History of the Homestead Town Hall

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by Jeff Blakley

The Town of Homestead was incorporated on January 27, 1913 but its officials had no municipal building in which to meet. They met at two different buildings before the Town Hall was built in 1917: Tatum’s Real Estate office on Railroad Avenue (Russell F. Tatum was Homestead’s first mayor) or in Sistrunk Hall, which was a wooden building located just west of the Bank of Homestead building. Sistrunk Hall was built in May of 1912, shortly after construction began on the Bank of Homestead building in March of that same year. It was built by Edward A. Sistrunk, who may have been from White Springs, Florida. He was in Miami as early as 1907, when he married Eva Lenora Carter. It is unknown when he came to Homestead, but his wife was a member of the Homestead Sewing Circle (the predecessor to the Homestead Women’s Club) in 1912 and he was the Chief of Police of Homestead in 1916. In 1912, according to a manuscript found at the Florida State Archives by Dr. Greg Bush of the University of Miami, Mr. Sistrunk owned the Homestead Grocery (now the home of Ages Ago Antiques) and sold it to W. J. Nobles who, in turn, sold it to Charles T. Fuchs, Sr., the founder of Fuchs Bakery. His son, Charles T. Fuchs, Jr. moved the business to Railroad Avenue (now Flagler) and then bought a franchise from Holsum Bakery and moved the business to South Miami. Sistrunk Hall was where various fraternal orders and community groups met and it also had a movie theater which pre-dated the Seminole Theater. Sistrunk Hall, like so many other wooden buildings of that era, burned down in the early morning hours of August 31, 1916.

According to an article that appeared in the February 8, 1917 issue of The Homestead Enterprise and the minutes of the meetings of the Council of the Town of Homestead, William J. Krome, representing the owners of the Commerce Addition, proposed a location for the new Town Hall on Krome Avenue north of Mowry. The Commerce Addition had been surveyed by Richard L. Bow, the son of Lily Lawrence Bow and platted by William J. Krome on September 30, 1914. George W. Hall, part of a group of men including William H. Sykes, William Nobles, Fred Loomis, Tom Evans, Frank J. Powers, A.T. Jackson, David Sullivan, William A. King, William O. Bryant (later the first police chief of the City of Homestead) and Garland M. Budd proposed a location in the 250 – 400 block of S. Krome Ave. Conveniently enough, that location was part of George W. Hall’s Hall’s Addition (Book 3, Page 73) to Homestead. There was a considerable amount of time devoted to discussing the location for the new town hall before the Council narrowed down their options to either lots 7 and 8 ($700) or lots 11 and 12 ($600) of Block 1 of the Commerce Addition. By a vote of 4-3 on February 7, 1916, the Council decided to build the new Town Hall on lots 7 and 8 of Block 1 in the Commerce Addition. $300 towards the cost of the lots had been promised by City Auditor Sid Livingston from “the citizens to apply to the purchase of either of the two propositions.”

The Commerce Addition plat is available from the Miami-Dade Clerk of Courts website – it is in Book 2, Page 97. William J. Krome was acting as attorney in fact for W. D. and Ida V. Horne, J. E. and Alice R. Miller (Miller’s Addition to Homestead – July 30, 1912, Book 1, Page 147), R. F. and Jessie Tatum (Mayor of the Town of Homestead, a lawyer and owner of a real estate company) and his wife, Isabelle B. Krome. These people were the owners of the property when it was platted.

The Commerce Addition was later purchased by the Homestead Realty Company and was assessed at $6,900 on a delinquent tax list published on August 16, 1917. The officers of The Homestead Realty, Farms & Investment Company were Henry R. Pridgen, President and Director; Archie J. Campbell, Vice President and Director; Russell F. Tatum, Secretary, Purchasing and Sales Agent and Director; Thomas A. Campbell, Director; and Henry Brooker, Sr., Director. It was incorporated on August 26, 1916.

It seems as though there was quite a political struggle over where the Town Hall was to be located. The Homestead Realty Company was the winner and Hall’s group were the losers. No doubt, it didn’t hurt that there was a sum of money proffered to influence the Council in their deliberations.

