A Brief History of Florida City

Historic South Dade Posted on by

By Jeff Blakley

At the turn of the 20th century, Florida City (originally known as Detroit) was marketed by its developer, the Miami Land & Development Company, as a planned agricultural community. While Homestead, to the north, had its roots in 160 acre quarter-sections of land homesteaded by individual settlers, Detroit had its roots in a marketing scheme promoted by the Tatum brothers, a prominent group of developers that had been active in Miami since 1902. The land that became Detroit was classified as “overflow” land by the Federal government and was given to the State of Florida. The State gave the land to the F.E.C. Railway Co. and the Miami Land & Development Co. purchased it from the Model Land Company, the real estate holding entity of the F.E.C. Railway. This land was not eligible to be homesteaded.

Adam G. Adams 1 wrote that the Tatum brothers (Judson H., Bethel B., Johnson R. and Smiley M.), who owned the Miami Land & Development Company, subdivided 35 sections (22,400 acres) of land “in South Dade from Biscayne to Florida City … $200,000,000 worth of this property was sold by contract. Few of the contracts were fulfilled.” The land actually amounted to 37.5 sections – the plat is available from the Miami-Dade County Clerk of Courts website. The property extended from Krome Avenue east to Biscayne Bay and from what is now Campbell Drive (S.W. 312 St.) east of Homestead south to S.W. 376 St., which is labeled Missouri St. on the plat but is not drivable. A portion of the property, amounting to five sections, lay south of Missouri and straddles what is now U.S. 1 but was then the route of the Florida East Coast Railway when the plat was recorded, on March 24, 1916.

ml-d-co-plat

Miami Land & Development Co. Plat

The company had sales offices in a number of cities in Oklahoma, Kansas, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan, saying that settlers could purchase 10-acre plots of land in the East Glade but live in well-landscaped houses in the town of Detroit, which had been laid out on the more-elevated pine rockland west of the marl land of the East Glade, which the Miami Land & Development Co. called the Detroit Prairie, perhaps to convey to the new settlers that the land was similar to the land they were leaving. The town had broad avenues and streets that had been laid out by Edward Stiling, who was from Michigan and was one of the Tatum brothers’ top salesmen. Mr. Stiling was a prominent real estate man who was later a mayor of Florida City. Those who purchased property were to grow their crops in the East Glade and use the Florida City canal, the first digging of which was completed in 1912, to bring their crops to the packing houses in the Industrial Center next to the FEC railroad. The Miami Land & Development Co. had grandiose plans that included two additional towns – one on the Bay and one midway between the bay and Detroit. Like most of the rest of the company’s ambitious scheme, the towns were never established.

Even though the company invested large sums of money in the project and used innovative marketing tactics, the company was not able to sell enough land, as Adam G. Adams wrote in his article, and the Miami Land & Development Company failed in the late 1920s, a victim of the collapse of the South Florida real estate boom of that time.

An enterprising Sicilian named James Sottile, who was born on June 1, 1887 in Gangi, Palermo Province, Italy emigrated to the United States at the age of 12, along with his mother, arriving at the port of New York on November 13, 1899. He and his mother settled in Charleston, South Carolina, joining the rest of his family, who had already emigrated to this country. James became a naturalized citizen of the United States on December 2, 1909. In Charleston, he got into the real estate business and partnered with John P. Grace and John I. Cosgrove in development schemes. In 1924, he and his family moved to Miami, where they lived at 1349 W. Flagler St. first and then later at 1533 N.W. 9th St. In 1925, he and his partners formed the Cadillac Development Corporation in Miami.2 His fortune rose, paralleling the real estate boom in Dade County and it also crashed along with it, starting in 1926. Apparently, he didn’t lose everything, though, as he had enough money to buy mortgages and tax bills on property the owners could no longer afford.3According to the 1930 U.S. census, his occupation was given as “capitalist” and his business as “investments.” By 1933, he had acquired an interest in 16,000 acres of land east of Homestead, much of which had once been owned by the Miami Land & Development Co. He started advertising it for lease as early as March of 1936.4 Sottile’s plan was to drain the land and lease it farmers. He invested heavily in digging drainage ditches and in building roads so that farmers could farm their leases and market their crops. Large pumps were used to move the water into the Florida City canal, which then drained into Biscayne Bay. He called his new company South Dade Farms. For many years, the equipment storage shed for the company, a very large metal building with a corrugated steel roof, stood at the southeast corner of North Canal Drive and Farmlife Road. It was demolished in about 2011 to make way for a Walgreen’s store.

