Florida Trivia & Tidbits - Page 13

Looking for Florida trivia? Try our list Florida little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

For 235 years, St. Augustine’s Castillo de San Marcos protected the city from invaders with its massive rock walls. Historians estimate it would cost $79 million to reproduce the fortress today.

first appeared: 7/21/2002

The Rolling Stones wrote I Can’t Get No Satisfaction at a Clearwater hotel in 1965.

first appeared: 7/14/2002

The Florida Museum of Natural History began in 1891 when Frank Pickel, a professor at what was then Florida Agriculture College in Lake City (pop. 9,980), purchased fossils and human anatomy models to use as teaching aids.

first appeared: 7/7/2002

The Suwannee River runs more than 200 miles from south Georgia through Florida to the Gulf of Mexico. The river was made famous by Stephen Foster’s song, Old Folks at Home.

first appeared: 6/30/2002

Kingsley Plantation on Fort George Island is the state’s oldest remaining antebellum plantation home. Built in the early 1800s, this historic plantation is one of the last examples of territorial Florida’s plantation system.

first appeared: 6/23/2002

The largest freshwater fish ever landed in the state was an alligator gar weighing 123 pounds, caught in Walton County in 1995.

first appeared: 6/16/2002

Bradford County was established as New River County in 1858. It was re-named in 1861 for Capt. Richard Bradford, the first Confederate officer from Florida killed in the Civil War.

first appeared: 6/9/2002

The International Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale records the achievements of those who have excelled in the sport, including Johnny Weissmuller, known as Hollywood’s Tarzan.

first appeared: 6/2/2002

Fort Gadsden in Franklin County, built in 1814 from the ruins of a British fort, was occupied by Confederate troops during the first years of the Civil War.

first appeared: 5/26/2002

The International Museum of Cartoon Art in Boca Raton houses the world’s largest collection of original cartoon and comic strip art—with more than 160,000 pieces—including Peanuts and Garfield.

first appeared: 5/19/2002

Broward County was established in 1915 and named for Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, governor from 1905 to 1909.

first appeared: 5/12/2002

The Safety Harbor site near Tampa depicts the Gulf Coast Timucua Indian culture at the time of European contact in the 1500s.

first appeared: 5/5/2002

Korona in Flagler County was named for the Polish word for crown by immigrants who moved to the area in 1914.

first appeared: 4/28/2002

At Dunlawton Plantation near Port Orange, molasses derived from sugar cane was shipped to the Indies for the manufacture of rum in the early 1800s. Seminoles burned the settlement in 1836. The ruins are open to the public today.

first appeared: 4/21/2002

Masaryktown (pop. 920), founded in 1925, is named after Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, president of Czechoslovakia from 1918-1935.

first appeared: 4/14/2002

Local lore in Green Cove Springs (pop. 5,378) claims President Grover Cleveland, a winter guest at the Magnolia Springs Hotel, had the spring water shipped to the White House.

first appeared: 4/7/2002

The waters around White Springs (pop. 819) were once thought to have medicinal properties and were considered sacred by American Indians. Warriors wounded in battle went there to recuperate without fearing attack.

first appeared: 3/31/2002

Florida has two rivers named Withlacoochee, one in Madison County and one terminating in Lake County.

first appeared: 3/24/2002

In 1523, Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon landed near Cape Canaveral (pop. 8,829) while searching for the Fountain of Youth. Claiming the coast for Spain, he named the site Cabo de Canaveral for its abundance of canes and reeds.

first appeared: 3/17/2002

In 1946, Newton Perry conceived the idea of staying under water for long periods by breathing through a compressor-fed air hose. He opened still-operating Mermaid Theater at Weeki Wachee Spring in 1947 in Hernando County.

first appeared: 3/10/2002

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