2008-11-24T06:00:00.000-05:00

Just to the east of Busch Gardens' parking lot in Tampa stands Mel's Hot Dogs, since 1973. The restaurant also happens to be in the last remaining building from the World War II training base, Henderson Field. The former Army air field land is now part of Busch Gardens, a brewery, and the University of South Florida. Traces of the runways can still be found, and in 2000, construction crews at the university found a rusty practice bomb.

Florida in Life

2008-11-23T14:37:00.002-05:00

Google recently added a way to search old Life magazine photographs: Life photo archives.

Some examples of Florida photographs found this way. . . .

Soldiers at mailcall outside the Breakwater Hotel, Miami Beach, 1942

Dwight D. Eisenhower's arrival in Key West in a lemon-colored Cadillac, December 1955

Upside-down house, 1960

Nixon and the balloon drop, GOP Convention, Miami Beach, 1968

Architect Eliot Noyes and interior decorator Kathryn Smallen on terrace of bubble house at Hobe Sound, Florida, 1954

Road Trip to (Off) Broadway?

2008-11-18T19:07:00.003-05:00

"After Years, Sondheim's 'Road Show' Pulls Into N.Y." - National Public Radio: "Addison Mizner was an architect who helped create Florida's Palm Beach. His brother, Wilson, was a larger-than-life character: a cocaine-addicted gambler who managed prizefighters, collaborated on Broadway plays, and got involved in all sorts of illegal schemes, including swindling his own wife."

More about Mizner:

"Architect Addison Mizner: Villain or Visionary?" (Herald-Tribune, Jan. 27, 2008)

"Mizner's Dream" (Boca Raton's History)

Polynesian Putter

2008-11-17T06:00:00.000-05:00

The other evening we played a round. Polynesian Putter is a 1970s mini golf course on St. Pete Beach that features a large tiki head with glowing blue eyes. Three years ago it was chosen as the area's "Best Putt-Putt," and I don't think much has changed since then. It's basic, many of the course obstacles are actually garden statuary, but if you just want a relaxed way to pass an hour with family or friends, it's just the thing.

Founded in 1972, Polynesian Putter is a Treasure Island survivor. The tiki head on the course is echoed by a tiki head on the score card, although some have pointed out that the tiki head on the score card was actually at Tiki Gardens. Tiki Gardens was a Hawaiian-themed resort down the road, which is now a local beach access.

The hole under the snake forks, and you have to choose which way to go.

Citrus Park School - 1911

2008-11-12T19:15:00.005-05:00

In September I posted a photograph of the Citrus Park Colored School, which raised a question about another one-room school in Citrus Park. Finally, I stopped and took a picture of that one as well.

The Citrus Park school was built in 1911, and served all grades in a single room until the 1920s, when a divider was added to make it into two rooms. In the 1920s, a new brick school was built; this brick building is still part of today's Citrus Park Elementary. The wooden schoolhouse, which was originally white rather than red, continued to serve the school and community as lunchroom, church, and classroom. As Citrus Park grew, particularly after World War II, more classrooms were added to the school, but the old schoolhouse remained.

The Old Citrus Park School is a Hillsborough County Historic Landmark, as it may be the oldest standing school building in the county.

The Citrus Park Elementary School campus is rather a hodge-podge of architectural styles, the latest addition being in the current decade. Northwest Hillsborough County has grown rapidly in the past ten years, and finding classrooms for all the kids has greatly challenged the local school board.

Florida National Cemetery

2008-11-11T11:11:00.000-05:00

Florida National Cemetery

Veterans Day Homepage

A Little Comfort in St. Petersburg

2008-11-06T19:01:00.007-05:00

Tucked between the Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of History near St. Petersburg's Pier is this comfort station. "Comfort station" is a fairly outdated term for public restroom.

This particular comfort station is architect-designed, in the Romanesque Revival style (it's a City of St. Petersburg historic landmark). Today it may seem odd to have a pretty public restroom, especially one right on the waterfront in the midst of museums and tourist attractions. But in the early twentieth century, public facilities showed that a city was progressive, clean, safe. Tourism was very important in St. Petersburg in the 1920s, and while no one was not going to come visit because of the restrooms, having a nice comfort station didn't hurt.

The architect of this little gem was Henry Taylor, who designed many of St. Pete's finest buildings, including the Vinoy hotel and St. Mary Our Lady of Grace Church. The remarkable similarity between the later and the comfort station has fed local urban lore, that the church didn't pay Taylor for his work, and in retribution he used the design to build a restroom. However, it seems this story is a case of fiction stranger than fact, based on construction dates and Taylor's wife. It may be more difficult to prove or disprove stories that the comfort station is haunted by a woman named Agnes.

Lorenzo Dow Ross

2008-10-30T07:01:00.000-05:00

Beside the winding road leading to the Weedon Island Preserve are two grave markers partially surrounded by a short, white picket fence. There's space for a car to pull over safely, and a interpretive sign to read as well.

