Interview with Dr. Mac Miller. August 17, 2017 at his home. The historic The A. P. Dickman House 120 Dickman Drive S. W. Ruskin, Fl 3357.

Interview conducted by Charles Nelson on behalf of the South Hillsborough County History Project (HCC South Shore Campus)

Interview Notes: This interview with Dr. Miller involved three distinct parts: • Discussion on source material for developing the history of Apollo Beach. • Conversation with his friend, Bill Burger, professional archeologist and paleontologist, who has partnered with Dr. Miller on various projects in the past. This main part of the discussion concentrated on the pre-historical aspects of the Apollo Beach area • A discussion on the DeSoto Trail and the need for someone to take on a project to correct the historical record through the DeSoto Trail.

Source Material for Investigation into the history of Apollo Beach • Talk with the principal Realtor at Century 21 in Apollo Beach: Dr. Miller could not recall his name but said he is part of the Corr Family. He reports that he will be eager to talk about his family and his father, Francis J. Corr. Dr. Miller believes he will be very articulate of the first 3 sections developed. • I did show Dr. Miller, the sub-division plans for those first three areas. [Research note: confirm these plans with the Corr family.] • For a relatively official overview on the history of Apollo Beach, investigate Hillsborough County documents, particularly the “Survey of the Built Environment of Hillsborough County”, Available electronically at HHC South Shore. (If HCC doesn’t have it Dr. Miller reports that he does.) There are two editions, one color and one black/white. You will want to review both as there are some differences between the two documents. • A cursory online search will pull up county histories. Some have been excised. • Check with Dr. Craig Hardesty at HCC concerning the Jules Verne’s science fiction novel coordinates for the “moon launch” noted in his novel, “From Earth to the Moon” which gives the longitude and latitude of moon projection. Dr. Craig has a conversion table for the location since the base has changed from Washington DC. New launch point is nowhere near Apollo Beach anymore. Although historians have tried to place it here. • Research the Land Deed Book for South County at HCC South County. It’s a printed document. That will include land records from the early period ending of the Spanish fishing settlements. Should include Apollo Beach. • Read: Jerald Milanich’s book: Hernando Desoto and the Indians of Florida. Most recent book of any real scholarship. (Dr. Miller is cited on page 69. • Read: Dr. Miller’s unpublished manuscript: “John Ruskin’s American Utopian.” Available at HCC. He cites this as a written history of Ruskin. His manuscript, which is electronically available in PDF form. • Read: Carrie Kastner’s good, inclusive study: “Utopia on the Half Shell.” She deals with land use, exploitation, turpentine and farming, inclusive of Apollo Beach.

(Note: Dr. Miller offered to send me PDF’s, of his manuscript – which has not been updated since 1980, and of Kastner’s book, if they cannot be located at HCC.)

• The early documentation of Ruskin as an intentional community is available electronically from archives at Hamilton College in New York. There you will find digitized records of the early Commongood Society minutes until 1967, when it dissolved itself. Also available is a transcription of the 20th Century Woman’s Club minutes, a forerunner of today’s Woman’s club. Financial records. The original documents are in the Woman’s Club archives in Ruskin. • There are several well-done newspaper articles. Check History Press for these citations. Cited in History Press has these citations. Should be available at HCC • Read: “Florida Utopian Communities”. Should also be at HCC. Good general reading. Somewhat imprecise, but it does give the history of intentional Utopian communities in Florida • Dr. Millers did say that there are other audio visual presentations (for example, a PowerPoint Presentation) that he can provide.

Q: I’ve seen references to North Ruskin. Can you provide any information on where that might have been?

A: “It’s not a community. It was just a place north of downtown Ruskin. I know what that is. Is that the train Station? No, I don’t think so. Ruskin was not incorporated. That we can find. The city of Ruskin did sign a legally binding agreement with Sun City Telephone and Electric company. There may have been some legal entity enabling this. But we’ve never found one. Wimauma was incorporated, but not Ruskin as far as we know.

Q: How did Miller Mac Road come to be known by your name? A: “When my father came back to Florida. My father went into business in effect with his cousin. Pauline [Dickman] Lawler was a twin sister [to Paul B. Dickman]. They named the road. For a joke, they turned it around. Enters Bill Burger, [biographical information supplied, post interview: Burger is a well-known local archeologist and former archeologist for Sarasota County. Burger, received his undergraduate degree from New College and his Master’s from USF. Please see this short 9:00 video on his work in SW Florida: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJDMffRf7us. )

Q: I was just talking to Mac about Miller Mac Road. I think it used to be called Clay Gulley Road. When did they change the name? A: “I would imagine in the mid 50’s.”