In August of 1917, George W. Hall traded his property in the Homestead area, consisting of 6 homes, 14 vacant lots and 40 acres of land in the Redland to Charles H. Woodbury for land in North Dakota (where Woodbury was from) and moved north.

The new Town Hall building was designed by Harold Hastings Mundy, who was born in 1878 in Ontario, Canada but never became a naturalized U.S. citizen. He died in 1932 and is buried in the Hamilton Cemetery in Ontario, Canada. Mundy was a Dade County Schools architect who designed, among other schools, Coconut Grove Elementary, Robert E. Lee Junior High, and Miami Edison High.

The contract to build the town hall is among the documents that belong to the City of Homestead. That contract, costing $4,418 plus the cost of the doors, was awarded to John F. Umphrey on February 5, 1917. He was the low bidder, having come in below a bid from a Miami company for $5,600 and a Florida City company for $6,574. Umphrey was a local contractor who built a number of local buildings, including what is now known as Neva King Cooper School. Two buildings that he built that have been demolished were the George W. Hall residence at 304 S. Krome Avenue, the first California Mission Bungalow built in 1916 and Homestead High School, demolished in the 1970s. He also started the construction (but did not finish – he was fired by the General Federation of Women’s Clubs) of the Lodge in Royal Palm Park, which was moved to Homestead in the late 1950s. It was badly damaged by Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and demolished..

The Town Hall building was mostly completed by August, according to an article that appeared in the August 16, 1917 issue of The Homestead Enterprise, but it did not have a septic tank yet. Fred Gidloff was awarded the $275 contract for the septic tank on December 3, 1917 and completed it on April 1, 1918. The lack of sanitary facilities didn’t stop town officials from moving in, however. Business was conducted in the new town hall from early September, 1917 on. The first floor, where the fire truck is now on display, housed the fire and police departments. In the rear of the building were four jail cells for white people. There was a separate wooden building in the parking lot behind the Town Hall that housed African-American prisoners, according to Bill Losner. The second floor was where the municipal offices were located.

City Hall

Photograph courtesy of the Florida Pioneer Museum

In 1956, the Town Hall was remodeled after two city departments moved out. The police department moved to its new quarters just east of the municipal power plant. That building now houses the Homestead Utilities offices. The fire department moved to its new building on N.W. 2nd St. between N.W. 3rd and 4th Avenues. The jail cells were removed and the bottom floor was turned into office space for the growing city government.

The Town Hall served the needs of the residents of Homestead for almost 60 years. A new city hall, which had been in the planning stages since 1964, was built at 790 N. Homestead Boulevard in 1975. Edward M. Ghezzi, a well-known Miami architect who had moved to Homestead and had an office in the Redd Building (1922), designed the new city hall after being awarded the contract to do so in November of 1973. The bas relief mural on the front of the building was designed by a well-known Miami artist whose name I have been unable to discover. Ghezzi also designed the Shark Valley overlook in Everglades National Park. The official dedication of the new city hall was on November 23, 1975.

After the city vacated the old building, it was used as a senior citizen center and an office for the State of Florida’s parole and probation office until 1980, when the City of Homestead, at the behest of local merchants on Krome Avenue who wanted more parking, decided to demolish it. This decision resulted in a furious opposition movement. The vote on January 4, 1980 in favor of demolishing the building was 5-2, with Nick Sincore, Bill Dickinson, Bill McConnell, Walter Rutzke and Tommy Wilson in favor and Irving Peskoe and Ruth Campbell in opposition. Those in favor of demolition claimed that a new building, to be built in Musselwhite Park for $60,000, would replace the space that the senior citizen center occupied and which would be lost by demolishing the old City Hall. No thought was given to the history of the building. The opposition movement, led by Peskoe and Campbell, garnered donations of about $61,000 from the community and a State grant of $173,363 for the restoration of the building. Those community members who donated more than $250 are honored on an “Above and Beyond the Call” plaque mounted on the wall on the left side of the entrance to the Museum. The tiles on the wall, with the contributor’s names on them, honor those who contributed up to $250 towards the project.

