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Stephens Settlers House, Manatee Historical ViIllage. Photo: Manatee County Clerk of Courts

Manatee County historic home
was built to stay cool in summer

A four bederoom house in Manatee Village Historical Park provides textbook examples of designs used to help keep occupants as cool as possible in the days before air conditioning. Read the story in The Bradenton Herald: Builders of Stephens Settler's House knew how to keep cool

Let's 
Play Ball
No explanation needed on this. The Red Sox' arrival in Sarasota for spring training in 1950 was a community-wide event, and local merchants were happy to participate.  Now Boston trains in Fort Myers, but the local paper probably doesn't run something like this.
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Paper's photo gallery recounts 1976 Escambia High race riots 

PictureSt. Pete Times, Feb. 6, 1976
The Pensacola News Journal posted a photo gallery recounting the racial tensions that culminated in a day of violence involving an estimated three-quarters of the school's population. Feb. 5, 1976 ended with four students shot and 30 injured, and destruction of windows, trophy cases, clocks and water fountains. Crosses were burned on the yards of school board members over the following weeks.  The violence was triggered by protests by white students over decisions to stop calling the school's sports teams "Rebels," which African-American students said was insensitive.  See the Pensacola News Journal's photo gallery and story about the Escambia High Race Riots

Artifact trove found in Chassahowitzka River cleanup

PictureChassahowitzka River. Photo: Southwest Florida Water Management Distirct
A five-month dredging of the Chassahowitzka River last year turned out to be an archaeologist's dream. Found in up-to 25-foot-deep muck were such artifacts as a 2,200-year-old ceramic bowl, a 10,000-year-old Suwannee spear point, fragments of a 17th century Spanish ceramic plate, a fish hook made of bone and an antler that Native Americans probably used to make stone tools. 
Read the story in cnn.com: In Florida, a spring cleanup yields cornucopia of history

Fans build online archives to preserve programs of
legendary South Florida shock jock Neil Rogers

Three years after the death of popular South Florida radio host Neil Rogers, his fans are compiling online archives of his shows, plus tributes on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. 
Read the South Florida Sun-Sentinel story: A Neil Rogers renaissance

Neil Rogers tribute pages: Audio archive • YouTube • Twitter • Facebook

Meet Emily Lisska, protector of the preciousness
at The Jacksonville Historical Society

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As executive director of The Jacksonville Historical Society since 1996, Emily Lisska is the go-to expert for anyone who wants to know details about Jacksonville's past.  She can also be counted on to show up at government meetings to argue against demolition of historic structures.

She was identified as "The Incomparable Emily Lisska" in ads for a 2009 program on Jacksonville history that she created and presented for The Jacksonville Diversity Network.  A metrojacksonville.com story about the show referred to her as "inimitable,"  "colorful," "unsinkable," and one of the "Grand Dames of Jacksonville."

Here are a few stories about Emily, found on the Web:

Workplace: Emily Lisska, Jacksonville Historical Society, by Tracy Jones, Contributing Writer, Jacksonville Daily Record, August 28, 2013

Jacksonville Historical Society director wins top state history award, by Sandy Strickland, Staff Writer, The Florida Times Union, September 16, 2010

Emily Lisska Dishes on Historical Jacksonville, metrojacksonville.com, August 6, 2009

Congratulations to Emily Lisska - 2013 Miss Aggie Award Recipient, mandarinmuseum.net, March 10, 2013

Staff Biography, Jacksonville Historical Society website