The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1922-02-21
AS Others See 1t
TOWNS WITH A BACK COUNTRY THRIVE
(Winter Park Post.)


average florida town not only should De pro-
gressYs place backed by 400 per cent boosters
but they should depend upon other resources
other than that of tourists who are with us but
a few short months during the winter and then
comes a long dull summer which we must face.
Many of the cities and towns in Florida urge
the building Of more hotels, more homes and more
of everything except the development of the idle
lands that can be found at the edge of the limits
Of nearly every town and city in South Florida.
Up in West Florida the people in that section
make no bid for tourists and yet they enjoy an
al-the-year.round trade because right at their
doors are farms without number. These farmers
of whom some are white and some black are en-
gagged in filling the soil and have something to
sell every month in the year and what they sell
is brought to the best trading point and disposed
OF. In turn these farmers buy goods from the
merchants in summer as we'll as in winter.
There has been in Florida during the past five
weeks one Roger W. Babson, man who is an
expert surveyor of business and resources. He
has visited several towns during his stay in the
state and notes with alarm that many of them
are but one-resource town That is, the said
town in question has but resource to fall back
on. He paid visit to Miami and he voices our
sentiments to a T. In an interview with the
Miami Metropolis editor, he said:
81 am very anxious to go through the Ever
glades. 1t seems to me there is the real answer
to Miami's future. In the long rum Miami is bet
ter off for one dollar spent in draining the Ever
glades than for five dollars spent on places of
amusement. 1t is important for cities to spend
money on developing things that will continually
yield forth wealth, rather than things of temper.
airy value, which must be fed all the time in order
to be kept up"
To be plain, Mr.. Babson can see that with the
Everglades once developed and farmed by a good
class of farmers, 1t will bring more wealth into
Miami than all of the tourists who enter that city
and merely patronize one class of men-the hotel
keepers, and the latter in turn buy their hotel
supplies from Jacksonville and the city gets but
| little benefit
The Everglades is the solution to the prosper
ity of more than one South Florida city and if
they do not grab the opportunity waiting them by
the development of the several million acres of
the richest land in the world, the fault is theirs
! At time West Palm Beach boosters made
big bid fer the Everglade trade. The Palm
Beach canal leading to Lake Okeechobee was
deepened. railroad was started and the golden
spike actually driven by the governor of the state
Then West Palm Beach secured mail contract
and all mail for the Glades section delivered
from that city, and to further the business, the
city expended $4,000 on a stub canal and induced
the F. E. c. railway to build spur track from
their main line to the head of the stub canal
where ample warehouses and docks were built to
receive the large amount CT products sent in
from the Glades.
Business doomed and thousands of dollars were
spent in West Palm Beach among the merchants
md OlEod hat itx hod Ma
asleep at the switch. The latter city had done
nothing in the furtherment of securing the big
business from the Glades and West Pem Beach
had things her own way
Did West Palm Beach hang On to her purse of
gold? She did not.
Since that time the celebrated Sake railroad
has been thrown into discard; the stub canal has
been allowed to fill up and the spur track re-
moved The mail contract is now delivered from
Moore Haven, thanks to the energetic developer
at Clewiston, John r. .O'Brien, who Is awake
working out plans for the betterment of the
Glades en- the west and south sides of the big
lake when others are sleeping
Now comes Miami with another. squirt and I'm.
less West Palm Beach is careful the former city
will carry OF the plum, basket, and everything
Orlando has back country to some extent but
not enough. Yet that city is the best allthe-year
round burg in South Florida. The many towns
surrounding Orlando all pay tribute to this pro-
gressive place and the farmers and grove owners
do their trading there
Sanford is another place that enjoys an all-the
yearround business because her merchants are
live wires and sell goods cheap and people come
to that town to trade twenty miles around. The
celery and lettuce felds in and near Sanford con-
tribute many dollars to the growth of the town
Daytona, and st. Augustine are strictly resort
towns. Their summer business is not what it
should be, and with the many hotels, apartments
and private homes to say nothing OF the dozen or
two curio stores in each place closed for the sum-
mer, makes things look rather dull in the seven
months of the summer season.
What we want to see is every town and city in
Florida become alltheyearround places and when
that time comes Florida. will be the most pros
porous of all the Southern states.
4 --~--s-%------------.