Tiles
John Robert Barnes was the architect of record for the restoration project, which was finished in late 1994. The Town Hall Museum opened shortly thereafter.

George Santayana is often quoted as having written that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” That wise saying applies to what the City of Homestead is now planning to do: to demolish the old Bank of Homestead building (1912) and the block of buildings to its south, including the Redd Building (1922) and the building where Fuchs Bakery got its start in 1913. This business block was platted in 1911 by John Ulric Free, one of the early pioneers of this area. Unfortunately for these buildings, there doesn’t seem to be a group of people passionate enough about their impending demolition to try to save them.

Charles H. Gossman – Early Pioneer Tales

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The following article appeared in the October 3, 1918 issue of the Homestead Enterprise and is re-published here because it will be of interest to many of you who subscribe to posts.

The descendants of Charles H. Gossman married into the Caves, Chambers, Aman and Vihlen families, among others. The Gossman homesteads were on the east side of Tennessee Road between Coconut Palm and Silver Palm Drives. Henry claimed his first, on November 30, 1897 and Charles claimed his on February 8, 1898. Henry proved up on August 11, 1903 and Charles on August 13, 1903.

SOUTH DADE’S EARLY HISTORY
 
Concerning the Time when Deer were Numerous in the
 
Silver Palm Section but Neighbors Few
By Charles H. Gossman

If anyone should ask me what induced me to come to South Dade in 1900 the answer would be that I got tired of working on the construction gang for the F.E.C. and wanted to get a homestead for myself, before the best locations were taken. My job on the railroad took me away from home a good deal of the time, and that is why I wanted to locate a home where I would be near to my work.

In those early days George Land, a real estate agent of Miami, used to charge prospective settlers $5 to show them the best land open for location. The price was very reasonable, for Mr. Land was in a position to give the best advice in addition to acting as a guide. And was a guide needed? Well, I guess so. There were no roads, buildings or anything of the kind that would answer as a landmark then. Everything looked alike, and the prospector who strayed far without a compass stood a good chance of getting lost. All of the oldtimers knew what it was like to lose their bearings in those days. Even nowadays it isn’t a hard job to get lost in the everglades, a fact which is proven by recent events.

With Mr. Land as our guide we decided to make a ten-day trip to our homestead-to-be. Well, it was ten days and then some. The first thing to do was to stock up with provisions at the store at Cutler then kept by G. W. Moody, who later moved to Naranja.1 The stuff was loaded on a wagon and we had some sort of a road from Cutler to Black Creek;2 that is, we called it a road then, but after leaving that place it was a case of toting the balance of the journey. In crossing the prairie, the going was fairly good, providing there was not too much water. In case everything was afloat, as often happened, we had to push ahead and take chances on not getting bogged. Sometimes we made a bad guess and then there was trouble. Lots of things we thought very serious then we laugh at now.

Arriving at our destination we put up a tent picnic fashion and proceeded to enjoy life while our teamster returned to Cutler with the promise to return for us at the end of ten days. I don’t know whether the teamster got enough of it on the first trip or not — anyway he failed to return and so we had to start back without him.

Here’s where we bumped into some real trouble. We had our three boys with us then — Walter, who is now 24; Jesse, 26; and Adolph, 18. Adolph and Walter are now in Uncle Sam’s navy, fighting to down the huns, while Jesse is in France with the army. These lads were little fellows then, the oldest being only eleven, and they had to be helped along the journey by the older folks. It was a tough journey from our homestead to Cutler and part of the time we were afraid we would not reach the journey’s end that day. Fourteen miles is not a long day’s journey, under fair conditions, but think what we had to endure in traversing the rough trail and equally rough road, as well as the glades that were wet and muddy, and in places almost impassible. When we finally reached Cutler the party was about all in, and Mrs. Gossman said then that she never wanted to see or hear of that wild country again. Now, with our fine grove of 17 acres, our comfortable home and well-stocked farm, she says she would be the happiest woman in Florida if only the war were ended and her three boys were back on the homestead.

