DOCSLIB.ORG

"Letter from Okeechobee" 1880S Editorial of Gabriel Cunning to Bartow Informant and Tampa Sunland Tribune

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Sunland Tribune Volume 29 Article 4 2003 "Letter from Okeechobee" 1880s Editorial of Gabriel Cunning to Bartow Informant and Tampa Sunland Tribune Michael Reneer James M. Denham Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/sunlandtribune Recommended Citation Reneer, Michael and Denham, James M. (2003) ""Letter from Okeechobee" 1880s Editorial of Gabriel Cunning to Bartow Informant and Tampa Sunland Tribune," Sunland Tribune: Vol. 29 , Article 4. Available at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/sunlandtribune/vol29/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sunland Tribune by an authorized editor of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. "Letter From Okeechobee" 1880s Editorial Of Gabriel Cunning To Bartow Informant and Tampa Sunland Tribune Michael Reneer and Dr. James M. Denham of Boully's informants wrote irregularly, think justice demands that Gabriel Gunning's "Letter from Okeechobee" Okeechobee should be heard," became a mainstay in the first six months wrote Gabriel Cunning on June of the paper's existence. 30, 1881. So began Cunning's As the county seat of Polk County, brief but interesting career as correspon­ Florida, Bartow offered many prospects to dent to the Bartow Informant and Tampa Boully and other migrants seeking a new Sunland Tribune. Gabriel Cunning's given start in the post Civil War era. In 1880, name is unknown; his home and real iden­ Polk's population stood at slightly more than tity is likewise unknowable. And yet, letters 3,100 inhabitants. Even so, this total was from a man calling himself Gabriel Cunning poised to advance rapidly. At the time and claiming a home in "Okeechobee Cunning addressed readers of the Bartow County"! appeared in the Bartow Infor­ Informant, cattle and subsistence farming mant from June to December 1881. was the chief economic pursuit of pioneers Cunning also penned three missives to the in the Lower Peninsula. Indeed, the cattle Tampa Sunland Tribune in 1878 and 1881. industry was the true key to riches for the His humorous and informative letters pioneers of South Florida. Before the Civil reprinted here shed light on the social, eco­ War, the cattle trade with Cuba was sub­ nomic, and political times of the lower stantial, but after the war it brought consid­ Florida frontier in the 1880s. erable wealth to the region. At the end of the The first issue of the Bartow Informant Civil War, the focus of trade shifted from appeared only two weeks before the first supplying Confederate and Union forces to installment from Gabriel Cunning. The supplying Cuba. In the decade after the war, proprietor of this new journalistic enter­ pioneers shipped almost 200,000 head of prise was D.W.D. Boully, who emigrated to cattle from Florida to Cuba.2 In 1878, for Bartow after a failed attempt in the news­ example, the Tampa Sunland Tribune re­ paper business in Blountsville, Alabama. It ported that cattlemen shipped 8,012 head of was common practice for small-town nine­ cattle worth $112,168.00 from the Tampa teenth century newspapers such as Boully's Bay ports of Tampa and Manatee.3 While Informant to make use of guest "infor­ cattle shipments from Tampa Bay were sub­ mants" or "correspondents" to provide stantial during these years, it is unlikely that readers with information on places and they ever equaled the numbers shipped events from nearby locales. Such articles from Punta Rassa, in Charlotte Harbor, spurred community interest and were Florida's oldest shipping point. In 1879, F.A. eagerly sought after by the general reading Hendry, of Fort Myers, estimated that in the public. In addition to Cunning's "Letter five previous years an average of 10,000 from Okeechobee" column, Boully's paper head of cattle, at a price of $14 per head, included letters and articles from Manatee were shipped each year from Punta Rassa.4 County, Charlotte Harbor, Hernando Citrus and vegetable growing also attract­ County, Ft. Meade, and Tampa. While some ed migrants. Nearly every edition of news- 13 papers published in Tampa, Orlando, Bartow Kississimee River. Below Fort Bassinger, and other South Florida towns contained and located near