CN. That makes sense. From a 1938 Hillsborough County Subdivision Plat book (Book 27. Page 100) the Ruskin Tomato Farms are shown. On that map, what was to become Miller Mac Road, is labeled as Clay Gulley Road. Dr. Miller was unaware of that name, so could offer nothing further.

Discussion with Bill Burger (BB) and Dr. Mac Miller (MM) concerning the pre-history of the Apollo Beach/Ruskin area. Interviewer questions and comments labeled as (CN)

(BB): I’m a professional archeologist. I mostly grew in Bishop Harbor in just south of Port Manatee. I’m also an archeological consultant. My father and oldest brother did a lot of work on property and uncovered a lot of fossils, and I have an interest in paleontology as well.

(CN) Did you do any work on the Leisey Shell Pit?

(BB) No. That’s more paleontology where I have more of an interest/hobby. I’ve met Frank Garcia once at a fossil fair.

(CN) I’ve done such limited work on the Uzita and the Mocoso. What can you tell me about those groups?

(BB) A main point to keep in mind comes from what you mentioned. Those names come from the Spanish accounts period. Keep in mind that the Spanish came in with their own cultural systems. They found natives and immediately assumed the same social stratification systems as they had in Spain. They asked questions like “Who’s the chief here?” Which was not the [hierarchical, social construct] system here. Rather, for natives, it was more like: “This guys’ good at hunting, so he’s the ‘chief’ today. Tomorrow we are going to go fishing, and you are the best fisherman, so you are the ‘chief’ on that day. Remember, too, that the languages being used to get these names were mutually unintelligible languages. (That’s languages –plural --as there were many native languages in the Tampa Bay region.

So these names that have come to us from the Spanish Chronicles. You can almost see the chronicler saying “What did he say?” and then writing down what he thought he heard as a name which may or may not have anything to do with the question. This results in various spellings, phonetic sand otherwise, to these names.

But the main point that I always like to get across is that you cannot legitimately project those names into pre-history. Let me give you an example. It’s like: “Here’s a guy named Miller who lives in a house built in 1910. Because of that, people must have been living here 1000 years ago?” No one would ever think of drawing that conclusion, but people regularly make that assumption with the few names that we have for the natives.

IN terms of main groups: the Calusa were to the south [of Tampa Bay]. The Timucua to the north. We know from the historical accounts that Tampa Bay was kind of a DMZ between the two. Control went back and forth between the two groups. Apparently, the Timucua of North Florida were in control of this region at the time of the Spanish encounters. Later, the Calusa held sway. But the people that lived here were neither Calusa or Timucua. We have a few names for them in the Spanish account, but not much else.

You know the story of Juan Ortiz. He was on the coast with the ‘Uzita’ or the ‘Hurrihigua’, or whatever names you want to call them, and he escapes to ‘Mocoso’, which some believe were encamped at the Alafia River. But we do know that the Moscoso spoke a different language than the Uzita in just that short distance.

It’s important to note that we have different peoples here in this area.

As far as the beginning of things, we are looking at 14,000 years ago from finds up in the Florida Panhandle, around the Aucilla River. Here in SW Florida, it seems findings are not quite as old. But because of sea levels have risen, there is no telling what is under the water in Tampa Bay and beyond the adjacent Continental Shelf. It’s very expensive to look at things in that underwater environment.

In what is now Apollo beach, when those canals were dredged and land was filled, quite a bit of native artifacts, specifically archeological material came up which would date to the Late Paleolithic period about, 7500-8000 BC, or something in that area. Even deeper and older than those finds there were paleontology findings on resident wildlife.

I taught a course years ago, as an adult education course on Long Boat Key in Sarasota County. The course was half archeology and half paleontology. I have one lecture on each subject. The rest of the course involved field trips, and Apollo Beach was one of my regular sources. There was a place, 20 years ago, where you could drive out to Land’s End. It still wasn’t sea-walled, but it was subject to regular erosion. I don’t know if the site is still there. It’s probably all sea-walled now, but it was the very last area developed in Apollo Beach.

(CN) Are those artifacts preserved somewhere?