The following May we moved down to our homestead with a party composed of Will Anderson,3 Tom Jones, “Dad” Osborne, Walter Tweedell4 and his brother. We had the task of clearing C. W. Hill’s land5 and this was the job on which the party was to work. That winter we put two acres and a half in tomatoes from which we netted $1650,6 to our great surprise and delight. We packed the crop ourselves and delivered the tomatoes to Cutler, from which they were taken by boat to Miami. At that time there was no other way to reach Cutler except by water. The motorboat hadn’t made it’s (sic) appearance in these waters then and so we were compelled to depend on sailboats to transport our produce to Miami.

Our nearest neighbors were the Slavin brothers7 who lived at Black Point, seven miles away.8 But they were good neighbors at that and helped us out of a serious difficulty one time, when we were bogged on the glades.

Our first house was built of sawed lumber and was fairly comfortable, though rough. The material was hauled from Cutler by Will Anderson, 500 feet at a time. As my wife worked with me in the construction we used up the material faster than Mr. Anderson could get it to us. The first building was 20×22, two stories high, to which, six years ago, we added a new addition which gave us a roomy and homelike house.

Charles Gossman Family

Courtesy of Dave Gossman, via Ginger Pederson9

Began putting in my grove the second year and have kept adding to it ever since. Grapefruit and oranges are my mainstay.

There were no schools here in those early days, but three years after our arrival a small school with only ten pupils was started. Great improvements have since been made in this respect as is shown by our fine new Farm Life School which is only a short distance from our home.

When “Uncle Nick”10 came to our section he said he was going to put out a crop of beans, and he was advised not to do this as the deer, which were very plentiful then, would eat his crop before he had a chance to harvest it. But “Uncle Nick” said he would play a foxy trick on the deer. So he built a little shack for cover and when night came he was to lay in wait for the deer, armed with his trusty gun and a determination to kill any deer that tried to eat his beans. Getting under cover one dark night he watched and waited as patiently as he could for deer, but none came. Yet, when the sun arose, lo! and behold the beans were all neatly cropped to the ground by the deer, their tracks being seen everywhere. “Uncle Nick” solemnly declared he never slept a wink all night, but some of the boys say the sandman came along about midnight and threw a handful or so his way, and that was all there was to it. Be that as it may, the bean crop was gone. Also the venison that “Uncle Nick” liked as well then as he does today.

As I said, the deer were plentiful then. I have seen as many as a dozen at one time, all within easy rifle range. The Indians used to come here for the purpose of getting game and often camped on our land. They were good neighbors, but pretty thrifty beggars at that. We used to like them though. In fact, human beings of any description were welcomed when our numbers were so few.

But shortly after we came to our homestead new-comers began to drop in, locate their claims, and prepare to establish permanent homes. This made it pleasant for us. At one time all our provisions came from Cutler, fifteen miles away. Then gradually more stores were started, some of which were comparatively close. Then came churches and schools, and more of the refinements of civilization.

Pioneer life is rough and has many privations, but we enjoyed the early days because of the promise they gave of the future. While we look with pleasure on the past, and are content with the present and the prospects for the future, we think, had we known all there was in store for us we would have hesitated in making the first steps, although the outcome has been as favorable as it is.
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Article revised and photograph added on August 31, 2019.

George W. Kosel

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I transcribed this document from a very fragile typescript that I found in the archives of the Historic Homestead Town Hall Museum.

George Washington Kosel was born on August 5, 1875 in Hempstead, Queens, New York to Ludwig and Bodil Olsen Kosel. Ludwig was from Sweden, while Bodil was from Denmark. His sister, Ulrica E., who married a Martin, was born in 1858 while his brother, Frederick W., was born in 1870.

This document provides some intriguing lines of inquiry into the Frederick family, among others. John Stanley Frederick (1853-1910), who married Antoinette E. Gazzam in 1871, was a prominent civil engineer and was in charge of the initial survey for the F.E.C. when the route of the railroad from Miami to Homestead was laid out. He was the man who platted the original Town of Homestead in 1904. His wife was born in 1861 and married John in 1883. Antoinette had at least three siblings: Edwin Van Deusen, born in 1866; Irene G., born in 1869 and Maria F., born in 1871.

