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  • Florida History Today
    • TB Times: St. Augustine coming to grips with civil rights history
    • Strawberry Festival organizers collecting material for new history book
    • Tarpon Springs' Greektown added to National Register as Traditional Cultural Property
    • Volunteers begin cleanup of historic Ocala cemetery
    • Jax museum presents 'Megalodon,' biggest-ever shark
    • Proposed museum switch generates anger in St. Pete
    • Report: Ocala's original cemetery lying in ruins
    • Rock and Roll Hall of Fame seeking camera-wielding Elvis fans
    • Service of Florida Jews in World War II focus of new WLRN doc
    • Seventeen honored for Big Bend preservation efforts
    • Long dresses, long pants, no shorts: Life before AC was uncool
    • Sunken shipwrecks are being turned into "parks" off Florida coast
    • Run-down Dunedin hotel to be rebuilt in same architectural style
    • Painting at Ringling Museum leads scholar to discover slavery roots of Spanish painter Juan de Pareja
    • Hampton Inn in downtown Bradenton gets state historic preservation award
    • Civil War re-enactment draws criticism in Holly Hill
    • New documentary spotlights Anna Maria Historic Green Village
    • Tampa-area NAACP launching effort to save historic rooming house
    • Ride on "America's Movie Train" this weekend in Ocoee, Winter Garden
    • Tampa's historic Kress building set for reimagination
    • 67-year-old shipwreck off Florida identified
    • Florida History Today - Project studies South Florida native communites
    • Florida History Today - Tarpon Springs halts Sponge Docks upgrades
    • Florida History Today - Compromise reached on Tequesta circles preservation
    • Florida History Today - Sears homes remembered in Sanibel
  • On this day in Florida history - August
    • Aug. 15, 1887 - Eatonville becomes one of first all-black towns in U.S.
    • Aug. 13, 2004 - Hurricane Charley kicks off unusually active 'cane year
    • Aug. 12, 1981 - Developed in Boca Raton, first PC released by IBM
    • Aug. 11, 1987 - Santeria church vows to sacrifice animals despite Hialeah ban
    • Aug. 10, 1981 - Tragic discovery confirms death of missing Adam Walsh, 6
    • Aug. 9, 1956 - Reporters look down noses covering Elvis in Daytona Beach
    • Aug. 8, 1896 - Cross Creek, Yearling author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings born
    • Aug. 6, 1868 - Great Seal of the State of Florida adopted by Legislature
    • Aug. 5, 1763 - Britain takes over Pensacola, expands slavery over two-decade Fla. rule
    • Aug. 4, 1842: U.S. gives free Florida land to settlers willing to fight Seminoles
    • Aug. 1, 1939 - Florida Highway Patrol formed; to begin with 60 troopers
  • On this day in Florida history - July
    • July 31, 1962 - Actor, tax evader Wesley Snipes born in Orlando
    • July 30, 1956: Delta Burke, star of tabloids and television, born in Orlando
    • July 28, 1896: With railroad into town, city of Miami incorporated
    • July 27, 1816: U.S. forces obliterate 300+ free blacks, Indians at 'Fort Negro'
    • July 26, 1876 - Daytona incorporated, named after founder Matthias Day
    • July 25, 1884 - St. Petersburg Times debuts as West Hillsborough Times
    • July 25, 1957 - Country star, actress Pam Tillis born in Plant City
    • July 23, 1836 - Cape Florida Lighthouse attacked by Seminoles
    • July 22, 1964 - First 536 home lots sold in new city of Coral Springs
    • July 21, 1821 - St. Johns and Escambia become first two Florida counties
    • July 20, 1969 - U.S. astronauts walk on the moon
    • July 19, 1952 - Skynyrd guitarist Allen Collins is born; stardom and tragedy await
    • July 18, 1940 - Winners of St. Pete mayor's safety slogan contest announced
    • July 17, 1821 - Spain officially transfers Florida to United States
    • July 16, 1943 - Former 'Canes, Dolphins, Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson born
    • July 15, 1997 - Killer gigolo guns down Gianni Versace at South Beach mansion
    • July 14, 1921 - Florida's most famous 'cracker cowboy' dies at 58
    • July 13, 1927: Officials dump $250k in liquor into Gulf Stream
    • July 10, 1972 - First of two major party conventions opens in Miami Beach
    • July 9, 1957 - Pass-a-Grille and three other towns form St. Pete Beach
    • July 8, 2011 - Last space shuttle launched from Cape Canaveral
    • July 7, 1983 - 'Operation Everglades' drug bust rocks Everglades City
    • July 6, 2003 - 'Hillbillies' star Buddy Ebsen, raised in Orlando, dies at 95
    • July 5, 1928 - Elks begin arriving for 1st Florida national convention
    • July 4: Florida celebrates America's Independence Day
    • July 3, 1971 - Doors singer, Melbourne native Jim Morrison dies
