Florida Historical Society

6/10 Today in Florida History from the Florida Historical Society!

1963 – Governor Farris Bryant signed State Senate Bill No. 125, creating Florida Technological University in east Orlando on this date. Now known as the University of Central Florida, the school was first a technological university, aimed at providing higher education for members of Florida’s burgeoning space industry. UCF is now one of the largest public universities by total enrollment in the entire country! The school officially opened its doors in October 1968 with 1,948 students, and experienced tremendous growth in the last quarter of the twentieth century. UCF now offers hundreds of undergraduate and graduate degree programs from twelve colleges spread over twelve satellite campuses throughout central Florida. UCF has a current enrollment of over 63,000 students, plus an additional 6500 online students.

6/9 Today in Florida History from the Florida Historical Society!

1903 – The Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach burned down on this date. In 1896 Henry Flagler built his second hotel, the Palm Beach Inn, on the beachfront of the Royal Poinciana. Soon guests requested rooms "over by the breakers." When Flagler doubled the hotel's size, he renamed it The Breakers. The fire occurred during an expansion project, the fourth in less than a decade. Less than a year later, on February 1, 1904, it reopened to universal acclaim. Rooms started at four dollars a night, including three meals a day. The guest register read like a "who's who" of early-twentieth-century America—Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Astors, Andrew Carnegie, and J. P. Morgan vacationed alongside United States presidents and European nobility. On March 18, 1925, twelve years after Flagler's death, tragedy again struck The Breakers. Fire destroyed the all-wood building. Flagler's heirs were determined to build the world's finest resort as a testament to his vision—and to reopen in time for the 1926-27 winter season. The New York City-based Turner Construction Company began work in January 1926, modeling the new building after the Villa Medici in Rome. Seventy-five artisans were brought from Italy to complete the magnificent paintings on the ceilings of the 200-foot-long main lobby and first-floor public rooms. Far grander than its predecessor, The Breakers remains an unrivaled masterpiece.

6/8 Today in Florida History from the Florida Historical Society!

1986 – Country music singer Roba Stanley Baldwin died in Gainesville on this date. Roba was one of the first women ever to record country music. She was born in 1908 in Dacula, Georgia, and moved to Miami in the mid-1920s. Her father, Robert Morland Stanley, was a well-known old-time fiddle player who hosted many famous musicians at their home in Atlanta. She began recording country music at around sixteen years of age, performing with her family as the “Stanley Trio.” She went on to record one solo album in 1925. Roba married soon after and gave up her music career after moving to Florida. Many years later she received recognition from the Grand Ole Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame for being one of the first female country music recording artists.

6/7 Today in Florida History from the Florida Historical Society!

1873 – African American sawmill workers idled mills in North Florida on this date. The Jacksonville Labor League had been organized to force employers to make concessions to their workers. The League decided to take action to address “relations now existing between capital and labor in this vicinity” which were “unequally and unjustly balanced.” The workers were seeking a ten-hour day and a minimum payment of $1.50 per day. The Labor League’s demands were moderate at the time, considering most Northern workers were fighting for an eight-hour-day standard. When the lumber companies failed to meet these demands, the lumber workers walked off the job. By July the strike had failed for several reasons: picket lines were not successful in keeping out replacement workers; there was no strike fund established to assist strikers; and the jobs required little skill, so workers were easily replaced. Some of the workers returned at pre-strike rates; others were replaced and left jobless.

6/6 Today in Florida History from the Florida Historical Society!

1944 – Thousands of Floridians, and men from other states who had trained in Florida, took part in the largest amphibious military operation in human history on the Normandy coast of France 82 years ago on this date. Over 150,000 Allied troops participated in what was nicknamed Operation Overlord. Many Americans trained for the amphibious landing at Florida bases, including Camp Gordon Johnston and Camp Blanding, as well as a number of naval air stations, army airfields, and naval bases. By 1942 there were more than 170 military facilities in Florida. Although the invasion was a success, thousands of soldiers lost their lives on the beaches of Normandy, and the war in Europe dragged on for another year until victory was declared in Europe on May 8, 1945.

6/5 Today in Florida History from the Florida Historical Society!

1963 – The Florida Supreme Court responded, in a 5-2 decision in the Green v. American To***co Company suit, with the opinion that cigarette companies are not liable for the deaths of cigarette consumers. However they did argue, for the first time, that ci******es could be linked to lung cancer. The lawsuit was originally brought against the American To***co Company, makers of Lucky Strike ci******es, by Miami resident Edwin Green in 1957. Green was diagnosed with lung cancer in the early 1950s, which he argued was caused by decades of smoking Lucky Strikes, and succumbed to the disease in 1958. His widow and brother continued the lawsuit, which was decided in favor of the defendant in 1963, based on existing Florida statutes regarding “implied warranty.” Soon after this case, a surgeon general’s commission found that ci******es were linked to a number of respiratory diseases, and later Congress mandated warning labels be placed on all cigarette products.

African American community leader Jewel Collins has died. Coming up on “Florida Frontiers: The Weekly Radio Magazine of the Florida Historical Society” we’ll discuss how her legacy lives on in the Leon and Jewel Collins Museum of African American History and Culture in Cocoa. Exhibits there focus on Harry T. Moore who started his teaching career in the former Rosenwald School, nearby resident Zora Neale Hurston, Cocoa Highwayman Artist R. L. Lewis and others. Check your local NPR schedule, listen as a podcast, or online at https://myfloridahistory.org/frontiers/radio/programs.

6/4 Today in Florida History from the Florida Historical Society!

1889 – St. Leo University in Pasco County was chartered on this date. St. Leo was the first Catholic college in Florida and was named after Pope Leo the Great. The college was temporarily phased out to become a prep school but was reopened in 1959. The school grew steadily in the following decades. In 1999 St. Leo established one of the first online degree programs in the country, building on a long tradition of providing distance degree programs for United States military personnel. Today St. Leo remains one of the largest providers of higher education to military-related personnel in the United States.

6/3 Today in Florida History from the Florida Historical Society!

1906 – Long-running Florida politician Robert Lee Fulton Sikes, known as the “He-Coon,” was born in Isabella, Georgia, on this date. Sikes attended the University of Florida as a graduate student, receiving an MS degree in 1929. He later moved to Crestview and established a publishing business there. He was elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 1936 and served until 1940, when he won a seat in the United States House of Representatives for Florida’s 1st District. Sikes held that position until 1978, briefly resigning during World War II to serve in the military. He was best known for helping to transform Eglin Air Force Base in Okaloosa County into one of the largest Air Force installations in the U.S.

6/2 Today in Florida History from the Florida Historical Society!

1887 – Florida’s forty-fourth and forty-fifth counties, Citrus and Pasco, respectively, were established by the Florida Legislature on this date. Located on Florida’s central Gulf coast, both counties relied heavily on agriculture in the late nineteenth century. Citrus County chose its name from one of the prominent industries in the state, while Pasco was named for United States Senator and former Confederate soldier, Samuel Pasco. The county seat of Citrus is Inverness while Pasco’s seat is Dade City. Citrus County has experienced much more rapid growth in recent years due to its proximity to the Tampa metropolitan area.