The demographics of Florida City gradually changed from the mostly mid-Western early settlers to a population that had numerous Italian-Americans in it. By the early 1940s, the Italian-Americans had come to dominate the political and social life of Florida City. Many of the initial purchasers of Miami Land & Development Company land sold their property to new arrivals for a good profit, repeating a very common story in the history of this area. Sottile, ever the enterprising businessman, donated the land for the Florida City Farmers’ Market, farm worker housing for African-Americans southwest of Homestead Air Force Base and established the South Dade Farmer’s Bank at 399 S. Krome Avenue in Homestead. That building is now occupied by the American Legion. Sottile also donated the land for Homestead Bayfront Park to Dade County. The park was dedicated on January 28, 1939 but development wasn’t completed until the late 1940s due to the property being leased to the U.S. government for training purposes until 1947. The park opened to the public on February 2, 1951.

African-Americans have been a part of Florida City from the very beginning but due to this area’s racist history, their stories have not been documented. Like their white neighbors, they farmed, bought and sold land and built homes in Florida City. For many years the African-American population of Florida City was numerous enough to influence local elections but couldn’t because they didn’t have enough clout in the voting booth. It wasn’t until Otis T. Wallace, who worked a full-time job while attending the University of Miami Law School at night, organized a voter registration drive in 1976 to increase African-American participation in civic affairs that African-Americans attained any significant success. No doubt in response to this registration drive, the mayor and the city commission of Florida City appointed an African-American commissioner. Otis was elected as a city commissioner in 1976 and later was elected Mayor, a position he still holds. In 1984 Florida City elected its first majority African-American commission.

In recent years Florida City has prospered from the taxes paid by the numerous businesses which have been established along U.S. 1. This surge in economic development is largely due to the welcoming economic policies of the Florida City city government and to the fact that Florida’s Turnpike ends at Palm Drive in Florida City.

There is much more work that needs to be done to write even a skeletal outline of the history of Florida City. The history of Florida City has been the step-child of Homestead history and the history of Homestead has been the step-child of Miami history. _____________________________________________________________________

Mae Williams and the Good Old Days

Historic South Dade Posted on by

By Jeff Blakley

The following article was found in the archive of the Town Hall Museum in Homestead. It was written by Margaret Mae Stull Williams, Robert Fuchs’ maternal grandmother. Robert owns RF Orchids in Homestead, Florida. In it, his grandmother relates how she and her husband Casper came to Homestead in 1919. These reminiscences were the source document for Jean Taylor’s entry on the Williams family in her book, The Villages of South Dade. Since Mae (20 Sept 1894 – 8 Dec 1993) gives her age as 80 at the end of the article , that means that it was written sometime in 1974 or 1975.

I have published this article as I found it. I do not know if this piece was originally an oral history that Jean Taylor conducted and was then transcribed by persons unknown or if it was handwritten by Mae Williams and then transcribed by her or someone else. Perhaps Robert Fuchs will be able to fill us in on those matters.

Margaret Mae Williams Remembers

Pioneer = Trail Blazer = Settler, so I guess we would come searching for better things under the heading of “Settlers” as the trail had already been blazed a few years before. Even pioneers must have a starting place. Ours was in Clarkesville, Pennsylvania, as small town 40 miles south of Pittsburg, up the Monongahela River, we, by “we” I mean my husband and I (Casper and Mae Williams), had been married three years. It was 1919, just after the close of WWI, and we were about to begin an entirely new experience.

Casper and his father had a big truck farm, specializing mostly in tomatoes. Dad Williams was looking for something better and had made trips to Florida, the west, and Maryland but seemed to favor Florida. One day, Casper came in saying “how would you like to go to Florida? To this date my traveling had been very limited so it sounded wonderful to me.

Dad Williams (Charles A.) had purchased 400 acres of glade land and the old Hattie Bauer place on Dixie Highway near Homestead Florida. At that time, land was selling for approximately $50 an acre. In September, 1919, we left for Homestead, not knowing what lay ahead for us.

There was quite of procession of us, two Ford cars and Casper and I in a large Studebaker truck, loaded with things we thought we could not live without and when we arrived, we found we were right! There were eight in our party: Casper’s brother, Dan, his two sisters, Ruth and Ethyl, cousin John Williams with wife and four year old daughter. The mode of dress for traveling then was quite different from today. We wore suits, hats and gloves. We stayed at hotels as motels were unheard of and paved roads through Georgia and the Carolinas were nonexistent.

