Shel Silverstein’s Key West House and the Banyan That Fell on It
In 2017 Hurricane Irma dropped a banyan tree on the Key West house where the author of The Giving Tree had lived and died. It was rebuilt as a replica.
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Lue Gim Gong and the DeLand Orange That Won the Wilder Medal
In 1911 an orange bred in a DeLand grove by a Chinese immigrant became the first citrus fruit to win the American Pomological Society’s Wilder Medal.
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Tennessee Williams Finished “Streetcar” in a Key West Hotel
He completed the final draft of a play set entirely in New Orleans while sitting in a Key West hotel room. Then he stayed on the island for 36 years.
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A. Philip Randolph: From Crescent City to the March on Washington
In 1941 a union leader born in Crescent City threatened to bring a march to Washington, and Franklin Roosevelt signed an order banning discrimination in the defense industry to head it off.
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The Dying Poet Who Wrote Florida’s First Tourism Pitch
In 1875 a poet with tuberculosis wrote a guidebook to Florida, including a chapter telling other consumptives the state might save them. It did not save him.
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Chi Chi Rodriguez and the Golf Course He Built for Clearwater’s Kids
Chi Chi Rodriguez started a youth foundation in Clearwater in 1979. Ten years later it opened a golf course of its own.
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Walt Disney’s Secret Florida Land Deal and the Reporter Who Figured It Out
In 1965 an Orlando Sentinel reporter worked out that the mystery buyer of 27,000 acres near Orlando was Walt Disney.
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Jim Morrison’s Florida: Melbourne, Tallahassee and Coconut Grove
Before the Doors, Jim Morrison was a Florida State student, and he turns up in a 1962 promotional film the university made.
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Don Garlits and the Explosion That Moved the Engine Behind the Driver
In 1970 a transmission exploded under Don Garlits at a California drag strip. The rear-engine car he built afterward changed the sport.
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Deion Sanders and the Day He Played Baseball, Ran a Relay and Played Baseball Again
On May 16, 1987, Deion Sanders played a baseball game for Florida State, ran a leg of the 4×100 relay, and went back to play in the baseball final.
