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Built in 1879 at no. 1001 East Clay Street.
"Richmond (/ˈrɪtʃmənd/) is the capital city of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. It is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond Region. Richmond was incorporated in 1742 and has been an independent city since 1871. At the 2010 census, the city's population was 204,214; in 2020, the population had grown to 226,610, making Richmond the fourth-most populous city in Virginia. The Richmond Metropolitan Area has a population of 1,260,029, the third-most populous metro in the state.
Richmond is at the fall line of the James River, 44 mi (71 km) west of Williamsburg, 66 mi (106 km) east of Charlottesville, 91 mi (146 km) east of Lynchburg and 92 mi (148 km) south of Washington, D.C. Surrounded by Henrico and Chesterfield counties, the city is at the intersections of Interstate 95 and Interstate 64 and encircled by Interstate 295, Virginia State Route 150 and Virginia State Route 288. Major suburbs include Midlothian to the southwest, Chesterfield to the south, Varina to the southeast, Sandston to the east, Glen Allen to the north and west, Short Pump to the west and Mechanicsville to the northeast.
The site of Richmond had been an important village of the Powhatan Confederacy, and was briefly settled by English colonists from Jamestown from 1609 to 1611. The present city of Richmond was founded in 1737. It became the capital of the Colony and Dominion of Virginia in 1780, replacing Williamsburg. During the Revolutionary War period, several notable events occurred in the city, including Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty, or give me death!" speech in 1775 at St. John's Church, and the passage of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom written by Thomas Jefferson. During the American Civil War, Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy. It entered the 20th century with one of the world's first successful electric streetcar systems. The Jackson Ward neighborhood is a traditional hub of African-American commerce and culture.
Richmond's economy is primarily driven by law, finance, and government, with federal, state, and local governmental agencies, as well as notable legal and banking firms in the downtown area. The city is home to both a U.S. Court of Appeals, one of 13 such courts, and a Federal Reserve Bank, one of 12 such banks. There are several Fortune 500 companies headquartered in the city including: Dominion Energy, WestRock, Performance Food Group, CarMax, ARKO, and Altria with others, such as Markel, in the metropolitan area.
The city continues to struggle with exceptionally high rates of murder and violent crime, making it one of the most dangerous cities in the United States." - info from Wikipedia.
The fall of 2022 I did my 3rd major cycling tour. I began my adventure in Montreal, Canada and finished in Savannah, GA. This tour took me through the oldest parts of Quebec and the 13 original US states. During this adventure I cycled 7,126 km over the course of 2.5 months and took more than 68,000 photos. As with my previous tours, a major focus was to photograph historic architecture.
Now on Instagram.
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City
New York City (NYC), often called the City of New York or simply New York (NY), is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2018 population of 8,398,748 distributed over about 302.6 square miles (784 km2), New York is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the U.S. state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass. With almost 20 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and approximately 23 million in its combined statistical area, it is one of the world's most populous megacities. New York City has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, significantly influencing commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.
Situated on one of the world's largest natural harbors, New York City is composed of five boroughs, each of which is a county of the State of New York. The five boroughs—Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island—were consolidated into a single city in 1898. The city and its metropolitan area constitute the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. New York is home to more than 3.2 million residents born outside the United States, the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world as of 2016. As of 2019, the New York metropolitan area is estimated to produce a gross metropolitan product (GMP) of $2.0 trillion. If greater New York City were a sovereign state, it would have the 12th highest GDP in the world. New York is home to the highest number of billionaires of any city in the world.
New York City traces its origins to a trading post founded by colonists from the Dutch Republic in 1624 on Lower Manhattan; the post was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. New York was the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790, and has been the largest U.S. city since 1790. The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the U.S. by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the U.S. and its ideals of liberty and peace. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship and environmental sustainability, and as a symbol of freedom and cultural diversity. In 2019, New York was voted the greatest city in the world per a survey of over 30,000 people from 48 cities worldwide, citing its cultural diversity.
Many districts and landmarks in New York City are well known, including three of the world's ten most visited tourist attractions in 2013. A record 62.8 million tourists visited New York City in 2017. Times Square is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway Theater District, one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, and a major center of the world's entertainment industry. Many of the city's landmarks, skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattan's real estate market is among the most expensive in the world. New York is home to the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia, with multiple distinct Chinatowns across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service and contributing to the nickname The City that Never Sleeps, the New York City Subway is the largest single-operator rapid transit system worldwide, with 472 rail stations. The city has over 120 colleges and universities, including Columbia University, New York University, Rockefeller University, and the City University of New York system, which is the largest urban public university system in the United States. Manhattan is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization, namely the New York Stock Exchange, located on Wall Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, and NASDAQ, headquartered in Midtown Manhattan.
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
"Sault Ste. Marie (/ˌsuː seɪnt məˈriː/ SOO-seint-ma-REE) is the only city in, and county seat of, Chippewa County in the U.S. state of Michigan. With a population of 14,144 at the 2010 census, it is the second-most populated city in the Upper Peninsula after Marquette. It is the central city of the Sault Ste. Marie, MI Micropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Chippewa County and had a population of 38,520 at the 2010 census.
Sault Ste. Marie was settled as early as 1668, which makes it Michigan's oldest city and among the oldest cities in the United States. Located at the northeastern edge of the Upper Peninsula, it is separated by the St. Marys River from the much-larger city of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. The two are connected by the Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge, which represents the northern terminus of Interstate 75. This portion of the river also contains the Soo Locks, as well as a swinging railroad bridge. The city is also home to Lake Superior State University.
For centuries Ojibwe (Chippewa) Native Americans had lived in the area, which they referred to as Baawitigong ("at the cascading rapids"), after the rapids of St. Marys River. French colonists renamed the region Saulteaux ("rapids" in French).
In 1668, French missionaries Claude Dablon and Jacques Marquette founded a Jesuit mission at this site. Sault Ste. Marie developed as the fourth-oldest European city in the United States west of the Appalachian Mountains, and the oldest permanent settlement in contemporary Michigan state. On June 4, 1671, Simon-François Daumont de Saint-Lusson, a colonial agent, was dispatched from Quebec to the distant tribes, proposing a congress of Indian nations at the Falls of St. Mary between Lake Huron and Lake Superior. Trader Nicolas Perrot helped attract the principal chiefs, and representatives of 14 Indigenous nations were invited for the elaborate ceremony. The French officials proclaimed France's appropriation of the immense territory surrounding Lake Superior in the name of King Louis XIV.
In the 18th century, the settlement became an important center of the fur trade, when it was a post for the British-owned North West Company, based in Montreal. The fur trader John Johnston, a Scots-Irish immigrant from Belfast, was considered the first European settler in 1790. He married a high-ranking Ojibwe woman named Ozhaguscodaywayquay, the daughter of a prominent chief, Waubojeeg. She also became known as Susan Johnston. Their marriage was one of many alliances in the northern areas between high-ranking European traders and Ojibwe. The family was prominent among Native Americans, First Nations, and Europeans from both Canada and the United States. They had eight children who learned fluent Ojibwe, English and French. The Johnstons entertained a variety of trappers, explorers, traders, and government officials, especially during the years before the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States.
For more than 140 years, the settlement was a single community under French colonial, and later, British colonial rule. After the War of 1812, a US–UK Joint Boundary Commission finally fixed the border in 1817 between the Michigan Territory of the US and the British Province of Upper Canada to follow the river in this area. Whereas traders had formerly moved freely through the whole area, the United States forbade Canadian traders from operating in the United States, which reduced their trade and disrupted the area's economy. The American and Canadian communities of Sault Ste. Marie were each incorporated as independent municipalities toward the end of the 19th century.
As a result of the fur trade, the settlement attracted Ojibwe and Ottawa, Métis, and ethnic Europeans of various nationalities. It was a two-tiered society, with fur traders (who had capital) and their families and upper-class Ojibwe in the upper echelon. In the aftermath of the War of 1812, however, the community's society changed markedly.
The U.S. built Fort Brady near the settlement, introducing new troops and settlers, mostly Anglo-American. The UK and the US settled on a new northern boundary in 1817, dividing the US and Canada along St. Mary's River. The US prohibited British fur traders from operating in the United States. After completion of the Erie Canal in New York State in 1825 (expanded in 1832), the number of settlers migrating to Ohio and Michigan increased dramatically from New York and New England, bringing with them the Yankee culture of the Northern Tier. Their numbers overwhelmed the cosmopolitan culture of the earlier settlers. They practiced more discrimination against Native Americans and Métis.
The falls proved a choke point for shipping between the Great Lakes. Early ships traveling to and from Lake Superior were portaged around the rapids[8] in a lengthy process (much like moving a house) that could take weeks. Later, only the cargoes were unloaded, hauled around the rapids, and then loaded onto other ships waiting below the rapids. The first American lock, the State Lock, was built in 1855; it was instrumental in improving shipping. The lock has been expanded and improved over the years.
In 1900, Northwestern Leather Company opened a tannery in Sault Ste. Marie. The tannery was founded to process leather for the upper parts of shoes, which was finer than that for soles. After the factory closed in 1958, the property was sold to Filborn Limestone, a subsidiary of Algoma Steel Corporation.
In March 1938 during the Great Depression, Sophia Nolte Pullar bequeathed $70,000 for construction of the Pullar Community Building, which opened in 1939. This building held an indoor ice rink composed of artificial ice, then a revolutionary concept. The ice rink is still owned by the city." - info from Wikipedia.
Now on Instagram.
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
The 1989–90 Whitbread Round the World Race was run from Southampton to Southampton in 1989–90. It was run with several classes of yacht.
Steinlager 2 skippered by Peter Blake won the race easily. For the first time since 1981–82 (when the race comprised just four legs), the victor won every leg (albeit closely chased by both Grant Dalton's Fisher & Paykel NZ and Pierre Fehlmann's Merit entries). The vast difference in speed and capability of the many different boats involved in the 1989 to 1990 race lead to the creation of a committee to examine the commission of a Whitbread class boat for use in future races. Many of the Maxi yachts in this year's race were nearly twice the size (LOA) of the smallest, and carried well over twice the sail area. The net result of this was that many of the smaller boats finished the longer legs more than ten days after the leg winner. In the overall results, the last finisher was some 52 days behind Blake's Steinlager 2 128-day aggregate time. In addition, the cost of the big yachts was becoming too expensive to fund - even for the well sponsored teams like Steinlager, Rothmans and Merit. Eventually, the new class would be called the Whitbread 60.
The race featured the first all-woman crew on Tracy Edwards' Maiden. Although in a much smaller boat than many of their male counterparts the women fared well—claiming two leg victories in Division D.[1] Edwards was named yachtsman of the year and appointed MBE. Recently a documentary has been made about the team's participation in the race.
Central Auckland Statistical Area, Auckland, New Zealand
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston
Boston, officially the City of Boston, is the capital and largest city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the Northeastern United States. The city boundaries encompass an area of about 48.4 sq mi (125 km2) and a population of 675,647 as of 2020. The city is the economic and cultural anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area known as Greater Boston, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) home to 4,941,632 people as of 2020, ranking as the eleventh-largest MSA in the country. A broader combined statistical area (CSA), generally corresponding to the commuting area and including Worcester, Massachusetts and Providence, Rhode Island, is home to approximately 8.2 million people, making it the seventh-most populous in the United States.
Boston is one of the nation's oldest municipalities, founded on the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by Puritan settlers from the English town of the same name. During the American Revolution and the nation's founding, Boston was the location of several key events, including the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the hanging of Paul Revere's lantern signal in Old North Church, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the siege of Boston. Following American independence from Great Britain, the city continued to play an important role as a port, manufacturing hub, and center for American education and culture. The city has expanded beyond the original peninsula through land reclamation and municipal annexation. Its rich history attracts many tourists, with Faneuil Hall alone drawing more than 20 million visitors per year. Boston's many firsts include the United States' first public park (Boston Common, 1634), the first public school (Boston Latin School, 1635), the first subway system (Tremont Street subway, 1897), and the first large public library (Boston Public Library, 1848).
In the 21st century, Boston has emerged as a global leader in higher education and academic research. Greater Boston's many colleges and universities include Harvard University and MIT, both located in suburban Cambridge and both routinely included among the world's most highly ranked universities. The city is also a national leader in scientific research, law, medicine, engineering, and business. With nearly 5,000 startup companies, the city is considered a global pioneer in innovation and entrepreneurship. Boston's economic base also includes finance, professional and business services, biotechnology, information technology, and government activities. Households in the city claim the highest average rate of philanthropy in the United States. Boston businesses and institutions rank among the top in the country for environmental sustainability and new investment.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beacon_Hill,_Boston
Beacon Hill is a historic neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is also the location of the Massachusetts State House. The term "Beacon Hill" is used locally as a metonym to refer to the state government or the legislature itself, much like Washington, D.C.'s Capitol Hill does at the federal level.
Federal-style rowhouses, narrow gaslit streets and brick sidewalks run through the neighborhood, which is generally regarded as one of the more desirable and expensive in Boston. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood was 9,023.
Additional Foreign Language Tags:
(United States) "الولايات المتحدة" "Vereinigte Staaten" "アメリカ" "美国" "미국" "Estados Unidos" "États-Unis"
(Massachusetts) "ماساتشوستس" "麻萨诸塞州" "मैसाचुसेट्स" "マサチューセッツ" "매사추세츠 주" "Массачусетс"
(Boston) "بوسطن" "波士顿" "बोस्टन" "ボストン" "보스턴" "Бостон"
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Lake City is the county seat of Columbia County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 12,046. It is the principal city of the Lake City Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is composed of Columbia County, and had a 2010 population of 67,531.