the western shore of Lake articles for perspective migrants extolling Okeechobee, was the village that grew the various advantages of certain crops and around abandoned Fort Center. It is likely the availability of land. By way of example, · that Cunning addressed his readers from on September 4, 1879, the Tampa Sunland one of these two settlements. Just to the Tribune, in an article titled "Culture and south of these two settlements lay the Shipment of Vegetables," lauded the ease Caloosahatchee River. South Florida's earli­ and profitability with which garden peas, est settlers speculated on the feasibility of cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, and squash­ connecting the river to the lake, but by es could be grown in South Florida. 1879, these high hopes were about to be re­ But if Cunning and his neighbors in the alized. In the spring of that year, a Tampa southern peninsula were to truly prosper, newspaper reported that J.L. Meigs, a U.S. they needed communication and trans­ Surveyor, had arrived in Fort Myers "on his portation links to the isolated region. They way to the headwaters of the Caloosahatchee yearned for iron rails to reach their isolated to give the river a thorough survey, and to communities. Cunning's dispatches speak make a report upon the feasibility, of open­ to these aspirations. In 1867, telegraph ing the Okeechobee into the river." F.A. messages could be received at Punta Rassa Hendry of Fort Myers, and a number of his and, in 1884, the first trains chugged into associates, were conducting an indepen­ Tampa. By that time thousands of migrants dent survey of their own.11 were heading to the region to invest in cit­ While this trackless region was home to rus groves. Phosphate strikes in the late the Seminole, cattlemen, panthers, and on­ 1880s attracted hundreds of others.s ly a few hardy homesteaders, local citizens Cunning also writes of Hamilton Disston's were optimistic about the fertility of the soil purchase of four million acres of land from and the desirability and prospects of out­ the state of Florida for $.25 per acre. side immigration. One newcomer boasted Disston's dream was to use the latest tech­ that "Okeechobee is one of the finest lakes nology to drain the overflowed lands. in Florida with only 2 islands in it with fine Through this scheme thousands of acres of hammock and prairie land nearly all around land could be sold at cheap prices to it suitable for cane, com, rice or vegetables migrants who could grow citrus and a mul­ also for fruits, oranges, guavas, bananas, titude of other tropical crops. Cunning pine apples &c. The Indians have fields and speaks to this scheme plus speculates on raise fine com, potatoes, pumpkins, and the nefarious political machinations that bananas, which all grow finely and with made it possible. little cultivation. Lovers of picturesque In 1880, only three counties and only a scenery should made a trip through, when few settlements graced the southern part of the canal is completed, plenty of game of the peninsula south of Polk County: nearly all kinds, and fish in abundance."12 Manatee (pop. 3,500), Dade (pop. 257) and Cunning addressed readers of the Monroe County (pop. 11,800).6 Miami Informant and the Sunland Tribune at the (which would become the region's only real time when White Conservatives had retak­ city) contained just a few dozen people in en control of state government. Florida had 1880. Because the vast majority of Monroe overthrown Radical Republican rule four County's population resided in the island years earlier. Florida's Bourbon governors, village of Key West, no more than 5,000 George Drew and William D. Bloxham, souls would have lived in the southern brought their economic policies to a public peninsula south of Bartow. This total in­ eager for better times. It was a policy of low cluded approximately 200 Seminoles living taxes, slashed state expenditures, and land in five villages. 