Fortune Street Bridge Article

The Jan/Feb 2007 issue of Cigar City Magazine hit the streets this week, with an article I wrote about the Fortune Street Bridge. (That's the bridge over the Hillsborough River between downtown Tampa and West Tampa, just to the south of I-275).

Cigar City Magazine is all about Tampa history, and appeals to people who live here, grew up here, visited here, like cigars, or just like history. You can get the magazine free at Tampa restaurants, hotels, and shops, or you can pay for home delivery. Back issues and t-shirts are also available. The magazine just opened up a new office in Ybor, across the street from the Ybor City State Museum, and next door to an art gallery and the treAmici coffee bar in the old Bunker. These businesses are examples of reusing historic buildings, the magazine and art gallery being in historic houses moved here as part of the I-4 widening project.

Florida Movies

I just used a gift card to buy Sunshine in the Dark: Florida in the Movies, by Susan J. Fernandez and Robert P. Ingalls (University Press of Florida, 2006). I've been wanting to read this for awhile, since I was a student in Dr. Fernandez's "Florida in Film" class at USF when the book was still a draft. I'm not a big movie goer, but my favorite Florida flicks are The Cocoanuts, Sunshine State, and Adaptation.

Here's a St. Petersburg Times review of Sunshine in the Dark, and a link to video of the authors discussing their book on the Olde Florida Network (scroll down to entries for Oct. 8 through 12, 2006).

More Florida Blogs

Sarasota Livin'

Sarasota Neighborhoods

Pure Florida

Disney History

Celebration, Florida

Floridiana Gloriana

Riverside Avondale Preservation

The Minorcan Factor

Update on Marjory Stoneman Douglas House

Approximately 100 "Marching Marjorys" with "cotton dresses, thick eyeglasses and ... trademart straw hats" plan to march in this year's King Mango Strut, protesting the proposed move of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas' Coconut Grove House. (see previous post)

Florida newspapers are reporting further details about the proposed move and the swirling debate between the people who want to preserve the house at its original site, the people who want to preserve the house at a new site, and the people who just want the house gone.

"Everglades Crusader's Cottage Spurs Fight" (Orlando Sentinel, Dec. 25, 2006)

"History on the Move" (The Ledger, Dec. 27, 2006)

"Local Perspectives" (Miami Herald, Dec. 9, 2006)

"Conserving the Conservationist" (St. Petersburg Times, Aug. 20, 2006)

Link to Historic American Building Survey documentation of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas House, which includes 8 pages of drawings.

The Marjory Stoneman Douglas Bibliography includes a section "Saving Marjory Stoneman Douglas' Home," with a link to photographs of the house.

New York Times Visits Ed Watson

The New York Times Travel section online features the story of author Paul Schneider's journey to Mister Watson's Place in Everglades National Park ("Peter Mattheissen's Florida: Tracking a Tale of Violence Into the Everglades," posted Dec. 24, 2006). It's an interesting tale, wherein Schneider drives southward through Florida to Chokoloskee, then canoes to the former homestead of notorious Ed Watson, central to Mattheissen's trilogy of historical novels, Killing Mister Watson, Lost Man's River, and Bone by Bone.

Schneider himself has a recent new book -- Brutal Journey, about the Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca's journey from Florida to Texas.

Get Out of the House!

School's out, the kids are underfoot. Out-of-town relatives are here, escaping the northern tundra (they're underfoot as well). Get out of the house! Winter is why we live in Florida!

1. Go to Tarpon Springs. Take a sponge-diving exhibition tour on the St. Nicholas Boat Line. Visit the sponge docks, and have a great Greek dinner, finished off by honey-soaked pastries. Opa!

2. Go to Hillsborough River State Park. Miles of trails to wear out those kids, and lots of alligators to delight the Yankees. Cool 1930s picnic pavilions, and suspension bridge over the river. Depending on when you go, Fort Foster (a restoration Seminole war fort) may be open (check in advance).

3. Take the little ones to Dinosaur World just off I-10 near Plant City. (The web site says pets on leashes welcome. How might your dog react to a tricerotops? Could be interesting.) Then take the little ones and the big ones down the road to the Branch Ranch for a hearty country-style family meal.

4. How about a jungle theme?

Monkey Jungle in Miami, "Where Humans are Caged, and Monkeys Run Wild."