Lake City first began as the town of Alligator in 1821 near the Seminole settlement known as Alligator Village. Alligator became the seat of Columbia County in 1832 when it was formed from Duval and Alachua counties. In 1858 Alligator was incorporated and renamed Lake City. The largest American Civil War battle in Florida took place near here in the Battle of Olustee in 1864; the Confederates won. In 1884 the Florida Agricultural College was established in Lake City as a land grant college; it was relocated to Gainesville in 1905 to form part of the University of Florida. The city's sesquicentennial was held in 2009.
Lake City is known as "The Gateway to Florida" because it is adjacent to the intersection of Interstate 75 and Interstate 10. Lake City is the site of Lake City Gateway Airport, formerly known as NAS Lake City. Florida Gateway College is located in Lake City.
In 1874 Lake City's first newspaper was published in 1874, called the Lake City Reporter. In 1876 the Bigelow Building was completed; it later was adapted for use as the City Hall. In 1891 Lake City became the first city in Florida to have electric lights from a local power and light company.
By the early 20th century, Lake City had become an important railroad junction, served by the Seaboard Air Line, Atlantic Coast Line, Georgia Southern Railroad, and the Florida Railroad. Hotel Blanche was built in 1902 as an attraction for expected tourists. The hotel was Lake City and Columbia County's major hotel and central business center from 1902 to 1955.
Florida Agricultural College was established in 1884 as part of the Morrill Land Grant Act and became a full university with twenty-five instructors in 1904. In 1905 the Florida Agricultural College was moved to Gainesville, becoming part of the University of Florida. Columbia High School constructed a second building in 1906 that was used until 1922. In 1907 Lake City officials leased the former property of the Florida Agricultural College to the Florida Baptist Convention; they founded a Baptist college called Columbia College. Columbia College lasted for ten years until the college became overwhelmed with debt. Columbia College deeded the land and buildings back to Lake City in 1919. During World War I, the campus of Columbia College was used as a training site for local troops for the war. The facility became U.S. Hospital No. 63, the predecessor of the Veterans Hospital constructed in Lake City. More than 34 Lake City soldiers were killed in World War I.
In 1940 the population of Lake City was 5,836. During World War II, a number of institutions were established to help with the war effort as well as those in Lake City. The Lake Shore Hospital was dedicated in 1940 to provide medical care for those in the Lake City area. The Lake City Woman's Club became the United Service Organizations (USO) headquarters to entertain service personnel stationed in Lake City. Naval Air Station Lake City was commissioned in 1942 on the site of the Lake City Flying Club air field. NAS Lake City was a support facility for Naval Air Station Jacksonville and trained pilots to fly the Lockheed Ventura. Military operations at NAS Lake City ended in March 1946, and it was decommissioned as an active naval air station.
After World War II a local air base was converted for use in 1947 as the Columbia Forestry School. The Columbia Forestry School had low enrollments and funds, forcing the school to seek help from the Florida legislature. The University of Florida assumed management of the school, and in 1950 it became the University of Florida Forest Ranger School. As part of the network of community colleges established in Florida, the school became the Lake City Junior College and Forest Ranger School in 1962. Lake City Junior College was renamed to Lake City Community College in 1970; in 2010 it was renamed as Florida Gateway College.
By 1950, the population of Lake City was 7,467. The forestry products industry (turpentine, lumber, and pulpwood) had become a mainstay of the local economy.
During the Korean War, five Lake City soldiers were killed. A monument was dedicated in 1985 in honor of the five killed in the war. In 1958, the Columbia Amateur Radio Society was formed. This was a group of amateur radio operators who enjoyed the ability to communicate all over the world. This radio club still exists today. Lake City's centennial was celebrated in 1959 with parades, fireworks and a 58-page book documenting one hundred years of progress, A Century in the Sun. The citizens of the town dressed in period attire, complete with whiskers. A good-natured clash arose between the men with additional facial hair and the women who did not like it.
In 1963 Interstate 75 and Interstate 10 were opened, intersecting at Lake City. In the 1960s Columbia County schools were not desegregated but black students were free to enroll in any all-white school if room was available. In 1970 a judge ordered all Columbia County public schools to integrate. During the Vietnam War, 23 local Lake City soldiers were either killed or M.I.A.
In 1978 the Columbia County Public Library was established. Downtown Lake City was revitalized in the 1990s with new businesses, shops and restaurants. In 2000 Lake City had a population of 9,980.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Lakeland is a city in Polk County, Florida, United States, east of Tampa. According to the 2013 U.S. Census Bureau estimate, the city had a population of 100,710.
Lakeland is a principal city of the Lakeland–Winter Haven Metropolitan Statistical Area (coterminous with Polk County), which had an estimated population of 623,009 in July 2013 based on data from the University of Florida Bureau of Economic and Business Research. It is twinned with Richmond Hill, Ontario; Imabari, Ehime, Japan; Balti, Moldova; Portmore, Jamaica; and Chongming County, Shanghai, China as part of the Sister Cities program.
The area was home to Native American tribes. Lakeland was settled in the 1870s and expanded in the 1880s with the arrival of rail service. Lakeland is home to the 1,267-acre Circle B Bar Reserve.
Florida became a state in 1845, and Polk County was established in 1861. After the American Civil War, the county seat was established southeast of Lakeland in Bartow. While most of the early history of Polk County centered on the two cities of Bartow and Fort Meade, eventually, people entered the areas in northern Polk County and began settling in the areas which became Lakeland.
Lakeland was first settled in the 1870s and began to develop as the rail lines reached the area in 1884. It was incorporated 1 January 1885. The town was founded by Abraham Munn (a resident of Louisville, Kentucky), who purchased 80 acres (320,000 m2) of land in what is now downtown Lakeland in 1882 and platted the land for the town in 1884. Lakeland was named for the many lakes near the town site.
In April 1898, the Spanish–American War began and started a crucial point in Lakeland's development. While the war ended quickly and had little impact on most of the nation, the Florida peninsula was used as a launch point for the war and the then small town of Lakeland housed over 9,000 troops.
The Florida boom resulted in the construction of many significant structures in Lakeland, a number of which are today listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This list includes the Terrace Hotel, New Florida Hotel (Regency Tower, currently Lake Mirror Tower), Polk Theatre, Frances Langford Promenade, Polk Museum of Art (not a product of the 1920s boom), Park Trammell Building (formerly the Lakeland Public Library and today the Lakeland Chamber of Commerce), and others. The city also has several historic districts with many large buildings built during the 1920s and 1940s. The Cleveland Indians held spring training there from 1923 to 1927 at Henley Field Ball Park. Parks were developed surrounding Lake Mirror including Barnett Children's Park, Hollis Gardens, and the newest, Allen Kryger Park.
The "boom" period went "bust" quickly, and years passed before the city recovered. Part of the re-emergence was due to the arrival of the Detroit Tigers in 1934 for spring training. (The team continues to train at Lakeland's Joker Marchant Stadium and owns the city's Florida State League team, the Lakeland Flying Tigers.) The development of the Lakeland Municipal Airport as a major facility in central Florida transportation was another factor.
The 1930s also featured the arrival of renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1938, he came to Lakeland at the request of Florida Southern College President Ludd Spivey to design a "great education temple in Florida." For 20 years, Wright worked on his "true American campus" creation. In his original master plan, he called for 18 buildings (and several other structures), nine of which were completed and nine left on the drawing board. All of the buildings were built out of what Wright called his "textile block system", the first use of such a system in Florida. He called his project "A Child of the Sun", so named from the architect's own description of being "out of the ground, into the light, a child of the sun." It is the largest one-site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in the world, and in many ways helped to form a pattern for many colleges in Florida and other areas of the country in the future years.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Lake City is the county seat of Columbia County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 12,046. It is the principal city of the Lake City Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is composed of Columbia County, and had a 2010 population of 67,531.
Lake City first began as the town of Alligator in 1821 near the Seminole settlement known as Alligator Village. Alligator became the seat of Columbia County in 1832 when it was formed from Duval and Alachua counties. In 1858 Alligator was incorporated and renamed Lake City. The largest American Civil War battle in Florida took place near here in the Battle of Olustee in 1864; the Confederates won. In 1884 the Florida Agricultural College was established in Lake City as a land grant college; it was relocated to Gainesville in 1905 to form part of the University of Florida. The city's sesquicentennial was held in 2009.
Lake City is known as "The Gateway to Florida" because it is adjacent to the intersection of Interstate 75 and Interstate 10. Lake City is the site of Lake City Gateway Airport, formerly known as NAS Lake City. Florida Gateway College is located in Lake City.
In 1874 Lake City's first newspaper was published in 1874, called the Lake City Reporter. In 1876 the Bigelow Building was completed; it later was adapted for use as the City Hall. In 1891 Lake City became the first city in Florida to have electric lights from a local power and light company.
By the early 20th century, Lake City had become an important railroad junction, served by the Seaboard Air Line, Atlantic Coast Line, Georgia Southern Railroad, and the Florida Railroad. Hotel Blanche was built in 1902 as an attraction for expected tourists. The hotel was Lake City and Columbia County's major hotel and central business center from 1902 to 1955.
Florida Agricultural College was established in 1884 as part of the Morrill Land Grant Act and became a full university with twenty-five instructors in 1904. In 1905 the Florida Agricultural College was moved to Gainesville, becoming part of the University of Florida. Columbia High School constructed a second building in 1906 that was used until 1922. In 1907 Lake City officials leased the former property of the Florida Agricultural College to the Florida Baptist Convention; they founded a Baptist college called Columbia College. Columbia College lasted for ten years until the college became overwhelmed with debt. Columbia College deeded the land and buildings back to Lake City in 1919. During World War I, the campus of Columbia College was used as a training site for local troops for the war. The facility became U.S. Hospital No. 63, the predecessor of the Veterans Hospital constructed in Lake City. More than 34 Lake City soldiers were killed in World War I.
In 1940 the population of Lake City was 5,836. During World War II, a number of institutions were established to help with the war effort as well as those in Lake City. The Lake Shore Hospital was dedicated in 1940 to provide medical care for those in the Lake City area. The Lake City Woman's Club became the United Service Organizations (USO) headquarters to entertain service personnel stationed in Lake City. Naval Air Station Lake City was commissioned in 1942 on the site of the Lake City Flying Club air field. NAS Lake City was a support facility for Naval Air Station Jacksonville and trained pilots to fly the Lockheed Ventura. Military operations at NAS Lake City ended in March 1946, and it was decommissioned as an active naval air station.
After World War II a local air base was converted for use in 1947 as the Columbia Forestry School. The Columbia Forestry School had low enrollments and funds, forcing the school to seek help from the Florida legislature. The University of Florida assumed management of the school, and in 1950 it became the University of Florida Forest Ranger School. As part of the network of community colleges established in Florida, the school became the Lake City Junior College and Forest Ranger School in 1962. Lake City Junior College was renamed to Lake City Community College in 1970; in 2010 it was renamed as Florida Gateway College.
By 1950, the population of Lake City was 7,467. The forestry products industry (turpentine, lumber, and pulpwood) had become a mainstay of the local economy.
During the Korean War, five Lake City soldiers were killed. A monument was dedicated in 1985 in honor of the five killed in the war. In 1958, the Columbia Amateur Radio Society was formed. This was a group of amateur radio operators who enjoyed the ability to communicate all over the world. This radio club still exists today. Lake City's centennial was celebrated in 1959 with parades, fireworks and a 58-page book documenting one hundred years of progress, A Century in the Sun. The citizens of the town dressed in period attire, complete with whiskers. A good-natured clash arose between the men with additional facial hair and the women who did not like it.
In 1963 Interstate 75 and Interstate 10 were opened, intersecting at Lake City. In the 1960s Columbia County schools were not desegregated but black students were free to enroll in any all-white school if room was available. In 1970 a judge ordered all Columbia County public schools to integrate. During the Vietnam War, 23 local Lake City soldiers were either killed or M.I.A.
In 1978 the Columbia County Public Library was established. Downtown Lake City was revitalized in the 1990s with new businesses, shops and restaurants. In 2000 Lake City had a population of 9,980.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Today 17 babies will die, the tragic victims of stillbirth or neonatal death. This is a statistic that is seeing no signs of decreasing, and behind each number is a family rocked to the foundations by the death of their baby.
This shocking figure, the loss of 6,500 babies every year, is something the public is not generally aware of. Most people think stillbirths don’t happen in the 21st century. Yet stillbirth in the UK is 10 times more common than cot death.
At Sands, the stillbirth and neonatal death charity, we feel this number of deaths is totally unacceptable. We have launched the Why17? campaign to raise awareness of this devastating loss and to ask the question:
“Why are 17 babies a day dying and what can be done to halt this national tragedy?”
“I just want to raise awareness of stillbirth. I had no idea that this could happen to me
1) Follow this link, fill in your details to email your MP to make them aware of the parliamentary launch of Why17? on March 4th 2009: www.why17.org/Get-Involved/Contact-your-MP.html
2) Add your name to the list of supporters (petition) : www.why17.org/Pledge-Your-Support.html
3) Make a contribution: donate online; buy a window sticker / wristband / balloon; or plan a sponsored event. More ideas here: www.why17.org/Get-Involved.html
In memory of my nephew Austin, who was stillborn on 24th September 2005, and we still don't know why.
Have you ever wondered how Flickr ranks your pictures according to Interestingness? I did a statistical study of my own 50 most Interesting images, similar to a study I did 18 months ago. The resulting model was quite good- (85% of the variance explained) so I am fairly confident in results.
So what matters in Interestingness?
1. Views, comments, and faves (no surprise!). A view is worth the least; a view and a comment and a view and a fave are about equal is worth; and a view and a comment and fave is worth the most. Of course to get good exposure outside your contact network, you need good title, tags, and text.
2. Notes added by others matter, a lot… although once you're over 5 or so I am not sure more matter. Galleries did not seem to matter, but that's a pretty new Flickr feature my sample is too small to observe its effect.
