Visit Florida

One of the landmarks is the moated fort  built by the Spanish, Castillo de San Marcos. This horse-drawn carriage seems at  home in the narrow shaded streets. The oldest house in the United States displays  the four flags which have flown over St. Augustine: those of Spain, England,  the Confederacy, and the United States. In 1845, Florida became the 27th  state with its capital at Tallahassee. The largest city in this part  of the state is Jacksonville, gateway to Florida, a port and  commercial center of growing importance. More than 450 industries and businesses  center here. They include insurance, banking, and finance, and the production  of turpentine, lumber, and paper. The pine trees that cover much  of northern Florida provide raw material for products essential to our nation. Many of Florida's rivers have interesting  Indian names: Oklawaha, Withlacoochee, Apalachicola, and many more. The Indian  name of one river is known to millions: "Way down upon the Suwannee River, far away." The Suwannee River,  immortalized by Stephen Foster. Here on the banks of the Suwannee, a memorial  park and museum honor the composer of so many melodies we all know and love. "Old Folks at Home"  (Suwannee River) is the state song of Florida. The carillon in this tower plays  the melodies of Stephen Foster. At Silver Springs near Ocala, 800 million  gallons of water gush from the earth each day to form the Silver River. Boat owners  from near and far cruise up the river. Visitors may ride in glass-bottom  boats or take a jungle cruise. Monkeys wait for the cruise boats to beg for food. Another of many popular springs is  Rainbow Springs near Dunnellon. Some springs feature boats with underwater  portholes through which you can see and photograph the inhabitants  of the incredibly clear water. Fishermen find rewarding sport in Florida's water. Black bass is a favorite, but the rivers  and lakes are alive with many kinds. Florida's numerous bridges  are favored fishing spots. Deep-sea fishermen go after the big ones.  With nearly 4,000 miles of coastline, deep-sea fishing is available to anyone. You  can charter a boat with an expert skipper. Bringing them in takes split-second teamwork  between fisherman and crew. A fighting dolphin. The Gulf Coast is famous for the mighty silver  king, the tarpon. The tarpon's not good to eat. When he's as small as this, you just take his  picture and let him go. Florida's outstanding aquariums vie with each other with exciting marine  exhibits. Playful porpoises leap as high as 20 ft. These friendly air-breathing mammals  seem to have a wonderful time. Remarkably intelligent, they learn to  dance and sing and do circus stunts. They even play basketball. Through portholes or windows  below the water level, visitors can watch the undersea life  and watch divers feed the big ones. Smaller tanks are lighted so you can  photograph marine plants and fish. These creatures are native to the  warm waters of the reefs and keys. The Florida lobster, a favorite restaurant  dish as well as an aquarium exhibit. The north has seaside resorts with magnificent  beaches on both the Gulf and Atlantic shores. At Daytona Beach, you can drive for 23 miles  on hard-packed sand at the water's edge. Motoring on into central Florida, you  find yourself in a completely different land. It is a land of rolling  hills and thousands of lakes. Across central Florida stretches the citrus belt  for which this state is known the world over. You can drive for hundreds of miles through groves of  oranges, grapefruit, tangerines, and lemon trees. At the geographical center of  the state rises the Citrus Tower. From the top, you can photograph citrus groves  that stretch to the horizon in all directions. The warm air is fragrant with orange blossoms. On the same tree, you can see the blossoms of  the next crop and the maturing fruit ready to be picked. A half a million acres of citrus  fruit is big business. It takes an enormous investment in land, equipment, experience, and  work. The trading and shipping center of the prosperous citrus and farm belt is Orlando,  Florida's largest inland city. It is one of the state's most popular winter resort areas.  First-time visitors are enchanted by Orlando's flower-bordered lakes, beautiful streets,  and homes. Many people come back to stay. At Mountain Lake Sanctuary, the  traveler can find peace and quiet. Iron Mountain is the highest point of land  in Florida. On it rises the Singing Tower, a memorial dedicated to the American people by  Edward William Bok. It is built of native coquina rock and has a carillon of 71 bells whose  music mingles with the songs of the birds. Not far away is a different  attraction: Cypress Gardens. Boats glide on winding waterways  through masses of flowers. This was once a swampy lake shore of  cypress trees. Now the gardens attract thousands of visitors. Here too are the daily  performances of the spectacular water shows. Aquatic daredevils can perform a  complete circle in midair without a spill and even take off into  the sky on the wings of a kite. On the Gulf Coast is Tampa, the seaport  and industrial center of central Florida. Tampa is surrounded by one of the most popular  residential and vacation areas in the state, including St. Petersburg and Clearwater just  across the bay. You can see for yourself why Florida is called the Sunshine State. St.  Petersburg claims the title "The Sunshine City." Its distinctive green benches are  there for people who just want to sit in the sun. The long municipal pier is another  spot where you can sit in the sun and fish. The friendly pelicans are always hungry. In Tampa, the biggest event of the year is  the Gasparilla Festival. At the festival, Tampa residents reenact the day that  the pirate Gaspar and his buccaneer crew sailed up the river and  captured the helpless city. Each year they raise the Jolly Roger. Every  craft in the Bay Area joins the gala escort. Once ashore, the wicked pirates take  over the town for a rousing celebration, enthusiastically assisted by the  entire population and visitors from every corner of the nation.  