    • July 2, 1961: Key West icon Ernest Hemingway dies; cats live on
    • July 1, 1951: St. Pete woman's burning death baffles investigators
  • On this day in Florida history - June
    • June 1, 1937 - Amelia Earhart leaves Miami to begin final voyage
    • June 2, 2008 - Bo Diddley, 79, dies at his home in Archer
    • June 3, 1961 - Arrest made in case that leads to 'right to an attorney'
    • June 4, 1939 - Jewish refugee ship turned away from Florida coast
    • June 5, 2013 - Zephyrhills woman, 84, claims $590 million Powerball jackpot
    • June 6, 1990 - Broward Judge rules 2 Live Crew album 'obscene'
    • June 7, 1928 - Two elections workers shot in Tampa ballot box heist
    • June 8, 1888 - First train rolls into terminus "St. Petersburg"
    • June 9, 1903 - Flagler's Breakers Hotel burns down in Palm Beach
    • June 10, 1991 - South Florida learns it will get new major league baseball team
    • June 11, 1953 - Sabal Palmetto palm becomes Florida's state tree
    • June 12, 1913: With first bridge, Miami Beach is open for business
    • June 13, 1974 - Askew appoints first female Cabinet member
    • June 14, 1966 - FSL's Miami and St. Pete set record for longest baseball game
    • June 15, 1822: City of Jacksonville founded, named after Andrew Jackson
    • June 16, 1955 - Judge Chillingworth and wife go missing
    • June 17. 1942 - German U-boat saboteurs land at Ponte Vedra Beach
    • June 18, 1983 - Sally Ride becomes first American woman in space
    • June 19, 1972 - Hurricane Agnes makes landfall in Panhandle
    • June 20, 2003 - Non-profit Wikipedia established in St. Petersburg
    • June 21, 1926 - Miami barbers don't want to be called 'chirotonsors'
    • June 22, 1990 - Florida bans thong bikinis in state parks
    • June 23, 1938 - Marine Studios, 'world's first oceanarium,' opens
    • June 24, 1987 - S. Fla's most famous resident, Jackie Gleason, dies at 71
    • June 25, 1981 - Dolphins QB Bob Griese retires after 14 seasons
    • June 26, 1964 - Governor orders extra police to riot-torn St. Augustine
    • June 27, 1964 - State tells Daytona: Stop price-gouging your tourists
    • June 28, 1911 - Big Cypress Indian Reservation created by President Taft
    • June 29, 1931 - Monticello hits 109 degrees -- hottest-ever for Florida
    • June 30, 1975 - Cher marries Daytona Beach's favorite son Gregg Allman
  • On this day in Florida history - May
    • May 1, 1562 - Jean Ribault arrives at St. Johns River, claims Florida for France
    • May 2, 1936 - Panama City Beach incorporated in Bay County
    • May 3, 1901 - Jacksonville burns to the ground
    • May 4, 1990 - Execution goes awry as flames, smoke shoot from head
    • May 5, 1961 - Alan Shepard becomes first American in space
    • May 6, 1965 - Rolling Stones play Clearwater, write 'Satisfaction' riff
    • May 7, 1940 - Voting machine shortages create long wait at polls
    • May 8, 1923 - Killings of work camp prisoners detailed in hearing
    • May 9, 1981 - Sinkhole swallows house, five Porsches in Winter Park
    • May 10, 1781 - Spanish Gen. Bernardo de Gálvez captures Pensacola
    • May 11, 1996 - ValuJet Flight 592 crashes into Everglades
    • May 12, 1997 - Tornado hits Miami, poses for photos, videos
    • May 13, 1955 - Jax fans chase Elvis after show, tear off his clothes
    • May 14, 1973 - Skylab launches new era of space study...and toys
    • May 15, 1947 - Florida State College for Women goes co-ed, renamed FSU
    • May 16, 1929 - Lake City mob lynches grocer after wife shoots chief
    • May 17, 1980 - Not guilty verdict triggers three days of rioting in Miami
    • May 18, 1955 - Educator Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune dies
    • May 19, 2004 - Drugstore chain owner Jack Eckerd dies at 91
    • May 20, 1913: Henry Morrison Flagler dies in his home at Palm Beach
    • May 21, 1956 - Police close beach after catching black, white teens talking
    • May 22, 1931 - Canned rattlesnake goes on sale from Arcadia
    • May 23, 1898 - School for Deaf & Blind issues first diplomas
    • May 24, 1931 - Writer develops Planet of the Apes storyline for Miami
    • May 25, 1961 - JFK challenges nation to land on moon within decade
    • May 26, 1845 - Florida holds first statewide election
    • May 27, 1965 - Mysterious land deal near Orlando revealed
    • May 28, 1935 - Now controversial "Old Folks At Home" becomes state song
    • May 29, 1967 - Woman jailed after 25 kids found in station wagon
    • May 30, 1989: Claude Pepper dies after 60 years of public service
    • May 31, 1539 - DeSoto comes to Florida, changes continent forever
  • On this day in Florida history - April
    • April 1, 1926 - Air Mail service begins in four Florida cities