3. Posting to more groups is good, not bad, for Interestingness. My sample only includes images posted to between 1 and 30 groups. I'm not sure what happens when you post to 50 or 75 groups.
4. Posting to award groups is NOT good for Interestingness, all other things being equal.
5. Older pictures are less Interesting. Even if the image continues to pile up views and comments and faves, older images will be ranked lower in Interestingness, all else equal.
My results only pertain to differences in Interestingness between one's own photos. The question of why your image today is more Interesting than mine, or why your photo did or didn't end up in Explore, are more complex topics for another day…
Have a great New Year's Day everybody!
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Lake City is the county seat of Columbia County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 12,046. It is the principal city of the Lake City Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is composed of Columbia County, and had a 2010 population of 67,531.
Lake City first began as the town of Alligator in 1821 near the Seminole settlement known as Alligator Village. Alligator became the seat of Columbia County in 1832 when it was formed from Duval and Alachua counties. In 1858 Alligator was incorporated and renamed Lake City. The largest American Civil War battle in Florida took place near here in the Battle of Olustee in 1864; the Confederates won. In 1884 the Florida Agricultural College was established in Lake City as a land grant college; it was relocated to Gainesville in 1905 to form part of the University of Florida. The city's sesquicentennial was held in 2009.
Lake City is known as "The Gateway to Florida" because it is adjacent to the intersection of Interstate 75 and Interstate 10. Lake City is the site of Lake City Gateway Airport, formerly known as NAS Lake City. Florida Gateway College is located in Lake City.
In 1874 Lake City's first newspaper was published in 1874, called the Lake City Reporter. In 1876 the Bigelow Building was completed; it later was adapted for use as the City Hall. In 1891 Lake City became the first city in Florida to have electric lights from a local power and light company.
By the early 20th century, Lake City had become an important railroad junction, served by the Seaboard Air Line, Atlantic Coast Line, Georgia Southern Railroad, and the Florida Railroad. Hotel Blanche was built in 1902 as an attraction for expected tourists. The hotel was Lake City and Columbia County's major hotel and central business center from 1902 to 1955.
Florida Agricultural College was established in 1884 as part of the Morrill Land Grant Act and became a full university with twenty-five instructors in 1904. In 1905 the Florida Agricultural College was moved to Gainesville, becoming part of the University of Florida. Columbia High School constructed a second building in 1906 that was used until 1922. In 1907 Lake City officials leased the former property of the Florida Agricultural College to the Florida Baptist Convention; they founded a Baptist college called Columbia College. Columbia College lasted for ten years until the college became overwhelmed with debt. Columbia College deeded the land and buildings back to Lake City in 1919. During World War I, the campus of Columbia College was used as a training site for local troops for the war. The facility became U.S. Hospital No. 63, the predecessor of the Veterans Hospital constructed in Lake City. More than 34 Lake City soldiers were killed in World War I.
In 1940 the population of Lake City was 5,836. During World War II, a number of institutions were established to help with the war effort as well as those in Lake City. The Lake Shore Hospital was dedicated in 1940 to provide medical care for those in the Lake City area. The Lake City Woman's Club became the United Service Organizations (USO) headquarters to entertain service personnel stationed in Lake City. Naval Air Station Lake City was commissioned in 1942 on the site of the Lake City Flying Club air field. NAS Lake City was a support facility for Naval Air Station Jacksonville and trained pilots to fly the Lockheed Ventura. Military operations at NAS Lake City ended in March 1946, and it was decommissioned as an active naval air station.
After World War II a local air base was converted for use in 1947 as the Columbia Forestry School. The Columbia Forestry School had low enrollments and funds, forcing the school to seek help from the Florida legislature. The University of Florida assumed management of the school, and in 1950 it became the University of Florida Forest Ranger School. As part of the network of community colleges established in Florida, the school became the Lake City Junior College and Forest Ranger School in 1962. Lake City Junior College was renamed to Lake City Community College in 1970; in 2010 it was renamed as Florida Gateway College.
By 1950, the population of Lake City was 7,467. The forestry products industry (turpentine, lumber, and pulpwood) had become a mainstay of the local economy.
During the Korean War, five Lake City soldiers were killed. A monument was dedicated in 1985 in honor of the five killed in the war. In 1958, the Columbia Amateur Radio Society was formed. This was a group of amateur radio operators who enjoyed the ability to communicate all over the world. This radio club still exists today. Lake City's centennial was celebrated in 1959 with parades, fireworks and a 58-page book documenting one hundred years of progress, A Century in the Sun. The citizens of the town dressed in period attire, complete with whiskers. A good-natured clash arose between the men with additional facial hair and the women who did not like it.
In 1963 Interstate 75 and Interstate 10 were opened, intersecting at Lake City. In the 1960s Columbia County schools were not desegregated but black students were free to enroll in any all-white school if room was available. In 1970 a judge ordered all Columbia County public schools to integrate. During the Vietnam War, 23 local Lake City soldiers were either killed or M.I.A.
In 1978 the Columbia County Public Library was established. Downtown Lake City was revitalized in the 1990s with new businesses, shops and restaurants. In 2000 Lake City had a population of 9,980.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Lake City is the county seat of Columbia County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 12,046. It is the principal city of the Lake City Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is composed of Columbia County, and had a 2010 population of 67,531.
Lake City first began as the town of Alligator in 1821 near the Seminole settlement known as Alligator Village. Alligator became the seat of Columbia County in 1832 when it was formed from Duval and Alachua counties. In 1858 Alligator was incorporated and renamed Lake City. The largest American Civil War battle in Florida took place near here in the Battle of Olustee in 1864; the Confederates won. In 1884 the Florida Agricultural College was established in Lake City as a land grant college; it was relocated to Gainesville in 1905 to form part of the University of Florida. The city's sesquicentennial was held in 2009.
Lake City is known as "The Gateway to Florida" because it is adjacent to the intersection of Interstate 75 and Interstate 10. Lake City is the site of Lake City Gateway Airport, formerly known as NAS Lake City. Florida Gateway College is located in Lake City.
In 1874 Lake City's first newspaper was published in 1874, called the Lake City Reporter. In 1876 the Bigelow Building was completed; it later was adapted for use as the City Hall. In 1891 Lake City became the first city in Florida to have electric lights from a local power and light company.
By the early 20th century, Lake City had become an important railroad junction, served by the Seaboard Air Line, Atlantic Coast Line, Georgia Southern Railroad, and the Florida Railroad. Hotel Blanche was built in 1902 as an attraction for expected tourists. The hotel was Lake City and Columbia County's major hotel and central business center from 1902 to 1955.
Florida Agricultural College was established in 1884 as part of the Morrill Land Grant Act and became a full university with twenty-five instructors in 1904. In 1905 the Florida Agricultural College was moved to Gainesville, becoming part of the University of Florida. Columbia High School constructed a second building in 1906 that was used until 1922. In 1907 Lake City officials leased the former property of the Florida Agricultural College to the Florida Baptist Convention; they founded a Baptist college called Columbia College. Columbia College lasted for ten years until the college became overwhelmed with debt. Columbia College deeded the land and buildings back to Lake City in 1919. During World War I, the campus of Columbia College was used as a training site for local troops for the war. The facility became U.S. Hospital No. 63, the predecessor of the Veterans Hospital constructed in Lake City. More than 34 Lake City soldiers were killed in World War I.
In 1940 the population of Lake City was 5,836. During World War II, a number of institutions were established to help with the war effort as well as those in Lake City. The Lake Shore Hospital was dedicated in 1940 to provide medical care for those in the Lake City area. The Lake City Woman's Club became the United Service Organizations (USO) headquarters to entertain service personnel stationed in Lake City. Naval Air Station Lake City was commissioned in 1942 on the site of the Lake City Flying Club air field. NAS Lake City was a support facility for Naval Air Station Jacksonville and trained pilots to fly the Lockheed Ventura. Military operations at NAS Lake City ended in March 1946, and it was decommissioned as an active naval air station.
After World War II a local air base was converted for use in 1947 as the Columbia Forestry School. The Columbia Forestry School had low enrollments and funds, forcing the school to seek help from the Florida legislature. The University of Florida assumed management of the school, and in 1950 it became the University of Florida Forest Ranger School. As part of the network of community colleges established in Florida, the school became the Lake City Junior College and Forest Ranger School in 1962. Lake City Junior College was renamed to Lake City Community College in 1970; in 2010 it was renamed as Florida Gateway College.
By 1950, the population of Lake City was 7,467. The forestry products industry (turpentine, lumber, and pulpwood) had become a mainstay of the local economy.
During the Korean War, five Lake City soldiers were killed. A monument was dedicated in 1985 in honor of the five killed in the war. In 1958, the Columbia Amateur Radio Society was formed. This was a group of amateur radio operators who enjoyed the ability to communicate all over the world. This radio club still exists today. Lake City's centennial was celebrated in 1959 with parades, fireworks and a 58-page book documenting one hundred years of progress, A Century in the Sun. The citizens of the town dressed in period attire, complete with whiskers. A good-natured clash arose between the men with additional facial hair and the women who did not like it.
In 1963 Interstate 75 and Interstate 10 were opened, intersecting at Lake City. In the 1960s Columbia County schools were not desegregated but black students were free to enroll in any all-white school if room was available. In 1970 a judge ordered all Columbia County public schools to integrate. During the Vietnam War, 23 local Lake City soldiers were either killed or M.I.A.
In 1978 the Columbia County Public Library was established. Downtown Lake City was revitalized in the 1990s with new businesses, shops and restaurants. In 2000 Lake City had a population of 9,980.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Everglades City (formerly known as Everglades) is a city in Collier County, Florida, United States, of which it is the former county seat. As of the 2013 census, the population is 402. It is part of the Naples–Marco Island Metropolitan Statistical Area. The Gulf Coast Visitor Center for Everglades National Park is in Everglades City.
Everglades City is located at 25°51′32″N 81°23′05″W.
It is at the mouth of the Barron River, on Chokoloskee Bay. Chokoloskee Bay is approximately ten miles (16 km) long and 2 miles (3.2 km) wide, and runs southeast to northwest along the mainland of Collier County. It is separated from the Gulf of Mexico by the northern end of the Ten Thousand Islands. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 1.2 square miles (3.1 km2), of which 0.9 square miles (2.3 km2) is land and 0.2 square miles (0.52 km2) (21.01%) is water.
The area around Chokoloskee Bay, including the site of Everglades City, was occupied for thousands of years by Native Americans of the Glades culture, who were absorbed by the Calusa shortly before the arrival of Europeans in the New World, but by the time Florida was transferred from Spain to the United States in 1821, the area was uninhabited. A legend says that Seminoles planted potatoes along what is now the Barron River during the Seminole Wars, in the vicinity of the present Everglades City.
American settlement began after the Civil War when Union sympathizers who had farmed on Cape Sable to supply Key West during the war moved up the west coast of the peninsula. The first permanent settler was William Smith Allen, who arrived on the banks of Potato Creek (later renamed the Allen River) in 1873. After Allen retired to Key West in 1889, George W. Storter, Jr. became the principal landowner in the area. Storter gained fame for his sugar cane crops. He opened a trading post in 1892, and gained a post office, called "Everglade", in 1895. Storter also began entertaining northern tourists who came to Everglade by yacht in the winter to hunt and fish. His house eventually grew into the Rod and Gun Club, visited by United States Presidents and other notables.
The first school in Everglade was organized in 1893. The school moved into a new building in 1895, but the building was destroyed by a tornado later in the year. The next school building was washed away by the 1910 hurricane. A Methodist circuit rider began visiting Everglade in 1888, and a Methodist minister became resident the next year, but he left after four years. After that Everglade was occasionally visited by itinerant preachers of various denominations. The Episcopal Church established a mission at Immokalee which eventually moved to Everglade when revitalized in the 1930s by Harriet Bedell.
In 1922 Barron Collier began buying large areas of land in what was then southern Lee County. In 1923 the Florida legislature created Collier County from Lee County, with the county seat at Everglade. The town was incorporated the same year as "Everglades" (adding the "s"). The town consisted of only a dozen families at the time, but some northern sportsmen had established winter homes there.
The Tamiami Trail, which crossed Collier's domain, passed five miles north of Everglades City. While construction was proceeding on the Trail (it was completed in 1929), Collier pushed construction of what became State Road 29 from Everglades City to Immokalee, providing the town with its first land connection to the rest of the state.[15] In 1928, the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad began service to Everglades City, which became the southernmost point the Coast Line ever reached. Service was provided by an extension of the Coast Line's Haines City Branch from Immokalee to Deep Lake, where it connected to Collier's Deep Lake Railroad, an earlier railroad that transported agricultural freight. The railroad was removed in 1957.
In 1960 the strong winds and coastal flooding of Hurricane Donna combined to destroy 153 homes in Collier County, as well as inflict major damage on 409 more, and damage an additional 1,049. Everglades was hard hit, and two years later, Florida's legislature moved the county seat to East Naples, Florida. In 1965, the state legislature changed the town's name to Everglades City.
Historic buildings in Everglades City include the Old Collier County Courthouse, Bank of Everglades Building, and Everglades Laundry (now the Museum of the Everglades).
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everglades_City,_Florida
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Building of the Swiss Federal Statistical Office in Neuchâtel.
The color comes from the B+W ND Filter (10 stops). I think I'm gonna switch to Formatt Hitech Filters which are hopefully more color neutral. Wanted to buy Lee Filters but they are again sold out almost worldwide.
Anyone experiences with Hitech Filters?
______________________________________________________________________________
The Federal Statistical Office (FSO) is a Federal authority of the Swiss Confederation. It is the Statistics Office of Switzerland, situated in Neuchâtel and attached to the Federal Department of Home Affairs (FDHA).
