Florida Trivia & Tidbits - Page 16

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

Poet James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) wrote the lyrics to the song Lift Every Voice and Sing, an African-American anthem. Johnson, the first African-American admitted to the Florida Bar, was a native of Jacksonville.

first appeared: 5/27/2001

The world’s longest river sailboat race, the Annual Mug Race, runs 42 miles along the St. Johns River from Palatka (pop.10,800) to Jacksonville every May.

first appeared: 5/20/2001

Arcadia (pop. 6,488) once was known as Tater Hill Bluff, but in the late 1800s the town was renamed in honor of Arcadia Albritton, a daughter of pioneer settlers.

first appeared: 5/13/2001

Fort Mose, near St. Augustine, was the first legally sanctioned free black community in what is now the United States. Established in 1738, it provided refuge for more than 100 escaped slaves.

first appeared: 5/6/2001

The Castillo de San Marcos fort in St. Augustine (pop. 11,800) was built by the Spanish in the late 1600s to protect the town from the English.

first appeared: 4/29/2001

Delray Beach contains the only museum in the United States dedicated to the daily culture of Japan. The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens opened in 1977. It features exhibits of Japanese arts, crafts, and artifacts.

first appeared: 4/22/2001

When The Lowrance, a ship measuring 420 feet long, was sunk intentionally in 1984, it eventually created one of the largest artificial reefs off the Florida coast. The Broward and Palm Beach County Artificial Reef Programs have supported the sinking of more than 30 dilapidated ships so they can be used as diving centers.

first appeared: 4/15/2001

Eatonville (pop. 2,170) was the home of noted African-American writer Zora Neale Hurston. It was founded by freed slaves in 1887 and to this day is governed by African-Americans.

first appeared: 4/8/2001

Florida has an official state play. The Cross and Sword tells the story of the Spanish colonization of the nation’s first city, St. Augustine, (pop.11,800) and of some of Florida’s earliest heroes.

first appeared: 4/1/2001

Kudzu, the fast-growing vine given as a gift to the United States from Japan, first was grown on American soil in Chipley (pop. 3,866) in the 1920s by Charles and Lillie Pleas, who promoted it as an anti-erosion, high-protein forage plant. The Asian vine grows a foot per day during the summer.

first appeared: 3/25/2001

Florida has 7,700 lakes that are 10 acres or greater in size.

first appeared: 3/18/2001

Clearwater gets its name from a freshwater spring that bubbles up in the Gulf of Mexico close to shore, making the water around the area clear.

first appeared: 3/11/2001

Tallahassee was the only Southern capital east of the Mississippi River to avoid capture during the Civil War.

first appeared: 3/4/2001

The first baby born in Jacksonville, Ossian Hart, was born in 1821 to the town’s founder, Isaiah Hart.

first appeared: 2/25/2001

Starting in the 1890s, every Florida governor has had an official portrait painted and hung in the state capitol building. In the 1950s, the state Legislature commissioned a Tallahassee artist to create pictures of all the governors whose portraits were not yet in the state collection.

first appeared: 2/18/2001

Maybe it’s obvious, but it’s still special. Florida’s official state beverage, adopted in 1967, is orange juice.

first appeared: 2/11/2001

Maitland (pop. 9,110), one of the oldest municipalities in central Florida, was once called Fumecheliga (Musk Mellon Place) by the Seminole Indians.

first appeared: 2/4/2001

Hialeah, incorporated in 1925, marks the site where Amelia Earhart bid a final farewell to the U.S. as she departed on her ill-fated flight around the world in 1937.

first appeared: 1/28/2001

In the fishing town of Islamorada (pop. 1,220), visitors can simultaneously see the Atlantic Ocean to the east and Florida Bay to the west.

first appeared: 1/21/2001

Dutch immigrant Edward W. Bok built Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales (pop. 9,670) in 1929. Its centerpiece is the marble 205-foot tower, engraved with carvings of Florida’s flora and fauna.

first appeared: 1/14/2001

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