Our trip began with a drive to Baltimore, Maryland by way of National Pike Route 40. There we loaded a freighter, the U.S. Howard, which took us as well as our vehicles and belongings to Jacksonville, Florida. Our trip was marred by a very hard storm off Cape Hatteras which had hit Florida a few days earlier. We saw demolished buildings and roofing wrapped around the tall pine trees, as testament of the fury of the storm, as we drove down through Florida after docking in Jacksonville. At the time, we didn’t realize how far away Homestead was from Jacksonville. This distance coupled with the lack of paved roads in Florida as well made the journey more of a task than anticipated.

We enjoyed seeing Jacksonville, St. Augustine, and our first avocado pears. Everything was lush and green up there, even the large palmettos were beautiful to me. In a day or two, we started for Homestead over hard, shell roads broken for miles at a time with stretches of white sand. We had to cross many swamps on long stretches of wood planks on pilings, to the tune of clackety, clackety clack.

The only setback for this leg of the journey was a clogged gasoline line in one of the cars which forced our first introduction to Florida mosquitoes along the Indian River. They were something terrible in that white sandy trail. The sickening odor of sulfur water only made matters worse. No, we did not encounter any Indian attacks as they did in covered wagon days, but I think we fought the mosquitoes about as bad. Now this discomfort, bites all over we were beginning to wonder if Florida was as beautiful as it sounded, but we were young and determined (I was 24 and Casper was 28) and knew that grass would be greener in Homestead.

I do not remember how many days we were in coming down the Florida peninsula but on September 17, 1919 a very hot afternoon, we pulled up in front of the Redland Hotel in Homestead where we spent the night. I guess we must have looked pretty worn out as everyone was standing around looking us over while we unloaded. People were friendly enough and we did have a good supper and night’s rest. However, Homestead was not what I had pictured it to be with this nice sounding name and my dreams of a lovely cottage surrounded by a picket fence were just that – dreams! I did not realize just what pioneering meant.

The next morning, we started looking for a place to live. Dad Williams had located a vacant house for rent in Modello, three miles north of town with four rooms and a kitchen. As we were anxious to get settled, we took it. Little did I realize when I was admiring the palmettos in Jacksonville and trying to coerce Casper to dig one up for me to bring to my new home that I would soon be living in the middle of a huge palmetto patch of my very own. The house was built well and strong from Dade County Pine with a red tin roof. We called it “Old Red Top.” We lived there for two years and I loved every minute of it. Casper did not like it too well, I guess he missed the mountains, but he was soon too busy with the tomato crop to be homesick.

That fall, the men planted 80 acres of tomatoes and built a packing house as well as quarters for our black help. Black laborers were found in Miami and were available for the asking. Most of these people were natives of Nassau or the other Bahama islands and were called “Saws” by local settlers. Farming was done with the aid of mules. The glades were filled with water through the summer so the men would ridge the seed beds up high in order to have plants ready by late fall. The canals have since drained most of the Glade land so planting is done much sooner now. I will not get into the farming because that is another story, one Casper should tell, but will go back to “Old Red Top.”

We had very little money and neither one of us had ever paid a cent of rent in our lives. We had to pay $15 a month rent which seemed exorbitant to us. There was no electricity, so we used kerosene for lights, cooking, and heating. There was no plumbing either. We used pitcher pumps located outside the house. Oil lamps were a new experience for me so when we went into Horne’s Hardware5 to purchase one, I bought a one dollar one. We did not have much light for a while. Gasoline lights came out a little later and we got one of them. Furniture was another matter to be reckoned with. We took the truck and went to Miami where we found a second hand place on Avenue D called Garfunkel’s and Son.6 At that time, all avenues had letter names. Avenue D later became Miami Avenue. We found a stove, table, chairs, bed, and just the things we needed. I found that field crates stacked up with a curtain around them made a very good dresser with shelves. Refrigerators were called ice boxes then and we had to haul our ice from Tracy’s Ice Plant7 in Florida City. We had a three burner oil stove with a tin oven that set on top of two burners when you wanted to bake. We soon got things organized and began to realize how true the saying “Your wants are many but your needs are few.” We did not have close neighbors but found everyone very friendly.