In 1905, George Kosel married Antoinette’s sister, Maria F., thus becoming John Frederick’s brother-in-law. They had two children: George, Jr. (1909 – 1975) and Bodil, who was born in 1913. She lived in the family home at Plummer and Redland until her death.

Samuel A. Belcher was a prominent man in Miami history – he was the founder of Belcher Oil Co.and was very active in real estate, in promoting the construction of highways and was the chairman of the Dade County Commission at the time of the dedication of the Royal Palm State Park in 1916.

This is the only primary document that I’ve seen that mentions both Brown and Moody and the Tweedell Brothers store at Cutler. Most documents only mention Brown and Moody. The Tweedell brothers were Walter Jackson and Erving Groover. Walter was Homestead’s second county commissioner – Thomas Brewer was the first.

The mention of the first Silver Palm school being located opposite Edward Gallaher’s house bears investigating, too. I’m not sure that anyone knows the exact location of the school.

It is unknown when or by whom this document was written. Since it is typewritten but also has penciled corrections, it appears that it may have originally been written prior to the arrival of the Seaboard All Florida line in Homestead in 1927 but edited after June 29, 1935, when mail delivery from the Redland Post Office was discontinued.1 The article further states that the Redland Post Office was demolished in the past month “to make way for one of the new subdivisions.”

____________________________________________________________________

George W. Kosel
One of the makers of Redland history is George W. Kosel. Mr. Kosel came to Redland in 1902 and homesteaded the southeast quarter of 26-56-38, where he lives today. In 1905 he married Elsa Maria F. Gazzam of Utica, N.Y., who homesteaded in section 34-56-38.

Mr. Kosel was born in Hempstead, Long Island in 1875. In 1894, urged by a desire to travel and a curiosity to see Florida, he came south and located in Stark (sic), Bradford Co., Fla. Here he planted a Truck & Berry Farm but was ruined by the well-known freeze of ‘94. He then visited Cuba to see if there might be a chance there for citrus raising. Deciding to the contrary, he returned to Long Island but cropped there only one winter. Anywhere was better than another winter in the cold north.

Upon his second arrival in Florida, he began to make inquiries. They told him South Florida was no place for a mule, let alone a man. Barred from North Florida by frost, from Cuba by observation and from southern Florida by Dame Rumor, he turned as a last resort to the southeast shore of Lake Okeechobee. As a burnt cat is afraid of fire, so did this pioneer seek a protected place for a grove, free from all danger of frost.

Fate had decided otherwise. On the train from Jacksonville south, he met a brother of his brother-in-law, Mr. John Hull Fredericks, then living in Miami. Instead of stopping off at Ft. Pierce, Mr. Kosel went on to Miami. This city looked fine and tropical to him, quite unlike the stories told to him about it. Riding his bicycle he saw flourishing tomato fields. He noticed that these plants were growing without cultivation, unharmed by the native grasses on the virgin glade lands. As a contrast to the soil of Long Island which must be light and sandy for the tomato, the Florida glade tomato needed only a hoe. He saw fortunes being made by tomato growers and he bought land on Snapper Creek prairie, thru S. A. Belcher for 10 dollars and 2 more from the Model Land Co.2 His brother-in-law, Mr. J. S. Frederick, was a surveyor. This was before the day of the railroad south of Miami. His pioneer days were spent south of Larkin on Snapper Creek and he was among those who helped build Sunset Road.

While packing tomatoes for Mr. Belcher, he met C. H. Perry, at whose house he boarded. Mr. Perry told him about the country to the south, how the timber grew so dense that you could not see the sky thru it. He made a visit to this very district, saw for himself the land with a red soil where he believed citrus trees would grow, and vegetables would flourish. Though he could have bought pineland in Larkin for $10 an acre, he saw Redland soil and located his homestead here. At that time there was no town of Redland. As proof that he never regretted his choice, let it be known that Mr. Kosel still lives on his original homestead. Tho’ he knows that there are flats around Larkin good for growing citrus, he feels that Redland is without its equal in the entire state. Since the freeze in ‘94 – ‘95 in northern Florida, there has been a constant development southward, as everyone is well aware of today.