    • April 2, 1513 - Juan Ponce de Leon lands in Florida
    • April 3, 2006 - Gators basketball team win first-ever national title
    • April 4, 1933 - NASCAR 2nd generation leader Bill France Jr. is born
    • April 5, 1925 - 'Great Miami Tornado' kills 5, destroys 250 homes
    • April 6, 1959 - Seminole Tribe votes to support building "Alligator Alley"
    • April 7, 1890 - Author, Everglades crusader Marjorie Stoneman Douglas born
    • April 8, 1923 - News of "lost" Tamiami trail blazers heats up
    • April 9, 1921 - Whites kicked out of West Palm Beach "colored" town
    • April 10, 1766 - John Bartram ends journey through Carolinas, Ga., Florida
    • April 11, 1986 - FBI shootout in Dade prompts cops' need for more powerful guns
    • April 12, 1981 - Space Shuttle launched for first time
    • April 13, 1951 - Marion County sheriff killed by forged check suspect
    • April 14, 1528 - Bumbling conqueror Pánfilo de Narváez lands near Tampa
    • April 15, 1896 - Henry Flagler's railroad arrives in Miami for first time
    • April 16, 1915 and 1917 - Aviation takes two steps forward
    • April 17, 1961 - U.S. launches failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba
    • April 18, 1957 - Florida to U.S.: Integration ruling unconstitutional
    • April 19, 1930 - First Publix store incorporated in Winter Haven
    • April 20, 1967 - Orange Juice becomes official state beverage
    • April 21, 1924 - NY's infamous 'Bobbed Haired Bandit' caught in Jax
    • April 22, 2000 - Elian Gonzalez seized in raid, returned to Cuba
    • April 23, 1982 - Keys secede from Union, create Conch Republic
    • April 24, 1965 - Orlando honors hometown astronaut with John Young Day
    • April 25, 1966 - Gov. Haydon Burns says his plane trailed by UFO
    • April 26, 1920 - Crop shippers seizing ice, creating shortage
    • April 27, 1969 - 1,000 students help during FSU admin building fire
    • April 28, 1985 - World's tallest sand sculpture built at Treasure Island
    • April 29, 1980 - U.S. braces for magnitude of Mariel Boatlift
    • April 30, 1915 - Broward County created, named after former governor
  • Hontoon Changling: The ancient owl carving that represents the wrong tribe
  • The Fierce Competition for Rollins College
  • The Hidden History of Everglades City
  • The Legend of Jose Gaspar
  • Burdine's: Sunshine Fashions & The Florida Store
  • Follow the Dollar - Horse breeding brings big money to Central Florida
  • In Cassadaga, the Seance Room is where they talk to the dead
  • St. Petersburg leaders worked overtime to promote their city
  • Paradise for Sale: Florida's Booms and Busts
  • Feature - The Curtiss-Bright Cities
  • Feature - Collected Works of South Florida pioneer Byrd Spilman Dewey
  • Facebook links - Spring Breakers riot in Fort Lauderdale
  • Features Index
  • Secret Florida life of the author of one of SF's greatest novels
  • Casey Stengel was a Daytona Beach troublemaker
  • True stories about The Real McCoy
  • Daytona's Deadliest Air Crash: Aug. 10, 1937
  • Blog - Zora Neale Hurston's Life on Florida's East Coast
  • Blog - Florida's Worst Freezes
  • Blog - Washtub baths and pot-bellied stoves in 1930s Florida
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  • Florida History Network - Announcements
    • Orange County History Center: 75th anniversary of Gone With The Wind
    • Adopt Your Duck at Dunedin History Museum
    • Mandarin Museum Welcomes Military Families as a Blue Star Museum
    • Orange County History Center seeking submissions for icons exhibition
    • Museum of Seminole County History announces Paranormal Tour
    • Florida Living History Inc. presents
    • Dunedin Museum Timeline - May 2014
    • School District of Palm Beach County - Hatian Heritage Month events planned
    • Fort Lauderdale Historical Society - launches effort to save 1905 New River Inn
    • Orange County Regional History Center honoring Judge Belvin Perry Jr. at John Young History Maker Awards
    • Fort Lauderdale Historical Society - New Exhibit shows how South Floridans Beat the Heat before AC
    • Orange County Regional History Center - Events and Exhbitions
    • Lake County Historical Society Grand Opening
    • Mandarin Historical Society - The Maple Leaf 150th Anniversary Exhibit
    • Miami Design Preservation League newsletter
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    • Amelia Island Museum of History wants to show off your collection
    • Dunedin Museum Timeline
    • Amelia Island Museum of History's Patron Perks Tour Going to Sapelo Island, Georgia
    • Historical Society of Central Florida's honors Judge Belvin Perry Jr.
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April 14, 1530 - Failed conqueror Pánfilo de Narváez comes ashore

