Tallahassee is a "capital city" in many ways, epitomizing the dynamic quality of the State of Florida in its evolution from a small settlement to a thriving agricultural town to a present-day metropolis. The story of Tallahassee and Leon County is a story of people - men and women, black, white, and Indian, farmers, entrepreneurs, educators - visionaries all, who individually and collectively inspired others to work toward fulfilling Tallahassee's promise. Historians Mary Loiuse Ellis and William Warren Rogers and photographic archivist Joan Perry Morris remind us ". . . there must be a cognizance and appreciation of our past . . . " and in Favored Land they have portrayed an area aware of its heritage, alert to the needs of the present, and prepared to meet the challenges of the future. This is a volume to be treasured by anyone who has ever called Tallahassee and Leon County home.

"Here is the book lover's literary tour of Florida, an exhaustive survey of writers, books, and literary sites in every part of the state. The state is divided into ten areas and each one is described from a literary point of view. You will learn what authors lived in or wrote about a place, which books describe the place, what important movies were made there, even the literary trivia which the true Florida book lover will want to know. You can use the book as a travel guide to a new way to see the state, as an armchair guide to a better understanding of our literary heritage, or as a guide to what to read next time you head to a bookstore or library."--Publisher.

This reference should prove invaluable to researchers tracing land ownership in Florida because it provides abstracts of claims to lands in the unsettled Florida wilderness between 2 June 1825 and 20 January 1892. The files abstracted here are those of pe

Florida is a story of astonishing growth, a state swelling from 500,000 residents at the outset of the 20th century to some 16 million at the end. As recently as mid-century, on the eve of Pearl Harbor, Florida was the smallest state in the South. At the dawn of the millennium, it is the fourth largest in the country, a megastate that was among those introducing new words into the American vernacular: space coast, climate control, growth management, retirement community, theme park, edge cities, shopping mall, boomburbs, beach renourishment, Interstate, and Internet. Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams attempts to understand the firestorm of change that erupted into modern Florida by examining the great social, cultural, and economic forces driving its transformation. Gary Mormino ranges far and wide across the landscape and boundaries of a place that is at once America's southernmost state and the northernmost outpost of the Caribbean. From the capital, Tallahassee--a day's walk from the Georgia border--to Miami--a city distant but tantalizingly close to Cuba and Haiti--Mormino traces the themes of Florida's transformation: the echoes of old Dixie and a vanishing Florida; land booms and tourist empires; revolutions in agriculture, technology, and demographics; the seductions of the beach and the dynamics of a graying population; and the enduring but changing meanings of a dreamstate. Beneath the iconography of popular culture is revealed a complex and complicated social framework that reflects a dizzying passage from New Spain to Old South, New South to Sunbelt.

From Fort Pickens in the Panhandle to Fort Jefferson in the ocean 40 miles beyond Key West, historical travelers will find many adventures waiting for them in Florida. In this new updated edition the author presents 74 of his favorites—17 of them are new to this edition, and the rest have been completely updated. Along the Gulf Coast, see Henry Plant's Moorish jewel of a hotel in Tampa; John Ringling's home and art and circus museums in Sarasota; and the humble homes of Cuban and Italian cigar workers in legendary Ybor City. Up in north Florida visit Civil War battlefields; stroll the University of Florida campus; and see buffalo and wild Spanish horses on Paynes Prairie. In central Florida explore Eatonville, home of writer Zora Neale Hurston, and listen to carillon music as you stroll the gardens around Bok Tower. Down in the keys find the 250-year-old wreck of the San Pedro, a "living museum in the sea" and the Key West home of famous author Ernest Hemingway.

African Americans have risen from the slave plantations of nineteenth-century Florida to become the heads of corporations and members of Congress in the twenty-first century. They have played an important role in making Florida the successful state it is today. This book takes you on a tour, through the 67 counties, of the sites that commemorate the role of African Americans in Florida's history. If we can learn more about our past, both the good and the not-so-good, we can make better decisions in the future. Behind the hundreds of sites in this book are the courageous African Americans like Brevard County's Malissa Moore, who hosted many Saturday night dinners to raise money to build a church, and Miami-Dade's Gedar Walker, who built the first-rate Lyric Theater for black performers. And of course also featured are the more famous black Floridians like Zora Neale Hurston, Jackie Robinson, Mary McCleod Bethune, and Ray Charles.

Faith, Love, Family and Courage on the Southern Frontier In 1827, newlyweds Lavinia and Thomas Jones moved into a cabin in the vast pine forests of South Georgia. Over the decades to come, their magnificent home, Greenwood, rose among the pines, and their family grew and prospered. But their faith, love and future were tested by the joys and sorrows of a turbulent era, including the war that nearly destroyed their beloved homeland. In the authentic storytelling tradition of Eugenia Price and Gilbert Morris, author Jacquelyn Cook turns the true story of the Jones family into a rich drama. The Greenwood Legacy is a sweeping epic covering three generations of one of the most unforgettable families of the American South. Jacquelyn Cook is the nationally acclaimed author of historical and inspirational fiction with a strong dedication to research, vivid drama and biographical accuracy. With sales of nearly 500,000 copies, her books are well-known and loved by readers of fiction that chronicles the lives of real people and places. THE GREENWOOD LEGACY is the third novel in her trilogy about fascinating Civil War families and the legendary estates they created.