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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Bertha Palmer’s Cattle Dipping Vats Are Still at Myakka River State Park
Chicago’s Bertha Palmer bought more than 80,000 acres around Sarasota after 1910. Her sons gave part of it to the state in her memory, and it became part of Myakka River State Park.
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Tin Can Tourists: The Florida Club That Invented the RV Road Trip
In 1919, a band of Model T campers gathered at a Tampa campground and formed the Tin Can Tourists, a quirky club that helped launch America’s love affair with the road trip and the RV.
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D.A. Dorsey Owned Part of Fisher Island Before Carl Fisher Did
In 1918 Dana A. Dorsey, Miami’s first Black millionaire, bought land on the island now called Fisher Island, planning a beach resort for Black Miamians.
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Rauschenberg’s Captiva Studio Was Built by Ding Darling
Robert Rauschenberg lived and worked on Captiva from 1970 until his death in 2008. One of his studios, the Fish House, was built in 1942 by the cartoonist and conservationist Ding Darling.
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The Fountain of Youth: St. Augustine’s Quirky, Peacock-Filled Park
On the spot where Ponce de Leon supposedly searched for eternal youth, St. Augustine’s oldest attraction mixes a spring, peacocks, cannon blasts, and genuine history.
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Red Barber’s First Broadcast Was a Paper on Cow Obstetrics
Red Barber first went on the air at the University of Florida in 1930, reading a professor’s paper on bovine obstetrics. Nine years later he called the first televised big league game.
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Fort Pickens: The Island Fortress That Held Geronimo
On a barrier island off Pensacola stands a massive 1830s brick fort that stayed in Union hands through the Civil War and later imprisoned the Apache leader Geronimo, all wrapped in white-sand national-seashore beaches.
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Cannonball Adderley’s First Night in New York
In 1955 a Fort Lauderdale music teacher named Julian Adderley sat in with Oscar Pettiford’s band at the Cafe Bohemia. Four years later he played on Kind of Blue.
