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From the lavish parties, the yachts, and the innovative architecture to the sultry summer days, the mosquito bites, and the hurricanes, Muriel Murrell captures in a series of charming vignettes the early days of Miami. Her remembrances are populated with a fascinating mix of eccentric millionaires, artists, shysters, heiresses, and mobsters, some of whose names are recognizable today, and others whose names have disappeared into history along with the gracious winter homes once lining Brickell Avenue. Part memoir, part history, Miami, A Backward Glance reminds us how the Magic City rose from the swamp, developing from a pioneer town to a luxury resort to an important crossroads of the Western Hemisphere.
stran
A Land Remembered has been ranked #1 Best Florida Book eight times in annual polls conducted by Florida Monthly Magazine.
In this best-selling novel, Patrick Smith tells the story of three generations of the MacIveys, a Florida family who battle the hardships of the frontier to rise from a dirt-poor Cracker life to the wealth and standing of real estate tycoons. The story opens in 1858, when Tobias MacIvey arrives in the Florida wilderness to start a new life with his wife and infant son, and ends two generations later in 1968 with Solomon MacIvey, who realizes that the land has been exploited far beyond human need. The sweeping story that emerges is a rich, rugged Florida history featuring a memorable cast of crusty, indomitable Crackers battling wild animals, rustlers, Confederate deserters, mosquitoes, starvation, hurricanes, and freezes to carve a kingdom out of the swamp. But their most formidable adversary turns out to be greed, including finally their own. Love and tenderness are here too: the hopes and passions of each new generation, friendships with the persecuted blacks and Indians, and respect for the land and its wildlife.
A Land Remembered was winner of the Florida Historical Society's Tebeau Prize as the Most Outstanding Florida Historical Novel. Now in its 14th hardcover printing, it has been in print since 1984 and is also available in trade paperback.
Andrea says: The best novel about Florida history ever written. If you love Florida, you’ll love this book!
In this compact guide, Rick Steves covers the essential spots of each city, including the Hermitage, the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood, Linnanmäki (a classic amusement park), and Toompea Castle. Take a day trip to the lavish palace at Peterhof, stroll through Kaivopuisto Park in Helsinki, or see the best of contemporary Estonian art at Talinn's Kumu Art Museum. You'll get Rick's firsthand advice on the best sights, eating, sleeping, and nightlife, and the maps and self-guided tours will ensure you make the most of your experience. More than just reviews and directions, a Rick Steves Snapshot guide is a tour guide in your pocket.
Rick Steves Snapshot guides consist of excerpted chapters from Rick Steves European country guidebooks. Snapshot guides are a great choice for travelers visiting a specific city or region, rather than multiple European destinations. These slim guides offer all of Rick's up-to-date advice on what sights are worth your time and money. They include good-value hotel and restaurant recommendations, with no introductory information (such as overall trip planning, when to go, and travel practicalities).
More and more Florida residents are deciding to replace highly fertilized, over-watered, pesticide-dependent lawns with native plants. They want to reduce their carbon footprints; save time, water, and money; and attract birds and butterflies. But where to begin? This illustrated guide helps readers get started creating new outdoor spaces that are both sustainable and beautiful.
Taking the common 1/3-acre lot as an example, Ginny Stibolt and Marjorie Shropshire provide a sample layout for a basic native plant landscape. They use a grid system that allows gardeners to work on their yards in small sections instead of trying to revamp the entire landscape at once. And they break down the process into individual steps, making it manageable even for beginners.
The first step is assessing your property and choosing which plants to keep and which to remove. Next, the book discusses how to handle rainwater, introduce trees, install a butterfly garden, use native plants as screening, make an outdoor "room" for entertaining, build wild areas into the landscape, and plan a smart maintenance program that relies on certain plants to keep boundaries neat and incorporates natural weed control.
By following these methods, anyone can convert all or part of their yard into a more natural area without using pesticides or artificial fertilizers, which will save money and help support wildlife. Complete with detailed diagrams and lists of suggested plants for each step, this guide will help readers set up an environmentally-friendly habitat and give them the time and peace of mind to enjoy it.
John Nicholas Ringling's years in Sarasota spanned the final quarter-century of his life. On Florida's west coast, as the Ringling's Circus became "the greatest show on earth," he collected Baroque paintings, European decorative art, and Italian statuary, built the ostentatious mansion Ca'd'Zan, developed and marketed most of the barrier islands around Sarasota Bay, and became the focus of a confusing pastiche of acclaim, misconception, and suspicion. Sarasota's Ringling Museum is his priceless cultural legacy to the people of Florida and the world of art--an inheritance at risk for the ten years that Ringling's estate was in probate.
The author of this first intensive look at Ringling's presence in Sarasota sets the man against the backdrop of Florida from World War I through the land boom and the turbulent twenties into the depression years and Ringling's lapse into obscurity.Illustrated with nearly fifty black-and-white photographs, many never before published, this is the chronicle of a man, as the foreword claims, "who was not afraid to think or live on a grand scale, who knew what he wanted from life, and from art."
The area known as Manatee County opened for settlement at the close of the Second Seminole War in 1841.
This was due to Congress's passage of the Armed Occupation Act of 1842, which allowed settlers to claim 160 acres of land at a cost of $1.25 an acre if they were able to bear arms and live on the land for five years. It wasn't long before settlers appeared up and down the beautiful Manatee River, led by Josiah Gates and his family on the south side. Many of his friends had suffered losses with the collapse of the Union Bank in Tallahassee and were anxious to join him. The opulent shores on both sides of the river quickly enticed other settlers to make their claims, offering a cornucopia filled with some of Florida's best resources for growth and prosperity. This volume provides a pictorial account of those lives, which were caught in the struggle to carve out a niche against all odds in a place that faced epidemics of yellow fever, malaria, typhoid, and a third uprising of the Seminole Indians. In 1861, Florida seceded from the Union, which was followed by the Civil War with a Union victory in 1865 that brought an end to slavery and plantation ownership.
assembling crowds of local children only too happy to pose for a picture. These images, printed as postcards and sold in general stores across the
country, survive as telling reminders of an important era in America's history. This fascinating new history of Sarasota and Bradenton, Florida,
showcases more than two hundred of the best postcards available.