Here are the graves of Lorenzo Dow Ross and his eldest son Percy. Lorenzo was born in 1836 in what became Tampa. A local boy, he fought in Florida's Indian wars and joined the Confederate Seventh Florida Infantry during the Civil War. After nearly two years as a prisoner of war in Tennessee, he came home to Ross Island, now part of the Weedon Island Preserve. Bad food killed Lorenzo in 1889, bad hunting killed Percy in 1886, and they came to be buried side by side.

Lorenzo and Percy Ross' tombstones have had some adventures, which you can read about in these articles from the St. Petersburg Times:

"Marking Time" (Dec. 10, 2006)

"The history behind one Floridian's headstone" (Sept. 19, 1998)

Christopher Still at the Gulf Coast Museum of Art

2008-10-29T07:00:00.000-05:00

"Coming Home," through January 25 at the Gulf Coast Museum of Art, chronicles 30 years of artist Christopher Still's career. The title refers in part to Still's longtime connections to the museum and Pinellas County.

"Exhibit tracks evolution of artist Christopher Still" (St. Petersburg Times, October 26, 2008)

Christopher Still's murals in the House Chamber at the Florida State Capital

Power

2008-10-28T07:00:00.000-05:00

In 1955 Florida Power Corporation bought the northern part of Weedon Island and built a power plant there. The power plant property includes some of the prehistoric mounds, the former Weedon house site, and a 1930s movie studio. The power company used the movie studio as a warehouse until it burned in 1963. The power plant is now Progress Energy's Bartow Power Plant.

Here's a glimpse of the power plant through the mangroves along Gandy Boulevard:

If you were to take a few steps further towards the water and look to the east across Old Tampa Bay, you'd see the Interbay Peninsula, home to South Tampa, Port Tampa, and MacDill Air Force Base.

Squint a bit, and you'll see a very large airplane landing at MacDill AFB.

Today MacDill Air Force Base is home to the 6th Air Mobility Wing, U.S. Central Command, and the headquarters of the U.S. Special Operations Command, along with 51 other Mission Partners. Nearly seventy years ago it was a brand new base, training pilots for World War II. Base commander on December 7, 1941, was General Clarence Tinker, also known as the first Native American to become a Major General in the United States Army. Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma was named in his honor.

Happy Birthday, Teddy!

2008-10-27T08:40:00.004-05:00

Officers of the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment in Tampa, Florida, in 1898. From left to right: Major George Dunn, Major Alexander Brodie, Major General Joseph Wheeler, Chaplain Henry A. Brown, Colonel Leonard Wood, and Colonel Theodore Roosevelt. (Photograph courtesy Florida State Archives)

Theodore Rossevelt was born in New York on October 27, 1858, which means that today is his 150th birthday!

A few years before he became the 26th president of the United States, Roosevelt spent a little time in Tampa with his Rough Riders, the men of the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry. The year was 1898 and the United States was at war with Spain. Tampa served as the point of embarkation, meaning that troops and supplies headed to Cuba passed through the city's ports. Tampa was still a small town, and the military logistics got gummed up, so there was time for Roosevelt to have dinner in Ybor City.

The Library of Congress website includes digital files of motion pictures taken of Roosevelt and the Rough Riders in Tampa.

Historians are rather like pack rats...

2008-10-26T13:13:00.001-05:00

"We’ve Got the Biscuit; You Bring the Gravy" from Digital Library Center Blog

Links on the Side

2008-10-25T07:00:00.001-05:00

I've added a new sidebar section (on the right hand side, scroll down) with links to research resources. Here you can find digital books, maps, photographs, library catalogs, journals, and other materials that I have found useful. If you have a favorite research link that isn't listed here, please share it! If you know of a blog that would be a good addition to the blogrolls on the sidebars, please share that, too!

Grand Central Airport

2008-10-24T14:04:00.005-05:00

In 1929 Fred V. Blair built Grand Central Airport on Weedon Island. In 1931, Eastern Air Transport began flights from this airport, with service to Daytona Beach on Curtiss Kingbirds, and service to New York on Curtiss Condors. The airport closed in the late 1940s, but the remains of the terminal and control tower building are still visible next to Weedon Island Preserve's parking lot.

Building the airport required clearing and leveling large portions of the island. Over the past 60 years gopher tortoises have worked hard to convert the former runway into scrub.

For more information: Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields: Florida: Southern Tampa Area. Includes photos and aerial views of Grand Central Airport.

Weeden Island Preserve Fieldtrip

2008-10-23T22:06:00.005-05:00

This week I took my class to the Weedon Island Preserve in St. Petersburg. The class is a seminar, an interdisciplinary overview of the Humanities with Florida as a unifying theme. My students are freshmen in the University Honors program at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. This fieldtrip to Weedon Island was a chance to escape the classroom for an afternoon, and a chance to visit a place that is both a valuable natural resource and a valuable cultural resource. The Preserve is managed by Pinellas County Parks, and offers nature trails, interpretative exhibits, historic sites, Indian mounds, kayaking, birdwatching, educational programs, and more.