PicturePhoto: State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory
As we know, not everyone who shows up in Florida to restart their lives actually succeeds. Case in point:  Spanish explorer Pánfilo de Narváez. He got a taste of success helping to conquer Jamaica and Cuba for Spain in 1509 and 1511. Then his luck begins to run out. Tasked with the governor of Spain in 1520 to arrest Hernán Cortés  and replace him as commander of Mexico, Cortés instead turns most of Narváez's soldiers against him and throws  and puts Narváez in prison for two years.  After he is released and returns to Spain, Narváez secures a royal grant to conquer and settle Florida.  But nearly a quarter of his soldiers desert him in Hispaniola in 1527. The reduced forces land in the Tampa Bay vicinity on April 14, 1528, planning to make their way to a place the Indians told them about, called Appalachen, which was supposedly teeming with gold. So after coming ashore, Narváez decides to take his 300 men and their 40 horses and head north. He orders his ships, which are carrying all of their supplies, back into the Gulf of Mexico and to sail to a harbor somewhere north, where they would all meet up later. 

PicturePhoto: State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory
Well, instead of landing at the harbor Narváez described, the ships go to another harbor where they don't find Narváez, then spend a year sailing up and down the coast before turning back to Spain. Meanwhile, Narvaez and his men resume their northward journey, but with no supplies, resort to plundering Native American villages to survive. This angers the Indians, so when Narvaez and his team finally reach the village of Appalachen, near present day Tallahassee, they are met with hostility and violence.  Well, yeah.  OK, so now the remaining soldiers are growing weak, and Narvaez has given up the idea of ever finding their ships. They stop at a bay on the Gulf, probably present-day St. Marks, and build five barges out of pine trees. They sew their shirts together to make sails. In September, they set sail toward a Spanish settlement in Mexico.  Uh oh, storm season.  Yep, the five rickety rafts are torn asunder and fewer than 100 men actually make it to an island off the cost of Texas. Narvaez was not among them. The survivors decide to walk to Mexico City. Seven years later, four arrive and tell the story of the bumbling Pánfilo de Narváez.  So buck up, Floridians. It could be a lot worse.