7 Only a few cattle trails and giveaway schemes calculated to lure primitive roads, cut primarily by the army's Northern investment capital to the state to corps of engineers during the Seminole develop the · state's ··resources and lure Wars, linked distant frontier outposts such migrants to Florida's open spaces. By 1880, as Pine Level (Manatee County Seat), the in Florida, as in the rest of the South, the village of Manatee (now Bradenton),8 Fort Republican Party (now discredited among Green, Fort Ogden,9 Fort Myers, and Fort white Southerners as the party of Carpet­ Bassinger,10 on the west bank of the baggers, Scalawags, and African-Americans), 14 became a marginalized victim of the solid Okeechobee county presents induce­ Democratic South. Cunning's letters are re­ ments to emigration far superior to any flective of white conservative public opin­ county in Florida, or to any other state or ion of the time. Readers of the Informant territory on the continent. One of its great and Sunland Tribune would have reveled in advantages is, that it has room enough for his stories. Both were Conservative Demo­ all who may come, possessing all that vast cratic papers in a state increasingly taken expanse of country extending from the over by Bourbonism.13 Atlantic ocean on the east, to the empire of Cunning addressed the readers of the Manatee on the west; bounded by the sand Informant and the Sunland Tribune in the mountains, or backbone of Florida, on the manner and style of the southern humorists north, and running south to infinity; of the ante- and post-hel- including the great ium periods.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Everglades: Wetlands Not Wastelands Marjory Stoneman Douglas Overcoming the Barriers of Public Unawareness and the Profit Motive in South Florida
    The Everglades: Wetlands not Wastelands Marjory Stoneman Douglas Overcoming the Barriers of Public Unawareness and the Profit Motive in South Florida Manav Bansal Senior Division Historical Paper Paper Length: 2,496 Bansal 1 "Marjory was the first voice to really wake a lot of us up to what we were doing to our quality of life. She was not just a pioneer of the environmental movement, she was a prophet, calling out to us to save the environment for our children and our grandchildren."1 - Florida Governor Lawton Chiles, 1991-1998 ​ Introduction Marjory Stoneman Douglas was a vanguard in her ideas and approach to preserve the Florida Everglades. She not only convinced society that Florida’s wetlands were not wastelands, but also educated politicians that its value transcended profit. From the late 1800s, attempts were underway to drain large parts of the Everglades for economic gain.2 However, from the mid to late 20th century, Marjory Stoneman Douglas fought endlessly to bring widespread attention to the deteriorating Everglades and increase public awareness regarding its importance. To achieve this goal, Douglas broke societal, political, and economic barriers, all of which stemmed from the lack of familiarity with environmental conservation, apathy, and the near-sighted desire for immediate profit without consideration for the long-term impacts on Florida’s ecosystem. Using her voice as a catalyst for change, she fought to protect the Everglades from urban development and draining, two actions which would greatly impact the surrounding environment, wildlife, and ultimately help mitigate the effects of climate change. By educating the public and politicians, she served as a model for a new wave of environmental activism and she paved the way for the modern environmental movement.
    [Show full text]
  • Wilderness on the Edge: a History of Everglades National Park
    Wilderness on the Edge: A History of Everglades National Park Robert W Blythe Chicago, Illinois 2017 Prepared under the National Park Service/Organization of American Historians cooperative agreement Table of Contents List of Figures iii Preface xi Acknowledgements xiii Abbreviations and Acronyms Used in Footnotes xv Chapter 1: The Everglades to the 1920s 1 Chapter 2: Early Conservation Efforts in the Everglades 40 Chapter 3: The Movement for a National Park in the Everglades 62 Chapter 4: The Long and Winding Road to Park Establishment 92 Chapter 5: First a Wildlife Refuge, Then a National Park 131 Chapter 6: Land Acquisition 150 Chapter 7: Developing the Park 176 Chapter 8: The Water Needs of a Wetland Park: From Establishment (1947) to Congress’s Water Guarantee (1970) 213 Chapter 9: Water Issues, 1970 to 1992: The Rise of Environmentalism and the Path to the Restudy of the C&SF Project 237 Chapter 10: Wilderness Values and Wilderness Designations 270 Chapter 11: Park Science 288 Chapter 12: Wildlife, Native Plants, and Endangered Species 309 Chapter 13: Marine Fisheries, Fisheries Management, and Florida Bay 353 Chapter 14: Control of Invasive Species and Native Pests 373 Chapter 15: Wildland Fire 398 Chapter 16: Hurricanes and Storms 416 Chapter 17: Archeological and Historic Resources 430 Chapter 18: Museum Collection and Library 449 Chapter 19: Relationships with Cultural Communities 466 Chapter 20: Interpretive and Educational Programs 492 Chapter 21: Resource and Visitor Protection 526 Chapter 22: Relationships with the Military
