Early Inhabitants
At the last “Ice Age” around 12,000 years ago the first inhabitants wandered into the Florida pensulea. However, little remains of these early wanderers because much of early Florida is now under water.These Paleoindians lived in a Florida twice the...
The Europeans
Florida and particularly South Florida was difficult to colonize. One soldier during the Seminole Indian conflicts wrote home that, “If the Devil owned both Hell and Florida, he would rent out Florida and live in Hell!” And it would be many...
Indian Conflicts
North Florida was a land of big plantations that needed growing space. General Jackson tried to get it by ousting the Seminoles, the Native Americans who had settled in the state in the 1700s. In 1823 hostilities ended temporarily when the...
Resettlement
Around 1700 the lands vacated by the original inhabitants attracted native indian people from Georgia and Alabama. They came to Florida to avoid the European intrusion into their homelands.Many were Maskókî speakers,
Statehood
In the early days of its existence, the fledgling United States government carried out a policy of displacement and extermination against the American Indians in the eastern US, systematically removing them from the path of “white” settlement.
Modern Times
In less than a century, a land “unfit for human habitation” has been turned in to the permanent home of over a million people and the winter residence of tens of thousands more.
Steady Growth
In 1845, Florida became a state with a plantation-type economy and a population centered mostly in its northern regions.
Treasure Coasts
Not until the 1880s would the peninsula to the south begin to reveal its tremendous treasures. At this time, two millionaires with dreams as grand as Ponce de Leon’s made accessible the sea-surrounded paradise and set in motion a land...
The Dreamers
It wouldn’t have been too surprising if Miami had been renamed “Flagler” at the incorporation meeting back in 1896, since it was in that year that the Florida East Coast Railway, owned by Henry Morrison Flagler, reached Miami.
Boom and Bust
By 1920, Miami’s population had grown to 29,571, an increase of 440% during the previous decade. That development was but a prelude to the great Florida Land Boom of the mid-1920s. People from all over the country flocked to South...
The Keys
Island hopping down to Key West along the scenic Overseas Highway and the famous 7 mile bridge, you encounter numerous parks and attractions. At the highway’s...
Southeast Coast
Palm Beach County’s illustrious past is on display in the fabled town of Palm Beach, where mansions commissioned by Vanderbilt, Whitney, and Wanaker line shady...
Nature Travel
Visitors will be astounded by Southeast Florida’s diverse ecosystem, from huge freshwater Lake Okeechobee and the mystery and majesty of the Everglades, to the underwater...
Climate
Florida is called the Sunshine State since there are only a handful of days during the year that the sun does not shine at all. The weather year-round gives the…
The People
South Florida’s Tequesta and Calusa tribes were the first to settle the Florida area and had it all to themselves for many years. Little by little, the Spanish, English, French,…
Types of Vegatation …
The state of Florida is comprised of a minor portion of the Floridian Plateau and the costal lowlands. Much of this landmass has been submerged by ancient seas.
Big Cypress Swamp
The Big Cypress, so named because of its 2,400 square miles of big cypress trees, is what many people envision when they think of the Everglades: dim and shadowy, with…
The Florida Keys
This 150 mile long chain of islands made of fossilized coral rock has seen the likes of pirates and buded treasure, scavengers of shipwrecks, and fortune hunters. Smugglers and slave traders…
Biscayne Bay
The skies above Biscayne arch over a green and brown sea. Sunlight polishes the colors to a dazzling intensity. From the bay, the shoreline of mangrove swamps appears as a dark-green…
Florida Bay
Approximately one-third of Everglades National Park is a very special place called Florida Bay, a marine lagoon that has received international recognition for its superb natural resources. Decades…
The Everglades
The flora of the Everglades is as unique and diverse as its fauna. More than 2,000 species of plants compete for sunlight and available water in southern Florida.
The Land
The Florida peninsula has been inundated by and later emerged from the surrounding seas at least four times in recent geologic history. As glaciers expanded, they consumed bodies of water,…
