Temple Terrace Holiday Tour of Homes

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

St. Petersburg's Pier

Then

(Florida State Archives)

Now















History of The Pier

Road Trip to (Off) Broadway?

"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)

The Country Club at Snell Isle

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.)

My Google Map of Hillsborough River Bridges

Here is my first attempt at using Google's My Maps. I've marked each bridge over the Hillsborough River, with a little information about most of them. I intend to add more information and images as I figure out how, but for now, I'd like to know what you think and what you would like to see added.

Bridges of the Hillsborough River

Freddy Goes to Florida

,I was scanning a list of recommended children's books the other day when the title Freddy Goes to Florida caught my eye (how could it not catch my attention?!). The cover shows farms animals staring at alligators. So of course, I had to read it.

First published in the late 1920s and originally titled To and Again, Freddy Goes to Florida was the first of 26 children's books Walter R. Brooks wrote about the animals living on Mr. Bean's farm in upstate New York. Brooks was himself a New Yorker, and had worked in advertising before embarking on a career in writing and publishing. Aside from his Freddy the Pig books, Brooks is best remembered for writing a short story that inspired the Mr. Ed TV series.

Basically, the plot of Freddy Goes to Florida is this: the animals on Mr. Bean's farm do not want to spend another winter in cold, drafty barns. So they decide to go to Florida for the winter. Along the way, they meet people and animals and have adventures. In the Springtime, they return to their farm reinvigorated.

But how does Brooks portray Florida? The journey is as important a part of the story as is the animals' stay in Florida. They don't arrive at their destination until halfway through the book, in Chapter 11:

They sniffed the air delightedly.

"Mmmmmmm!" said Mrs. Wiggins. "Isn't that good? It's better than clover. I wonder what it is."

"I know," said Jack. "I've smelt it at weddings. See all those little green trees down ther? They're orange-trees, and that smell is orange-blossoms."

"Look! Look!" squealed Freddy. "There's a palm-tree!"

"It's Florida!" shouted Jinx.

And all the animals shouted together: "Florida!"


The animals dance and celebrate reaching Florida. Freddy makes up a poem:

In Florida, in Florida,
Where the orange-blossom blows,
Where the alligator sings so sweet.
And the sweet-potato grows;
Oh, that is the place where I would be,
And that is where I am ---
In Florida, in Florida,
As happy as a clam.

And then they head off to the beach, where they stay for a month:

"Every day at four o'clock they went in for a dip in the surf, and then they would lie round on the sand and talk until supper-time. It was a very lazy and pleasant life that they lived in Florida."

Eventually, they decide they should see more of the state, so they head off to Palm Beach, Miami, and the Everglades. In the Big Cypress Swamp, they encounter a hungry group of alligators. Mrs. Wiggins (who is a cow) tries to scare them off:

"Keep away, now!" she said. "We won't stand any nonsense!"

But the alligators only laughed, and one of them said: "Oho! You won't eh? Well what did you come into our country for, then?"

They alligators take the animals to Grandfather Alligator, who remembers the when the Spanish explorers visited Florida. He wants to eat them as well, despite being scolded by Jinx the Cat:

"What do you suppose all the animals up north are going to think of you when they hear about it? Eating up visitors who come to make you a friendly call! A nice opinion they'll get of Florida!"

Eventually, the farm animals escape the alligators, and continue their vacation until spring arrives and it is time to go home to Mr. Bean.

The image of Florida correlates with the popular tourist images of the 1920s, when the book was written. Florida as a wild, somewhat foreign place to rest and play before returning to your actual life.

(This book is most appropriate for third or fourth grade, and would appeal to children who like stories with talking animals. Even though the story was written 80 years ago, there are no obscure references to old machines or technologies that kids today would not understand. The edition I read was published by Overbrook Books in 1998, and is 197 pages with black and white line drawings by Kurt Wiese).