When he settled his homestead Mr. Kosel thought that out of the entire 160 acres, he might be able to use about 40. The rest would be too rocky and would be good for homesites only. He was not long in discovering that a grove can be set out better in this rock than in sand. Also that groves in this region will produce as many boxes of fruit per acre as any acre in florida. One thing must be done to accomplish this, since our trees do not grow as large as those up-state, we must set out more trees to the acre. In that way only will we produce as many boxes to the acre.

The first trees to be planted were avocadoes, from seeds and guavas on high pine land, at the corner of Plummer Drive and Redland Road. Those trees grew so large that this particular corner has been called “The Jungle.” On his lower land he planted tomatoes. Tho’ he always paid expenses, there were so many disappointments that he finally gave it up. When Mr. Kosel first came to Redland his brother, Fred and his sister Mrs. Ulrica Martin, came with him. Also Charles T. Plummer came at the same time. They found the village of Silver Palm had already been started in 1900, the only town south of Cutler. Dan Roberts and Claude Jenkins were the first two to cross Gossman’s glade and homestead in the Redlands on Coconut Palm Drive. Mr. Roberts is still living on his original homestead and the homestead of Mr. Jenkins is now the site of W. H. Cast’s house.

The first school house to be built south of Cutler was on Silver Palm Road opposite E. H. Gallahers’ store on the site of the large white house now owned by W. J. Boerner from Wisconsin.3 Among those helping to erect this school house were Dan Hardy, Charles and Henry Gossman, George Kosel, C. W. Hill, Dan Roberts, J. S. Castello, L. R. Nixon, J. R. Walker, the preacher, and Y. K. Knighton and others.

When it was deemed expedient to build a schoolhouse in this newly settled district, the few who lived here, including Frank Kanan, who homesteaded the land now owned by W. M. Brodie on Redland Road, got together and called it Redland. This happened in 1905 or there about. The School building known today as the Woman’s Club house was built in the winter of 1904-54 and used as the local school house for the residents of Redland. The Redland postoffice was built in 1905-6 at the corner of Bauer Drive and Redland Road. During the past month this building has been taken down to make way for one of the new subdivisions.5

Previous to the creation of the postoffice, anyone happening to be going to Cutler would get the mail for all in this vicinity and put it in a box at Henry Gossman’s corner at Silver Palm and Tennessee Roads where each family would help himself.

Groceries were brought from Cutler by the favored few who owned teams – Mr. Kosel, L. R. Nixon (Uncle Nick), Wm. Anderson and Charles Gossman. When one of these set off for Cutler, he would be hailed from every doorstep and given a commission, no one forgetting to handout the kerosene oil can. After trading at Brown and Moody’s or Tweedel Bros. store, the driver would start homeward along the bumpy and Boggy trail thru the Glade and pine land. It took a skillful driver to arrive home with groceries unsaturated with kerosene from at least several cans.

To those who have heard the story of one of our earliest pioneers, it will be interesting to know that Mr. Kosel has had so much faith in the future of Redland that he still owns 120 of his original 160 acres. The Seaboard Rail Road has also decided to honor him by erecting a station near him and running a line near the boundary of his grove.6

In cursive writing: Mr. Kosel states that unfortunately it seems that his and his mother’s Estate are located in the line of the proposed Extension of the Seaboard R.R. to Homestead. But he says the Kosels are willing to donate a mile of right of way together with a Station Site on Plummer drive, provided arrangements can be made with the Seaboard to protect the proper interests of the Redland community.

Lilburn R. Nixon – Early Pioneer Tales

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The following article, by Lilburn R. Nixon, appeared in the Homestead Enterprise on September 26, 1918. In March of 1902, Nixon claimed John Brinzel’s relinquishment of his homestead, which ran south and west from the intersection of Newton Rd. and Silver Palm. Later, he sold the corner 5 acres to Will Anderson, who built and operated his general merchandise store, known as Anderson’s Corner, for a number of years. Nixon was a member of William J. Krome’s Cape Sable survey, which took place from December of 1903 until June of 1904. The survey was ordered by Henry Flagler in an attempt to find the most economical route to Key West.