Read more about Pánfilo de Narváez and his ill-fated mission at the University of South Florida's Exploring Florida site

April 13, 1951 - Marion sheriff stabbed, shot to death by suspect

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Marion County Sheriff Edward Porter Jr. was found savagely stabbed and shot to death in his wrecked car on an isolated road four miles west of Ocala. An ice delivery man came upon the sheriff's car smashed against a tree about five to six hours after the death, the St. Petersburg Times reported. The lawman had been shot five times in the neck, chest and left shoulder and stabbed six times, mostly in the abdomen, with an ice pick found on the floor of the car. Porter  was last heard from at about 11 a.m. "when he notified his office he was working on a forgery case at a Negro high school," the story said. The front seat of the car, saturated with blood, showed evidence of a "terrific struggle," said a deputy who was named acting sheriff.  The murder "touched off a widespread roundup of suspects by city, county and state police" and was joined by a few private citizens who were friends of the sheriff, the story said. Porter, 44, was a popular sheriff and was recently praised by a Grand Jury for cleaning up commercialized gambling in the county, the story said.  

PictureSheriff Edward Porter Jr.
A day later, the forgery suspect, 16-year-old Orion Nathaniel Johnson, confessed to the murder. When the state attorney asked his motive, the youth said, "I had none."  Asked if he was a Communist, the youth said, "Yes," and said he killed the sheriff "because he is against my race,"  according to a story in the following day's paper.  The 130-pound youth told investigators that Porter picked him up at the high school and took him to a clothing store where the owner identified him as the forger of a check given in payment for a white dinner jacket.  The sheriff then took Johnson to his home to retrieve the jacket. At the house, Johnson picked up an ice pick and concealed it under his arm pit.

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 The sheriff saw the ice pick and ordered Johnson into the car. Johnson then lunged at Porter and stabbed him several times.  Johnson then picked up Porter's pistol, which had fallen onto the car seat, and fired several bullets into Porter, including two at close range into the sheriff's neck.  Then Johnson drove Porter's car into an open field where it went out of control and smashed into a tree. Johnson took the gun and fled on foot back to his home where he changed clothes, hid the gun, called a cab and went back to school.   Johnson was convicted of the murder and executed by electrocution in 1955, according to a Marion County Sheriff's Office web page honoring fallen law enforcement officers. 

Read the stories in the St. Petersburg Times: Ocala Sheriff Slain In Car; Wide Search For Mystery Killer and Youth Confesses Killing Marion County Sheriff • Read the account by the Marion County Sheriff's Office: Honoring Those Who Have Fallen

April 12, 1981 - Columbia launches America back into space

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Following a frustrating delay two days earlier, the United States' Space Shuttle program began as Columbia embarked upon its first mission. It would be the first of 135 missions involving five shuttles over 30 years.  The launch put Americans back into space for the first time since the final Apollo mission in 1975. President Ronald Reagan watched on television from the White House as he recovered from an assassination attempt.  Members of the public jammed the area around Kennedy Space Center to get a view of the spectacle at 7 a.m. on Sunday morning.  The scheduled launch the Friday before was scrubbed by a computer problem, disappointing half a million spectators and frustrating astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen.  Young set a record by becoming the first human to go into space five times. He had flown on the first manned Gemini mission in 1965 and would pilot one more shuttle flight in 1983.  Read the story in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Shuttle Sails Flawlessly Into Heavens  •  Check out NASA's multimedia retrospective on the Space Shuttle program

April 11, 1986 - FBI shootout in Dade leads cops to seek more heat

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A shootout between eight FBI agents and two serial bank robbers in unincorporated Dade County ended with two agents dead and five wounded and prompted law enforcement agencies to seek more powerful handguns. Despite outnumbering the suspects four-to-one, the bank robbers pinned down the FBI agents in part because the agents were using revolvers while the robbers had a shotgun and a semi-automatic rifle. One of the suspects was able to continue firing his weapon despite sustaining multiple gunshots from the agents. Both suspects died, but an FBI review of the incident determined that the agents were disadvantaged because most were armed with revolvers.  The incident, which has been portrayed on several television shows and is infamous in law enforcement circles, accelerated a trend of police agencies around the nation switching from revolvers to semi-automatic pistols. Read more at Miami Daily News:  FBI shootout in Kendall leaves 4 dead, 6 wounded

April 10, 1766 - John Bartram ends journey to Carolinas, Ga., Florida

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William (left) and John Bartram
The founder of modern naturalism and botany officially concluded his journey through the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida on this date in 1766. We know this because it's part of the title of a John Bartram manuscript, "Diary of a Journey Through the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida, from July 1, 1765 to April 10, 1766"  published as part of the series, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society in 1942. 
John Bartram was a Quaker and highly-regarded botanist who traveled the wilderness of the American colonies with a goal of documenting all the natural flora of the New World.  In 1765, when he was in his 60s, King George III named him the Royal Botanist in America and sent him with his 26-year-old son, William, to explore East and West Florida, which had been ceded to England by Spain two years earlier.  Florida had become the subject of fascination in London and potential investors were seeking information about developable lands.
PictureAlligators sketched by William Bartram
After traveling through the Carolinas and Georgia on horseback, the Bartrams spent nearly two months exploring the St. Johns River by canoe. John analyzed the quality of soil, plants and trees along the river, while William sketched pictures of plants and animals they saw. Afterward, John stayed in St. Augustine and converted his diary entries into a travel journal that was widely read in England and inspired aristocrats and merchants to acquire tracts of land in East Florida.  Those investments led to the plantation era in Florida, which irrevocably changed the face of the river valley that the Bartrams had so carefully observed and recorded.

