Florida Trivia & Tidbits - Page 14

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

Everglades National Park was created in 1934 by an act of Congress. The largest remaining subtropical wilderness in the continental United States, it was designated by the United Nations as a World Heritage Site in 1979.

first appeared: 3/3/2002

Blackwater River State Forest, Florida’s largest, contains nearly 190,000 acres of various natural areas and is widely known for its longleaf pine/wiregrass ecosystem.

first appeared: 2/24/2002

Edmund Kirby Smith, born May 16, 1824, in St. Augustine, served in the Mexican and Civil wars before becoming a college professor in Tennessee. He was the longest living full general of either the Confederate or Union armies.

first appeared: 2/17/2002

J.D. Sumner, who was born in Lakeland in 1924 and sang with Elvis Presley, is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for singing the lowest note—a low double C.

first appeared: 2/10/2002

John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park near Key Largo (pop. 11,886), the country’s first underwater state park, protects a portion of the only living coral reef in the continental United States. The park covers 70 nautical square miles.

first appeared: 2/3/2002

Jonathan Gibbs served as Florida’s first African-American cabinet member, appointed secretary of state in 1868. He also established Florida’s first public school system in the 1870s.

first appeared: 1/27/2002

Henry Perrine is credited with planting the first avocado trees in the United States. In 1833, he sent trees from Mexico to his land in Florida. Today, some 50 varieties grow in the state.

first appeared: 1/20/2002

Mandarin was the winter home of Harriet Beecher Stowe, best known for Uncle Tom’s Cabin, published in 1851. When she was introduced to President Lincoln in 1862, he reportedly said, “So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great (Civil) War.”

first appeared: 1/13/2002

Olustee Battlefield State Historic Site in Baker County memorializes the largest Civil War battle in Florida. Fought on Feb. 20, 1864, the Battle of Olustee is commemorated each February.

first appeared: 1/6/2002

Many structures in northern coastal Florida are built of coquina, a soft, porous limestone composed of shell and coral fragments. The quarries in Anastasia State Recreation Area in St. Johns County are protected historic sites.

first appeared: 12/30/2001

Fort Clinch in Fernandina Beach (pop. 10,549) was a haven for blockade-runners during the Civil War. Briefly occupied by Confederate forces, its recapture by Federal troops in 1862 gave the Union control of the adjacent Georgia and Florida coasts. It opened as a state park in 1938.

first appeared: 12/23/2001

The St. Augustine Free Public Library is the oldest in Florida, established in 1874.

first appeared: 12/16/2001

At 383,000 acres, the Ocala National Forest in central Florida is the oldest national forest east of the Mississippi River and the southernmost in the nation.

first appeared: 12/9/2001

Don Tristan DeLuna, a Spanish conquistador, founded the Pensacola territory in 1559. The remains of one of his ships were found in 1992 in Pensacola Bay.

first appeared: 12/2/2001

Visible from seven miles, Turtle Mound on Merritt Island (pop. 36,090) is a prehistoric, 50-foot-high mound consisting of about 33,000 cubic yards of oyster shells on the Canaveral National Seashore.

first appeared: 11/25/2001

Florida’s oldest continuously operating attraction, the St. Augustine Alligator Farm in St. Augustine (pop. 11,592), opened in 1893. It features all the world’s 23 crocodilian species.

first appeared: 11/18/2001

Sebring (pop. 9,667), founded in 1911 by George Sebring, was modeled after the ancient Syrian city of Heliopolis. All roads lead to and from the town center’s unique circular plan.

first appeared: 11/11/2001

Islamorada, Spanish for “purple isles,” was named by Spanish explorers for the purple sea snails covering the island’s shore they saw in their travels.

first appeared: 11/4/2001

Chapman’s Rhododendron is an endangered species of the flowering shrub and grows exclusively in Florida’s Clay, Gadsden, Liberty, and Gulf counties.

first appeared: 10/28/2001

The 12th-century cloisters of the Monastery of Saint Bernard de Clairvaux in Spain were purchased in 1925 by William Randolph Hearst, who had them dismantled to ship to California. They never made it past Florida Customs officials and were rebuilt in North Miami in 1954.

first appeared: 10/21/2001

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