This is sometimes referred to as the Giant Orange of Melbourne, Florida. Erected in 1967 from concrete and steel, the Orange is fifteen feet in diameter. Not to burst too many bubbles but there are several such Giant Oranges throughout Florida. For several years, the Eau Gallie Chamber of Commerce operated it as a orange [...]
Tag: Florida East Coast Canal
Boarding up Celery at Sanford, Florida, on the St. Johns River
It seems that celery has always been the staple crop of Sanford, Florida. One of my African-American friends, W. George Allen, just retired from the practice of law at 70 years old, a veteran of the civil rights movement. George grew up in Sanford. As a child, George picked celery every day during the dark [...]
North Carolina congressman John Humphrey Small (Rep.) Intracoastal Booster
Within two weeks of Philadelphia congressman Joseph Hampton Moore (Rep.) filing a bill in March 1907 authorizing the Army Corps of Engineers to survey a route for an Intracoastal waterway from Maine south to Beaufort, N.C., North Carolina congressman John Humphrey Small (Dem.) filed a similar bill authorizing a survey from Beaufort, N.C., to Key [...]
Watermelon Feast on East Coast Canal (Under Construction) at Boynton Beach, Fla. In 1914
By November 1912, according to the terms and conditions of the Settlement Agreement made in 1906, the last of twelve deeds had been delivered by the State of Florida Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund (the State Cabinet) to the Florida canal company conveying in the aggregate more than one million acres of prime east [...]
Turnstyle Bridge across the Intracoastal Waterway at Fort Lauderdale
At Fort Lauderdale, the first bridge to the beachside was a short wooden bridge across what then known as the private Florida East Coast Canal ca. 1910. Located on the north side of the land was a small wooden house occupied by the bridge-tender and his family. Upon the approach of a small boat or [...]
1927 Florida Inland Navigation District Commissioners Negotiating the Purchase of the Waterway
Assembled here with a few exceptions are the eleven commissioners of FIND appointed by Florida Governor David Sholtz to purchase the old Florida East Coast Canal ("the Canal") from Harry Kelsey (1st row, 2nd from the right) for turnover to the Federal Government for enlargement and perpetual maintenance as the Intracoastal Waterway. Erstwhile New Jersey [...]
1892 Color Map of the northern East Coast of Floridaj
This rare map was found in the Trent University archives, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. It shows the state lands reserved for granting to the Florida canal company in yellow and the lands of its affiliated land company, the Boston & Florida Atlantic Coast Land Company, in blue. Each square block represents a "section" or one square [...]
Steamer “Saint Augustine,” tied up at Rockledge Landing
The Florida canal company formed the Indian River and Bay Biscayne Inland Navigation Company to acquire and run steamers on the nearly complete Florida East Coast Canal in the late 1890s. This steamboat company bought the steamers when the prior owner, the Indian River Steamboat Company, went bankrupt. Courtesy, Florida State Archives, Tallahassee, Fla.
The Steamboat “Saint Lucie”
The "Steamboat "Saint Lucie" tied up at the Rock Ledge (Rockledge) Landing.
Commodore Brook “rescues” Harding
Owned by Commodore Avylen Harcourt Brook, the sloop Klyo "rescued" President-elect Warren G. Harding (in white pants, waving the hat) when the houseboat in which he had cruised hit a "snag" on the poorly maintained--and privately owned--Florida East Coast Canal (after 1929, the Intracoastal Waterway) at Fort Lauderdale in 1921. Born in Sheffield, England, in [...]
Florida’s Big Dig 