Modello or Model City was platted by S.A. Murden8 and his son, Neal, who was a carpenter. They had built a big home on the corner of Newton and Dixie Highway called “The Arches.” Dixie Highway was the main thoroughfare at this time, running parallel with the railroad which had been built a few years earlier.9 Modello had a post office just south of what is now Biscayne Drive. A very pleasant, jolly old fellow, Mr. McCaskill,10 was the post master. He also had a few groceries. An interesting fact to note here is that Mr. Murden, the realtor, saw to it that the post office boxes began with 100. One day I was in the post office visiting with Mr. McCaskill, I asked him if there was a cemetery here as I had not seen one. Mr. McCaskill replied “they did not have one for a long time then they had to kill a man to start one.”11 The cemetery was located just south of Naranja.

There were a few nice homes around and some very nice people. We soon made many friends. Within walking distance of our home (approximately one mile), there were the families of: Dr. Dennis – retired,12 Collins,13 Whitneys, Wymans, Hinmans,14 and Petersons. There was one old fellow with a long beard who lived a little nearer to us. His name was Mr. Akers and we had come to know him quite well. When November came around, I offered to take Mr. Akers to the elections as he was a Republican and so was I who had never known anything else. The Williams were all Democrats but I didn’t hold that against them and even went so far as to marry one of them. I realized early that being a Republican down here was just like throwing your vote away so I soon became a Democrat. However, I believe Mr. Akers died a Republican.

We had a little trouble getting accustomed to the coral rock but even though it was hard to get around on, I preferred it to the white sand of the area north of Miami. Back in the Redland section, the roads were all made of white rock which was very hard on everyone’s eyes. Most of the area was covered with pine trees and palmettos. The hunting was very good. Casper would hunt all over what is now Leisure City for quail and he and Doc Smith15 would even hunt for wild cats there. Our glade land was just east of Leisure City.

This area was a safe place to be and we never gave a moment’s thought to anyone bothering us. In fact, Casper would make out the payroll and I would go to the Bank the next morning, get the money, then take it to the glade for them to payoff. Never once did I have any fear.

Economic and social facts of early Homestead are interesting when compared to present circumstances. Labor was $1.50 to $3.00 for a ten hour day. I could take five dollars to town on Saturday and come home with a nice rump roast and groceries for the week. Milk was the one thing that was very high. We got ours from a Mr. Core16 who lived in the Redlands and we paid 25 cents per pint. We attended both north and south Methodist churches as we had friends in both. Later these two churches united using the north building as it was considered to be in better shape.17

Though we lived in Modello, Homestead was our town. There was not much to the town back then, most of the activity took place east of the railroad. After you crossed the railroad and started north on Krome Avenue, you were soon out in the woods. Life on that side of the tracks consisted of Fuchs Grocery, Citizens Bank, the drug store, and Horne’s Hardware but east of the railroad was the Redland and Seminole Hotels, a movie house, and a J.U. Free’s Big Variety Store.18 The movie house had wooden benches for seats and the picture changed twice a week. Of course, we went.

Dr. James Archer Smith and his wife, Ada, came to Homestead that same year and we became good friends. Charles and Elizabeth Fuchs19 were also very good friends. They had a bakery at the time and we knew the Fuchs family because they all worked in the grocery store. There was not a lot to do entertainment wise so every Saturday night we would go to town and park our car where we could see people come and go, always trying to find a parking place in front of the drug store20 as it seemed everybody went there. There were many nice places back in the Redland where people had homesteaded and they always came in to town on Saturday. On Sunday after church and dinner, we would drive up to Miami, enjoy Bay Front Park, walk through the Deering Estate, go out on the old wooden Elser Pier and see the fish, buy popcorn, etc. Sometimes we would go across the wooden bridge to the beach21 where we could pick up shells and walk for great distances enjoying the beauty of a nearly deserted beach, a short-lived experience. We also enjoyed driving around the Redland on a Sunday afternoon.

My friend and I became very interested in making needle baskets from the dried needles we found in the woods. We turned out some very pretty things. My neighbors here in Modello belonged to the Longview Club22 and they asked me to join them, which I did. The club met west of Florida City where a Mrs. Tucker23 had a loom. She wove beautiful rugs and the other members did hand work while enjoying a wonderful fellowship. They were all older than I but I loved them. After I had accomplished the art of pine needle basketry, the club members wanted me to teach them. We turned out some very pretty pieces. That year, 1920, we had an exhibit at the Miami fair where we sold everything and took orders for more to be delivered to the hotel in Miami. Our profit was $100 which we spent having our clubhouse painted. We all looked forward to these days of getting together.