The FSO is the national service provider and competence centre for statistical observations in areas of national, social, economic and environmental importance. The FSO is the main producer of statistics in the country and runs the Swiss Statistics data pool. It provides information on all subject areas covered by official statistics.
The FSO is closely linked to the national statistics scene as well as to partners in the worlds of science, business and politics. It works closely with EUROSTAT, the Statistics Office of the European Union, in order to provide information that is also comparable at international level.
The key principles upheld by the FSO throughout its statistical activities are data protection, scientific reliability, impartiality, topicality and service orientation.
The FSO produces and publishes key statistical information on the current situation and development of the nation and society, of the economy and the environment. It completes these with comprehensive analyses, it creates scenarios of future developments and safeguards historical data.
Various methods are employed for data acquisition: direct interviews, more or less automated observation, analyses of administrative data, complete enumeration surveys and representative sample surveys. The efficiency of modern statistical information systems is largely determined by the type of data acquisition. For legal and financial reasons, preference is given to the systematic use of existent data rather than to new direct surveys with the ensuing burden on those interviewed.
Statistical findings are disseminated in various forms and using varying channels: as tables or indicators accompanied by commentaries or graphs and maps, as printed documents or in electronic form, in standard issue or made-to-measure versions.
[Source: Wikipedia]
Canon EOS 60D
Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM
Aperture: f/16
Exposure time: 10s
Focal length: 15mm
ISO Speed: 100
Manfrotto Tripod 055XPROB with 410 Gear Head
B+W 110 ND Filter (10 Stops)
Processed with PS CS5
Lake City is the county seat of Columbia County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 12,046. It is the principal city of the Lake City Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is composed of Columbia County, and had a 2010 population of 67,531.
Lake City first began as the town of Alligator in 1821 near the Seminole settlement known as Alligator Village. Alligator became the seat of Columbia County in 1832 when it was formed from Duval and Alachua counties. In 1858 Alligator was incorporated and renamed Lake City. The largest American Civil War battle in Florida took place near here in the Battle of Olustee in 1864; the Confederates won. In 1884 the Florida Agricultural College was established in Lake City as a land grant college; it was relocated to Gainesville in 1905 to form part of the University of Florida. The city's sesquicentennial was held in 2009.
Lake City is known as "The Gateway to Florida" because it is adjacent to the intersection of Interstate 75 and Interstate 10. Lake City is the site of Lake City Gateway Airport, formerly known as NAS Lake City. Florida Gateway College is located in Lake City.
In 1874 Lake City's first newspaper was published in 1874, called the Lake City Reporter. In 1876 the Bigelow Building was completed; it later was adapted for use as the City Hall. In 1891 Lake City became the first city in Florida to have electric lights from a local power and light company.
By the early 20th century, Lake City had become an important railroad junction, served by the Seaboard Air Line, Atlantic Coast Line, Georgia Southern Railroad, and the Florida Railroad. Hotel Blanche was built in 1902 as an attraction for expected tourists. The hotel was Lake City and Columbia County's major hotel and central business center from 1902 to 1955.
Florida Agricultural College was established in 1884 as part of the Morrill Land Grant Act and became a full university with twenty-five instructors in 1904. In 1905 the Florida Agricultural College was moved to Gainesville, becoming part of the University of Florida. Columbia High School constructed a second building in 1906 that was used until 1922. In 1907 Lake City officials leased the former property of the Florida Agricultural College to the Florida Baptist Convention; they founded a Baptist college called Columbia College. Columbia College lasted for ten years until the college became overwhelmed with debt. Columbia College deeded the land and buildings back to Lake City in 1919. During World War I, the campus of Columbia College was used as a training site for local troops for the war. The facility became U.S. Hospital No. 63, the predecessor of the Veterans Hospital constructed in Lake City. More than 34 Lake City soldiers were killed in World War I.
In 1940 the population of Lake City was 5,836. During World War II, a number of institutions were established to help with the war effort as well as those in Lake City. The Lake Shore Hospital was dedicated in 1940 to provide medical care for those in the Lake City area. The Lake City Woman's Club became the United Service Organizations (USO) headquarters to entertain service personnel stationed in Lake City. Naval Air Station Lake City was commissioned in 1942 on the site of the Lake City Flying Club air field. NAS Lake City was a support facility for Naval Air Station Jacksonville and trained pilots to fly the Lockheed Ventura. Military operations at NAS Lake City ended in March 1946, and it was decommissioned as an active naval air station.
After World War II a local air base was converted for use in 1947 as the Columbia Forestry School. The Columbia Forestry School had low enrollments and funds, forcing the school to seek help from the Florida legislature. The University of Florida assumed management of the school, and in 1950 it became the University of Florida Forest Ranger School. As part of the network of community colleges established in Florida, the school became the Lake City Junior College and Forest Ranger School in 1962. Lake City Junior College was renamed to Lake City Community College in 1970; in 2010 it was renamed as Florida Gateway College.
By 1950, the population of Lake City was 7,467. The forestry products industry (turpentine, lumber, and pulpwood) had become a mainstay of the local economy.
During the Korean War, five Lake City soldiers were killed. A monument was dedicated in 1985 in honor of the five killed in the war. In 1958, the Columbia Amateur Radio Society was formed. This was a group of amateur radio operators who enjoyed the ability to communicate all over the world. This radio club still exists today. Lake City's centennial was celebrated in 1959 with parades, fireworks and a 58-page book documenting one hundred years of progress, A Century in the Sun. The citizens of the town dressed in period attire, complete with whiskers. A good-natured clash arose between the men with additional facial hair and the women who did not like it.
In 1963 Interstate 75 and Interstate 10 were opened, intersecting at Lake City. In the 1960s Columbia County schools were not desegregated but black students were free to enroll in any all-white school if room was available. In 1970 a judge ordered all Columbia County public schools to integrate. During the Vietnam War, 23 local Lake City soldiers were either killed or M.I.A.
In 1978 the Columbia County Public Library was established. Downtown Lake City was revitalized in the 1990s with new businesses, shops and restaurants. In 2000 Lake City had a population of 9,980.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
"Sault Ste. Marie (/ˌsuː seɪnt məˈriː/ SOO-seint-ma-REE) is the only city in, and county seat of, Chippewa County in the U.S. state of Michigan. With a population of 14,144 at the 2010 census, it is the second-most populated city in the Upper Peninsula after Marquette. It is the central city of the Sault Ste. Marie, MI Micropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Chippewa County and had a population of 38,520 at the 2010 census.
Sault Ste. Marie was settled as early as 1668, which makes it Michigan's oldest city and among the oldest cities in the United States. Located at the northeastern edge of the Upper Peninsula, it is separated by the St. Marys River from the much-larger city of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. The two are connected by the Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge, which represents the northern terminus of Interstate 75. This portion of the river also contains the Soo Locks, as well as a swinging railroad bridge. The city is also home to Lake Superior State University.
For centuries Ojibwe (Chippewa) Native Americans had lived in the area, which they referred to as Baawitigong ("at the cascading rapids"), after the rapids of St. Marys River. French colonists renamed the region Saulteaux ("rapids" in French).
In 1668, French missionaries Claude Dablon and Jacques Marquette founded a Jesuit mission at this site. Sault Ste. Marie developed as the fourth-oldest European city in the United States west of the Appalachian Mountains, and the oldest permanent settlement in contemporary Michigan state. On June 4, 1671, Simon-François Daumont de Saint-Lusson, a colonial agent, was dispatched from Quebec to the distant tribes, proposing a congress of Indian nations at the Falls of St. Mary between Lake Huron and Lake Superior. Trader Nicolas Perrot helped attract the principal chiefs, and representatives of 14 Indigenous nations were invited for the elaborate ceremony. The French officials proclaimed France's appropriation of the immense territory surrounding Lake Superior in the name of King Louis XIV.
In the 18th century, the settlement became an important center of the fur trade, when it was a post for the British-owned North West Company, based in Montreal. The fur trader John Johnston, a Scots-Irish immigrant from Belfast, was considered the first European settler in 1790. He married a high-ranking Ojibwe woman named Ozhaguscodaywayquay, the daughter of a prominent chief, Waubojeeg. She also became known as Susan Johnston. Their marriage was one of many alliances in the northern areas between high-ranking European traders and Ojibwe. The family was prominent among Native Americans, First Nations, and Europeans from both Canada and the United States. They had eight children who learned fluent Ojibwe, English and French. The Johnstons entertained a variety of trappers, explorers, traders, and government officials, especially during the years before the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States.
For more than 140 years, the settlement was a single community under French colonial, and later, British colonial rule. After the War of 1812, a US–UK Joint Boundary Commission finally fixed the border in 1817 between the Michigan Territory of the US and the British Province of Upper Canada to follow the river in this area. Whereas traders had formerly moved freely through the whole area, the United States forbade Canadian traders from operating in the United States, which reduced their trade and disrupted the area's economy. The American and Canadian communities of Sault Ste. Marie were each incorporated as independent municipalities toward the end of the 19th century.
As a result of the fur trade, the settlement attracted Ojibwe and Ottawa, Métis, and ethnic Europeans of various nationalities. It was a two-tiered society, with fur traders (who had capital) and their families and upper-class Ojibwe in the upper echelon. In the aftermath of the War of 1812, however, the community's society changed markedly.
The U.S. built Fort Brady near the settlement, introducing new troops and settlers, mostly Anglo-American. The UK and the US settled on a new northern boundary in 1817, dividing the US and Canada along St. Mary's River. The US prohibited British fur traders from operating in the United States. After completion of the Erie Canal in New York State in 1825 (expanded in 1832), the number of settlers migrating to Ohio and Michigan increased dramatically from New York and New England, bringing with them the Yankee culture of the Northern Tier. Their numbers overwhelmed the cosmopolitan culture of the earlier settlers. They practiced more discrimination against Native Americans and Métis.
The falls proved a choke point for shipping between the Great Lakes. Early ships traveling to and from Lake Superior were portaged around the rapids in a lengthy process (much like moving a house) that could take weeks. Later, only the cargoes were unloaded, hauled around the rapids, and then loaded onto other ships waiting below the rapids. The first American lock, the State Lock, was built in 1855; it was instrumental in improving shipping. The lock has been expanded and improved over the years.
In 1900, Northwestern Leather Company opened a tannery in Sault Ste. Marie. The tannery was founded to process leather for the upper parts of shoes, which was finer than that for soles. After the factory closed in 1958, the property was sold to Filborn Limestone, a subsidiary of Algoma Steel Corporation.
In March 1938 during the Great Depression, Sophia Nolte Pullar bequeathed $70,000 for construction of the Pullar Community Building, which opened in 1939. This building held an indoor ice rink composed of artificial ice, then a revolutionary concept. The ice rink is still owned by the city." - info from Wikipedia.
Now on Instagram.
Lake City is the county seat of Columbia County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 12,046. It is the principal city of the Lake City Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is composed of Columbia County, and had a 2010 population of 67,531.
Lake City first began as the town of Alligator in 1821 near the Seminole settlement known as Alligator Village. Alligator became the seat of Columbia County in 1832 when it was formed from Duval and Alachua counties. In 1858 Alligator was incorporated and renamed Lake City. The largest American Civil War battle in Florida took place near here in the Battle of Olustee in 1864; the Confederates won. In 1884 the Florida Agricultural College was established in Lake City as a land grant college; it was relocated to Gainesville in 1905 to form part of the University of Florida. The city's sesquicentennial was held in 2009.
Lake City is known as "The Gateway to Florida" because it is adjacent to the intersection of Interstate 75 and Interstate 10. Lake City is the site of Lake City Gateway Airport, formerly known as NAS Lake City. Florida Gateway College is located in Lake City.
In 1874 Lake City's first newspaper was published in 1874, called the Lake City Reporter. In 1876 the Bigelow Building was completed; it later was adapted for use as the City Hall. In 1891 Lake City became the first city in Florida to have electric lights from a local power and light company.
By the early 20th century, Lake City had become an important railroad junction, served by the Seaboard Air Line, Atlantic Coast Line, Georgia Southern Railroad, and the Florida Railroad. Hotel Blanche was built in 1902 as an attraction for expected tourists. The hotel was Lake City and Columbia County's major hotel and central business center from 1902 to 1955.
Florida Agricultural College was established in 1884 as part of the Morrill Land Grant Act and became a full university with twenty-five instructors in 1904. In 1905 the Florida Agricultural College was moved to Gainesville, becoming part of the University of Florida. Columbia High School constructed a second building in 1906 that was used until 1922. In 1907 Lake City officials leased the former property of the Florida Agricultural College to the Florida Baptist Convention; they founded a Baptist college called Columbia College. Columbia College lasted for ten years until the college became overwhelmed with debt. Columbia College deeded the land and buildings back to Lake City in 1919. During World War I, the campus of Columbia College was used as a training site for local troops for the war. The facility became U.S. Hospital No. 63, the predecessor of the Veterans Hospital constructed in Lake City. More than 34 Lake City soldiers were killed in World War I.
In 1940 the population of Lake City was 5,836. During World War II, a number of institutions were established to help with the war effort as well as those in Lake City. The Lake Shore Hospital was dedicated in 1940 to provide medical care for those in the Lake City area. The Lake City Woman's Club became the United Service Organizations (USO) headquarters to entertain service personnel stationed in Lake City. Naval Air Station Lake City was commissioned in 1942 on the site of the Lake City Flying Club air field. NAS Lake City was a support facility for Naval Air Station Jacksonville and trained pilots to fly the Lockheed Ventura. Military operations at NAS Lake City ended in March 1946, and it was decommissioned as an active naval air station.
After World War II a local air base was converted for use in 1947 as the Columbia Forestry School. The Columbia Forestry School had low enrollments and funds, forcing the school to seek help from the Florida legislature. The University of Florida assumed management of the school, and in 1950 it became the University of Florida Forest Ranger School. As part of the network of community colleges established in Florida, the school became the Lake City Junior College and Forest Ranger School in 1962. Lake City Junior College was renamed to Lake City Community College in 1970; in 2010 it was renamed as Florida Gateway College.