The design on the exterior of the museum is inspired by a prehistoric culture that flourished here a couple of thousand years ago, the Weeden Island culture, known for its elaborate pottery. This particular pattern would be Weeden Island Punctate, basically made by poking wet clay with the end of a reed or stem. The Weeden Island culture was found along the gulf coast from Tampa Bay northward and westward into southern Georgia and Alabama.

Jesse Fewkes of the Smithsonian Institution named the site and the culture in the 1920s when he excavated the site. He was also, unfortunately, responsible for a spelling error. Archaeologists refer to the Weeden Island culture and the Weeden Island site, and Weeden Island pottery. That's Weeden with three e's. But the name of the island is actually Weedon Island, with two e's and one o. Technically speaking, the island's name originally was Weedon's Island, with a possessive apostrophe s. In the 1890s the island was a wedding present to Blanche Henderson and Leslie Weedon, a Tampa physician. The couple and their family used the island as a weekend retreat. A twist to the story is that Leslie Weedon was the grandson of Frederick Weedon, known to historians as the doctor to Osceola while the Seminole leader was imprisioned in St. Augustine. When Osceola died, Dr. F. Weedon prepared his body for burial, but for some reason kept Osceola's head separate.

Further Reading: The Weedon Island Story (pdf)

Florida News Stories

2008-10-20T17:09:00.002-05:00

"Swamp Buggy fever...No antidote!" (Marco Eagle, October 19, 2008) "It was pure muck after the potatoes were dug up, perfect!"

"Using old curbs, Trilby house rises piece by piece " (St. Petersburg Times, October 20, 2008) "The Tudor-style stone cottage nestled on a bluff on a bend in the Withlacoochee River looks like something straight out of Harry Potter. With its English garden, tower, sun-faded blue columns and heavy front door handmade from 1,000-year-old pecky cypress hauled a century ago from a Florida swamp...."

"Woman returns to Breakers 65 years after her birth there" (Palm Beach Post, October 7, 2008)
"The Breakers 'a different world' for mom who gave birth there 65 years ago" (Sun Sentinel, October 8, 2008)

"Biscayne National Park celebrates 40 years" (Miami Herald, October 12, 2008)

"Distant Shores" (Biscayne Times) "Biscayne Bay may be our area’s most prominent feature, but just try getting close to it."

Nature Photos from Pasco County

2008-10-18T21:27:00.012-05:00

Here are a few photographs from a recent visit to Key Vista Environmental Park and the Anclote Gulf Park, including (in no particular order) an anhinga, pine trees, a brown pelican, a jellyfish, a pipefish, a fiddler crab, blazing star, and birds on powerlines.

Marjorie's Outhouse

2008-10-15T20:32:00.005-05:00

"The outhouse . . . stood on a direct line with the dining room windows. One fortunate diner might sit with his back to it. The others could not lift their eyes from their plates without meeting the wooden stare of the unhappy and misplaced edifice. They were fortunate if they did not meet as well the eye of a belated occupant, assuring himself stonily that he could not be seen." (from "The Evolution of Comfort," in Cross Creek, by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings [Charles Scribner's Sons, 1942])

The Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings State Park preserves or recreates Rawlings' house down to the minute details, including the gray paint on the screen door of the outhouse, intended to shield the user from view, but rather giving that unfortunate the appearance of a gray, mossy monster. There's even a red cloth flag, a system worked out by one of Rawling's guests to indicate when the outhouse was occupied. In Cross Creek, Rawlings recounts how she vowed to use any windfalls of money to pay for indoor plumbing, being disatisfied with the outhouse as well as icy outdoor showers in the wintertime. With the $700 she earned for Jacob's Ladder, she was able to install a bathroom: "The formal opening of the bathroom was a gala social event, with a tray of glasses across the lavatory, ice and soda in the bathtub, and a bouquet of roses . . . ."

Although Rawlings did acknowledge that she was better off at her house than were many of her neighbors when it came to water, her desire for convenience and comfort are echoed by Ma Baxter's wish for a well in The Yearling. And as Rawlings had to postpone her bathroom to pay for mortgages, car repairs, and poor citrus crops, so did Ma Baxter have to wait for her well:

"Ever' spring, I'd figger to git your Ma a well dug. Then I'd need a ox, or the cow'd bog down and perish, or one o' the young uns'd put in and die and I'd have no heart for well-diggin', and medicine to pay for. Bricks so turrible high--When I begun diggin' oncet, and got no water at thirty feet, I knowed I was in for it. But twenty years is too long to ask ary woman to do her washin' on a seepage hillside." (Penny Baxter to his son Jody, in The Yearling, by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings)

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Eatonville, a Town in the Southern-most State

2008-10-05T07:03:00.000-05:00

The New York Times has been running a series of articles about the state guides published in the 1930s by the Works Progress Administration. This week they visited Eatonville, a small town in central Florida. Eatonville is the oldest incorporated African-American municipality in the United States, and was the childhood home of Zora Neale Hurston, who wrote the town's entry in the Florida guide.