William returned to East Florida in 1774 and spent eight months traveling the St. Johns River in a small sailboat.  In 1991, he published his own journal, Travels Through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulgees, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws.  Sections of that book recounting William's Florida travels were widely read throughout Europe and helped shape the romanticized view of the state's natural treasures that continues to inspire explorers today.
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Rattlesnake head sketched by William Bartram
Read more about the Bartrams' travels through Florida:
• Florida History Online: John Bartram’s Travels on the St. Johns River, 1765-1766
• Florida Museum of Natural History:  Florida Naturalists - William Bartram
• Bartram's Garden - 18th Century Home of John Bartram Naturalist & Botanist & Explorer.

April 9, 1921: Whites expelled from West Palm Beach 'colored town'

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A West Palm Beach judge ordered a white family living in the African American section of the city to vacate their home, the Miami Daily News reported.  The action preceded a decision by the city manager not to grant a white businessman a license to operate a store in "colored town." "White sentiment" in general is against "the encroaching of white people in the colored section," the story said. But in addition, "negroes, leading citizens of the section, have begun to ask the question: 'Why should we be barred from white town if the white people are allowed to reside within our limits and conduct businesses here?'"  Yes. Why indeed? Read the story in the Miami Daily News: Order White People Out of Negro Town in West Palm Beach

April 8, 1923 - News heats up about 'lost' Tamiami trail blazers

PicturePhoto: State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory
It was a saga that drew news coverage not unlike today's lost Malaysian airliner story -- but with a likely happier ending.  When 24 Southwest Florida men set out on April 4, 1923 to drive across the Everglades to Miami on an unpaved trail, newspapers reported they expected to complete the trip in three days.  The men, mostly Fort Myers civic and business leaders, embarked upon the drive to publicize the need for state funding to pave the "Tamiami Trail" through the Everglades.  When the 10-car motorcade failed to arrive by April 6, Miami papers declared the group lost -- and began a week of stories documenting efforts to locate the group with unsuccessful search parties and airplane expeditions, mixed with speculation about likely hunger, battles with wild animals, savage Indians, and other dangers of the brutal Florida swamp.  

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In reality, the men always knew where they were and had assistance of Seminole guides familiar with the Everglades. But the team did face hardship. Three cars broke down. The men ran out of food, and some were injured while swinging axes to construct "cordoroy roads" out of tree trunks so their cars could traverse impassable sections of the swamp.  By April 12, three men who had broken away from the group on foot reached a camp of road graders who were working west from Miami.  They reported that the group was safe but hungry, prompting Miami civic leaders to send a plane with food, cigarettes and coffee.  All of the men arrived in Miami to great fanfare on April 21. A news documentary company filmed a re-enactment of the arrival, and Miami threw a parade on Flagler Avenue.  The publicity generated by the trip worked. Funding to pave the road through the Everglades was obtained, and the paved Tamiami Trail opened in 1928.  The explorers went into the history books as the "Tamiami Trail Blazers." 

Read more about the Tamiami Trail Blazers:
• Miami Daily News, April 10, 1923: Miami Party Searching for Fort Myers Motorcade Finds Impassable Barrier
• Miami Daily News, April 12, 1923:  Plane Rushes Food to Glades Party
• April 1973 reproduction of American Eagle newspaper from April 26, 1973:  History 
 Making Motorcade Hewed Path Through Last Frontier    
• Florida Memory blog, April 25, 2013: Allen H. Andrews, Trail Blazer
• Florida Historical Quarterly: Tamiami Trail Blazers: A Personal Memoir by Russell Kay
•  Sarasota Herald-Tribune story, July 6, 1995: Tamiami Trail Blazers recall adventure across Everglades