By 1950, the population of Lake City was 7,467. The forestry products industry (turpentine, lumber, and pulpwood) had become a mainstay of the local economy.
During the Korean War, five Lake City soldiers were killed. A monument was dedicated in 1985 in honor of the five killed in the war. In 1958, the Columbia Amateur Radio Society was formed. This was a group of amateur radio operators who enjoyed the ability to communicate all over the world. This radio club still exists today. Lake City's centennial was celebrated in 1959 with parades, fireworks and a 58-page book documenting one hundred years of progress, A Century in the Sun. The citizens of the town dressed in period attire, complete with whiskers. A good-natured clash arose between the men with additional facial hair and the women who did not like it.
In 1963 Interstate 75 and Interstate 10 were opened, intersecting at Lake City. In the 1960s Columbia County schools were not desegregated but black students were free to enroll in any all-white school if room was available. In 1970 a judge ordered all Columbia County public schools to integrate. During the Vietnam War, 23 local Lake City soldiers were either killed or M.I.A.
In 1978 the Columbia County Public Library was established. Downtown Lake City was revitalized in the 1990s with new businesses, shops and restaurants. In 2000 Lake City had a population of 9,980.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
++++ from WIKIPEDIA ++++++
Abruzzo (UK: /æˈbrʊtsoʊ/,[5] US: /ɑːˈbruːtsoʊ, əˈ-/; Italian: [aˈbruttso]; Abbrùzze [abˈbruttsə], Abbrìzze [abˈbrittsə] or Abbrèzze [abˈbrɛttsə] in Neapolitan Abruzzese; Aquilano: Abbrùzzu) or Abruzzi is a region of Southern Italy with an area of 10,763 square km (4,156 sq mi) and a population of 1.3 million. It is divided into four provinces: L'Aquila, Teramo, Pescara, and Chieti. Its western border lies 80 km (50 mi) east of Rome. Abruzzo borders the region of Marche to the north, Lazio to the west and south-west, Molise to the south-east, and the Adriatic Sea to the east. Geographically, Abruzzo is divided into a mountainous area in the west, which includes the Gran Sasso d'Italia, and a coastal area in the east with beaches on the Adriatic Sea.
Abruzzo is considered a region of Southern Italy in terms of its culture, language, history and economy, although geographically it may also be considered central.[8] The Italian Statistical Authority (ISTAT) also deems it to be part of Southern Italy, partly because of Abruzzo's historic association with the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
Abruzzo is known as "the greenest region in Europe" as almost half of its territory, the largest in Europe,[9] is set aside as national parks and protected nature reserves. There are three national parks, one regional park, and 38 protected nature reserves. These ensure the survival of 75% of Europe's living species, including rare species such as the golden eagle, the Abruzzo (or Abruzzese) chamois, the Apennine wolf and the Marsican brown bear.[10] Abruzzo is also home to Calderone, Europe's southernmost glacier.
The visiting nineteenth-century Italian diplomat and journalist Primo Levi (1853–1917) said that the adjectives "forte e gentile" (strong and kind) best describe the beauty of the region and the character of its people. "Forte e gentile" has since become the motto of the region and its inhabitants.
Provinces and politics
Abruzzo provinces
Provinces
Abruzzo is divided into four administrative provinces:
Province Area (km2) Population Density (inh./km2)
Chieti 2,588 396,190 153.1
L'Aquila 5,034 308,876 61.3
Pescara 1,225 318,701 260.1
Teramo 1,948 308,769 158.5
Politics
History
Human settlements in Abruzzo have existed since at least the Neolithic times. A skeleton from Lama dei Peligni in the province of Chieti dates back to 6,540 BC under radiometric dating.[13] The name Abruzzo appears to be derivative of the Latin word "Aprutium". In Roman times, the region was known as Picenum, Sabina et Samnium, Flaminia et Picenum, and Campania et Samnium.[14] The region was known as Aprutium in the Middle Ages, arising from four possible sources: it is a combination of Praetutium, or rather of the name of the people Praetutii, applied to their chief city, Interamnia, the old Teramo.
Many cities in Abruzzo date back to ancient times. Corfinio was known as Corfinium when it was the chief city of the Paeligni, and later was renamed Pentima by the Romans. Chieti is built on the site of the ancient city of Teate, Atri was known as Adria. Teramo, known variously in ancient times as Interamnia and Teramne, has Roman ruins which attract tourists.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, a string of invasions and rulers dominated the region, including the Lombards, Byzantines, and Hungarians. Between the 9th and 12th centuries, the region was dominated by the popes. Subsequently, the Normans took over, and Abruzzo became part of the Kingdom of Sicily, later the Kingdom of Naples. Spain ruled the kingdom from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. The French Bourbon dynasty took over in 1815, establishing the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and ruled until Italian unification (also known as the Risorgimento) in 1860.
Until 1963, Abruzzo was part of the combined Abruzzi e Molise region. The term Abruzzi (plural of Abruzzo) derives from the time when the region was part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The territory was administered as Abruzzo Citeriore (nearer Abruzzo) and Abruzzo Ulteriore I and II (farther Abruzzo I and II) from Naples, the capital of the kingdom.[14] Abruzzo Citeriore is now Chieti province. Teramo and Pescara provinces now comprise what was Abruzzo Ulteriore I. Abruzzo Ulteriore II is now the province of L'Aquila.
In the twentieth century, war had a great impact on the region. During the Second World War, Abruzzo was on the Gustav Line, part of the German's Winter Line. One of the most brutal battles was the Battle of Ortona. Abruzzo was the location of two prisoner of war camps, Campo 21 in Chieti,[18] and Campo 78 in Sulmona. The Sulmona camp also served as a POW camp in World War 1; much of the facility is still intact and attracts tourists interested in military history.
Geography
Geographically, Abruzzo is located in central Italy and southern Italy, stretching from the heart of the Apennines to the Adriatic Sea, and includes mainly mountainous and wild land. The mountainous land is occupied by a vast plateau, including Gran Sasso, at 2,912 metres (9,554 ft) the highest peak of the Apennines, and Mount Majella at 2,793 metres (9,163 ft). The Adriatic coastline is characterized by long sandy beaches to the North and pebbly beaches to the South. Abruzzo is well known for its landscapes and natural environment, parks and nature reserves, characteristic hillside areas rich in vineyards and olive groves, and one of the highest densities of Blue Flag beaches.
Climate
The Abruzzo region has two types of climate that are strongly influenced by the Apennine Mountains, dividing the climate of the coastal and sub-Apennine hills from the interior's high mountain ranges. Coastal areas have a Mediterranean climate with hot dry summers and mild winters and rainy hills with a sublittoral climate where temperatures decrease progressively with increasing altitude and precipitation with altitude. Precipitation is also strongly affected by the presence of the Apennines mountain ridges of the region; it increases with the proportion being more abundant in the field and on the slopes exposed to the west, instead of decreasing towards the east and east-facing slopes. Often the Adriatic coast are sidelined rainfall from the west to the barrier effect of the Apennines undergoing the action of gentle winds descending from it (or Libeccio).[21] The minimum annual rainfall, however, is found in some inland valleys, sheltered from much disturbance to the blocking action of mountain ridges, such as the Peligna Valley, or the valley of the river Tirino, which in some places (Ofena, Capestrano) showed barely 500 millimetres (19.7 inches), and not along the coast where it never falls below 600 millimetres (23.6 inches); for if Teramo is relatively little watered by rain (Teramo less than 800 millimetres (31.5 inches)), the metre is exceeded in Chieti, reaching maximum levels in the Adriatic, while between Ortona and Vasto in Costa dei Trabocchi decrease again.[21] The highest rainfall occurs in upland areas on the border with Lazio; they are especially vulnerable to Atlantic disturbances. Around 1,500 to 2,000 millimetres (59 to 79 inches) of precipitation is typical (Pescara in 2010 showed a value close to 2,800 millimetres (110.2 inches)).
Flora and fauna
As with many Mediterranean regions, Abruzzo's vegetation is characterized by different Mediterranean ecosystems. The coast and the surrounding areas are characterized by the presence of typical plants of Mediterranean shrubland, such as myrtle, heather and mastic, while in the hilly areas other species grow, including olive, pine, willow, oak, poplar, alder, arbutus, broom, acacia, capers, rosemary, hawthorn, licorice and almond trees, interspersed with oak trees. At elevations between 600 and 1,000 metres (2,000 and 3,300 ft) there is sub-montane vegetation, mainly characterized by mixed forests of oak and turkey oak, maple and hornbeam; shrubs include dog rose and red juniper. Elevations between 1,000 and 1,900 metres (3,300 and 6,200 ft) are dominated by beech trees. In the Apennine Mountains at elevations above 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) species include alpine orchid, mountain juniper, silver fir, black cranberry and the Abruzzo edelweiss.
The fauna of Abruzzo is highly varied, including the region's symbol, the Abruzzo chamois (Rupicapra pyrenaica ornata), which has recovered from near-extinction. Animals typical of this region include: marsican brown bear, along with Italian wolf, deer, lynx, roe deer, snow vole, fox, porcupine, wild cat, wild boar, badger, otter, and viper.
The natural parks of the region include the Abruzzo National Park, the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park,[24] the Maiella National Park and the Sirente-Velino Regional Park, as well as many other natural reserves and protected areas.
Economy
Until a few decades ago, Abruzzo was a region of poverty in Southern Italy; over the past decades, however, it has developed to such an extent that it has escaped from the spiral of underdevelopment to become the 'first' region of the 'Italian Mezzogiorno'. This confirms its pivotal role in the national economic system. Since the 1950s, Abruzzo has had steady economic growth. In 1951, Abruzzo per capita income or GDP was 53% of that of Northern Italy, the nation's richest region. By 1971, Abruzzo was at 65% and, by 1994, per capita income was at 76% of Northern Italy's per capita income, giving Abruzzo the highest per capita GDP of Southern Italy and surpassing the growth of every other region of Italy. The construction of autostrade (motorways) from Rome to Teramo (A24) and Rome to Pescara (A25) opened Abruzzo to easy access. State and private investment in the region increased, and Abruzzo attained higher per capita education levels and greater productivity growth than the rest of the South. As of 2003, Abruzzo's per capita GDP was €19,506 or 84% of the national average of €23,181 and well outpacing that of the South (€15,808). The region's average GDP per capita was approximately 20,100 EUR.
The 2009 L'Aquila earthquake led to a sharp economic slowdown. However, according to statistics at the end of 2010, it seems that the economy of Abruzzo is recovering, despite the negative on regarding employment.[28] In fact, at the end of 2010, Abruzzo's growth was 1.47%, which placed it fourth among the Italian regions with the highest annual growth rates after Lazio, Lombardy and Calabria.[30] In 2011 Abruzzo's economic growth was +2.3%, the highest percentage among the regions of Southern Italy.[31] The region is also the richest region of Southern Italy, with a GDP per capita of €25,700.[21]
Travel poster from the 1920s.
Abruzzo's industrial sector expanded rapidly, especially in mechanical engineering, transportation equipment and telecommunications. The structure of production in the region reflects the transformation of the economy from agriculture to industry and services. Although industry has developed strongly, it retains weak points due to the existence of only a few large businesses alongside a huge fabric of small and medium-sized businesses. Both pure and applied research are carried out in the region, where there are major institutes and factories involved in research in the fields of pharmaceutics, biomedicine, electronics, aerospace and nuclear physics. The industrial infrastructure is spread throughout the region in industrial zones. The most important of these are: Val Pescara, Val Sangro, Val Trigno, Val Vibrata and Conca del Fucino. A further activity worthy of note is seaside and mountain tourism, which is of considerable importance to the economy of the region.[33] Agriculture, involving small holdings, has succeeded in modernising and offering high-quality products. The mostly small, agricultural holdings produce: wine, cereals, sugar beet, potatoes, olives, vegetables, fruit and dairy products. Traditional products are saffron and liquorice. Most famous in the world is Abruzzo's wine Montepulciano d'Abruzzo; in the late 20th and early 21st century, Montepulciano d'Abruzzo earned a reputation as being one of the most widely exported DOC classed wine in Italy.[34]
In the past decade, tourism has increased, in particular by internal and European arrivals. Abruzzo is world-famous for its wildlife parks (Abruzzo National Park, Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park, Maiella National Park) and regional park (Sirente Velino), and 38 protected areas between oasis, regional reserves, and state reserves. The inland mountainous region contains several ski resorts, and coastal tourism is also well-developed, in particular, the Trabocchi Coast. Abruzzo's castles and medieval towns, especially around the town of L'Aquila, have earned it in some quarters the nickname of "Abruzzoshire", by analogy with the "Chiantishire", nickname sometimes used to refer to the Chianti area of Tuscany, but Abruzzo is still off the beaten path for most visitors to Italy.[35]
Chieti
Although the population density of Abruzzo has increased over recent decades, it is still well below the Italian national average: in 2008, 123.4 inhabitants per km2, compared to 198.8. In the provinces, the density varies: as of 2008 Pescara is the most densely populated with 260.1 inhabitants per km2, whereas L'Aquila is the least densely populated with 61.3 inhabitants per km2, although it has the largest area. After decades of emigration from the region, the main feature of the 1980s is immigration from third world countries. The population increase is due to the positive net migration. Since 1991 more deaths than births were registered in Abruzzo (except for 1999, when their numbers were equal).[36] In 2008, the Italian national institute of statistics ISTAT estimated that 59,749 foreign-born immigrants live in Abruzzo, equal to 4.5% of the total regional population.
