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Florida Trivia & Tidbits - Page 2

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

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—According to one local legend, the settlement of Two Egg was named because local children often visited the Pittman grocery store with eggs to barter for goods. A salesman called it the “two egg store” and the name caught on.
first appeared: 1/11/2009
—The phrase “rhythm and blues” was coined by legendary record producer Jerry Wexler, who wrote for Billboard magazine in the 1940s. Wexler, who went on to shape the genre with recordings of Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and other greats, died in August at his home in Sarasota.
first appeared: 12/29/2008
—The largest employee-owned supermarket chain in the United States is Publix, founded in 1930 in Winter Haven (pop. 26,487) by George Jenkins, with $1,300. The chain has about 950 supermarkets with retail sales of $23 billion last year.
first appeared: 11/30/2008
—The Kids & Kubs, a group of 75-and-older softball players, have been swinging at St. Petersburg’s North Shore Park since 1930.
first appeared: 11/16/2008
—Caladesi Island State Park in Dunedin (pop. 35,691) was named the nation’s No. 1 beach in the 2008 America’s Best Beaches ranking by Stephen “Dr. Beach” Leatherman. The Florida International University professor and beach expert rates beaches using 50 criteria, including quality of water and sand.
first appeared: 11/2/2008
—In 1962, the Seminoles football team at Florida State University in Tallahassee established the Sod Cemetery after winning a game in Georgia and returning with a piece of turf from the stadium. The Seminoles continue to take a memento of sod on memorable road games when they’re victorious. Each piece is buried and marked with a tombstone with the score and date of the game.
first appeared: 10/19/2008
—The largest collection of buildings designed by acclaimed architect Frank Lloyd Wright—a dozen—on a single site is on the campus of Florida Southern College in Lakeland. They were built from the 1930s to 1950s.
first appeared: 10/5/2008
—A marker on Franklin Street in Tampa commemorates the spot where the Rev. Billy Graham began his ministry in 1939 by preaching to “derelicts, drunks and ‘Skid Row’ bums.”
first appeared: 9/21/2008
—In a search for faster, more efficient mail delivery, the U.S. Postal Service experimented with “missile mail” on June 8, 1959. Three thousand pieces of mail were stowed on top of a missile built for war. The missile was fired from a launcher aboard the submarine USS Barbero cruising off the coast of Virginia. Twenty- two minutes after launch, the missile struck its target at the Naval Auxiliary Air Station in Mayport.
first appeared: 9/7/2008
—The original Ripley’s Believe it or Not! Museum in St. Augustine (pop. 11,592) opened in 1950 in Castle Warden, a historic Moorish Revival-style mansion and later hotel that cartoonist and adventurer Robert Ripley frequented. Today, there are 27 Ripley’s museums worldwide.
first appeared: 8/24/2008
—Formed from a rock quarry in 1923, Venetian Pool, a public swimming pool in Coral Gables (pop. 42,249), is fed with cool spring water daily and features waterfalls, coral caves, observation towers and shady porticos. The swimming pool is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
first appeared: 8/10/2008
—The horse conch, also known as the giant band shell, was designated Florida’s state shell in 1969. The horse conch can grow to 2 feet long.
first appeared: 7/27/2008
—Fido has plenty of room to fetch and stretch at the 42-acre private Dog Wood Park in Jacksonville. More than 25 acres of the park are fenced. GEORGIA—In 1932, 20-year-old George Perry landed a 22-pound, 4-ounce largemouth bass from Montgomery Lake in Telfair County (pop. 11,794) while fishing for food for the family. The fish won Perry $75 worth of merchandise in a Field & Stream contest, a lifetime of fame, and a world record that millions of anglers have yet to beat.
first appeared: 7/13/2008
—Apopka (pop. 26,642) is known as the “Indoor Foliage Capital of the World” because of its hundreds of tropical foliage plant nurseries that grow everything from ferns to the latest orchid hybrids.
first appeared: 6/29/2008
—Visitors can tour a re-created post office from the 1940s and see postal artifacts, paperwork, books and clothing of the era at the Florida Postal Museum in Orange City (pop. 6,604). The museum is housed in the 1876 Heritage Inn, which once served as the city’s post office.
first appeared: 6/15/2008
—Leo Fiyalko, a 92-year-old blind golfer, scored a hole-in-one at Cove Cay Country Club in Clearwater in January. The 110-yard shot with a five iron was Fiyalko’s first hole-in-one in more than 60 years of golfing.
first appeared: 6/1/2008
—Established in 1931 as a wintering ground for migratory birds, St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge encompasses 68,000 acres in Wakulla (pop. 22,863), Jefferson (pop. 12,902), and Taylor (pop. 19,256) counties along the Gulf Coast of northwest Florida.
first appeared: 5/18/2008
—In 1970, Arthur A. Jones introduced his Nautilus machine, which revolutionized the fitness industry. Jones died at age 80 last year at his home in Ocala (pop. 45,943).
first appeared: 5/4/2008
—Collier County is the state’s official Purple Martin Capital, so designated in 1994. The bluish-black bird is praised for its appetite for flying insects.
first appeared: 3/9/2008
—Songwriter Bobby Braddock, born in 1940 in Lakeland, was co-writer of “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” which won the Country Music Association’s Song of the Year Award for two consecutive years—in 1980 and 1981. He also co-wrote “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” and “Golden Ring,” and wrote “I Wanna Talk About Me.”
first appeared: 2/24/2008
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