    [Show full text]
  • In Honor of Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Guardian of the Everglades
    I I lr4sTIluTEFOn SCientifiC IN f0t7MAT10N@ I 3501 MARKET ST, PHILADELPHIA, PA 191Cd In Honor of Marjory Stoneman Douglas, I Guardian of the Everglades [ Number 33 Auizust 14, 1989 This essay considers the life and work of Marjory Stoneman Douglas (1890- ), an authority on the Florida Everglades whose writings and advocacy have made her one of the most celebrated defenders of that subtropicalregion, Also discussedis a bronze sratue of a Ftorida panther by Philadelphia scufptor Eric Berg, which ISI@ has commissioned for installation in the Everglades NationaI Park. Activism on behalf of the environment, tually, we visited the Everglades National at least on a broad scale, seems a relatively Park together, where I purchased her books. recent phenomenon. The late- 1960s’ ‘‘ecol- I then asked Len to arrange a meeting with ogy” movement, which probably reached his old tilend. The three of us met at her its height with the observance of Earth Day home in Coconut Grove last summer. in 1970, gave rise to a new popular con- When I spoke with this remarkable wom- sciousness of environmental issues. While an, she shared many insights into her own this consciousness may have waned at times life, the problems facing the Everglades and in succeeding years, there is no doubt that surrounding areas, education, politics, and in the late 1980s, with headlines being made a host of other topics. In tits essay, in honor by oil spills, toxic waste, polluted beaches, of Douglas, I’d like to describe briefly some- disappearing rain forests, and the green- thing of her life and work, present a few ex- house effect, concern for the environment cerpts from our conversation, and discuss has returned to the forefront as an intern- one small way in which ISI@ is helping to ational priority.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter 1: the Everglades to the 1920S Introduction
    Chapter 1: The Everglades to the 1920s Introduction The Everglades is a vast wetland, 40 to 50 miles wide and 100 miles long. Prior to the twentieth century, the Everglades occupied most of the Florida peninsula south of Lake Okeechobee.1 Originally about 4,000 square miles in extent, the Everglades included extensive sawgrass marshes dotted with tree islands, wet prairies, sloughs, ponds, rivers, and creeks. Since the 1880s, the Everglades has been drained by canals, compartmentalized behind levees, and partially transformed by agricultural and urban development. Although water depths and flows have been dramatically altered and its spatial extent reduced, the Everglades today remains the only subtropical ecosystem in the United States and one of the most extensive wetland systems in the world. Everglades National Park embraces about one-fourth of the original Everglades plus some ecologically distinct adjacent areas. These adjacent areas include slightly elevated uplands, coastal mangrove forests, and bays, notably Florida Bay. Everglades National Park has been recognized as a World Heritage Site, an International Biosphere Re- serve, and a Wetland of International Importance. In this work, the term Everglades or Everglades Basin will be reserved for the wetland ecosystem (past and present) run- ning between the slightly higher ground to the east and west. The term South Florida will be used for the broader area running from the Kississimee River Valley to the toe of the peninsula.2 Early in the twentieth century, a magazine article noted of the Everglades that “the region is not exactly land, and it is not exactly water.”3 The presence of water covering the land to varying depths through all or a major portion of the year is the defining feature of the Everglades.