The most serious demographic imbalance is between the mountainous areas of the interior and the coastal strip. The largest province, L'Aquila, is situated entirely in the interior and has the lowest population density. The movement of the population of Abruzzo from the mountains to the sea has led to the almost complete urbanization of the entire coastal strip especially in the province of Teramo and Chieti. The effects on the interior have been impoverishment and demographic aging, reflected by an activity rate in the province of L'Aquila which is the lowest among the provinces in Abruzzo – accompanied by geological degradation as a result of the absence of conservation measures. In the coastal strip, however, there is such a jumble of accommodations and activities that the environment has been negatively affected. The policy of providing incentives for development has resulted in the setting-up of industrial zones, some of which (Vasto, Avezzano, Carsoli, Gissi, Val Vibrata, Val di Sangro) have made genuine progress, while others (Val Pescara, L'Aquila) have run into trouble after their initial success. The zones of Sulmona and Guardiagrele have turned out to be more or less failures. Outside these zones, the main activities are agriculture and tourism.
Main settlements
L'Aquila is both the capital city of the Abruzzo region and of the Province of L'Aquila and second largest city (pop. 73,000). L'Aquila was hit by an earthquake on 6 April 2009, which destroyed much of the city centre. The other provincial capitals are Pescara, which is Abruzzo's largest city and major port (pop. 123,000); Teramo (pop. 55,000) and Chieti (pop. 55,000). Other large municipalities in Abruzzo include the industrial and high tech center Avezzano (pop. 41,000), as well as three important industrial and touristic centers such as Vasto (pop. 40,636), Lanciano (pop. 36,000), and Sulmona (pop. 25,000).
Transport
Airports
Abruzzo International Airport is the only international airport in the region. Open to civilian traffic since 1996, the number of passengers has increased over the years because of low-cost air carriers' use of the facility. Today, the airport has a catchment area of over 500,000 passengers annually and connects the city of Pescara and the entire region with many Italian and Europe destinations.
L'Aquila-Preturo Airport is located in the nearby village of Courts and was recently renovated and modernized to accommodate presidential flights for G8 activities.
Ports
There are four main ports in Abruzzo: Pescara, Ortona, Vasto and Giulianova.
Over the years the Port of Pescara became one of the most important tourist ports of Italy and the Adriatic Sea. Heavily damaged in World War II, it underwent some sixty years of major restoration and was reborn as a modern marina with advanced moorings and shipbuilding facilities. It has been honored with the European Union's blue flag for the quality of services offered. The port of Pescara has lost passenger traffic because of its shallowness and silting, but its fishery and aquaculture activities are thriving.[38]
Railways
There is a significant disparity between the railways of the Abruzzo coast and the inland areas, which badly need modernization to improve the service, in particular, the Rome-Pescara line.
Existing railway lines:
Adriatic railway runs through the whole of Italy from north to south, along the Adriatic Sea.
Train Rome – Sulmona – Pescara
Sulmona – Carpinone
Sulmona–Terni railway
Avezzano railroad – Roccasecca
Giulianova – Teramo
Sangritana (Lanciano – Castel di Sangro)
Highways
There are three highways that serve the region:
Highway A24 Rome – L'Aquila – Teramo, was built in the 1970s and connects Rome with Lazio and more specifically to the Abruzzo Teramo via L'Aquila. It performs an important liaison function of the region, both Tyrrhenian to the Adriatic, due to the presence of several interchanges of connecting roads and highways. The Gran Sasso tunnel, the longest road tunnel entirely on Italian territory, was opened in 1984. It connects L'Aquila and Teramo on the A24 making the northern Abruzzo coast reachable within two hours from Rome.
Highway A25 Turin – Avezzano – Pescara makes the connection between Rome and Pescara. The road running out of Turin begins its journey where it branches off the A24, runs into the Conca del Fucino, crosses the Abruzzo Apennines, comes to the valley of Peligna, and ends at the exit for Pescara-Villanova to join the A14.
Motorway A14 Bologna – Taranto known as the A14 "Adriatica", includes 743 km (461.68 mi) of road, including lengths in the cities of Bologna and Taranto. Opened to traffic in 1965, it is now a major tourist road, running through the coastal towns of Emilia Romagna, Marche, Abruzzo, Molise, and Apulia.
Culture
Castel del Monte, one of Abruzzo's little-known hill towns
Gabriele d'Annunzio from Pescara
Abbazia di San Liberatore a Majella (Serramonacesca)
Ovid from Sulmona
Cathedral of San Giustino (Chieti)
Fishing trabucco of San Vito Chietino
The museum Museo Archeologico Nazionale d'Abruzzo in Chieti houses the famed warrior statue Warrior of Capestrano which was found in a necropolis from 6th century B.C. Of cultural importance are: Teramo Cathedral, its archeological museum and Roman theater, the Castello della Monica, the Collurania-Teramo Observatory, the famous L'Aquila Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio (which holds the remains of Pope Celestine V), the Museo Nazionale d'Abruzzo, Santa Maria del Suffragio, the Forte Spagnolo, the Fountain of 99 Spouts, Gabriele D'Annunzio's house in Pescara, Campli's Scala Sancta and its church, the church of Santissima Annunziata in Sulmona, the cathedrals of Chieti, Lanciano, Guardiagrele, Atri and Pescara along with the castles of Ortona, Celano and Ortucchio.
Every 28–29 August, L'Aquila's Santa Maria di Collemaggio commemorates the Perdonanza Celestiniana, the indulgence issued by Pope Celestine V to any who, "truly repentant and confessed" would visit that Church from the Vespers of the vigil to the vespers of 29 August.[39] Sulmona's Holy Week is commemorated with traditional celebrations and rituals, such as 'La Madonna che Scappa in Piazza', where a large statue of the Madonna, carried by a group of Sulmonesi part of Confraternities, is taken through the square towards her resurrected Son.[40] Cocullo, in the province of L'Aquila, holds the annual 'Festa dei serpari' (festival of snake handlers) in which a statue of St. Dominic, covered with live snakes, is carried in a procession through the town; it attracts thousands of Italian and foreign visitors. In many Abruzzo villages, Anthony the Great's feast is celebrated in January with massive and scenic bonfires.[41] In the past, the region of Abruzzo was well known for the transumanza, the migratory movement of sheep principally south to the region of Puglia during the cold winter months.[42] The Feast of St. Biagio, protector of wool dealers, is the most widespread in Abruzzo. On the third of February in Taranta Peligna every year since the sixteenth century an evocative ritual is carried out, entailing the distribution of panicelle, which are small loaves made of flour and water, in the shape of a blessing hand, which are distributed to the faithful.
Historical figures include: the Roman orator Asinius Pollio; Latin poets Sallust and Ovid, who were born in L'Aquila and Sulmona respectively, Gaius Cassius Longinus, Roman senator and leading instigator of the plot to kill Julius Caesar; and Pontius Pilate, who was born in the province of Teramo and is best known for authorizing the crucifixion of Jesus. Abruzzo's religious personalities include Saint Berardo; John of Capistrano, who led a crusade against the Ottoman Empire; Thomas of Celano, author of three hagiographies about Saint Francis of Assisi; and Alessandro Valignano, who introduced Catholicism to the Far East and Japan. The Polish Pope John Paul II loved the mountains of Abruzzo, where he would retire often and pray in the church of San Pietro della Ienca. When he died, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, gave the local Abruzzo community some of the late pontiff's blood as a token of the love he had felt for the mountainous area.[43] The greatest Italian poet of the 20th century Gabriele D'Annunzio was from Pescara; other notable Abruzzo personalities in the field of humanities include: poet Ignazio Silone, director Ennio Flaiano who co-wrote La dolce vita, philosopher Benedetto Croce, composer Sir Paolo Tosti and the sculptor Venanzo Crocetti.
American artists and celebrities such as: Madonna, Dean Martin, Bradley Cooper, Perry Como, Henry Mancini, Nancy Pelosi, Rocky Marciano, Rocky Mattioli, Bruno Sammartino, Mario Batali, John and Dan Fante, Tommy Lasorda, Dan Marino, Mario Lanza, Garry Marshall, Penny Marshall, Al Martino, Ariana Grande and Canadian Michael Bublé have Abruzzo origins.
Some international movies shot in Abruzzo include The American, Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Name of the Rose, Fellini's La Strada and I Vitelloni, Schwarzenegger's Red Sonja, Ladyhawke, King David, Francesco, Keoma, The Barbarians, The Fox and the Child and Krull.
Medieval and Renaissance hill towns
The fortress of Civitella is the most visited monument in Abruzzo
For most of its history, a large number of the Abruzzese people have been hill people, often working as shepherds in mountainous areas, or establishing hill towns, especially in the parts of Abruzzo further from the Adriatic coast.[citation needed] Before the 2009 earthquake, Abruzzo was the region with the highest number of castles and hill towns in Italy, but it still holds many of Italy's best-preserved medieval and Renaissance hill towns, twenty-three of which are among The Most Beautiful Villages in Italy.[44] These awards are not only for aesthetic beauty but also for art and culture, historical importance and livability.
The abrupt decline of Abruzzo's agricultural economy in the early to mid-20th-century saved some of the region's historic hill towns from modern development. Many lie entirely within regional and national parks. Among the most well preserved are Castel del Monte and Santo Stefano di Sessanio, which lie in the Gran Sasso National Park on the edge of the high plain of Campo Imperatore and nestled beneath the Apennines' highest peaks. Both hill towns, which were ruled by the Medicis for over a century-and-a-half, have relatively little tourism. Between the two towns sits Rocca Calascio, the ruin of an ancient fortress popular with filmmakers. Both Monteferrante and Roccascalegna are two of the most representative Abruzzo villages in the province of Chieti. Within the Gran Sasso National Park is also found Castelli, an ancient pottery center whose artisans produced ceramics for most of the royal houses of Europe.
Civitella del Tronto played a crucial role in the history of the unification of Italy. The fortress of Civitella is the most visited monument in the Abruzzo region today.[45] Other medieval hill towns located fully within Abruzzo's park system are Pacentro in the Maiella National Park and Pescasseroli in the Abruzzo National Park. Pacentro, which features a 14th-century castle with two intact towers, has been little touched by modernisation. The Shrine of Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, in the province of Teramo, which attracts some two million visitors per year, is one of the 15 most-visited sanctuaries in the world.[46] Capestrano, a small town in the province of L'Aquila, is the hometown of Saint John of Capistrano, Franciscan friar and Catholic priest, as well as the namesake of the Franciscan missions San Juan Capistrano in Southern California, the mission Mission San Juan Capistrano (Texas) and the city of San Juan Capistrano in Orange County. Giulianova is a notable example of a Renaissance "ideal city."
The proximity to Rome, the protected natural reserves and landscapes which make the region one of the greenest in Europe, the presence of some of the most beautiful Italian villages, its rich and heterogeneous gastronomy, along with a long history of deep-rooted local tradition and authentic Italian culture, make Abruzzo fifth among Italian regions for tourist visits after Calabria, Marche, Sardinia and Trentino. In 2010, visitors included 6,381,067 Italians and 925,884 foreign tourists.
In 2015, the American organization Live and Invest Overseas included Abruzzo on its list of World's Top 21 Overseas Retirement Havens. The study was based on such factors as climate, infrastructure, health care, safety, taxes, cost of living and more. In 2017 the Chamber of Commerce of Pescara presented Abruzzo region to the Annual conference of Live and Invest Overseas in Orlando (USA). One year later, in October 2018, Live and Invest Overseas held its first conference in Abruzzo.
Universities
There are three universities in the Abruzzo region:
University of L'Aquila
D'Annunzio University of Chieti–Pescara
University of Teramo
Harvard University bases an intensive summer Italian language and culture program in Vasto, a resort town on Abruzzo's southern coast.
Science
Between the province of Teramo and L'Aquila, under the Gran Sasso Tunnel, is the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) of the INFN, one of the three underground astroparticle laboratories in Europe.
The Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell'Abruzzo e del Molise "Giuseppe Caporale", which conducts research in veterinary and environmental public health, is located in Teramo.
The Gran Sasso Science Institute, located in L'Aquila, is an advanced research institute which offers doctorates in astroparticle physics, computer science, and mathematics as well as urban studies and regional science, and which also conducts scientific research.
Sports
Interamnia World Cup, the largest international youth handball competition worldwide, takes place yearly in Teramo.[51]
There are several football clubs in Abruzzo. Delfino Pescara 1936 is a Serie B club; based in Pescara, its home stadium is Stadio Adriatico – Giovanni Cornacchia.
Dialects
The regional dialects of Abruzzo include Teramano, Abruzzese Orientale Adriatico and Abruzzese Occidentale. The first two form part of the dialect of southern Italy also known simply as "Neapolitan" since the region has been part of the Kingdom of Naples and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, while Aquilano is related to the Central Italian dialects including Romanesco. The dialects spoken in the Abruzzo region can be divided into three main groups:
Sabine dialect, in the province of L'Aquila (central Italian dialects)
Abruzzo Adriatic dialect, in the province of Teramo, Pescara and Chieti, that is virtually abandoned in the province of Ascoli Piceno (southern Italian dialects)
Abruzzo western dialect, in the province of L'Aquila (southern Italian dialects)
Cuisine
Renowned for its variety and richness due to the heterogeneity of its territory, Abruzzo's cuisine is among the best in Italy. In 2013 an Italian organization Confesercenti survey of foreign tourists showed that Abruzzo is the best Italian region to eat in. Both the agricultural and coastal aspects of Abruzzo have contributed to its cuisine. Due to the mountains, much of Abruzzo was isolated from international influence until the 20th century. As a result, the region's cuisine remained unique.