In Miami in 1902, Avenue C was east 1st Avenue, Avenue D was Miami Avenue, and Twelfth was Flagler. The city was much larger than what Nixon describes it as. Passenger service on the F.E.C. Railway began to Miami on April 22, 1896 and the city was incorporated on July 28th with 502 voters. The soldiers who fought in the Spanish-American War had used the city as a staging point and there were over two thousand residents by 1902. The court house was on 13th street, not on the river, and it was not completed until late in 1903 or early in 1904. There was not, as yet, a bridge across the Miami River, but the area on the south side of the river was settled, too.

The Gossman homesteads were on the east side of Tennessee Rd., between Coconut Palm and Silver Palm Drives. Dan Roberts had homesteaded in 1898 at Redland and Coconut Palm. “Krome’s corner” was the intersection of Avocado and Krome.

For more information on the Cape Sable survey, read this post, entitled Camp Longview.

Work on the Key West Extension commenced in Homestead in April of 1905.

Modello, named for the Model Land Company, was at the intersection of Biscayne Drive and U. S. 1.

It is very interesting to note that in the space of just 16 years (1902 – 1918), almost all of the deer and other wild animals had been killed off. “Hunters” were arrested for baiting quail with corn in the 1960s but I haven’t seen one since maybe the mid-1970s.

L R Nixon cropped

Lilburn R. Nixon

Photograph courtesy of Candyce Pridgen

TALES OF PIONEER DAYS IN SOUTH DADE’S EARLY HISTORY

Say, Boys; Look Who’s Here: Uncle Nick, the Old-Timer
Who Put “Home” in Homestead

By L. R. Nixon

I am a native of Adair county, Mo., where my folks are among the earliest settlers in that part of the state. I came to Florida in 1884 and settled in Marion county where I engaged in farming and grove planting, but the big freezes in 1894-5 killed off all our trees and after working at other things for a while, I decided to go south to Dade county. Migrated to Dade county in 1902 and when I reached Miami I found it to be a very small settlement indeed. As I remember it Budge’s store at Avenue D and Twelfth and the drug store at Avenue C and Twelfth were all the stores there were on the north side. On the south side Sewell had his store and there were a few others at the time, but they were very scarce. After the railroad came and the town was surveyed it grew very rapidly. Mr. Frohock was sheriff then and the jail was located at Avenue D and the river, the court house being in the same place.

After leaving Miami our journey was continued in a wagon, C. A. Gossman’s place being our destination. The “road” was nothing more or less than a trail and it was far more comfortable to walk than to ride. When I got to what is now known as Silver Palm I found Charles and Henry Gossman and C. W. Hill there with their families, while Dan Roberts and Claude Jenkins, who were also there, were keeping “bachelors’ hall.” The country looked good to me and I bought the old abandoned claim of Mr. Brinsell (said to be the oldest settler in this section) for $75 and proved it up. We lived here about four years before moving to near Krome’s Corner.

The first thing I did after reaching the Homestead section was to put out a grove of about 35 acres for W. J. Krome, at Krome’s corner. I planted a number of other groves before engaging in different lines of work.

The Cape Sable Exploration Party, headed by Mr. Krome, made a survey of the Cape Sable country shortly after this and it was my good fortune to be a member of it. This was the first survey made of the country and it was attended by many hardships. We were, it is believed, the first white men to put foot on some of the soil in this wild country. The time consumed in this work covered nearly a year, but the actual survey took about ten months. The greatest difficulty experienced was in getting supplies, which had to be transported from Cutler, a distance of 26 miles, along the Camp Jackson trail to our camp, which was located this side of Royal Palm Hammock. Supplies were delivered to Camp Jackson by wagon and thence to Camp East Point on Long Key, where the members of the party assisted in carrying the packs, weighing about 75 pounds each. Following this general survey came another by the railroad people, who were seeking the best way southward. The railroad survey followed the Camp Jackson trail to a point south of Royal Palm Hammock where it was abandoned for the present time.