Everybody turns out for the parade. The festival takes place in February  during the Florida State Fair. Across Tampa Bay stretches the 15-mile Sunshine Skyway, an important link in  Florida's fine highway system. This shortcut to the south leads to the resort  and art centers of Bradenton and Sarasota. The Ringling Art Museum at  Sarasota is the best-known feature of this popular art and literary colony. The museum's courtyard with its Florentine  Renaissance columns has an outstanding collection of bronze and stone statues  representing many epochs in the history of art. In the galleries is America's largest  and finest display of Baroque art. It was collected from all parts of the world by  the great showman John Ringling. Today the collection, valued at many millions,  belongs to the people of Florida. Here is the world's largest collection  of works by Peter Paul Rubens. The restored canvases are seen  today in all their original color. Driving southward, the visitor finds  the third and totally different part of Florida. On the Atlantic side is the Gold  Coast with its dazzling vacation resorts. Down the Gulf Coast and across the Tamiami  Trail, you drive through the Everglades: thousands of square miles of land  with a strange, forbidding beauty. Now a national park, much of the Everglades is  a wildlife sanctuary. From the ranger station, nature trails lead into wooded hammocks  and swampy sloughs teeming with wildlife: alligators and countless birds—herons,  cranes, egrets, and many other varieties. The National Audubon Society conducts  wildlife tours by highway and water. You may see scores of different kinds of birds,  many of them seldom or never seen up north. The big wood ibis. Roseate spoonbill. The white birds are the young spoonbills.  They develop their color as they mature. Seminole Indians live in the Everglades. Their  ancestors defied the white man and retreated unconquered into the vast swampy wilderness.  Today, many Seminoles live on reservations. Tourist demand for traditional Seminole  costumes helps to preserve the tribal arts and skills. Seminole women bring their  handiwork to reservation headquarters to be sold in the craft shop. The work is  supervised by the Indian agency which provides at cost cloth and thread of good quality. In the villages, intricate designs are sewn with  hand-driven machines from tiny pieces of cloth. Each new generation of Seminoles adopts  more of modern ways. One seldom sees this traditional hairdo; the hair is arranged over  a form. The result somewhat resembles a hat. Young men, to support their families  better, are going to school to prepare for better jobs. Many Seminoles are  employed in cattle raising. Brahman bulls imported from India are producing  new strains of disease-resistant stock. The Everglades is one of the great food baskets of  our nation. Florida growers use modern equipment. A complete celery packing plant moves  through the fields under its own power. It packs celery ready for shipment within  a few minutes from the time it is cut. Sugar cane is harvested by burning off the leaves. The flash fire does the job  quickly without damaging the cane, making it easy for modern machinery to handle  thousands of tons with speed and efficiency. On the Atlantic coast of southern  Florida, you'll find Palm Beach. Huge landscaped estates border the sea. Modern  homes too have the characteristic palm trees. You'll visit Fort Lauderdale  where, from swamp and wilderness, men have built a city of wide canals,  arching bridges, and modern homes. If you come by boat, you'll find one of  the finest yacht harbors in the world. It's hard for newcomers to believe that most of  this beauty is man-made. In Florida, you can see amazing transformations take place almost as  you watch. Today, a wild deserted stretch of coral rock, a dismal woodland, or a mangrove  swamp; tomorrow, a new development begins. Where once there was waterfront for a single  home, suddenly a canal appears, and there's waterfront for 50 homes. Dredging and filling,  whole new communities are literally made to order. Production-line teams complete modern  houses in days instead of weeks. Sod farmers, with grass grown by the  hundreds of acres, will put in a healthy, full-grown, weed-free lawn in a matter of minutes. Truckloads of semi-tropic shrubs  and plants fill your garden. If you want full-grown trees, in they come. A month ago, this entire street of  homes was just a planner's dream. The Sunshine State Parkway leads us  to Miami, gateway to Latin America, business, shopping, and fashion center. Flying across Biscayne Bay, we  can look down on the symmetry of man-made islands crowded with palatial homes. In Miami Beach, great estates face the Atlantic. Hundreds of hotels stretch for  miles along the golden sands. Each hotel is a luxurious resort  complete in itself with vacation activities of every sort, its  own beach, and swimming pool. Every year, architects vie with each other in  creating one modernistic skyscraper after another, each striving to outdo last year's sensation. There are motels—hundreds of them—with decorative  motifs that range from the Sphinx of Egypt and the caravans of Arabia to angels dressed in blue  or the oriental architecture of old cafes. Each motel has its own private beach or  easy access to one of the public beaches. On the highway once more, south and west  from Miami and out across the Florida Keys, you drive your car over the ocean. This is  one of the strangest roads you'll ever travel. The Overseas Highway connects one  tiny key to another over a series of more than 40 bridges. The keys are  low-lying coral islands and reefs. They stretch far out to sea between the  Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. The highway follows the route of  the once-famous Overseas Railroad, using some of the original railroad bridges. At the end of your automobile journey over  the sea is Key West, the southernmost city in the continental United States.  Here again is a different Florida. Remote and picturesque, a flavor of Latin America  still clings to the streets of the old town. No wonder the Spaniards called  this Florida—the land of flowers. One of Key West's attractions is the  harbor with its fleet of shrimp boats. Turtle boats unload their cargoes captured  in Caribbean waters further south. The boats are a favorite subject for visiting  photographers and artists of every age. And here in Key West, it's time for our  own picture-taking trip to come to an end.