    [Show full text]
  • A Brief History of Lake Okeechobee: a Narrative of Confict Alanna L
    A Brief History of Lake Okeechobee: A Narrative of Confict Alanna L. Lecher, Ph.D, Lynn University Abstract Lake Okeechobee is Florida’s largest lake, the largest lake in the Southeast United States, and the second largest lake contained entirely within the United States. The history of this inland sea is marked both by natural processes, and more recently human development and intervention. Adventurers can explore this behemoth of a waterway via the Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail that enriches it, a part of the Florida National Scenic Trail. This paper synthesizes major natural and human-induced perturbations that shaped the lake and ultimately the trail that encircles it to create a narrative of Florida’s great lake. The story of Lake Okeechobee is a story of battles, frst between the land and sea, then between the lake itself and humankind. For the past few centuries Lake Okeechobee’s natural perturbations in water fow and fooding resisted the control of man, until recently when man triumphed, managing to control the fow of water in and out of the lake. Unfortunately, with this new found control a new bio- ecological threat in the form of harmful algal blooms has emerged, which again threatens the health and livelihood of South Floridians. Currently there are new eforts that seek to restore Lake Okeechobee towards a more natural state in an efort to thwart the blooms. Manuscript It’s a full moon weekend in February and runners lace up their shoes in preparation. They gather in the agricultural town of Clewiston southeast of Lake Okeechobee.
    [Show full text]
  • Hamilton Disston
    HAMILTON DISSTON Hamilton Disston was born August 23, 1844, in Philadelphia. He worked in his father's saw manufacturing plant until he signed up to join the troops fighting in the Civil War. Twice during the early years of fighting, he enlisted, only to be hauled home after his father paid the bounty for another soldier to take his son's place. He eventually accepted his son's wishes and supplied Hamilton and 100 other workers from the saw plant with equipment to form the Disston Volunteers. Hamilton served as a private in the Union Army until the end of the war. Hamilton Disston purchased four million acres of marshland shortly after the Civil War. Included in his purchase was the small trading post of Allendale, which was eventually renamed Kissimmee. Disston wished to drain the area surrounding Kissimmee and deepen the Kissimmee River, so products could be shipped into the Gulf of Mexico and beyond. Many steamboats passed through the area with cargoes of cypress lumber and sugar cane. Disston committed suicide on April 30, 1896, after a disastrous freeze led many families to relocate further south. Disston's land company stopped payment on bonds and returned to Philadelphia. Hamilton Disston Biography by Mary Ellen Wilson and is located in the American National Biography, published by Oxford University Press, 1999. Photo from Ken Milano's archives. Hamilton Disston (23 Aug. 1844-30 Apr. 1896), land developer, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Henry Disston, an industrialist, and Mary Steelman. At the age of fifteen Disston started as an apprentice in one of the divisions of his father's factory, Keystone Saw, Tool, Steel and File Works, setting a precedent for other family members.
    [Show full text]
  • Restoring the Biological Integrity of Everglades National Park
    University of Colorado Law School Colorado Law Scholarly Commons External Development Affecting the National Parks: Preserving "The Best Idea We Ever Had" 1986 (September 14-16) 9-15-1986 Restoring the Biological Integrity of Everglades National Park Estus D. Whitfield Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/external-development-affecting- national-parks Part of the Administrative Law Commons, American Art and Architecture Commons, Animal Law Commons, Biodiversity Commons, Dispute Resolution and Arbitration Commons, Environmental Health and Protection Commons, Environmental Law Commons, Environmental Policy Commons, Hydrology Commons, International Law Commons, Jurisdiction Commons, Land Use Law Commons, Legal History Commons, Legislation Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, Natural Resources and Conservation Commons, Natural Resources Law Commons, Natural Resources Management and Policy Commons, Property Law and Real Estate Commons, Public Policy Commons, Recreation, Parks and Tourism Administration Commons, Science and Technology Policy Commons, State and Local Government Law Commons, Transnational Law Commons, Water Law Commons, and the Water Resource Management Commons Citation Information Whitfield, Estus .,D "Restoring the Biological Integrity of Everglades National Park" (1986). External Development Affecting the National Parks: Preserving "The Best Idea We Ever Had" (September 14-16). https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/external-development-affecting-national-parks/12 Reproduced with permission of the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment (formerly the Natural Resources Law Center) at the University of Colorado Law School. Estus D. Whitfield, Restoring the Biological Integrity of Everglades National Park, in EXTERNAL DEVELOPMENT AFFECTING THE NATIONAL PARKS: PRESERVING “THE BEST IDEA WE EVER HAD” (Natural Res. Law Ctr., Univ.