We lived in “Old Red Top” two years now while it was a good old house the roof was starting to leak. When spring and the rainy season came we had to take the oilcloth from the table and spread it over our bed to keep it from getting wet. We bought an acre on Dixie Highway from S.A. Murden. My father, who was a carpenter, came down from Pennsylvania and together with Neal Murden24 built our home. They used Dade County Pine, good strong wood which is fast disappearing. We are still living in that house though some repairs and a Florida room addition have modernized it.

One thing we looked forward to in our new house, was the passing of the trains which ran from New York to Key West where passengers took a ferry to Havana, Cuba. It was a lovely train with Pullmans and dining car and friendly people being served their breakfast as they passed us. They waved to us who were living a different style.

We made two trips to Key West before the 1935 storm destroyed the railroad on the Keys. It was quite an experience as you could not see the trestle and it just seemed and looked like you were plowing on through the water. The train spent three to four hours in Key West before returning. There was very little to see there anyway.

We had many ups and downs. Some years our crops were good other years saw destruction by a hurricane, too much rain, or a freeze. We had a wood fire in our living room and spent many cold nights there, hoping and praying our crops would not freeze. Casper and his brother Dan would make frequent trips out to the glade, checking on the plants. Farming here was a big gamble. We had one packing house burn down in 1923 just three weeks before picking season started. Then in 1926, a hurricane destroyed one and then another in 1945. These were old wooden buildings. Our last packing house was a concrete block structure which now stands as Tahitian Inc. in Modello. Most of the lumber for the first two houses was milled right here at local saw mills.

It was bad when the Citizens Bank closed paying us $.10 on the dollar25 but we kept on and were able to keep our heads above water. This was 1922 now and more people were coming in and putting in a crop. We kept increasing our acreage. We had built a big three story boarding house and a commissary to take care of the packers when they came. Everyone seemed glad to see new people coming in to settle.

Our first baby girl26 was born in 1922 here in our home. Doc Smith charged $35. Our second daughter27 was born in 1925 in a little hospital in Homestead operated by Mrs. Fisk.28 It had four or five rooms in it.

Homestead as well as all of Florida was a dead place in the summer. Everyone who could, left this mosquito-ridden heat for the cooler north. My parents were still living in Pennsylvania so when the crop was off in April or May and the mules were turned out to pasture in Hialeah, we left too. We were always glad to get back in the fall for another chance. We had a Ford car and the roads were still bad up through Florida and Georgia. There were no road maps, just the Blue Book. We would set our speedometer on 0 and drive so many miles until we arrived at where the Blue Book said we would. This usually took you from county seat to county seat. The worst place was Folkston, Ga. where mules pulled the cars across a stretch of road. They had convicts working with their chains on in the mud. It was a sad sight.

Well now I am 80 and Casper is 84. We have seen many changes but I think we are both happy to have been among the first settlers of Homestead community. The end.
______________________________________________________________________

Camp Longview

Historic South Dade Posted on by

By Jeff Blakley

Anyone who starts to delve into the early history of this area soon reads about William J. Krome’s survey of a proposed route for an extension of the Florida East Coast Railway from Miami to Cape Sable. Jerry Wilkinson has written an account of the expedition on his website, Keys Historeum. This survey was recorded in Dade County on July 8, 1903 and shows the location of Camp Longview, which, to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever seemed to know. This survey shows its approximate location: in the NW 1/4 of 28-57-38 at the southeast corner of the intersection of Palm Drive (S.W. 344 St.) and Loveland Rd. (S.W. 217 Ave.).

Krome 1903 Survey

William J. Krome’s 1903 Cape Sable Survey

Click on “William J. Krome’s 1903 Survey” to download a copy of the survey. Then, zoom in to see the symbol for the camp.

Interestingly enough, the survey as recorded with Dade County is not as accurate as the map subsequently drawn up by L. Larson for the Land Department of the F.E.C. Railway in December of 1903. The location shown on that map is identical to that described in a letter from William J. Krome to E. Ben Carter, dated March 5, 1903, which states that the location was in the NE 1/4 of 29-57-38 instead of in the NW 1/4 of 28-57-38. This letter is included in an essay about the Cape Sable Expedition by Jerry Wilkinson. The location of Camp Longview was on land that had been declared as Swampland by the United States Government and thus not given to the State of Florida as eligible to be homesteaded.