(BB) Most likely in private collections. There were small interesting Pleistocene mammal finds along that shoreline.

Cockroach Island is such a site. It’s about an 8-acre area. Cockroach is state owned. Finally. For years, it was privately owned. The land was one of the only pieces of land that wasn’t government owned until recently. There is no active archeological work going on there but it is all conservation land and preserved.

(MM) I was looking forward to Cockroach Condos! [laughter]

(BB) The Symmes family owned that land for years. They may have figured they were setting on a pile of money because the shell [from shell middens] was marketable for road fill. There were also two large mounds at the end of Shell Point Road. I’m doing various projects on Mac’s property right now. When I put a drain in under the walk, I found a lot of little Shell Point basal shell midden under the brick walkway that likely came from Shell Point. A lot of those shells became Shell Point Rd.

Bringing us back to history, though, the present most accepted theory on De Soto’s landing is that he came in at Shell Point. Miller and I became involved together on the De Soto investigations. I never had any courses at New College with Mac, but I saw him in full uniform all the time.

(CN) I didn’t realize there was so much archeology and paleontology here in Apollo Beach itself. That’s fantastic.

(MM) Part of the problem with archeological investigations in this area is that sea levels have been rising. The shore line was way out.

In historic times, I seem to remember being told, Apollo Beach was primarily a stand of long leaf pine. From about 1910 forward, that big stand was “turpentined out” (according to Pauline Dickman Lawler)

(MM) As Shakespeare would have said: “Hacked the trees to a pollard.” Yes, they then cut them off, and dynamited out tree trunks. That is what Dickman turned into farmland.

(BB) Yeah, that’s the usual progression in much of Florida. These were more likely slash pine which can also be tapped (for turpentine.) You can tap a tree for about 5 years and then cut them down for lumber, and then take out the stumps for more turpentine. They would use the stump to get more turpentine.

(CN) When you said Dickman, would that be Paul B. Dickman?

(MM) Yes. You at this point, I need to give you a Dickman succession. I can run through it real fast. My family (the Millers) came here in ought 6 (1906). We lived on top of the Indian Mounds at Shell Point. The Dickman’s came into Wimauma in 1910 and then on to Ruskin. They were kind of the advance guard. Captain A. P. Dickman and his wife Rose built this house. They had twins: Paul and Pauline. Paul B. Dickman is the Florida Tomato King realtor of this area. [CN note: he is also the developer of the sub-division plat of the Ruskin Tomato Farms, mentioned earlier.]

(CN) I showed Dr. Miller and Mr. Burger the plat of the 1938 Tomato Farms. “Is this the plat of his development, called 1938 Tomato Farms?”

(MM) Very likely. I’d have to look and see.

(BB) Is this the Apollo Beach area today?

(CN) Yes. It starts at Big Bend Road and comes all the way down to Leisey Road, I believe. The only two roads still in existence, as named, today. So, these would have been primary tomato farms?

(MM) Yes, that’s correct. That [map] is good to have.

(BB) This brings to mind, again, as far as environmental change. You can access the original field Surveyor notes from the Atlanta Office Field Surveyor Notes. You can get all that stuff from online from Department of Environmental Protection, under LABINS. That includes the original plats, dating from 1840s

CN: [Note: Here is a a link to the LABINS site.: http://www.labins.org/ http://www.labins.org/. It appears that plats are searchable by Township and Range numbers, which you can find on plat maps.]

(CN) Was this from about the time of the Armed Occupation Act?

(BB) Yeah, just after 1842. And you can also access through the same site, the field surveyor notes, but at the bottom of these notes, is a characterization of the land. Many researchers found no standardized key or descriptors. These early surveyors rated land in terms of its farming AND resource potential. Take pines, for example. Often you’ll read something like: “Third rate pine land” as the characterization.

Something else that will become evident is the absence of mangroves along the shorelines in those earlier days. When mangroves are mentioned, they are low stunted growth mangroves. High marsh and salt grasses were more predominant. Since 1840’s, when these records were first produced, sea levels have risen and the mangroves have spread from south Florida to our area. Even in the 1840’s there was not the dense mangrove forests that we have today.

(CN) Isn’t Tampa Bay considered kind of the northern edge of the dense mangrove forests today?

(BB) Yeah, once you get to the north of New Port Richey you start converting to salt marsh grasses. Average winter temperatures control the spread of mangroves. I live on Terra Ceia. And there are dense mangrove forests. That’s not how it was in 1843 when it was first surveyed. It’s hard to believe the change that has occurred.

(CN) Are there any archeological records of sites along the Alafia River?

(BB) Oh, yeah. Up at the mouth of the river and upstream…certainly. Along the mouth a lot of that was filled by the phosphate company. But we do know that there was a major temple mound on the north side of the Alafia, near the mouth, and a large village and burial mound cemetery on the south side, pretty much at the 41 bridge on the east side of 41.

(CN) Was that across from the where the Giant’s Fish Camp was located much later?

(BB) Some years ago, the County…when I was in grad school in fact…The County was doing some maintenance on the south side of the Alafia, west of US 41, and they took out some palm trees, and came across human bones. We (my professor and grad students) were called to investigate. There was quite a large burial area found. Unfortunately, it had been leveled, so we couldn’t tell if it had been a mound. It was on the south side of the Alafia, at the bridge, on the East side of the road. There was a large temple mound on the north side, kind of opposite.

(MM) What about Apollo Beach itself. Were there mounds found there?

(BB) It’s hard to say. There were likely some Shell Mounds. There were some mounds to the north near the current day power plant at Big Bend. There were also some recorded sites on Big Bend property. The dredge and filling of Apollo Beach brought up some archeological artifacts.

There was a huge area of shell middens out in the middle of Tampa Bay/Hillsborough Bay which was chopped through by the ship channel that was put in from Tampa South. This was a huge area. A friend of mine (just deceased), Dr. Lyman Warren, who was a medical doctor but also an avocational archeologist/paleontologist, went to the shell yards over in Pinellas and would pick through these shells as it was brought in by barge, and found several artifacts, including some paleo materials, projectile points, and some very early pieces of pottery, as well.

Sea level much lower where the Hillsborough, the Alafia and the Palm (Rivers) would have come together and likely formed a riverine system from Lake Pasadena (in current Dade County) down what would become Tampa Bay and they all came together, probably, into one main river course that ran out to the Gulf.

(CN) Where would I find field notes from some of those archeological sites, particularly those in and around Apollo Beach?

(BB) There are site file forms on these digs, which are maintained by the Florida Master Site File at the Division of Historical Research in Tallahassee. Given your connection to the History Center, you would not have any difficulty in accessing these documents. They could send you a large-scale map that could show you where the dig sites are, or were. You will need proper identification, because such information is excluded from Florida’s Sunshine Laws for security purposes to prevent vandalism of these important archeological sites. Locational information is also excluded from [Federal} Freedom of Information Act at the Federal level. Again, it’s an attempt to limit vandalism

[CN Note: Here is a link to the Division of Historical Research: http://dos.myflorida.com/historical/preservation/master-site-file/. ]

(BB) Well, I’ve been impressed with what is available at the Tampa Bay History Center. I’ve been up to the History Center, a couple of times. (To Mac Miller): “Did you get up to see the antique maps?”

(MM) Yeah, I loved that.

CN: Well, you may already know this. In November, we’re bringing in a new 8,000-foot section and a good portion of that is going to be a new Southeast US Cartographic Center, specializing in Florida maps, and in partnership with the University of South Florida. USF is loaning their collection to add to the Center’s extension collection of Florida maps. This new facility is to be one of 6 Cartographic Research Centers in the United States.

(BB) I heard about your expansion but I didn’t realize that’s what it would entail. I’ll be up there because I’ve got a fascination with the earliest historical maps.

(CN) There will be an entire room dedicated to nothing but this Cartographic Center. Like I told Mac, what I would like to accomplish in my association with the South Hillsborough County History Project, is to help gather, or research what’s already out there not yet held by the Project, and if I can uncover some new stuff, that’s great too. But I love the idea of what Kathy (Braund) and Craig (Hardesty) are doing to becoming a center for all these various projects that are going on in South County. Hopefully, I can help gather some of that information for future researchers.

(MM) Well, one of my concerns is, as I come up pushing 80 on my next birthday, it becomes rather painfully clear to the me that much of the history that has been brought to a focus in some coherent way is oral history. And, very little of that has been recorded as we are recording this morning. And there’s not just a lot of time to pull stuff together. For example, I’m going through photographs. I say, “Oh, my God! I’m the last person alive who knows what that building is and how to tell, for example, this building from that building, which is really quite important for the differentiation of the community.” So, I better let that be known. So, I think that the more we can do – digitally -- in terms of some of this material, even though some of it is going to be hearsay and some of it is going to be anecdotal as distinct from doctoral – the better!

(BB) And you know, Mac’s worked in this direction. So, have I as part of my professional work and interests in my Region to the South. But this is something I think it would be a good project for the Tampa Bay History Center: to get the funding or raise funds to have professional interviewing of what remaining “old timers” the Region still has. Because once they are gone, they’re gone.

(CN) I found that with my own family and research there.

(BB) We all do! And afterwards, it’s like, I wish I’d asked such and so. Because it’s like many of the people I interviewed to the South, my old direction out of Grad School was, of course, archeological: specifically, prehistoric, as you know. And now I wish I’d asked people any number of more historical and genealogical questions. But of course, they are all dead now.

(CN) Well, honestly, that’s why I got permission from the History Center to work with the South Hillsborough County History Project at HCC on their behalf. I’d like to, eventually, get the Center more interested in the Project, helping us potentially access grant sources they may have that we don’t even know about who might be interested in our work.

(BB) And there might be some, interest from Hillsborough County (I can’t speak for them, of course) because I’ve done some work for Hillsborough County Conservation Records on the lands in the Wimauma area regarding some of the County conservation lands. I interviewed some local folks with that in mind.

(MM) Wimauma’s a fascinating place for all sorts of reasons: developmental, ethnic interests, the historical railhead to mention a few. There are not many people still around who know the early days.

Since the two of you guys are here; Bill before you came in, I was mentioning to Charlie that for various historical reasons (strategic, political, fund-raising sources) history, from the point of view of the Tampa Bay History Center, stops at the Alafia River. Since much of the money for the Tampa History Center came from St. Petersburg, there is a certain amount of historical bias in favor of St. Petersburg.

[CN note: I interpreted this statement to mean that TBHC’s historical emphasis on the Narvaez expedition, was favored over the DeSoto expedition given where the conversation next developed.]

(BB) But, really, the TBHC doesn’t have very much on Hernando DeSoto because at the time, Hernando de Soto (based on a 1931 survey) was considered the historical “property” of Manatee County and Bradenton, not Tampa Bay. So, it seems it just might be time to correct the historical record, particularly since even the National Park in Bradenton has adjusted its own maps, now showing that DeSoto sailed by the islands off Sarasota, making land fall at--Terra Ceia.

(B); It’s directed towards the notion of Shell Point. Let me make the point that the DeSoto Map memorial is a memorial to Hernando de Soto and his expedition. They make no claims that that’s where he landed. They disavow that entirely.

(CN) Is Milanich the primary proponent of the Shell Point landing now?

(BB) Well, Jerry Milanich and Charlie Hudson – University of Georgia – both retired, were the main promoters of this alternative, Shell Point, landing idea. This whole De Soto thing is what got Mac and I connected here year’s back. And so, we did work and I also did archeological field explorations, using New College students, at several sites in this area to try to find some physical evidence to support, right now, that Shell Point theory. I’m sorry to say, we didn’t find any physical evidence. But we tried.

(MM) We tried to find some of the Cadiz blue beads, but we didn’t find anything.

(CN) I’ve read that from the historical standpoint, DeSoto did anchor his ships kind of outside of the Alafia River. Do you know anything about that?

(BB) We don’t have any evidence to support that. See that’s another point. If we are talking about getting interviews done…You know, “interviewing,” you need to have trained people doing interviews. There have been various projects out of New College. They got some training. But I hear about others which were not so good. Not just anybody can do a proper interview. Ethnographic interviews, which is what we are talking about, require some level of training. A key issue is that you don’t lead the witness. Some of the worst historical interviews I’ve ever seen are on file at the Historical Record’s Library in Bradenton, and they are 90% about the interviewer as opposed to be about the sense of the interviewee.

And stories do get started. When I did background research on the DeSoto Trail project, I ran across this reference that De Soto had lost a ship in the actual landing spot. That was very surprising as there’s no mention of any such thing in the three and a half primary documents.

It took several research steps to backtrack the comment to an old Anthropological Journal that was once published at FSU. The author, who is a self-styled historian, wrote -- at the end of his article, “If De Soto had lost his ship at the landing area, then finding that would be the definitive proof (of the landing site).” That’s exactly how he wrote it. There are no issues with that statement. He’s positing a “what-if” type of scenario that offers no proof, just an enticing proposition.

The next guy in the chain then cited him. But, critically, he dropped the “if” and the guy who cited the second write, dropped it, as well. This is what It’s what noted American Paleontologist, Stephen Jay Gould used to call: “cardboard research.” None of later historians had gone back to the primary source, but had simply cited each other. So, this nonsense about a missing DeSoto boat continued.

My point: The Alafia River is not mentioned anywhere in the DeSoto accounts. There are no such names nor a reference to that event.

(MM) Well in any case, one of the things that might be fun to work on, is this strange thing called “The DeSoto Trail.” The DeSoto Trail is supposed to be exactly what it sounds like. OK? As mentioned earlier the trail has been adjusted, officially, to Shell Point, in Ruskin.

Along the Trail, there are supposed to be historical markers and mini- parks (This is what Fred Jacobsen was working on in Tallahassee). These markers serve to lead one along the DeSoto Trail to information points where you could get a little brochure and that sort of thing. However, it appears that there is a State or County regulation that requires a site to be State of County owned to put out informational pamphlets or perhaps even signage.

As an example, there is “on-site” information down near Cockroach Bay Road, on the north-south road that leads into Cockroach Bay. There’s a little park there. There is nothing at Shell Point in Ruskin, because of there being no public land at Ruskin. But that is not correct.

There is public land as one drives west on Shell Point Road, towards its terminus. If you look on the right side, there is a little “pocket park” about as big as the floorplan of this house. On that land, there’s a big stand-sign. It has brochures for the walking tour of that little park. OK?

So here you have the DeSoto Trail officially adjusted to highlight South County, Ruskin and De Soto’s trek on to the north, the initial stages of which would be in large parts of what would currently be Hillsborough County. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no publicly available documentation of DeSoto Trail in this area. Zero! This needs to be remedied.

So, to correct that, particularly if one were to develop something like tourism or perhaps even intelligent housing developments for retiring people, as examples, you should cite the history of our area as a selling point. “Why would you want to come to Ruskin or the Apollo Beach area? Well, because of our fascinating history. We’ve got conquistadors and crazy utopians. We’ve got farmers who are breaking ground and gassing perfectly good tomatoes to turn ‘em red, and sell to the Yankees up north by refrigerated trucks. There are all sorts of great things to talk about. Come see what we’ve got as long as we’ve got it.”

But, unfortunately, Ruskin doesn’t have a Chamber of Commerce anymore. So, through a series of bald-trick games we now have South Shore Chamber of Commerce, which is not a bad idea. But the problem is that that development is nowhere near downtown Ruskin, at the current time. It’s up near Apollo Beach and 19th Street. So, nobody seems to give a care about the DeSoto Trail, even though all the work has been done, all the politics have been played, all the preparation has been completed. At this point, I’m not opting to carry that ball.

(CN) Do you think DeSoto will get more interest, will people get more interested, as we get closer to the 500-year anniversary?

(MM) That’s a possibility. But these just take so long to get, but all the work has been done. So, all somebody needs to do, who has the time and focus, is to say, “Hey, here’s the De Soto Trail. Let’s go to the Park system, here’s a park. Let’s get some information and brochures. Let’s talk to the South Shore Chamber of Commerce and say that “Gee, this is great publicity.”

(BB) This park you mentioned. Is it a County park? At the end of Shell Point Road? It’s about the size of your house as far as the area? Pretty small, right?

(MM) Yeah. You pull in and there’s a parking lot and you could drive right by it. I’ve driven by it 300 times.

(BB) On the North Side?

(MM) Yeah, on the north side of Shell Point Rd. It’s right where that kind of marshy stuff meets the road. The marsh is an extension, if you will, of the south end of that. Originally, the marsh was far more complex. I can show it to you.

(CN) So this is beyond where Little Harbor Inn is located?

(MM) No, it’s before Little Harbor entrance on the Right. It’s just a little pocket park, with a little dinky sign you don’t see when you go by. You get in there and advertises the park and it doesn’t say anything about the DeSoto Landing at all. So, that’s an interesting focus because all the prep work has been done. I think even the language of the signage is approved. It [the DeSoto memorial] was never put in, because they felt no place to put it. Then it went away. No one printed up brochures or anything else. But there’s a way to hook a state-wide project to the DeSoto Trail.

(CN) Who maintains the State-wide Trail now? If anyone?

(MM) Interesting question. I have no idea.