Parrot Jungle, also in Miami

Sarasota Jungle Gardens

5. Or a militaristic attitude?

National Museum of Naval Aviation at Naval Air Station Pensacola

Fort Christmas, not too far from Orlando

Fort Clinch State Park near Fernandina Beach

Fort DeSoto and Egmont Key State Park at the mouth of Tampa Bay

The St. Johns, River of Lakes

I was recently pointed towards a new website about the St. Johns River, or more specifically, the River of Lakes Heritage Corridor. It's a nice, informative website, but with a rather nostalgic air.

For another approach to the river, try River of Lakes: A Journey on Florida's St. Johns River, by Bill Belleville. In this book, Belleville travels down the full length of the river, giving the reader a natural and cultural history of the waterway along the way.

The website and the book share a common goal, as expressed by Belleville in the introduction to River of Lakes:

"... you might even feel the urge to put the book down and go out on the river to see it for yourself. I hope so -- because I believe we don't protect what we don't value. And one of the surest ways to value any place is to connect with it, even if only a little bit."

Both the book and the website will give you practical information on how you can visit the river, and make that personal connection.

Happy 93rd Birthday, Lafayette Street Bridge!

In 1913, Tampa was a bustling, prosperous town with new houses, new stores, and a new bridge over the Hillsborough River at Lafayette Street. This bridge was actually the third one built at Lafayette Street, but the previous two could not keep up with the growing city. Early in 1913, construction began on a modern, reinforced concrete arch bridge, with Mediterranean-styled balustrades and bridge tender houses. The local papers updated their readers practically every day on the bridge’s progress, as dirt, concrete, and steel coalesced. By early December, the bridge was nearly finished, but the city’s political and business leaders postponed the formal opening ceremony until February 1914, during the Gasparilla Festival. But on December 20, 1913, when the city declared the Lafayette Street Bridge open for traffic, there was still a celebration. City officials, engineers, and newspapermen filled the first streetcar over the bridge; Miss Maybury (who worked for Tampa Electric) was the first paying passenger. It had been seventeen months since the last streetcar crossed the river at Lafayette Street. The U.S. Government’s launch DeSoto was the first boat under the bridge, Hugh Macfarlane drove the first automobile over the bridge, and Everett Snow was the first to cross on a motorcycle. That same day the Tampa Electric Company opened its new office building to the public, displaying Christmas trees glittering with tiny colorful lights. While Tampa’s citizens were thrilled to have a functional bridge again, the men who had worked on it for the past year and a half were happier to be going home for the holidays.

Some Swampland in Florida

Water, wetlands, and swamps -- Florida doesn't have a complete monopoly on these, but our state's sogginess has shaped its past and seeps into its future.


A special online report from the St. Petersburg Times:

Vanishing Wetlands.


A couple of sites about the Green Swamp:

Interactive Green Swamp from the Southwest Florida Water Management District

Green Swamp River Project from the University of South Florida -St. Petersburg's Florida Studies Program.


Some books about Florida wetlands and swamps:

The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise, by Michael Grunwald (Simon and Schuster, 2006)

Swamp Song: A Natural History of Florida's Swamps, by Ron Larson (University Press of Florida, 1995)

Down to the Waterline: Boundaries, Nature, and the Law in Florida, by Sara Warner (University of Georgia Press, 2005)

Road Trip to Bartow

Earlier this week I went to Bartow to do some research at the Polk County Courthouse. There's no really good or easy way to get from Tampa to Bartow, and although the odometer told me the entire drive was only 101 miles, it felt epic.

A few things caught my eye along State Road 60, including the Valrico fire lookout tower. Lookout towers used to help rangers keep an eye on Florida's forests and groves, but now development is squeezing out the trees. (Tampa completely surrounds the Hamner Fire Lookout Tower, which is a Hillsborough County historic landmark.)

East of Valrico, the fields are geared up, and roadside stands offer strawberries and poinsettias. I saw one of those yellow county land use hearing signs in the grove next to Ruby Williams' place. But I was on the highway,driving too fast to see what it said.

Each time I drive through Mulberry I think that I should visit the Phosphate Museum.

In Bartow, renovations of the Old Polk County Courthouse are continuing, with scaffolding spiraling around the cupola. The old courthouse is home to the Polk County Historical Museum and the Polk County Historical and Genealogical Library. I picked up some good research leads at the library, and some stocking stuffers at the museum's gift shop.