    [Show full text]
  • By 1890, Florida's Population Is 390000
    Panel 1.4 1889 view of Jupiter Lighthouse from the railroad dock Waves of people board trains and move to what recently was a mostly empty state; by 1890, Florida’s population is 390,000 (doubling in two decades). Freed African-Americans make up half the state’s population in this post-Civil War era. e roseate spoonbill and reddish egret are nearly gone from the Everglades, decimated by the plumage demand for fashionable hats of the day. Entrepreneurs conduct large-scale draining to connect waterways, permanently altering the hydrology of South Florida. By 1883, the Caloosahatchee River is connected to Lake Okeechobee, lowering the lake’s water level and reducing water flow to the Everglades. 1881 Hamilton Disston buys 4 million acres of the Everglades. The cost is 25 cents an acre. In the aftermath of the Civil War, the state’s nearly bankrupt Internal Improvement Fund — recovering from the severe disruption of its infant railroad system — is seeking buyers for land. Disston, a wealthy saw Hamilton Disston connects waterways to Lake Okeechobee works owner from Philadelphia, returns the Fund to solvency in Central Florida, and by the fall of 1883 watercraft traverse with this single transaction. from the town of Kissimmee to the Gulf of Mexico 1883 Disston connects the Caloosahatchee River and Upper Chain of Lakes. Proclaiming he will drain the entire Everglades, Disston begins by dredging canals and connecting lakes Kissimmee, Hatchineha, Tohopekaliga and other lakes that form the headwaters for the Kissimmee River. He begins to deepen and straighten the Kissimmee River, selling the surrounding drained lands to cattle operators for grazing.
    [Show full text]
  • Solving the Everglades Riddle: Addressing Water Quality and Quantity to Restore a Florida Legacy
    BACKGROUNDER Solving the Everglades Riddle: Addressing Water Quality and Quantity to Restore a Florida Legacy By Dan Peterson Director, Center for Property Rights at The James Madison Institute federal, and local governments have wrangled over funding A Florida Riddle it, and environmental activists have leveraged it. What singular policy issue has lingered in Florida, In 2014, voters approved Amendment 1 dedicating despite having been discussed for decades, hotly debated one-third of doc stamp revenue for the next 20 years for in multiple legislative sessions, and subject to expensive statewide environmental preservation purposes including lobbying efforts? What issue has induced emotional pleas, “to acquire, restore, improve and manage conservation received billions of dollars to spend on planning and lands…including the Everglades.” This action brought new projects, and continues to be a costly and complex effort? visibility to statewide environmental needs as well as further If you answered, “Restoring the Everglades” you win debate to the issue of Everglades restoration. In order to the prize. For decades, one of Florida’s top environmental more fully understand and appreciate the complexities of challenges has been the restoration of the Everglades. restoring the Everglades today, it is imperative to take a Scientists have studied it, legislators have debated it, state, brief look back in time for a helpful perspective. www.jamesmadison.org | 1 A Brief History of northern Everglades and many along the banks of Lake Okeechobee. While dairy farming and cattle ranching the Florida Everglades spread north of the lake, tomatoes, sugar cane, beans, The effort to subdue the Everglades area began as early peas, peppers and potatoes became the dominant as 1850 with the Swamplands Act, which transferred crops to the south.
    [Show full text]
  • The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan
    Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Project U.S. Army Corps of Engineers South Florida Water Management District Other Agencies and NGOs Everglades Restoration Overview Past, Present, and Future South Florida Natural Resources Center Everglades National Park KeyKey TenetsTenets ofof SouthSouth FloridaFlorida RestorationRestoration •• Hydrological restoration is a necessary prerequisite to ecological restoration. •• The structure, composition, and dynamics of the resulting landscape will be self defining and not fully predictable. •• The challenge is to understand the new system trajectories and guide them toward the goal of a healthy and self-sustaining ecosystem. Source: Federal Objectives for South Florida Restoration, Science Sub-Group, 1993 Everglades Restoration • Ecosystem Regimes • Pre-Drainage Everglades • Effects of Water Management and Development • The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan – Overall plan – Potential affects on Everglades, Biscayne, and Big Cypress National Parks – Future Directions PrePre--DrainageDrainage EcosystemEcosystem •• Large Spatial Scale - high aquatic production, large feeding range, providing population resiliency. •• Dynamic Storage and Sheetflow - expansive vegetation, low gradient, and peat/limestone substrates result in slow flow rates and wet season carryover. •• Wet and Dry Hydrologic Cycles - seasonal and annual patterns of production, dispersal, survival tied to rainfall and the depth/duration of flooding and estuarine inflows. •• Heterogeneity of Habitats - diverse mosaic of plant communities
    [Show full text]
  • The Owl and the Monitor: Nature Versus Neighborhood in the Development of Southwest Florida Nicholas Foreman, Oregon State University
    The Owl and the Monitor: Nature Versus Neighborhood in the Development of Southwest Florida Nicholas Foreman, Oregon State University On the southwestern coast of Florida, pinched between suburban homes and a shrinking tangle of mangrove islands near the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River, two unlikely rivals act out a curious endgame of twentieth-century consumerism. Here, one of Florida’s last surviving populations of burrowing owls is threatened by the Nile monitor, a four-foot lizard brought to the Gulf Coast by the exotic pet trade in the 1980s. In the decades since its introduction, the monitor’s ability to thrive in this coastal setting with hundreds of manmade canals has enabled it to proliferate and displace native fauna like the owl, drawing concern from ecologists and concerned citizens alike. State agencies and local newspapers have published dozens of short articles and impact studies that call our attention to the problem of exotic pests in Florida’s fragile ecosystems, and in Cape Coral itself, the monitor has become something of a supervillain, evading wildlife officers charged with its removal and menacing residents and their pets from the warm concrete of the city’s many seawalls. But these two animals’ inverse relationship reflects more than the danger of invasive species within the borderlands of the Anthropocene. The story of the owl and the monitor is also a parable for the ways in which certain conceptions of nature and patterns of consumption created by post-WWII housing speculation have continued to define humans’ impact on Florida’s environment and turned the Sunshine State into a symbol of Americans’ most ambitious—and destructive—tendencies.
    [Show full text]
  • Pinellas County Historical Background
    Pinellas County Historical Background Pinellas County PINELLAS COUNTY HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Prepared and Published by: THE PINELLAS COUNTY PLANNING DEPARTMENT For the PINELLAS COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Calvin D. Harris, Chairman Karen Seel, Vice-Chairman Robert S. LaSala, County Administrator Brian Smith, Planning Director Third Edition December, 2008 PREFACE & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS he purpose of the Pinellas County Historical Background document is to provide a unified natural and cultural history T of the area that now constitutes Pinellas County. The historical background aims to serve both as an educational tool for the County’s citizens and as a support instrument in the continued implementation of the “Protecting and Restoring Pinellas County’s Natural and Cultural Heritage” agenda, as set forth in the Pinellas County Comprehensive Plan. The first two editions of this document were prepared and published by the Pinellas County Planning Department in 1986 and in 1995. The Planning Department acknowledges the assistance provided by Heritage Village in the preparation of this report. The Planning Department also wishes to thank the cities of St. Petersburg, Dunedin, and Oldsmar for their photographic contributions. TABLE OF CONTENTS Summary Significant Dates in Pinellas County History ....................................1-4 Pinellas County: A Historical Perspective People of Pinellas and What Brought Them Here..........................2-3 Major Economic Influences...............................................................2-3
    [Show full text]