Friday Finds- Haunted Florida October 29, 2010

In the spirit of October and Halloween I bring you links to Haunted Florida.

1. Haunted Florida– This site includes “the webs most comprehensive list of Florida Halloween Events,  Current Horror Movie Trailers, List with brief descriptions of reported Real Haunted Places in Florida, Links to active Ghost Hunter Groups, and Information and links to current Florida Ghost Tours.”

2. Florida’s Haunted History & Tours– This is an About.com article listing ghost tours and haunted places throughout that you can visit with links to more about.com articles to those specific tours or places.

3. Horrorfind: The Horror & Halloween search engine– Site has links of haunted houses to visit this Halloween located around Florida.

4. Haunted America Tours– This link brings you to their list of the top 10 most haunted cities in America. Florida is represented twice with Key West in spot number four and Miami in spot number nine.

5. Coastal Living– This article in Coastal Living is “Top 10 Haunted Lighthouses:  Even ghosts seem to love these majestic coastal beacons.” Florida is represented twice with Port Boca Grande Lighthouse, Gasparilla Island, Florida in spot number two and St. Augustine Light, St. Augustine, Florida in spot number 6.

6. Most Haunted Places in Florida– This site lists three places in Florida that are considered the most haunted in Florida. One in northern Florida, St. Augustine, one in central Florida, Spook Hill,  and one in south Florida, Key West. It also includes other resources if you are interested in other haunted places in Florida.

Friday Finds: Videos April 30, 2010

A fun way to learn more about our state is read websites and books written for tourists. VisitFlorida.com has lots of videos created by Florida natives about Florida. Here are six videos of the hundreds available for viewing.

1. Dade Battlefield Reenactment – Lucy Beebe Tobias Dade Battlefield Historic State Park near Tampa, brings history to life with a reenactment of a battle that occurred between the Seminoles and the American soldiers during 1835. This even occurs every January. Join Lucy Beebe Tobias, our former VISIT FLORIDA Authentic Expert, as we witness a reenactment in action in this video.

2. Castillo De San Marcos – Lucy Beebe Tobias A bastion of the largest empire ever created, the Castillo was built to protect and defend Spain’s claims in the New World. Though caught in the whirlwinds of colonial warfare and intrigue, it was never defeated in battle. Its scarred walls still stand witness to over 330 years of history and culture. In this video, our Authentic Florida experts takes us through this historical site.

3. Miami Architecture – Jen Karetnick from Miami Modern, to Art Deco, to Renaissance Revival, Miami’s architectural styles define the area as much as the beaches do. In this video, take an architecture tour of South Beach with VISIT FLORIDA’s Arts & Culture expert, Jen Karetnick.

4. The Salvador Dali Museum – Jen Karetnick the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg houses the largest collection of the surrealist’s work in the United States. In this video, Florida Arts & Culture expert Jen Karetnik takes you on a tour of these grand masterpieces.

5. The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art – Jen Karetnick in this video, join our Art & Culture Expert as she take you through the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. From the arts to the circus it has something for everyone.

6. Kingsley Plantation – Lucy Beebe Tobias the Kingsley Plantation, administered by the National Park Service, is located on Fort George Island and includes the plantation house, a kitchen house, a barn, and the ruins of 25 of the original slave cabins. The history of the island spans more than 1000 years beginning with the Timucuan Indians. Our Authentic Florida expert takes us on a video tour of this historic site.

Deadly Storms: Two hurricanes that changed Florida history (A blogchain post) June 28, 2009

This post is for the June blogchain through Absolutewrite. It doesn’t have a theme which makes it a little easier for me since this blog is specific to Florida. The topic started out with Global Warming and moseyed through personal responsibility and corporate waste. Forbidden Snowflake then wrote about national disaster for her country Switzerland and would the EU help if their economy collapsed. So I thought talking about hurricanes that affected Florida would be great because nothing effects a state like a national disaster.

Great Miami Hurricane 1926: During the Roaring 20’s in the United States Florida was having a land boom. People were buying lots of land sight unseen. If you’ve ever heard the phrase, “Yeah, and I have some land in Florida I want to sell you.” This is the time period it comes from because it was unbelievable. If you ever tour the everglades you might still come across a sign that might look likes the one to the right.

” Edit Resource for “Photographs depicting Seminole Indians with dugout canoes, 1920-1928 (bulk 1920) [electronic resource] “”]Land in Miami and all over Southern Florida was being bought up. Every bubble bursts and the land boom ended in 1925 and came to a complete standstill September 18th, 1926 with the arrival of a category 4 hurricane whose eye was directly over Miami. This hurricane caused $90 billion dollars in damaged if it had hit Miami today. 800 people went missing along with 373 deaths and 6,381 injuries. It proved to non-Floridians who were the ones most likely dead, missing, and injured that Florida was a dangerous place to live. Since most of these folks left shelter when the eye took half an hour to pass over Miami leaving many to believe that the storm was over. Their unfamiliarity with hurricanes was the death blow of Florida’s land boom. The Great Depression was soon to follow but most of Florida was already there in 1929.

This storm does not have a name because hurricanes and tropical storms were not given names until 1953 and they were all female until 1979 when the National Weather Service began alternating between male and female names.

Florida Keys Labor Day Hurricane 1935: On September 2, 1935 a category 5 hurricane ripped through the keys leaving 408 dead and $6 million in damages. Flagler’s Miami/Key West line of the railroad was so damaged that it was sold to the state. Most of the deaths from this unnamed hurricane were World War I veterans.

Built the Miami/Key West line of the railroad that later became known as Flagler's Folly.

They were part of the Bonus Army that first visited the White House when Hoover was in office to demand the bonus they were to recieve in 1945 early. They were chased away from the White House but later brought their greivances to FDR. He enlisted them in the WPA and gave them work building a bridge from the mainland to the keys to replace the ferry service that was in current use.

Due to red tape, confusion, and a lack of communication the evacuation of the veterans by the train was delayed and overturned by a tidal wave during the hurricane. The World War I veterans who were only given temporary shelters that could not withstand a hurricane were lost. As you cross the 7-mile bridge, also called the overseas highway, you can still see what remains of Flagler’s Folly.

Two bridges on the w:Overseas Highway within the Florida Keys. The bridge on the left is the modern highway bridge, while the bridge on the right is the original bridge built by the Florida East Coast Railway, retrofitted to automobile traffic after 1935, and later closed.

The other participants in this blogchain are:

Razib Ahmed: http://hobbyeconomist.blogspot.com/ — Hobby Economist
Fokker Aeroplanbau: http://rightfarright.blogspot.com/ — I’m Always Right, Far Right
Bettielee: http://farseeingfairytales.blogspot.com/ —- Far Seeing Fairy Tales
Bsolah: http://www.benjaminsolah.com/blog —- Benjamin Solah, Marxist Horror Writer
Forbidden Snowflake: http://www.alleslinks.com/ —— Delirious
Rosemerry: https://beyondtourism.wordpress.com/ — Beyond Tourism: Florida’s Yesteryear
Dnic: http://four-lettered-words.blogspot.com/ ———- Four-Lettered Words
Lady Cat: http://www.randomwriterlythoughts.blogspot.com/ — Random Writerly Thoughts
Tika: http://tikanewman.blogspot.com/ ———- Tika Newman
Bill Ward: http://www.billwardwriter.com/ — BillWardWriter.com
dancingandflying: http://madeofcarbon.blogspot.com/ —- Made of Carbon

Please visit their blogs and leave a comment.