Here Swampy visits the 75 year old Flora and Ella’s Restaurant in Labelle. All home cooked meals with fresh pies that folks come in to make at 4 in the morning. This isn’t their original location they were a few blocks away when they opened in 1933 in the core of Labelle. They moved just over a decade ago to this location on Hwy 80.
Amongst the many cool signs in Lakeland is this one on Main Street. It’s the Luell Motel. Too bad all of those powerlines get in the way.
Just west of Dunnellon, in western Marion County, on State Road 484 you’ll find a historic marker for Vogt Springs. There’s also a wooden sign exclaiming the same name.
The historic marker explains that nearly a block away phosphate was discovered during a dig in the area around 1889. From there phosphate became an ingedient in many of our products still in use today, like toothpaste. Phosphate also began a furious digging that can encompass hundreds of acres of land across Florida. Our roadways are filled with the limestone byproduct of the digging required. The discovery was the start of what is now the third largest industry in Florida.
The wooden sign is to mark the neignborhood that sits where phosphate was discovered.
If you take Vogt Springs Road to Palatka Drive, off St.Rd. 484, you can find the actual spring that Albertus Vogt was digging around. The spring itself is on private property, with the lake caused by the spring stratching across two properties. Because of the private property signs, you can only view the lake from the road.
Interestingly the private property owner has a ‘Backyard Wildlife Habitat’ designation next to the spring fed pond.
Author James O. Born has written three so far of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement officer, Agent Tasker, and I hope he writes more. These are very well written especially involving police activity. Also Born clearly has a solid insight into the lives of the good guys and the bad guys. These books almost read as an Ann Rule true-crime book with a real handle on suspence and intrigue.
The first of the three is terrific as we follow Tasker around Dade County and a very big problem he has with the F.B.I.. The second is not quite up to the first and reads a little like a Tim Dorsey ‘Serge’ novel as a lover of explosives looks for fun. The third comes rather quietly at a fictional prison near Pahokee and then builds to a nail biting conclusion.
Born has left Tasker for a new series with a character named Alex Duatre. He’s currently working on his third novel of Duatre.
Eckerd College in St. Petersburg is celebrating it’s fiftieth anniversary! Chartered in ‘58 by the Legislature as the Florida Presbyterian Collage. When the school was facing tough financial issues, Florida drug store owner, Jack Eckerd injected cash in 1971 and the college survived. Not long after the it honored Eckerd by naming the college after him. There are some nifty architectural highlights across the campus and here are a few photos.
Above is a small forest planted by the class of ‘67.
Above is the Griffin Chapel.
Just saw this article on the Florida Trend website, part of their 50th anniversary celebration: Lost Florida Landmarks, a short round-up on some of the Florida tourism treasures (and foibles) that have vanished off the map since 1958. Since my first trip through Florida as a wee tourist in tow with Mom and Dad was in 1964 or thereabouts, I do remember a few of these. In fact, there’s a photo in our hallway of me modeling a snake at the Ross Allen Wildlife Institute in Silver Springs. I’ll have to take it out of the frame and scan it someday. Meanwhile, read the article…
Here’s the Coffee Shoppe menu in the old Hotel Mayflower in Jacksonville circa about 1945. The hotel was built as the Hotel Mason. The building was demolished in 1978, but this menu still survives.
Swampy visits Kappy’s in Maitland right on US17 and 92, south of Maitland Boulevard. This has been a tradition for folks in Maitland since 1972. Before that the building was a Whataburger when it opened in the early ’60s. The specialy is subs, but they serve hot dogs and subs, too.
Inside are is a counter you can sit in spinny-like chairs. Otherwise there are metal tables outside. The signage has somewhat changed over the years. In teh last few years newly painted signs have been put up. This is one of the few greasy spoons that still operates in Central Florida. But what a good greasy spoon!
We believe Punta Gorda has the most murals as public art in the state. Here are two that Swampy visited. There are many, many more. Click here to see those! Wouldn’t be great to see historical murals like this in counties all over Florida?
Here Swampy visits the Deerfield Beach train station built just as the Florida land boom was about to make it’s bust in 1926. Originally part of the Flagler plan it now sees cargo, AmTrak and the commuter Tri-Rail system go by.
If you saw the film, ‘In Her Shoes’, this image might look familiar. It is taken from the same spot that a scene with Cameron Diaz was shot. In the film she has made her way from Pennsylvania to Deerfield Beach and she is seen exiting a train at with the Deerfield Beach station in full view.