April 7, 1890 - Everglades crusader Marjory Stoneman Douglas born

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Photo: State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory
Marjory Stoneman Douglas, the "Grande Dame of the Everglades," whose 1947 book, "Everglades: River of Grass" reshaped the public's conception of the Everglades from a useless swamp to a vital component of the world's ecosystem, was born in Minneapolis. After graduating from Wellesley College in 1912, she moved to Florida in 1915 to escape an unhappy marriage and took a job writing for the Miami Herald, where her father was an editor. She lived through the 1928 hurricane that killed nearly 2,000 people. After "Everglades: River of Grass" was published, she helped lead the successful push to have nearly 1.6 million acres designated as a national park.  She founded Friends of the Everglades in 1970 and led her hundreds-strong army of supporters to oppose projects that would further erode the subtropical wetlands. 
 "We're fighting the Federal Government, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, water management, realtors and demographics," she was quoted in a Time magazine profile in 1982.  Still, she earned respect from her adversaries at all levels of government. President Bill Clinton phoned her on her 103rd birthday and awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom a few months later.  While the building that houses the state Department of Natural Resources in Tallahassee bears her name, she remained in the same Coral Gables house from 1926 until her death in 1998. It had no air conditioning, no television, and she never learned to drive a car, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported in its May 15, 1998 obituary.  Read Stoneman Douglas' obituary in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune:  'Glades Crusader  • Read a 1982 Time magazine profile: Lady of the Everglades  
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April 6, 1959 - Seminoles vote to support building 'Alligator Alley'

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Alligator Alley toll booth, 1969. Photo: Florida Memory
The governing council of the Seminole Tribe approved a resolution approving construction of a major expressway linking Florida's east and west coasts through the heart of the Everglades.  Officially called "The Everglades Parkway," most people know it today as Alligator Alley. The tribal council's vote indicated the council was willing to grant right-of-way across the Big Cypress Reservation. The tribe also decided that the expressway would be good for business in Big Cypress.  Alligator Alley opened in 1969 as an extension of Interstate 75.
Read more at naples.net: Alligator Alley: Florida's Most Controversial Highway

April 5, 1925 - 'Great Miami Tornado' kills 5, wrecks 250 homes

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A tornado that was later estimated to have spawned winds between 158 mph and 207 mph lumbered across a 10-mile stretch of then-rural Dade County, killing five, hospitalizing 35 and destroying an estimated 250 homes along its quarter-mile wide path.  The human toll was small compared to what would have happened to the same area today.  Much of the destruction occurred at White Belt Dairy, a half-mile east of Hialeah, where buildings, trucks, cars and livestock were obliterated.  The funnel turned toward residential communities north and northwest of Miami, killing three and injuring many others.  

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Because the cyclone formed at around 1 p.m., thousands could see it in the distance and were able to escape by driving away or abandoning their vehicles. Witnesses described seeing cars picked up and carried a considerable distance through the air.  The Miami Daily News published an "Extra Edition" later that afternoon with vivid descriptions, including one of a man at the dairy picked up, "whirled high in the air" and "dashed to the ground" where his body was found two miles away "torn to pieces."  Two cows were killed at the dairy, the story said, adding, "Trees were uprooted, and a shower of dead chickens fell in Elizabeth Park and along other places in the path of the twister." A.J. Kipple of Elizabeth Park was driving toward his home with his two sons in his car when they saw the approaching twister.  The three jumped out of the car and took cover in a clump of palmettos by the road as they watched the twister pick their car up and smash it to the ground, demolishing it. The tornado eventually moved out to northern Biscayne Bay before dissipating.  Read the story in the Miami Daily News: Cyclone Here Kills 4, Scores Hurt, Missing • Read an account in the April 1925 edition of the Monthly Weather Review • Read a review of tornados in South Florida: South Florida tornadoes: Could a Joplin-type twister hit here?

April 4, 1933:  NASCAR 2nd generation leader Bill France Jr. is born

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There was "Big Bill" France and "Little Bill" France. "Big Bill" was an auto mechanic who founded the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing in 1947 as a mostly small-town Southern sport that was kicked off each year with a wild race on the hard-packed sands of Daytona Beach. "Little Bill," born in Washington D.C. a year before his parents moved to Daytona Beach, grew up in the sport, traveling with his father from race to race, doing necessary grunt work and even driving a race car for a time.  Bill France Jr. became head of NASCAR when "Big Bill" retired in 1972, 13 years after the opening of the Daytona International Speedway and the end of beach racing.  

Under Bill France Jr.'s leadership, NASCAR expanded into one of the nation's most popular spectator sports, drawing national television audiences rivaling those for National Football League games. In 1979, he signed a deal with CBS Sports to televise the entire Daytona 500 live for the first time, then 20 years later oversaw the signing of a $2.4 billion television contract with Fox, NBC and TNT, which required replacing the sport's longtime title sponsor - Winston cigarettes - with the Nextel phone company.  NASCAR's headquarters remains in Daytona Beach, where the organization was born. Besides NASCAR, the France family owns International Speedway Corp. and holds controlling interest in 13 race tracks, including Daytona International Speedway and Homestead Miami Speedway.  Tens of thousands of fans bring millions of dollars to Florida three times a year for the sport's season opening and ending races and a midseason race over the July 4 holiday weekend. "Little Bill" France died in 2007 at 74. 