Popular dishes
One of the most popular regional dishes is spaghetti alla chitarra which is made by pressing or cutting pasta through a chitarra, an implement to form long thin noodles similar to spaghetti. The pasta is served with a tomato-based sauce, often flavored with peppers, pork, goose, or lamb. This dish is complemented by regional side dishes, such as the bean and noodle soup, sagne e fagioli. This soup is traditionally flavored with tomatoes, garlic, oil, and peperoncini. In terms of common ingredients, cuisine in Abruzzo often includes:
Lamb and mutton, primarily in the mountains.[54] Sheep's milk (or ricotta) is an important source of Abruzzese cheese, and lamb intestines are used as sausage casing or for stuffed meat rolls.[54][55] Mountain goat meat is also common in Abruzzo.
Truffles and mushrooms, particularly wild mushrooms from the forests and hills
Garlic, especially red garlic
Rosemary
Hot chili pepper or peperoncini, regionally known as diavolilli or diavoletti, is common in Abruzzese cuisine and often used to add spice to dishes. Abruzzo residents are well known for frequently adding peperoncini, or hot peppers, to their meals.
Vegetables such as lentils, grasspeas and other legumes, artichoke, eggplant, and cauliflower[54][55][56][57]
Other popular dishes include:
Gnocchi carrati, flavored with bacon, eggs and pecorino cheese
Scrippelle, a rustic French-style crêpe served either mbusse (a type of soup) or used to form a sort of soufflé with some ragù and stuffed with chicken liver, meatballs, hard-boiled eggs, and cheese
Pastuccia, a polenta stew with sausage, eggs, and cheese
Across the region, roast lamb is enjoyed in several variations. Some of these variations include:
Arrosticini, a skewered lamb dish
Pecora al cotturo, lamb stuffed with a variety of mountain herbs and cooked in a copper pot
Lamb cooked whole in a bread oven
Agnello cacio e ovo, a lamb-based fricassee
Mazzerella: lamb intestines stuffed with lamb, garlic, marjoram, lettuce, and spices
Le virtù: a soup from Teramo filled with legumes, vegetables and pork, usually eaten in the spring at celebrations
Timballo abruzzese: lasagna-like dish with pasta sheets (scrippelle) layered with meat, vegetables and rice; often served for Christmas and Easter[58]
Porchetta abruzzese: moist boneless-pork roast, slow-roasted with rosemary, garlic, and pepper[58]
Seafood is also popular, especially in coastal areas. The variety of fish available to the area has resulted in several fish-based Brodetti (broths), coming from such places as Vasto, Giulianova, and Pescara. These broths are often made by cooking fish, flavored with tomatoes, herbs, and peperoncino, in an earthenware pot. Rustic pizzas are also very common. Some of these are:
Easter Pizza, a rustic cake with cheese and pepper from the Teramo area
Fiadoni from Chieti, a dough of eggs and cheese well risen, cooked in the oven in a thin casing of pastry
A rustic tart pastry filled with everything imaginable: eggs, fresh cheeses, ricotta, vegetables, and all sorts of flavorings and spices.
Also from Teramo are the spreadable sausages flavored with nutmeg, and liver sausages tasting of garlic and spices. The ventricina from the Vasto area is made with large pieces of fat and lean pork, pressed and seasoned with powdered sweet peppers and fennel all encased in the dehydrated stomach of the pig itself. Atri and Rivisondoli are famous for cheeses. Mozzarella, either fresh or seasoned, is made from ewe's milk, although a great number of lesser known varieties of these cheeses can be found all over Abruzzo and Molise.
Sweets
The Abruzzo's sweets are world-famous and include:
Confetti, sugar-coated almonds, from Sulmona
Torrone Nurzia, a chocolate nougat from L'Aquila
Parrozzo , a cake-like treat made from a mixture of crushed almonds, and coated in chocolate.
Ferratelle (also known as Pizzelle). A wafer cookie, often flavored with anise
Croccante, a type of nougat made from almonds and caramelized suger, often flavored with lemon[59]
A Montepulciano d'Abruzzo wine labelled as being made from old vines.
Olive oil
The extra-virgin olive oil produced in Colline Teramane (Teramo hills) is marked by the DOP.[60]
The region has several cultivars that includes Carboncella, Dritta (Dritta Francavillese and Dritta di Moscufo), Gentile del Chieti, Nostrana (Nostrana di Brisighella), and Sargano olive cultivars.[61]
Wines and liquors
Renowned wines like Montepulciano DOCG and Trebbiano d'Abruzzo DOC are judged to be amongst the world's finest.[62] In 2012, a bottle of Trebbiano d'Abruzzo ranked No. 1 in the top 50 Italian wine awards.[63] In recent decades these wines have been joined, particularly, by wines from lesser known (heritage) white grapes, such as, Pecorino, Cococciola, Passerina, Montonico Bianco and Fiano.[64]
The region is also well known for the production of liquors such as Centerbe, Limoncello, Ratafia and Genziana.
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Naples is a city and the county seat of Collier County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city's population was 19,539. Naples is a principal city of the Naples-Marco Island, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had a population of about 322,000 as of 2015.
Before the period of European colonization, the indigenous Calusa lived in Florida (including the region of present-day Naples) for thousands of years, from Charlotte Harbor to Cape Sable. In 1513, Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León explored the region and encountered the Calusa, who resisted attempts by de León to establish a Spanish colony in Florida. This initiated nearly two hundred years of conflict between the Spanish and the Calusa. In the early 18th century, following slave raids from Muscogee and Yamasee raiders allied with European settlers in Carolina, the majority of the remaining Calusa moved south and east to escape the raids.
The city of Naples was founded in 1886 by former Confederate general and Kentucky U.S. Senator John Stuart Williams and his partner, Louisville businessman Walter N. Haldeman, the publisher of the Louisville Courier-Journal. Throughout the 1870s and '80s, magazine and newspaper stories telling of the area's mild climate and abundant fish likened it to the sunny Italian peninsula. The name Naples caught on when promoters described the bay as "surpassing the bay in Naples, Italy". By the summer of 1888, Naples had a population of about 80 people, and the first hotel opened in 1889. A major development was anticipated after Collier County was established in 1923, the completion of the railroad reaching Naples in 1927, and the completion of the Tamiami Trail linking Naples to Miami in 1928, but did not begin until after the 1929 Stock market crash, the Great Depression, and World War II. During the war the U.S. Army Air Forces built a small airfield and used it for training purposes; it is now the Naples Municipal Airport.
After a hurricane in 1945, a fill was required to repair the damage. A local dredging company, Forrest Walker & Sons, created a lake north of 16th Avenue S, between Gordon Drive and Gulf Shore Boulevard. In 1949, Forrest Walker asked Mr. Rust to sell him the 296 acres (120 ha) from Jamaica Channel to today's 14th Avenue S. The Jamaica Channel was widened, one canal was dredged, and 14th Avenue S was created; a new subdivision was created called "Aqualane Shores" the same year Naples became a city; in 1949. Additional channels were eventually added to the south of 14th Avenue S and are named alphabetically for local water birds. The first channel south of 14th Avenue S is Anhinga Channel, then Bittern Channel is south of 15th Avenue S, Crane Channel is south of 16th Avenue S, Duck Channel is south of 17th Avenue S, and Egret Channel is north of 21st Avenue S. From the channels there are coves named Flamingo, Gull, Heron, and Ibis, as well as the original Aqua Cove. These initial channels, canals, and coves were dredged and bulldozed from the mangrove swamps. Where shallow rock precluded digging, the land was filled to create lots with navigable water.
The Aqualane Shores Association was incorporated as a non-profit corporation on February 3, 1966. It served lot owners in the area roughly bounded by the Bay of Naples to the east, Gordon Drive to the west, and the land between 14th Avenue and 21st Avenue S, as well as Marina Drive, Forrest Lane, and Southwinds Drive. Thirty years later, in 1996, a state-mandated city master plan renamed the area to the Aqualane Shores Neighborhood and extended its boundary west to the Gulf of Mexico, east to the Bay of Naples, and the area from 14th Avenue S all the way south to Jamaica Channel. The numerous canals and waterfront homes add a distinctive feature to the south portion of Naples and provide access to the Gulf of Mexico for many homeowners.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naples,_Florida
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Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Railway Station, Bond & Bond,
Austin van, Holden car, Standard Vanguard ute,
Christmas decorations,
Taken with the family Agfa Silette camera
Central Auckland Statistical Area, Auckland, New Zealand
Lake City is the county seat of Columbia County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 12,046. It is the principal city of the Lake City Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is composed of Columbia County, and had a 2010 population of 67,531.
Lake City first began as the town of Alligator in 1821 near the Seminole settlement known as Alligator Village. Alligator became the seat of Columbia County in 1832 when it was formed from Duval and Alachua counties. In 1858 Alligator was incorporated and renamed Lake City. The largest American Civil War battle in Florida took place near here in the Battle of Olustee in 1864; the Confederates won. In 1884 the Florida Agricultural College was established in Lake City as a land grant college; it was relocated to Gainesville in 1905 to form part of the University of Florida. The city's sesquicentennial was held in 2009.
Lake City is known as "The Gateway to Florida" because it is adjacent to the intersection of Interstate 75 and Interstate 10. Lake City is the site of Lake City Gateway Airport, formerly known as NAS Lake City. Florida Gateway College is located in Lake City.
In 1874 Lake City's first newspaper was published in 1874, called the Lake City Reporter. In 1876 the Bigelow Building was completed; it later was adapted for use as the City Hall. In 1891 Lake City became the first city in Florida to have electric lights from a local power and light company.
By the early 20th century, Lake City had become an important railroad junction, served by the Seaboard Air Line, Atlantic Coast Line, Georgia Southern Railroad, and the Florida Railroad. Hotel Blanche was built in 1902 as an attraction for expected tourists. The hotel was Lake City and Columbia County's major hotel and central business center from 1902 to 1955.
Florida Agricultural College was established in 1884 as part of the Morrill Land Grant Act and became a full university with twenty-five instructors in 1904. In 1905 the Florida Agricultural College was moved to Gainesville, becoming part of the University of Florida. Columbia High School constructed a second building in 1906 that was used until 1922. In 1907 Lake City officials leased the former property of the Florida Agricultural College to the Florida Baptist Convention; they founded a Baptist college called Columbia College. Columbia College lasted for ten years until the college became overwhelmed with debt. Columbia College deeded the land and buildings back to Lake City in 1919. During World War I, the campus of Columbia College was used as a training site for local troops for the war. The facility became U.S. Hospital No. 63, the predecessor of the Veterans Hospital constructed in Lake City. More than 34 Lake City soldiers were killed in World War I.
In 1940 the population of Lake City was 5,836. During World War II, a number of institutions were established to help with the war effort as well as those in Lake City. The Lake Shore Hospital was dedicated in 1940 to provide medical care for those in the Lake City area. The Lake City Woman's Club became the United Service Organizations (USO) headquarters to entertain service personnel stationed in Lake City. Naval Air Station Lake City was commissioned in 1942 on the site of the Lake City Flying Club air field. NAS Lake City was a support facility for Naval Air Station Jacksonville and trained pilots to fly the Lockheed Ventura. Military operations at NAS Lake City ended in March 1946, and it was decommissioned as an active naval air station.
After World War II a local air base was converted for use in 1947 as the Columbia Forestry School. The Columbia Forestry School had low enrollments and funds, forcing the school to seek help from the Florida legislature. The University of Florida assumed management of the school, and in 1950 it became the University of Florida Forest Ranger School. As part of the network of community colleges established in Florida, the school became the Lake City Junior College and Forest Ranger School in 1962. Lake City Junior College was renamed to Lake City Community College in 1970; in 2010 it was renamed as Florida Gateway College.
By 1950, the population of Lake City was 7,467. The forestry products industry (turpentine, lumber, and pulpwood) had become a mainstay of the local economy.
During the Korean War, five Lake City soldiers were killed. A monument was dedicated in 1985 in honor of the five killed in the war. In 1958, the Columbia Amateur Radio Society was formed. This was a group of amateur radio operators who enjoyed the ability to communicate all over the world. This radio club still exists today. Lake City's centennial was celebrated in 1959 with parades, fireworks and a 58-page book documenting one hundred years of progress, A Century in the Sun. The citizens of the town dressed in period attire, complete with whiskers. A good-natured clash arose between the men with additional facial hair and the women who did not like it.
In 1963 Interstate 75 and Interstate 10 were opened, intersecting at Lake City. In the 1960s Columbia County schools were not desegregated but black students were free to enroll in any all-white school if room was available. In 1970 a judge ordered all Columbia County public schools to integrate. During the Vietnam War, 23 local Lake City soldiers were either killed or M.I.A.
In 1978 the Columbia County Public Library was established. Downtown Lake City was revitalized in the 1990s with new businesses, shops and restaurants. In 2000 Lake City had a population of 9,980.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Lake City is the county seat of Columbia County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 12,046. It is the principal city of the Lake City Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is composed of Columbia County, and had a 2010 population of 67,531.
Lake City first began as the town of Alligator in 1821 near the Seminole settlement known as Alligator Village. Alligator became the seat of Columbia County in 1832 when it was formed from Duval and Alachua counties. In 1858 Alligator was incorporated and renamed Lake City. The largest American Civil War battle in Florida took place near here in the Battle of Olustee in 1864; the Confederates won. In 1884 the Florida Agricultural College was established in Lake City as a land grant college; it was relocated to Gainesville in 1905 to form part of the University of Florida. The city's sesquicentennial was held in 2009.
Lake City is known as "The Gateway to Florida" because it is adjacent to the intersection of Interstate 75 and Interstate 10. Lake City is the site of Lake City Gateway Airport, formerly known as NAS Lake City. Florida Gateway College is located in Lake City.
In 1874 Lake City's first newspaper was published in 1874, called the Lake City Reporter. In 1876 the Bigelow Building was completed; it later was adapted for use as the City Hall. In 1891 Lake City became the first city in Florida to have electric lights from a local power and light company.