"In a Town Apart, the Pride and Trials of Black Life" New York Times, September 28, 2008

Florida; a Guide to the Southern-most State (Federal Writers' Project, 1939)

The WPA Guides: Mapping America, by Christine Bold (University Press of Mississippi, 1999)

Pygmy Rattlesnake

2008-10-04T06:00:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I pulled into my mother's driveway and noticed something laying on the concrete. At first I thought it was a unusually large earthworm, then perhaps a young snake. Carefully, I gave the snake a nudge with a stick, and indeed, it was deceased. Perhaps a lawnmower encounter. Not long ago we'd had to gently eject a young black racer the cat brought into our breakfast nook, but this driveway snake had spots, so that wasn't it.

Since the snake wasn't hurting anything, the question of its parentage became a mystery deferred. Until this week when Eva at The Flying Mullet wrote about her first encounter with a pygmy rattlesnake. Fortunately -for the snake - her story had a better ending.

Happy Birthday, John Gorrie

2008-10-03T07:30:00.000-05:00

Dr. John Gorrie, inventor of the first air conditioning machine, would have been 206 years old today. For his contributions to medicine and making life in the South bearable, he has a state park and two schools (one in Jacksonville and one in Tampa) named after him. A statue of Dr. Gorrie represents Florida in Washington D.C. as part of the National Statuary Hall.

"Improved Process for the Artificial Production of Ice" U.S. Patent Number 8080, issued May 6, 1851

Paynes Prairie

2008-10-02T07:00:00.001-05:00

I moved to Florida after what had been up to then a lifetime of living in Texas. The shift from the big city of Dallas to the much smaller city of Gainesville was abrupt in many ways, but one of the most unexpected adjustments to be made was to get used to the trees that are EVERYWHERE! I couldn't see anything. Out West, if you're driving along the highway, you can see houses and farms and towns way before you get there. In the East, houses and farms and towns tend to be surprises because of all the vegetation shielding them from view. Within a few weeks at UF, I felt claustrophobic while outdoors. Until one afternoon when I went for a drive south of town and all that foliage parted and I emerged onto Paynes Prairie.

What a relief it was to see the horizon again!

My undergraduate botany and ecology courses in Texas focused on tall grass prairies rather than wet prairies, so it was bewildering to walk along the boardwalk into the prairie and be over water and amongst non-grassy plants. Spotting a herd of buffalo heightened this sense of being out of synch with time and space. Nevertheless, over the next several years, the prairie gave me a place to exhale.

Good thing I didn't live there when it was all one big lake.

For more information about Paynes Prairie:

Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park

Paynes Prairie: The Great Savanna, A History and Guide, by Lars Andersen (Pineapple Press, 2003)

Friends of Paynes Prairie

Napoleon Bonaparte Broward

2008-10-01T07:30:00.000-05:00

Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, Florida's larger-than-life 19th governor, died on this date in 1910. He is still remembered for his efforts to drain the Everglades, a task which had daunted many a prior titan. However, as he saw it, man could conquer nature, for after all, "Water will run downhill!"

"Napoleon of the Everglades," by Gary Mormino, Tampa Tribune September 14, 2008

For further reading:

Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, Florida's Fighting Democrat, by Samuel Proctor (1950, reprinted 1993 by the University Press of Florida)

The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida and the Politics of Paradise, by Michael Grunwald (2007, Simon and Schuster)

Gainesville's Courthouse Square

2008-09-29T19:00:00.000-05:00

You can still discern the outline of a courthouse square in downtown Gainesville, although the original Alachua County courthouse is no longer there. Brick store front face inward toward the courthouse, with on-street parking. The county building currently on the site of the old court house was built in 1958 is a modern-style structure, against which the Confederate memorial looks incongruous.

Alfred Browning Parker

2008-09-28T17:12:00.004-05:00

The University of Florida is celebrating the life and continuing career of Alfred Browning Parker, noted for his Tropical Modern architecture. The exhibit "Of the Master's Hand" will be on display at the Reitz Union on the UF cumpus through October 3, followed by the exhibit "Promises of Paradise: Staging Mid-Century Miami" opening at the Harn Museum on October 11.

Alfred Browning Parker website: http://www.alfredbparker.com/home.html

"The Master of Coconut Grove": Article in Summer 2008 issue of Modernism magazine (free registration required)

"UF names endowment after alumnus, renowned Miami architect" (InsideUF, Sept. 17, 2008)

House du Rivage: a film maker looks at her experience of living in an Alfred Browing Parker house, and expands into an examination of the role architecture plays in our lives.

"Architect Teaches 'Green' Techniques: A 1940''s Architect Continues To Make 'Miami Modern Homes' Using 'Green'" with video clip

DOCOMOMO/US Florida

The Country Club at Snell Isle

2008-09-27T09:00:00.000-05:00

Now part of the Renaissance Vinoy Gulf Club in St. Petersburg, this building used to be the Snell Isle Golf Club or the Sunset Country Club. It was built in the 1920s by C. Perry Snell. Snell started out as a pharmacist from Kentucky, then married well and came to St. Petersburg for a honeymoon. He ended up as one of the city's most prominent Boom Time developers. Snell Isle was built in the mid 1920s as an upscale development. Like so many other Florida developers, the end of the Boom hit Snell hard, but he perserved to finish Snell Isle. He enjoyed travel and collecting art work, some of which he incorporated into developments and buildings. The panther street signs in Snell Isle have an European heritage.

(My Florida History - Old Houses on Campus included one of Snell's homes in St. Petersburg.)

Citrus Park Colored School

2008-09-26T09:48:00.004-05:00

Tucked away just off Gunn Highway in northwest Hillsborough County, an area now more known for estate homes, is an old, one-room school house. The Citrus Park Colored School was built in the 1920s by and for the African-American community in the Keystone-Odessa-Citrus Park area on land donated by Mrs. Barbara Allen. Rev. Charlie Walker spent many hours at the county school board's offices urging them to open this school, until they agreed to supply the materials. The families served by the school provided the labor and construction know-how to actually build the school. Citrus Park Colored School served up to thirty students at a time until it closed in 1948. Since then, the old school building has been used by the Mount Pleasant AME Church. The Citrus Park Colored School is a designated Hillsborough County Historic Landmark.

"A Shared and Pleasant History" from the Tampa Tribune

Map showing locations of Hillsborough County Landmarks (pdf)

For further reading:

"'The Most Well Utilized Building...in the United States:' Citrus Park Colored School," by Geoffrey Mohlman. Sunland Tribune (1999) Volume 25, Number 1, pages 77 - 96.

Movie Night

2008-09-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

The Tarpon Springs Area Historical Society will be showing the movie Beneath the 12-Mile Reef Thursday, September 25 at the Depot Museum. The film starts rolling at 7 pm.

Beneath the 12-Mile Reef was filmed on location in Tarpon Strings in 1953, and starred a young Robert Wagner. The story is a tale of young lovers from rival sponge fishing families, a Florida Romeo and Juliet.

International Coastal Cleanup

2008-09-22T09:25:00.006-05:00

Saturday was the 2008 International Coastal Cleanup Day, organized by the Ocean Conservancy. Several local cleanups were coordinated by Keep Hillsborough County Beautiful, including one along Courtney Campbell Causeway in Tampa Bay.

It was a beautiful morning to be picking up trash. My team found plenty of bottles, cigarette butts, and a dreidel, which got a mention in the local paper!

Things we found that belonged there included a wasp nest and several horseshoe crab shells.

Ode to Odet and Those Who Came Before

2008-09-16T19:20:00.010-05:00

In my mind it was a quiet day. Boys were throwing sticks, dogs were licking baby faces, parents were napping or cleaning up after lunch. An ordinary day.

Then the Spanish came.

Do you see them? Is that Panfilo de Narvaez, the man standing on the deck, eyes straining toward shore? If it is, you had better run and hide.

Now Philippe Park, then the Native American village of Tocobaga, this site on the shore of Safety Harbor was a sort of ground zero for the radical cultural and social changes that came along with Spanish exploration of La Florida in the 16th century. Each time I visit here, I look across the harbor toward Old Tampa Bay and wonder what it's like to have your way of life end.

Yet for all that, Philippe Park is a very pleasant place. It's big; there's room for everyone, with picnic shelters, a boat ramp, and great playgrounds for little and not-so-little kids. The oaks provide shade for you and shelter for frisky squirrels who have their beady eyes on your KFC. After dinner, the kids run up and down the old Indian mound. Where else in coastal Florida do they see a hill such as this? I suspect any child who tried this 500 years ago got a good clout on the ear.

The park has a quirky history as well as a prehistory. In the 1840s, when settlement was just starting around here, a man named Odet Philippe picked this spot to be his homestead. Or Count Odet Philippe, or Dr. Odet Philippe -- he was a colorful man with a past, who claimed to be French royalty and a friend of Napoleon Bonaparte. If all the stories were true, he was over 100 years old when he died here. But no matter -- he was a true Floridian, who started a new life, reinvented himself, and stuck it out in the end. He certainly had his share of adventures here -- an exerpt from an interpretive sign at the park:

"Originally, this mound was rectangular in shape, but a tremendous hurricane in 1848 washed away approximately 1/3 of the mound. At that time, Odet Philippe used the mound to save his family from the tidal surge."

Just another typical day at the park.

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For more information or directions and events, visit Pinellas County's website for Philippe Park.

Primrose Willow

2008-09-03T12:51:00.006-05:00

This primrose willow is doing just what it should, growing in a wet area of central Florida, and blooming in the fall. There's not much to say about it, other than it looks nice.

War Beans

2008-08-31T16:53:00.003-05:00

The Castor Bean plant grows quickly and easily in Florida, has been grown commercially here in the past, and is used in Brazil to make biodiesel fuel. Sounds great, sign us all up, the answer for what to do with all that land cleared due to citrus canker -- well, maybe not. The plant is invasive and poisonous, one of its products being ricin. Nonetheless, 90 years ago castor cultivation in Florida was a matter of national concern.

The time was 1917, and the United States had joined World War One. One of the inovations of the Great War was the use of airplanes for military purposes, and castor oil was valued as an aircraft lubricant. Soon the plant was under cultivation in Florida, the southwestern states, and California, with growers guaranteed a price of $3 a bushel. Problems with labor, pests, and transportation lowered yields and raised prices demanded by growers. Production was far below government estimates, and the War Department turned to foreign sources of the oil. American petroleum companies promoted mineral and other oils for use in aircraft.

Soon after fields of castor were planted in Florida, armyworms began marching and munching their way through the foliage. State plant inspectors waged battle armed with dust sprayers full of powdered arsenate of lead, quickly saving that year's crop. The State Plant Board reported:

"In dealing with the emergency created by this outbreak of the army worm the Plant Board was called upon to make rather heavy expenditures. A total of $1,946.85 was expended by the Board, covering traveling expenses of inspectors, telegrams, emergency circulars, dusting machines, poison, etc. The large quantity of castor beans saved from destruction, and therefore made available for the use of the Government, more than justified the expenditure."

The war ended before all problems with massive domestic production of castor oil were resolved. Peacetime demand for the oil much less, and farmers turned to other crops. Castor bean plants are still found along roadside ditches and fields throughout south Florida, where they are considered weeds.

Photograph on page 304 of the 1918 edition of The Overland Monthly: "Human and Physical Elements in a Picturesque and Successful Castor Bean Campaign in Florida. --Herman B. Walker of Miami, and the illuminated Ford in Which He Several times Traversed the East Coast, Calling upon the Farmers to Plant War Beans."
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Sources:

"Castor Beans Grown in Titusville Supplied Oil for World War I Planes." Indian River Journal Volume VI, Number 1 (Spring/Summer 2007), pp. 2-3.

The Quarterly Bulletin of the State Plant Board of Florida, Volume I, 1916-1917. Gainesville: State Plant Board of Florida.

1918 Year Book of the Oil, Paint and Drug Reporter. New York: Oil, Paint and Drug Reporter, 1919.

Go figure... Go Rays!

2008-08-30T21:04:00.004-05:00

Friday night was a special night for the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays. Their win over the Baltimore Orioles guaranteed the Rays a winning season, the first in the franchise's history.

The Rays play at Tropicana Field, an air-conditioned indoor stadium. Not particularly romantic or glamorous, but immensely practical for Florida summers.

Tampa Bay Automobile Museum

2008-08-24T21:59:00.006-05:00

Tucked away in Pinellas Park is the Tampa Bay Automobile Museum with 30+ collectible cars, many of which I had never heard of before. Such as:

The 1962 Tiburon Roadster, designed by Henry Covington in St. Petersburg, Florida. According to the exhibit sign, this roadster (and its convertible version) are the only cars designed, built, marketed, and sold in the Tampa / St. Petersburg area.

And then there's the Hanomag Kommisbrot -- perhaps ancestral to the SmartCar? The Kommisbrot was built in Germany in the 1920s and got 60 miles to the gallon -- with a top speed of 35 miles per hour. Given the looks of this car, that must have been terrifyingly fast.

For more information about the Tampa Bay Automobile Museum, visit their website, http://tbauto.org/.

For more about the Tiburon roadster, here's a link to a 2006 article in the St. Petersburg Times: "At last, 'The Shark' finds its way back to the Bay"

Stuff for a Rainy Day

2008-08-18T18:06:00.002-05:00

While waiting for Tropical Storm Fay to pass on by...

"Hemingway Knocked Wallace Stevens into a Puddle and Bragged About It" from Littoral

"Hialeah Park and Joseph Widener, 1932" from Colin's Ghost

"Winters in Fort Myers weren't always a wonderland for Edison" from News-Press.com, August 17, 2008

"The Master of Coconut Grove" from Modernism magazine

"Painter in a Savage Land: The Strange Saga of the First European Artist in North America" a book excerpt from the Wall Street Journal, July17, 2008

Now, That's a ...

2008-08-02T21:05:00.004-05:00

A clue -- these usually aren't painted lavender.

It's the shovel bucket from a dragline, used in Florida to mine phosphate. It's hard to tell from this picture, but this shovel is really big. You could walk around in there. Draglines and shovels like this were a tremendous step forward in efficiency compared to the handheld shovels and wheelbarrows used when phosphate rock was discovered in Florida in the 1880s. At first, miners dug for river-pebble phosphate, but draglines let them pull off the oveburden and get to buried phosphate rock deposits more easily.

Florida phosphate is a major source of fertilizer for the nation and the world, and has been economically important to the state for over 100 years. Downsides to mining are primarily environmental, from the actual soil removal to energy and water use, to the slightly radioactive by-products stored in mountainous gypsum stacks. Most of Florida's phosphate comes from the Central Florida Phosphate District or Bone Valley, where the corners of Hillsborough, Polk, Manatee, and Hardee counties meet.

This particular shovel can be found to the side of MOSI in Tampa. Yes, that's a red dinosaur in the background.

More Reading about Phosphate in Florida:

Phosphate Primer

Phosphate at the Crossroads

Mulberry Phosphate Museum

One Last Big Push for Phosphate Mining

Florida Mine Map (pdf)

The Florida Collection, from the Jacksonville Public Library

2008-07-28T17:41:00.004-05:00

The Florida Collection is an online resource made available by the Jacksonville Public Library. It includes biographical sketches, historic photographs, and old postcards, among other things. Browsing through the postcard index, I discovered:

* a 1900s photograph of horses at the starting line at Moncrief Park

* two brave men plucking feathers from an ostrich, and

* a 1940s advertisement for Berney's Restaurant.

The Berney's card proclaims "Dine with the Man in Green from Ripley's 'Believe it or Not'." And sure enough, there's a man in a green suit. A little googling finds a January 18, 1937, letter to the editor, published in Time magazine: "Dressed completely in green day and night, he will give to any woman dressed entirely in green the choice of his menu, gratis. ... The only man in Florida to drive an automobile with a green licenses, he has even painted the 'White Horse' Scotch whisky statue green."

Italian Club Cemetery

2008-07-25T19:32:00.009-05:00

Over 100 years old, the Italian Club Cemetery still serves Tampa's Sicilian community. The Italian Club (L'Unione Italiana) was established as a mutual aid society for immigrants. Part of the dues were used to pay for members' funerals and burials, as well as death benefits to help the families.

Some photos from earlier this year:

Italian Club of Tampa Cemetery

"At the Italian Club Cemetery in Ybor City, every tomb tells a story " (St. Petersburg Times, July 6, 2008)

Paul Rudolph in Texas

2008-07-21T12:14:00.007-05:00

A recent trip to Texas resulted in many pictures of buildings, but few related to Florida! However, fans of Paul Rudolph (the architect) may be interested in photos of the Sid Richardson Science building on the campus of Texas Christian University. I have an undergraduate degree in Biology from TCU, and therefore spent many, many hours in this building. I had no idea it was a Paul Rudolph design until a year or two ago. It's an interesting building to be in, lots of shapes and curves. It can be difficult to find the lecture hall on the first day of class, with everything is tucked away under some ledge or another. It's a bit like learning in a rock shelter. And I do remember that ventilation wasn't so great for Chemistry labs. The stairwells are wonderful visually, despite being firetraps.

Sid Richardson Building - North Side

East Side

South Side

Ramp to courtyard

Courtyard

Stairwell

Weedon Island Could Use Your Help

2008-07-19T08:00:00.000-05:00

If you have any information related to the theft of Native American artifacts from the museum at the Weedon Island Preserve, please call the number in the article below.

"$500 reward offered for return of Weedon Island artifacts" (St. Petersburg Times , July 8, 2008)

Related stories:

"Reward Offered For Artifacts Stolen From Weedon Preserve" (Tampa Tribune, July 8, 2008)

"Artifacts stolen from Weedon Island Preserve " (St. Petersburg Times, June 26, 2008)

"Deputies: Artifacts stolen from Weedon Island Preserve" (Bay News 9, June 25, 2008)

Just one more thing...

2008-07-17T08:00:00.000-05:00

One last tidbit from Anna Maria Island, a photo of Ginny's & Jane E's at the Old IGA, an internet cafe / antique store / bakery / florist in what used to be a grocery store.

Mr. Roser

2008-07-15T08:00:00.001-05:00

One of the original developers of Anna Maria Island was Charles Roser. Roser is generally credited with being the inventor of Fig Newtons, although some of the details are lost in the murky depths of time. After selling the Fig Newton to National Biscuit Company (Nabisco), Roser moved down to Florida and tried his hand at real estate development. In addition to Anna Maria Island, he promoted Roser Park in St. Petersburg.

On Pine Street, near the Anna Maria City Pier, are two buildings with historical connections to the cookie maker: Roser Cottage and the Roser Community Memorial Church. The church was built by Charles' father John Roser, in memory of his wife.

It Was Nice, Even Though It Was Closed...

2008-07-12T18:02:00.009-05:00

Well, what did I expect for the afternoon of the 4th of July! But I stopped by the Anna Maria Island Museum anyhow, and had a fine time. The museum itself is in one of those types of historic buildings I like, the ones that don't look like anything in particular, until you know the back-story. According to the historical marker, it was built in 1920 as an ice house, the "was subsequently used as city hall, the police department, a firehouse and the Turtle House" before being renovated in 1992 as the historical society's museum.

Here's the view from inside:

Again, the historical marker was helpful here, reporting that the jail was built in 1927 to handle overly happy guests of a local tavern. At the time, the jail did have bars, but no window glass, and it seems the mosquitoes had a "sobering effect." A fire in 1940 burned the wooden parts of the jail building, leaving the concrete/tabby parts to become a local tourist attraction.

Another historic building at the museum is the Belle Haven Cottage, built in 1920 in the bay next to the City Pier (click here for a historic postcard showing the cottage in its original location). Evidently the house's piers rotted and it fell into the water after just six years. Lyman Christy bought the cottage and had it barged around tot he other side of the island. He fixed it up and it was home for him and his wife Wanda for nearly 50 years. Then in 2001, the house was moved again, this time to the museum site. So say the historic markers. I like the flower bed border of mismatched plates.

For more information about the Anna Maria Island Historical Society and their museum, here's a link to their website. Do as I say, and not as I do, and go visit them when they're open!

Anna Maria Island City Pier

2008-07-08T08:10:00.006-05:00

In the early 1890s, George Emerson Bean of Connecticut set up a homestead on the northern end of Anna Maria Island, looking across salt water to Egmont Key, at the mouth of Tampa Bay. In 1911 George's son George started the Anna Maria Beach Company along with John Roser (more about him later), beginning commercial development of the island. One of the first steps was to build a city pier on the bay side of the island, where excursion steamers from Tampa could unload passengers.

The City Pier is still a popular spot for tourists, day trippers, and local fishermen.

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Further Reading

Visiting Small-Town Florida (Revised Edition) by Bruce Hunt (Pineapple Press, 2003)

A Historical Geography of Southwest Florida Waterways: Volume One, Anna Maria Sound to Lemon Bay (Sea Grant Florida, 2000)

Sunshine Skyway

2008-07-05T12:17:00.007-05:00

Here we are, heading south again, over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

This is the world's longest cable stayed concrete bridge, built in 1987. The cables are painted yellow and lit at night, but right now they are in the middle of a repainting project.

Going up . . .

. . . and down.

This bridge replaced the original 1950s Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which was hit by a freighter during a 1980 storm. A section of the bridge fell into the water, killing 35 people. The new bridge design incorporated features to prevent that from happening again. Still, it's not entirely comforting to look out the window and see parts of the original span that have been turned into fishing piers. Here's the north pier:

On the plus side, the piers are very popular with fishermen.

The bridge is so high because it crosses Tampa Bay, and all the ships (the tankers, the cargo ships, the cruise ships) have to pass underneath to reach the Port of Tampa and Port Manatee. The bridge also connects St. Petersburg and Bradenton/Sarasota, saving an hour or more of drive time around the bay. Before the bridge, there was the Bee Line Ferry. The Sunshine Skyway Bridge (officially named the Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge in 2005) is part of Interstate-275, and there is a one dollar toll.

Anna Maria Island Bridge

2008-06-30T17:36:00.003-05:00

From a recent trip to the beach (in the rain), here's a photograph of the raised draw of the Anna Maria Island Bridge. In September, this 50-year-old bridge will be closed for a few weeks for repairs. The bridge is on State Road 64 (Manatee Avenue) and takes cars and trucks over Sarasota Bay between Anna Maria and Bradenton.

Lemon Tree

2008-06-10T13:33:00.004-05:00

Between summer seabreeze storms and blazing 90+ degree temperatures, I've been attempting to keep my backyard from turning into a set for The Jungle Book. Turns out we aren't the only ones living here.

It's hard to tell what kind of frog this is, with just the eyes peeking out of the PVC pipe that used to be a stake for the lemon tree.

Another guest has moved on, leaving her old clothes behind. I'll have to watch out, or she'll come back and leave the kids for me to feed.

Giant Swallowtail

Florida Radio Programs

2008-06-04T15:36:00.003-05:00

The Florida Humanities Council's June 2008 Radio Programs are now available online:

Four Rivers and a Swamp
Walkable Urbanism
Poet David Kirby
The Longest Canoe

A year's worth of programs are archived on their website if four just isn't enough!

Fairchild Tropical Gardens

2008-05-31T11:18:00.014-05:00

On Old Cutler Road in Coral Gables are two wonderful parks, Matheson Hammock Park and Fairchild Tropical Gardens. Both are the creations of landscape architect William Lyman Phillips on land donated by Colonel and Mrs. Robert H. Montgomery. The tropical gardens were named in honor of David Fairchild.

Created in the 1930s and 1940s with the help of Civilian Conservation Corps workers, Phillips envisioned the Fairchild Tropical Gardens as a sort of outdoor museum with long galleries allowing both distant and close views of pieces. The gardens also served a scientific botanical purpose of allowing study of tropical plant species.

Here is the visitor center:

And the Gate House (at the original entrance):

The Bailey Palm Glade, named in honor of Liberty Hyde Bailey:

The Garden Club of America Ampitheater:

And a maintenance problem that Phillips didn't face:

Green iguanas have taken over the grass and wall in front of the amphitheater.

Further Reading:

Historic Landscapes of Florida, by Rocco Ceo and Joanna Lombard. Published by Deering Foundation and University of Miami School of Architecture, 2001.

Pioneer of Tropical Landscape Architecture: William Lyman Phillips in Florida, by Faith Reyher Jackson. Published by University Press of Florida, 1997.