F E C 1903 Map

1903 F.E.C. Railway Co. Land Map

The location of Camp Longview on this map was approximately 700′ west and 100′ south of the intersection of Palm Drive (S.W. 344 St.) and Loveland Road (S.W. 217 Ave.), right at the edge of where the pine rockland stopped and the sawgrass prairie began.

The photographs below were taken by Edward A. Graham, who accompanied a party of F.E.C. officials on an inspection trip to Paradise Key in November of 1903.

Camp Longview was named after the long views which could be seen to the southwest, after traveling through the open savannah of the pine rocklands to the northeast.

6 In the Pine Woods

Courtesy of the Florida Pioneer Museum

In this photograph, you are looking northeast from the sawgrass prairie back towards the pine rocklands and Camp Longview.

11 The last piece of Mainland in the U S Taken from the glades looking north

Courtesy of the Florida Pioneer Museum

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Revised on February 7, 2023

Early Days in the Homestead Country

Historic South Dade Posted on by

By Jeff Blakley

I found the following article recently at the Historic Homestead Town Hall Museum. It was written by Flora Harvey Anderson, who was a sister of Will Anderson, of Anderson’s Corner fame. She was born on September 9, 1875 in Martin County, Indiana and died here on April 19, 1966. Flora is buried at the Palms Memorial Cemetery. Mrs. Arvid D. Rodin, of the Woman’s Club of the Redlands, appointed a committee of Mrs. Myrtle Hunn and Mrs. Alfred Buhl to arrange to have a copy of Mrs. Connelly’s Memoirs of the Redlands printed and offered to the Florida Pioneer Museum as a club gift of their heritage.”29

Flora tells a good story in her article but it is not all that accurate. Please read the footnotes by hovering over the number and also click on the embedded links for more information about the history of South Dade and the Redland District. The Historic Homestead Town Hall Museum has additional resources for those interested in pursuing a topic of interest.

Early Days in the Homestead Country
by Flora Hill Connelly

In the year 1905, I came to Dade County to live in what was then called “the Homestead Country.” My brother, the late Will Anderson, had taken up a Homestead30 and he asked me to help him prove it up. At the time of his request, I was living in Live Oak, Fla. As my husband, the late John H. Hill, was located in Key Largo, helping to build the Flagler East Coast Extension Railroad, I thought it would be a good idea to come to South Florida to help my brother. My husband tried to discourage me. He said the mosquitoes were terrible and that it would be hard for me and the children to endure them and other hardships of the area. After due consideration, it was decided that I could make the move. After the furniture was packed, crated and “deadheaded” to Miami, the children and I boarded the Seaboard to Miami;31 then we transferred to the Florida East Coast Extension, a mixed train, that ran as far south as Homestead. Since my husband was a railroad man we did not have to pay fare; the children and I traveled on passes.

My brother, Will, met us with a horse and wagon at Gossman’s Siding, now known as Naranja. When he came into the coach to get us, I noticed mosquitoes, full of blood, hanging on his face and arms. He was covered with them! I recalled my husband’s words of warning and thought to myself that I had probably made a mistake in coming to such a place. Nevertheless, I was there, and there was no turning back. The first few days were spent with the Charlie Gossmans32 as the place that was to be our home was not yet fully equipped for housekeeping. No groceries had been bought as my brother thought I should help decide on what we would need.

Old Cutler was the closest place for supplies and the trip had to be made by horse and wagon. There were no roads except those made by the Homesteaders who cut down necessary trees and knocked off the tops of rocks with grubbing hoes. The “trails” would wind around stumps now and then; often the path was so narrow that the wheels of the wagon would almost scrape. The trip to Old Cutler, a very jolty one, was a distance of fifteen miles and it took all day.33 In due time we made the trip and brought back enough groceries to last several weeks.

Will’s house that was to be my home was one long room with a kitchen and porch tacked on the east side of the building. The furniture consisted of a bed, a dresser and four home-made benches. There were no chairs. The kitchen was equipped with a wood-burning stove, pots and pans and a rough table. The two smaller children and I slept in the bed. The rest of the family slept on the floor. Mosquitoes were really terrible. They actually darkened the sun. We had no screens. The first few nights we managed to survive by means of my brother’s smudge pot. This was a large pot or bucket into which he would put a few splinters off a “lighter knot” (better known as fat pine) and ignite them to get the fire going; then, he would add palmetto roots; on top of that he would place damp fertilizer bags to smother the flame and make a smoke. This didn’t really kill the mosquitoes. It seemed to make them doze a few hours. I told Will we would have to do something about screens. We made another trip to Old Cutler but couldn’t get any screen wire. He got some mosquito netting, which we tacked over the window and door of the main room. We closed off the front door completely. My brother also brought back some insect powder to burn on tin lids which helped a lot. This, along with the “smudge pot” and the netting made the line of attack from mosquitoes as the netting gave out before we got around to the house windows. Will had to stand over me with a brush when I cooked to keep mosquitoes out of the food.