Shortly after this I got a job as a walking boss on the extension which kept me busy for a long time. While holding this job I made the acquaintance of a genuine West Indian hurricane, on October 18, 1906, the one that caused so much damage. The chief danger from hurricanes is from the action of the sea. When one is remote from the ocean and is living in a well-built house a hurricane is no more to be feared than a heavy storm in the north.

After quitting work on the extension I went back to my old job of setting out groves and engaged in the general fertilizer business. Three years ago I was appointed postmaster of Homestead and am still on the job.

As I look back on the pioneer days when the “road” from Cutler was a mere trail, along which all our supplies had to be brought, and consider the great changes that have been made, it makes me feel glad that I’m living in times when modern conveniences are within the reach of us all. Now we can go down to the corner grocery and get our meat, sugar and bread, as well as the other necessary supplies. If we are too lazy to do for them, we simply telephone our wants and the obliging grocer does the rest. But the “corner grocery” in those early days was at Cutler, 14 miles from Silver Palm, which was reached by a trail that was rough and rocky all the way. Getting groceries in those days was serious business, for even if a horse were used to bring the load, the trail was so rough that everyone preferred to walk. But while living was primitive the people were companionable and most of us were fairly contented.

There were two trails in those days — the Longview trail that led from Cutler to Longview. This is the road we used in getting our supplies from Cutler to Silver Palm. The other trail was the Camp Jackson trail which led from Goulds to a point this side of Royal Palm Hammock. The supplies were usually carried encased in water-proof material so that if the packcarriers fell in the water no damage would result to the grub. Some people would naturally think in this glade work that our chief concern was to dodge snakes, bears and other inhabitants of that wild country, whereas our first and only anxiety was to know that there was plenty on the table to eat and more coming on the way.

Traveling through the glades was as difficult a job then as anyone could ask for. The plan was simple enough — just load a small boat with your supplies and take it along with you. The wading was generally good — that is, as good as one could expect in that section of the country.

I have a number of pictures taken of Mr. Krome and others in our party, all rigged out in their gunning costumes. There were plenty of deer hereabouts in those days and as venison was good eating we helped ourselves. Burt Yellery killed three as fine deer as I ever saw on the glade between Homestead and Florida City right where the railroad crossing now is. Burt had never killed a deer before, but he landed three in a row on his first hunt.

My first “house” in the Silver Palm section was one of the first in the Homestead territory. Of course there was nothing in what is now Homestead, excepting a corduroy road that I helped build from the site of Modello south.

To come back to my mention at Silver Palm. If anybody thinks it wasn’t a primitive affair, let them come to my house and I will show them a photograph of it that will tell the story better than I can. To begin with it was built of logs and clapboards. No, there were no windows whatever — just one door. The roof was made of palmetto thatch which shed the water fairly well. Nowadays we would hate to put a cow in a shanty of that kind. But it was the best that could be had in those days, and there were plenty who didn’t have even as good. Of course when we got a bit chesty and the sun of prosperity began to shine on us, we could build a double-pen loghouse (two loghouses built tandem a short distance apart, with a common roof over them, forming practically one house with a covered porch between them). The man with a double-pen log house was “it” in those days.

Gunning then was fine. There were plenty of deer and now and then we would run across a bear, but never succeeded in getting one. Quail were very numerous, but there were no pheasants or wild turkey, although the Ten Thousand Islands country, which is not very far distant from Homestead in a straight line, has lots of game of this kind. Wild ducks were very plentiful then, but I never bothered to shoot them, preferring to use my ammunition on deer, for I was very fond of venison. There was another kind of “game” in those days as well as now — the gay and festive mosquito. One of my pictures shows a tent occupied by W. J. Krome which was very completely camouflaged with mosquito netting. The tent and the netting are in plain sight, but W. J. is nowhere to be seen. Another of my pictures shows us busily at work in our White Water Bay Camp, burning a smudge to drive the little pests away.

I will stop here and let those who will follow tell of the early days in Homestead; of the days when the foundations were laid and the work of primitive town building begun. That I have enjoyed life is evident by comparing the pictures taken in those days with what the camera would tell now. In those days we walked. Now we “Ford” it for short as well as for long journeys, and maybe this has as much to do with the great increase in my girth as anything else. Anyhow we will let it got (sic) at that.