Read Bill France Jr.'s obituary in the New York Times:  Bill France Jr., 74, Dies; Gave Nascar Its National Reach

April 3, 2006:  Gators win first-ever basketball title vs. UCLA, 73-57

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After starting the college basketball season with a 17-0 record, a Florida Gator basketball team without stars swept through the NCAA Tournament and became the first Division 1 team from the state to win the national basketball championship by beating UCLA in the title game, 73-57, in Indianapolis' Hoosier Dome. At 40, Billy Donovan became the second-youngest coach among active coaches to win a national title. At the time, Florida became only the seventh school to win national championships in basketball and football.  But the milestones were only beginning. The Gator football team that took the field the following fall went on to beat Ohio State for the BCS National Championship, making the Gators the first program ever to hold football and men's basketball titles at the same time. Then the Gators basketball team won another national championship in 2007, also by beating Ohio State, to become the first-ever school to win football and basketball championships in the same year by defeating the same school. They also became the first-ever school to win back-to-back basketball championships with the same starting five.  Read the story in the St. Petersburg Times: Florida defeats UCLA 73-57 for its first NCAA basketball championship • Read the story on espn.com: Florida first to hold football, hoops titles at same time • Read the story in the New York Times: Gators Repeat as National Champions

April 2, 1513 - Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon lands in Florida

Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon is credited with coming ashore and claiming "La Florida" for Spain on this date in 1513.  While it has long been accepted that de Leon landed with his three caravels near St. Augustine and became the first European of record to see the peninsula, scholars have recently challenged details of that historical account.
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Juan Ponce de Leon is commemorated on a stamp in Spain, left, while St. Augustine residents in 1923 re-enact his landing, right. Photos: State Archives of Florida. Florida Memory.
Mariner Douglas Peck used modern navigational technology to conclude de Leon actually landed on Melbourne Beach and published his conclusion in Florida Historical Quarterly in 1992. As a result, both St. Augustine and Melbourne Beach commemorated the 500th anniversary of the landing last year. Ponce de Leon's name became linked to Florida history commercially in 1882 when Henry Flagler opened Hotel Ponce de Leon in St. Augustine. The city sanctioned a Ponce de Leon celebration in 1907.  The notion that he searched for a "Fountain of Youth" is now accepted as myth.  Native American associations protested last year's commemorations by pointing out that Ponce de Leon sought to enslave native peoples he found here.  And some scholars argue that he was not the first European in Florida and was preceded by Portuguese or English explorers.  

Read the story in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Ponce de Leon landed where?  •  Read an alternative view of Ponce de Leon's discovery of Florida in the New York Times: Ponce De Leon Exposed

April 1, 1926:  Air Mail service begins in four Florida cities

PicturePhoto: State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory
Regular air mail service was established in Florida as "Miss Miami" flew from Miami to Fort Myers and Tampa with 3,514 letters and Miami's Postmaster J.D. Gardner on board, the Miami Daily News reported. The Florida Airways plane picked up more mail and another postmaster in Fort Myers before landing in Tampa, where it was greeted by Tampa's Postmistress Elizabeth Barnard and a number of local officials.  At Tampa, 6,000 pieces of mail were transferred to another plane, the "Miss Tallahassee" for delivery to Jacksonville. Postmistress Barnard boarded that plane, then flew to Miami aboard "Miss Jacksonville" with Jacksonville Postmaster Herbert Ross.

Picture Florida Airways planes begin mail service
The U.S. Post Office contracted the air mail service with Florida Airways under the Kelly Act of February 2, 1925.  The act was intended to "encourage commercial aviation" by authorizing the Postmaster General to contract with airlines to carry mail. The contractors would receive 80 percent of the revenue from the mail they carried. The early airlines also carried passengers, but none could have survived more than a year without the revenue from the mail contracts, according to the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum website. Florida Airways established regularly scheduled passenger service between Miami, Jacksonville and Tampa on June 1, 1926.Founded in 1923 by Eddie Rickenbacker and two partners, Florida Airways failed to turn a profit and ceased operations in June 1927.  Its mail routes were taken over by the company that later became Eastern Airlines, and its planes were purchased by the forerunner to United Airlines.  Read the story in the Miami Daily News:  'Miss Miami' Mail Plane Reaches Tampa •  Check out the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum website entry: Building the Commercial Aviation Network





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