It was some time before I developed any sense of direction. All I knew was “straight up.” Trees were everywhere around the house. Just enough had been cut down to set the house. The Homesteaders had to clear their own land by hand. There were no bulldozers or other equipment at that time. Trees were felled with cross cut saws. Logs were rolled by man power or with the assistance of mules and horses. Palmettoes had to be grubbed and stumps burned out. One can understand why a Homesteader would only clear a small tract at a time. He then proceeded to build his own home. It was the only way because there were no contractors or builders to do it.

Families were few. Our nearest neighbors were the Charlie Gossmans who lived about a mile and a half through the woods from us.34 I could more or less tell that direction by listening to the cackle of the guinea hens. Panthers and Bobcats roamed the woods at will. I kept a .303 rifle close at hand. Hardly a night passed but what I would hear the bay of hounds, then the crack of a rifle and know that someone had shot some kind of wild animal. All of the early settlers had chickens and it was difficult to keep the animals from carrying them away. Another threat was hawks. A gun was a necessity at all times. Men even carried their guns to church.

Every family had a garden. We raised all of the vegetables and fruit that went on the table. We had to drive stakes around the garden and run a rope around them and then tie white rags to the rope to keep the deer from eating the plants.

The closest Post Office was Old Cutler.35 Any homesteader who made the trip there brought everyone’s mail. It was out in a milk box and nailed to a tree on the corner of Henry Gossman’s Homestead, now known as Tennessee Road and Silver Palm Drive. Later on Brown and Moody who owned and operated the store and post office at Old Cutler decided to move to Gossman’s Siding. They asked permission to move the post office. Before permission was granted, the name of the place had to be changed. Naranja was the one selected and the move was made. Thus, the community began to progress.

At this time the Redland Community reached as far east as what is now Krome Avenue; as far south as Eckman Drive; as far north as Silver Palm Drive; and as far west as the Everglades.36 The Redlands was developed by a people who were foresighted, intelligent and hardworking. They wanted to see things move ahead. As time went on, they felt the need of a place to move so that they could discuss ways and means to bring progress to the Homestead Country. No building was available; so, they decided to build one. Thus the Guild Hall came into being.37 It served as a civic center where plans were discussed for better living conditions; it served as a cultural center for lectures, art classes and music classes. I remember in particular a lecture by William Jennings Bryan, the silver-tongued orator, who spoke on the Origin of Man to establish the fact that man did not spring from monkeys as Darwin tried to make us believe in his book, The Origin of the Species. The Guild also served as a social center. The Women’s Club, organized in 1913, held their meetings there.38 The Saturday Night Dance was an event looked forward to by the young people. Sometimes weddings were held there. Bunny Caves39 took a bride there.

In 1907 when the mixed train pulled into Homestead, a man by the name of Gaston Drake stepped onto the platform.40 He was looking for a place to locate a saw mill. After being jolted around all day using a horse and wagon to look over the various possibilities, he decided to locate at what is now known as Princeton. There was nothing there at that time but the railroad track. After the mill was established, he had to find a name for the place. After some consideration, he named it after his Alma Mater, Princeton University. Here was another step in the progress of the Homestead Country. Mr. Drake made arrangements with the Homesteaders to buy their timber for $2.50 per acre. In order to get the logs to the mill, he decided to use Tram Roads. To find a man to build the Tram Roads was another question. My husband had just finished supervising the building of his part of the Over-Seas Florida East Coast Extension Railroad to Knight’s Key and Mr. Drake asked him if he would consider the job. He accepted and the roads were started at once. When they were finished, Mr. Drake bought a locomotive 41 from the F.E.C. Railway, rented some flat cars, and put in a skidder. He was in business. The first lumber was used to build houses for his help. The mill remained in operation for many years.42

