history · 7 min
The Storm That Killed the Railroad
On Labor Day 1935 the strongest hurricane ever to strike the United States crossed the Upper Keys, drowned the veterans' camps, wrecked the rescue train and ended Flagler's railroad to Key West.
Dispatch
History
history · 7 min
How Tarpon Springs Became the Sponge Capital
A Philadelphia businessman, a sponge buyer from Leonidio and 500 Greek divers turned a river town into the largest sponge port in America, until the beds died.
history · 7 min
The Pencil Mills of Cedar Key
How a Gulf island cut the cedar for America's pencils, and the morning in 1896 that ended it.
history · 7 min
The Royal Poinciana, the Largest Wooden Hotel Ever Built
Henry Flagler's Palm Beach hotel took 1,000 men nine months to raise in 1893 and a crew of 102 unemployed men over a year to pull down.
history · 7 min
The Lectors of Ybor City
The readers Tampa's cigar rollers hired and paid themselves, and the November morning in 1931 when the platforms came out.
history · 7 min
What Happened to Sanlando Springs
The Longwood swimming park sold tickets from 1926 to 1970, then became a gated subdivision; the spring behind the clubhouse still runs at the rate the postcards claimed.
history · 7 min
The Last Can of Concentrate
Florida invented frozen orange juice in a Winter Haven lab in 1945. This spring the company that made it famous stopped making it, and the groves behind it are nearly gone.
history · 7 min
The Trees That Build the Coast
How red, black, and white mangroves made Florida's shoreline, and why the state nearly cut them all down.
history · 6 min
The Road That Drained a Swamp
How the Tamiami Trail crossed the Everglades in 1928, and the river it quietly cut in two.