By the early 20th century, Lake City had become an important railroad junction, served by the Seaboard Air Line, Atlantic Coast Line, Georgia Southern Railroad, and the Florida Railroad. Hotel Blanche was built in 1902 as an attraction for expected tourists. The hotel was Lake City and Columbia County's major hotel and central business center from 1902 to 1955.
Florida Agricultural College was established in 1884 as part of the Morrill Land Grant Act and became a full university with twenty-five instructors in 1904. In 1905 the Florida Agricultural College was moved to Gainesville, becoming part of the University of Florida. Columbia High School constructed a second building in 1906 that was used until 1922. In 1907 Lake City officials leased the former property of the Florida Agricultural College to the Florida Baptist Convention; they founded a Baptist college called Columbia College. Columbia College lasted for ten years until the college became overwhelmed with debt. Columbia College deeded the land and buildings back to Lake City in 1919. During World War I, the campus of Columbia College was used as a training site for local troops for the war. The facility became U.S. Hospital No. 63, the predecessor of the Veterans Hospital constructed in Lake City. More than 34 Lake City soldiers were killed in World War I.
In 1940 the population of Lake City was 5,836. During World War II, a number of institutions were established to help with the war effort as well as those in Lake City. The Lake Shore Hospital was dedicated in 1940 to provide medical care for those in the Lake City area. The Lake City Woman's Club became the United Service Organizations (USO) headquarters to entertain service personnel stationed in Lake City. Naval Air Station Lake City was commissioned in 1942 on the site of the Lake City Flying Club air field. NAS Lake City was a support facility for Naval Air Station Jacksonville and trained pilots to fly the Lockheed Ventura. Military operations at NAS Lake City ended in March 1946, and it was decommissioned as an active naval air station.
After World War II a local air base was converted for use in 1947 as the Columbia Forestry School. The Columbia Forestry School had low enrollments and funds, forcing the school to seek help from the Florida legislature. The University of Florida assumed management of the school, and in 1950 it became the University of Florida Forest Ranger School. As part of the network of community colleges established in Florida, the school became the Lake City Junior College and Forest Ranger School in 1962. Lake City Junior College was renamed to Lake City Community College in 1970; in 2010 it was renamed as Florida Gateway College.
By 1950, the population of Lake City was 7,467. The forestry products industry (turpentine, lumber, and pulpwood) had become a mainstay of the local economy.
During the Korean War, five Lake City soldiers were killed. A monument was dedicated in 1985 in honor of the five killed in the war. In 1958, the Columbia Amateur Radio Society was formed. This was a group of amateur radio operators who enjoyed the ability to communicate all over the world. This radio club still exists today. Lake City's centennial was celebrated in 1959 with parades, fireworks and a 58-page book documenting one hundred years of progress, A Century in the Sun. The citizens of the town dressed in period attire, complete with whiskers. A good-natured clash arose between the men with additional facial hair and the women who did not like it.
In 1963 Interstate 75 and Interstate 10 were opened, intersecting at Lake City. In the 1960s Columbia County schools were not desegregated but black students were free to enroll in any all-white school if room was available. In 1970 a judge ordered all Columbia County public schools to integrate. During the Vietnam War, 23 local Lake City soldiers were either killed or M.I.A.
In 1978 the Columbia County Public Library was established. Downtown Lake City was revitalized in the 1990s with new businesses, shops and restaurants. In 2000 Lake City had a population of 9,980.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Punta Gorda is a city in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census the city had a population of 16,641. It is the county seat of Charlotte County and the only incorporated municipality in the county. Punta Gorda is the principal city of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area and is also in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda Combined Statistical Area.
Punta Gorda was the scene of massive destruction after Charley, a Category 4 hurricane, came through the city on August 13, 2004. Charley was the strongest tropical system to hit Florida since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the first hurricane since Hurricane Donna in 1960 to make a direct hit on Florida's southwest coast. In the immediate years following the storm, buildings were restored or built to hurricane-resistant building codes. The new buildings, restorations and amenities concurrently preserved the city's past while showcasing newer facilities. During this time, Laishley Park Municipal Marina was built and the Harborwalk, Linear Park and various trails were created throughout the city for bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The name Punta Gorda ("Fat Point") has been on maps at least since 1851, referring to a point of land that juts into Charlotte Harbor, an estuary off the Gulf of Mexico. It was in the late 1800s that early settlers began to arrive in what is the present-day Punta Gorda area.
Frederick and Jarvis Howard, Union Army veterans, homesteaded an area south of the Peace River near present-day Punta Gorda about a decade after the close of the Civil War. In 1876, James and Josephine Lockhart bought land and built a house on property which is now at the center of the city. Approximately two years later Lockhart sold his claim to James Madison Lanier, a hunter and trapper.
In 1879, a charter for a railroad with termini at Charlotte Harbor and Lake City, Florida was established under the name Gainesville, Ocala, and Charlotte Harbor Railroad. It was taken over by the Florida Southern Railroad, which reaffirmed Charlotte Harbor as a terminus in its own charter. Lanier with his wife lived there until 1883, when 30.8 acres (12.5 ha) were sold to Isaac Trabue, who purchased additional land along the harbor and directed the platting of a town (by Kelly B. Harvey) named "Trabue". Harvey recorded the plat on February 24, 1885. At the time, Isaac was in Kentucky, and his cousin, John Trabue, was in charge of selling lots. Kelly, a native of the Peace River area, started referring to the new town as Punta Gorda. He later explained that the Spaniards called the area Punta Gorda, and local businesses included Punta gorda within their companies' names.
Less than ten years after the first settlements in the area, railroads rolled into the town of Trabue in June 1886, and with them came the first land developers and Southwest Florida's first batch of tourists. Punta Gorda became the southernmost stop on the Florida Southern Railroad, until an extension was built to Fort Myers in 1904, attracting the industries that propelled its initial growth.
In 1887, twelve years after the first settlers trekked to Charlotte Harbor, 34 met at Hector's Billiard Parlor to discuss incorporation. Once Punta Gorda was officially incorporated, mayoral elections took place and a council was formed. The first mayor, W. H. Simmons, was elected. The new city was renamed Punta Gorda.
Phosphate was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda in 1888. Phosphate mined in the Peace River Valley was barged down the Peace River to Punta Gorda and Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto vessels for worldwide shipment. In 1896, the Florida Times-Union reported that phosphate mining was Punta Gorda's chief industry and that Punta Gorda was the greatest phosphate shipping point in the world. By 1907, a railroad was built direct to Port Boca Grande, ending the brief phosphate shipping boom from Punta Gorda.
In 1890, the first postmaster, Robert Meacham, an African American, was appointed by Isaac Trabue as a deliberate affront to Kelly B. Harvey and those who had voted to change the name of the town from Trabue to Punta Gorda.
The Punta Gorda Herald was founded by Robert Kirby Seward in 1893 and published weekly during its early years.The newspaper covered such events as rum running, other smuggling activities, and lawlessness in general. It underwent many changes in both ownership and name over time, and today is known as The Charlotte Sun Herald.
Early Punta Gorda greatly resembled the modern social climate of various classes living together and working together. While the regal Punta Gorda Hotel, at one point partly owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt, reflected the upper class, Punta Gorda was a pretty rough town, as most frontier towns were. Punta Gorda's location at the end of the railway line spiked the crime rate, resulting in approximately 40 murders between 1890 and 1904. This included City Marshal John H. Bowman, who was shot and killed in his front parlor on January 29, 1903, in view of his family.
In 1925, a bungalow was built by Joseph Blanchard, an African American sea captain and fisherman. The Blanchard House Museum still stands as a museum, providing education for the history of middle-class African American life in the area.
Punta Gorda in the 20th century still maintained steady growth. Charlotte County was formed in 1921 after DeSoto County was split. Also in 1921, the first bridge was constructed connecting Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor along the brand-new Tamiami Trail. This small bridge was replaced by the original Barron Collier Bridge in 1931, and then by the current Barron Collier Bridge and Gilchrist Bridge crossing the Peace River.
During World War II, a U.S. Army airfield was built in Punta Gorda to train combat air pilots. After the war, the airfield was turned over to Charlotte County.Today the old airfield is the Punta Gorda Airport, providing both commercial and general aviation.
Punta Gorda's next intense growth phase started in 1959 with the creation of a neighborhood of canal-front home sites, Punta Gorda Isles, by a trio of entrepreneurs, Al Johns, Bud Cole and Sam Burchers. They laid out 55 miles of canals 100 feet wide and 17 feet deep using dredged sand to raise the level of the canal front land. This provided dry home sites with access to the Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf of Mexico. Johns went on to develop several other communities in Punta Gorda, among which were Burnt Store Isles, another waterfront community with golf course, and Seminole Lakes, a golf course community. These communities provided waterfront or golf course homes for retirees with access to a downtown with shopping, restaurants, and parks.
In the early 1980s at the site of the old Maud Street Fishing Docks, a new shopping, restaurant and marina complex, Fishermen's Village, was constructed that continues to be one of Southwest Florida's primary attractions.
In 2004, a major hurricane, Hurricane Charley, moved through Punta Gorda, damaging many buildings, but also creating an opportunity for revitalization of both the historic downtown and the waterfront. During the first part of the twenty-first century, Punta Gorda has continued to grow and improve, adding a new Harborwalk which continues to expand, a linear park which winds through the city, many new restaurants, and neighborhoods.
A replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 5, 2016. The city also features the Whispering Giant statue, a public art sculpture of the face of a Native American man and a Native American woman.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Lake City is the county seat of Columbia County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 12,046. It is the principal city of the Lake City Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is composed of Columbia County, and had a 2010 population of 67,531.
Lake City first began as the town of Alligator in 1821 near the Seminole settlement known as Alligator Village. Alligator became the seat of Columbia County in 1832 when it was formed from Duval and Alachua counties. In 1858 Alligator was incorporated and renamed Lake City. The largest American Civil War battle in Florida took place near here in the Battle of Olustee in 1864; the Confederates won. In 1884 the Florida Agricultural College was established in Lake City as a land grant college; it was relocated to Gainesville in 1905 to form part of the University of Florida. The city's sesquicentennial was held in 2009.
Lake City is known as "The Gateway to Florida" because it is adjacent to the intersection of Interstate 75 and Interstate 10. Lake City is the site of Lake City Gateway Airport, formerly known as NAS Lake City. Florida Gateway College is located in Lake City.
In 1874 Lake City's first newspaper was published in 1874, called the Lake City Reporter. In 1876 the Bigelow Building was completed; it later was adapted for use as the City Hall. In 1891 Lake City became the first city in Florida to have electric lights from a local power and light company.
By the early 20th century, Lake City had become an important railroad junction, served by the Seaboard Air Line, Atlantic Coast Line, Georgia Southern Railroad, and the Florida Railroad. Hotel Blanche was built in 1902 as an attraction for expected tourists. The hotel was Lake City and Columbia County's major hotel and central business center from 1902 to 1955.
Florida Agricultural College was established in 1884 as part of the Morrill Land Grant Act and became a full university with twenty-five instructors in 1904. In 1905 the Florida Agricultural College was moved to Gainesville, becoming part of the University of Florida. Columbia High School constructed a second building in 1906 that was used until 1922. In 1907 Lake City officials leased the former property of the Florida Agricultural College to the Florida Baptist Convention; they founded a Baptist college called Columbia College. Columbia College lasted for ten years until the college became overwhelmed with debt. Columbia College deeded the land and buildings back to Lake City in 1919. During World War I, the campus of Columbia College was used as a training site for local troops for the war. The facility became U.S. Hospital No. 63, the predecessor of the Veterans Hospital constructed in Lake City. More than 34 Lake City soldiers were killed in World War I.
In 1940 the population of Lake City was 5,836. During World War II, a number of institutions were established to help with the war effort as well as those in Lake City. The Lake Shore Hospital was dedicated in 1940 to provide medical care for those in the Lake City area. The Lake City Woman's Club became the United Service Organizations (USO) headquarters to entertain service personnel stationed in Lake City. Naval Air Station Lake City was commissioned in 1942 on the site of the Lake City Flying Club air field. NAS Lake City was a support facility for Naval Air Station Jacksonville and trained pilots to fly the Lockheed Ventura. Military operations at NAS Lake City ended in March 1946, and it was decommissioned as an active naval air station.
After World War II a local air base was converted for use in 1947 as the Columbia Forestry School. The Columbia Forestry School had low enrollments and funds, forcing the school to seek help from the Florida legislature. The University of Florida assumed management of the school, and in 1950 it became the University of Florida Forest Ranger School. As part of the network of community colleges established in Florida, the school became the Lake City Junior College and Forest Ranger School in 1962. Lake City Junior College was renamed to Lake City Community College in 1970; in 2010 it was renamed as Florida Gateway College.
By 1950, the population of Lake City was 7,467. The forestry products industry (turpentine, lumber, and pulpwood) had become a mainstay of the local economy.
During the Korean War, five Lake City soldiers were killed. A monument was dedicated in 1985 in honor of the five killed in the war. In 1958, the Columbia Amateur Radio Society was formed. This was a group of amateur radio operators who enjoyed the ability to communicate all over the world. This radio club still exists today. Lake City's centennial was celebrated in 1959 with parades, fireworks and a 58-page book documenting one hundred years of progress, A Century in the Sun. The citizens of the town dressed in period attire, complete with whiskers. A good-natured clash arose between the men with additional facial hair and the women who did not like it.
In 1963 Interstate 75 and Interstate 10 were opened, intersecting at Lake City. In the 1960s Columbia County schools were not desegregated but black students were free to enroll in any all-white school if room was available. In 1970 a judge ordered all Columbia County public schools to integrate. During the Vietnam War, 23 local Lake City soldiers were either killed or M.I.A.
In 1978 the Columbia County Public Library was established. Downtown Lake City was revitalized in the 1990s with new businesses, shops and restaurants. In 2000 Lake City had a population of 9,980.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website: