Category Florida History
Throwback Tuesday: History of the Florida Turnpike System in Central Florida (Part II)
When the Turnpike was originally proposed the road was supposed to travel thirty five miles east of Orlando. Thomas B. Manual, a Broward County Commissioner and chair of the Turnpike Commission sought to link southeast Florida with the First Coast. Ferris Bryant, an influential legislator from Ocala, pushed Governor LeRoy Collins. Bryant, using his considerable […]
Throwback Tuesday: History of the Florida Turnpike Part 1 (South Florida and other Southern Florida Expressways)
Editors Note: Portions of this piece originally ran in the Political Hurricane last year. The post has been updated and released as a Throwback Tuesday piece. Next week, Part II focusing on Central Florida will run. Since south Florida is made largely of transplants many locals don’t know nor care about the complicated history of […]
Florida Democrats, Race and Civil Rights; 1964 to today
Unfortunately I have been busy the past several days so I have not gotten around to posting anything new since last Wednesday or commenting on a thread that developed on one of my historical posts over the weekend. The debate on the “Snapshot of Florida Politics in 1979” posting devolved into little more than several […]
Snapshot of Florida Politics in 1989
As I wrote yesterday, I am an avid collector or Michael Barone’s Almanac of American Politics series. Today we will look at the 1990 Almanac of American Politics (published in 1989). The Florida narrative focuses on the migration patterns of northerners. As we discussed in the 1979 snapshot the first migration in the 1940s […]
Snapshot of Florida Politics in 1979
I am an avid collector or Michael Barone’s Almanac of American Politics series, going back to the 1970s. The fact that Barone has turned his once solid and unrivaled commentary in conservative hack writing in the 2010′s should not detract from his earlier works. Barone still posses an uncanny knowledge today which makes his Almanac […]
Throwback Tuesday: Images from 1968 Florida Tour Guide
Bok Tower Gardens … a classic staple of old Florida Cypress Gardens! Another old Florida classic. In the late 1960s St Petersburg’s Bayfront Center was considered an architectural marvel. The facility hosted the 1996 Vice Presidential Debate before being demolished in 2004. Before Disney World came to the state, Silver Springs was perhaps the leading […]
The Southern Manifesto, Civil Rights, Voting Rights and Florida
Continuing in light of the ill-advised Supreme Court regarding the Voting Rights Act earlier this week let’s look at the signers of the Southern Manifesto from Florida. According to the official US House of Representatives site: ” Howard Smith of Virginia, chairman of the House Rules Committee, introduced theSouthern Manifesto in a speech on the House Floor. Formally […]
The Voting Rights Act and Florida: Historical challenges in light of the Supreme Court decision
Tuesday’s ill-advised and unfortunate Supreme Court decision regarding the voting rights act recalls the shameful specter of potential voter purges and racially motivated disenfranchisement that characterized Florida and the American South prior to 1965. While much of the caricature of the south during that era has been drawn in hindsight by a guilty northern-dominated press […]
Throwback Tuesday: The Plot to Steal Florida
No, not Rick Scott’s Supreme Court-abetted reelection scheme — the clandestine coup orchestrated by the Madison administration. In The Plot to Steal Florida: James Madison’s Phony War, military historian and former CIA agent James Burkholder Smith tells the secret – or at least obscure – history of how the Father of the Constitution™ attempted to […]
Throwback Tuesday: Ah Tampa
I originally penned this piece for The Political Hurricane last year at the start of the GOP National Convention. TFS is re-running the piece today for Throwback Tuesday. — I can think of few places better to hold a political convention than Tampa. On that score the Republicans have won this year’s battle, as the […]
