The St. Lucie County tribune. (Fort Pierce, St. Lucie County, Fla.) 1905-1920, 1909-06-11
Shortltems from
all Sections
of the State

mayor or Lake Butler.
Large shipments Of Irish potatoes
are being made from the Perdido couh-
try, near Pensacola.
A wet and dry election will be held
in Taylor county on July LIST. Already
the campaigns being waged vigorously
by both sides.
Tampa gets the next meeting of the
Grand Council of the United CONNER
cial Travellers for Georgia and Florida,
which met this year at Athens, Ga.
While their crop is not large, the
peach growers of Putnam and Volusia
counties are realizing high prices this
spring. The fruit is somewhat better
in quality than usual.
Daring recent thunderstorm the
school building at Hastings was badly
damaged by lightning, nearly every
room of the structure being more or
less wrecked. The building was for
tunately unoccupied at the time.
The Merchants & Miners Transpor-
tation Company will inaugurate tri-
weekly sailing from Jacksonville to
Baltimore, calling at Savannah both
ways, June 10th, with the steamers
Parthian, Merrmack, Chatham and
Indian.
The State Board of Pardons, which
met in Tallahassee Thursday. refused
to commute the sentence of death upon
Otis ID. Smith, sentenced to hang for
the murder of his sister, Cora Belle
Smith, on May g. 1908, and this (Fri-
day. morning the prisoner will be
hanged in the Duval county Jail.
Governor Gilchrist has named three
new members of the State Board of
Control which has charge of the States
institutions for higher education, each
for four years term, beginning June
20. 1909. They are Messrs. Francis P.
Fleming, Jr., of Jacksonville, p. X
PONCE, of Pensacola, and W. D. Fin
layson, of Old Town.
During the past month remarkable
progress has been made on the railway
extension south of Knights Key. There
are now more than one thousand men
employed along the route of the road
between Pine Key and Knights Key
ane splendid showing is being made.
At Knights Key about 46 of the con-
crete piers have been completed and
the force is now able to finish one pier
day. The deepest water has been
passed and from now on the progress
will be more rapid.
Granting the request of tn hundreds
of citrus fruit growers interested in
the organization of the Florida Citrus
Exchange, the Florida House of Rep
resentatives Thursday afternoon un-
animously passed the HUMPHREYS bill
allowing the organization, manage
ment and cooperation of agricultural,
viticultural and horticural non-proft
cooperative associations. This will
allow the proposed exchange to be or
ganized exactly on the plan of the
California exchange.
What is claimed to be the highest
weather signal tower in Florida has
been completed for use Of the Pensa-
cola weather Office by government
contractors, who have been engaged in
the work for the past two weeks. The
tower is located upon the roof of the
plaEt house of the American National
banks ten-story building, and from
the point where the storm warning
signals to the street below is a distance
of 17S feet. The tower itself is 45
feet in height above the building, and
the storm warning lights will be seen
from every section of the city and har-
Dor, and there will be nothing to OBJ
scure the view from the navy yard and
forts. Powerful signal lights will be
placed upon the tower, which can be
seen for great distance.
One of the most important actions
taken by the House of Representatives
was the passage of bill authorizing
the State Comptroller to repay to the
counties of Dade, st. Lucie, Lee, De-
Soto and others moneys collected by a
special drainage tax through an act of
the Legislature of 1905. The bill au-
thorzing the imposition Of a general
drainage tax was passed in 1905. Each
acre was assessed five cents and nearly
$1,000 collected In 1907, the Legisla-