The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1911-09-01
ANOTHER FLORIDA
LAND SCHEME
$3.50 a Month Buys 5
Acre Lot in Urbandale
SWEPT BY OCEAN BREEZES IN
LOVELY TROPICAL CLIMATE
IN THE EVERGLADES.

there is no end. New Jersey is not
| alone in her Utopian colony, even the
! descendants of Henry George must
| share their single tax glory, with the
Florida land boomers, whose fantas-
tic projects throw all previous at
tempts, to restore primitive condi-
tions, into the shade.
Within the past year, Wayne coun-
ty in general, and Honesdale in par
ticular, has lived through three sep
arate and distinct attacks of Florida
fever. The third and last visitation
of this tropical malady whose bacil-
lus has infected, is still injecting,
and promises to infect still more of
the residents of the peaceful shire,
is the most interesting of all.
The scheme was hatched in Battle
Creek, Michigan, father of Grape
Nuts" mother of breakfast foods,
home of sanitariums, source of much
that is new and novel in the edible
line. The fertile plan was created
in the brain of Frank Houghtaling,
advertising agent. Here is the BOOM
er's story as he told it to a Citizen
man. Read it and form your own
conclusions:
1--WE organized a colony with a
couple of hundred families" he said.
Il was in the advertising business for
several years, and usually you'll have
something on the side, a hobby. My
hobby was land. l was reading land
literature on the side while l was in
the advertising business.
81 really wanted to get land.
had children. The next generation
the aristocracy of the land will be
land owners, and l figured that un-
less l got land and passed it on, my
| children would be apt to be poor in
deed.
Doctor Reed brough my attention
to the reclamation of the Everglades
| He had formerly been a medical mis-
sionary in the South Sea Islands, and
he told me he was desirous of set
Ting in Southern and tropical eli
mate with sea breezes to temper the
atmosphere. If he could find such a
location in the United States he was
going to get into it,
after l satisfied myself told my
friends about it. ''If we could all go
together so we could have civiliza-
! ton we would start a town site,"
they said. l volunteered to go
South and look the matter over.
found the piece of land located as
| pei SClltuulS. NtuI DdCh. MY
friends met in a house. l told them
acres was taken. l was crowded in
to the colony proposition.
Doctor Reed and l went down
South and in May | bought an eXper-
mental farm as a landing place.
This fixes it so my friends can get
interested before the natives pluck
them, which they certainly do when
they get a chance.
Il am the organizer and business
agent of the Urbandale Colony in
Dade county in the heart of the fam
Gus Little River farming section.
B. THE State is dredging the Ever
glades. Canals 60 feet wide by 100
feet deep are being built The State
has appropriated 100000 for sur
veying purposes and they have sur
veyors working as fast as the water
is being drained off.
1--WE are 200 miles South from Or
lando, 50 miles from Key West and
366 from Jacksonville.
"A man couldn't afford to take
that northern land as a gift, if he
could get ours at $500 an acre. They
have to clear theirs of growth
When cleared it is perfectly pure
white sand. Thirteen years ago the
whole northern part was visited by
the big freeze and the big citron
fruits were all destroyed. Potatoes
froze clear down to the ground.
"The Everglades is a cake OF
yeast in that bunch of dough. l can
buy any quantity of land in north
ern Florida for $3.50 an acre. The
promoters bought it for from SO to
81, and are selling it for $40 and $50
an acre. 1t costs more to clear theil
land than to buy ours, and when
theirs is cleared they have only
sand"
! Urbandale, Urbandale, Urbandale
There is something mellifluous in the
very name. And to think that you
can get in on the ground floor, by
paying monthly installments of only
$3.50 for five-acre plots, why It'll
: marvellous, simply marvellous!
What matters it if Miami is only
twenty miles away? What is the diff
ference if much of the land is still
, under water? Who cares if he is {
score of miles away from the sei
coast?
Why, would you believe it, thert
are people in Honesdale paying ST.
, and $40 month, and will keep righ
on paying that sum for fifty months
to come in the hope of some day win
tering in Florida, twenty miles from
Miami, twenty miles from the sea
coast, twenty miles from
I oh for home in the Everglades!