Small schools were dotted around through the country. In most cases one teacher would teach all of the grades. Children walked to and from school or rode bicycles. They carried lunches in pails. The schools were not equipped with plumbing or sanitary facilities for drinking water. About the year of 1912, people began thinking about improving the schools. Meetings were held in the different school localities. Eventually all patrons got together and decided that a consolidated school would be the answer. It would give the children the advantage of a high school education at home. To find a central location was a problem. Princeton wanted it located there because they said the school should be near the railroad. Redland wanted the school there, and Silver Palm wanted it in their area. My brother, Will Anderson, offered to donate ten acres of his Homestead on the corner of Cocoanut Palm Drive and Farmlife Road for the school site. It was put to a vote. Redland voted with Silver Palm for the location where the school stands today. My brother’s offer was accepted. The school opened its doors to grades one through twelve on September, 191743 and was named “Redland Farmlife School.” Buses were provided for children living in the out-lying areas. The school, equipped with electricity, plumbing, drinking fountains, a science laboratory, a home ec. department, auditorium, and cafeteria was a dream come true, a result of tireless efforts of the Homesteaders.

After the consolidated school was completed, the small community schools were for sale. The Redland Women’s Club bought the one at Redland.44 Although the Club suffered many hardships and setbacks, it survived them all and is now a strong prosperous club with a good enrollment. The people of the Redland area built the Redland Community Church which has outlasted several other churches built at that time in other localities. It has stood the storms of many years and still stands as a symbol of Christian worship for mankind.45

The main industry of the Homesteaders was tomato cultivation. The closest shipping point was Old Cutler. The hauling was done by horse and wagon at night. During the daylight hours the horseflies were so bad that it was inhumane to take the animals out. The crates of tomatoes were loaded onto a barge at Cutler and taken to Miami where they were transferred to boxcars and shipped to northern markets.46 About this time a few citrus groves were coming into bearing and Homesteaders began to dream of a great citrus industry for the area. They recalled the terrible freeze in 1895 in the central part of the state.47 Reasoning that the Homestead Country was south of the frost line (so they thought)48 it appeared to be a good paying proposition. It seemed that everything was in their favor and that they couldn’t lose. They began to clear land in the same manner they did for their homes. They cut down trees, grubbed palmettos, burned out stumps, hauled trash and made bon-fires out of it during the evening which helped to chase the mosquitoes. Soon vast areas of oranges and grapefruit were planted and northern capital became interested. Henry Flagler planted a seventy-five acre grove at Kendall. Many other moneyed people who wished to become richer invested in the industry. A large Community Packing House was visualized with railroad lines running out to the plant with box cars on sidetracks waiting to be loaded. Not only would the growers send their fruit to northern markets; they would also send it overseas. How fine it would be to sit on their porches, smoke their pipes, and plan how to spend the money.

Groves came into bearing and the fruit sold well … for awhile. The packing plant never came into being; neither did the railroad lines dreamed of. The Central part of the State failed to have the anticipated freeze.49 The market soon became glutted and it then was a race as to who could get his fruit on the market first. About this time the government had the idea of draining the Everglades to extend the Farming Industry. After this was done, the water level was lowered so much that it was almost impossible to grow anything on pine land without irrigation which few could afford. The Citrus Industry began to dwindle.50 The Homesteader’s dream was falling apart. They would have to try something else, but what? Groves were not paying for the upkeep. Some were abandoned entirely. Men had to find jobs in one way or another. Some farmers could make out a living with what farming they could do on the Glades. With the help of their wives and children they managed to survive. The price of land began to go up. This was another thing that hurt the citrus industry. Eventually, as the price of land soared, groves were plowed under and the area turned into housing projects.51

The Homesteaders deserve the credit for the development of South Dade County. It was they who sacrificed, suffered hardships, and furnished brawn, will-power, and “stick-it-to-ivness” which brought the area out of the wilderness to the civilization it enjoys today. It is a most desirable place to live. People today, literally running over one another to get a place to build a house, are unaware of their heritage. Few realize the suffering, the toil and the sacrifice it took to develop this land which was inhabited only by wild animals hiding in the swamps and underbrush, sitting in the branches of trees, eyes glaring, ready to spring on its prey, whether man or beast. It was survival for the fittest; it was no place for a tenderfoot. A few came to the area, only to leave on the next train.52

Friends, when you survey the beautiful homes, equipped with every modern convenience, remember that there is a story back of it which made it possible. There are few Homesteaders, those wonderful, hard-hitting, courageous people, left to enjoy the fruit of their labor. Those who have passed on, I am sure, would be happy to know that they helped make it possible for YOU to do so.

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