The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1922-02-03
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THE LURE OF SOUTH FLORIDA =
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of the finest links in the country The
first Of Mr. Ross work was at Belle
air, and his most recent South Florida
links was built at Ft. Myers. At
Tampa, Mountain Lake and Orlando
are Raynor courses. all Of which have
tried the skill Of our present day pro
Ifessioinals, such as Walter Hagan, Jim
Barnes, Jock Hutchins, Tom Kerri.
gan and so on ad infinitum.
To pass down the slopes of the
ridge to the Gulf of Mexico is mat.
ter OF three-hour drive and over
the finest motor roads in the state,
and when you reach Florida west
coast you find an expansion of inter
tests and diversity of industries pc
culiar to that section.
On account of its soil and climate
! Florida never gets very far away
from the land idea, but along the
shores of the gulf and it's bays is
found intensively developed the gar
den idea. In Manatee, which reaches
farther out into the gulf than any
other coastal counties except Pinellas,
you find the big private estate idea
in the ascendency at Sarasota. The
/ late Mrs. Potter Palmer converted
several thousand acres of land into
farms and flower gardens, and around
the circling shores of Sarasota Bay
are the winter homes of Edison Keith
of Chicago, John Ringlind, Mr.. and
Mrs. Honore Palmer, Mrs. B. L.
/ Honore and the Princess Cantacuzene,
who now spends much of the winters
on the Potter Palmer estate.
Climate is the subject OF conversa-
ton around which the annual visitor
weaves his biggest stories of life in
the open; but neither Floridian nor
tourist probably thinks deeply enough
about the matter to know that there
is a scientific reason for the Florida
climate being the most delightful and
one of the healthiest of the western
continent.
The globe-trotting American has for
years been crossing the ocean to visit
Pau, Pisa, Mentone, Monaco and the
banks of the Nile, for the given rea-
son that the Mediterranean resorts
had winter climate superior to any
in Amarica, unless it was in southern
California or Mexico This was a
pleasant idea, but false one, and
since the world war the American has
come to learn that Florida has a eli
mate with which no foreign climate
can compare. Sunshine and no rain
make up the sum total of the winter
weather, while sunshine, an overflow
ing breeze from ocean and gulf. with
daily shower, neutralize the heat
Of summer into a comfortable atmos-
phere that no northerner can compre-
bend without having experienced it.
The tourist in Florida is listed
among the states business assets and
there are always two names that
spring to the mind when railroad and
big hotels are mentioned. Henry M.
Flagler's name means the East Coast
Railroad and the string of hotels that
run from St Augustine down through
Palm Beach and Miami to Key West.
while Henry Bradley Plants name
suggests the west coast, the Atlantic
Coast Line, the Tampa Bay Hotel and
Bellair. Thirty years ago these men
though only of the leisure loving class
and built for them exclusively, but
man OF greater vision and bigger ideals
laid the foundation of the real Florida
OF today-this was Henry Disston of
Philadelphia.
Mr.. Disston went into the Ever
glades when it was a morass of i'm
'penetrable swamps and there put into
effect an engineering feat that changed
the Everglades from wilderness into
land OF rich farm lands. The Diss-
ton Canal opened waterway from
Lake Okeechobee to the Gulf of Next
co and drained the immense district
southwest of the lake.
But from Mr.. Disston's time nm to
about six years ago no great progress
in the way of land development was
made in the Everglades. Then it was
that there came to the Glades Mrs.
Marion n. Horowitz of Philadelphia.
who little later married John j.
O'Brien
Brought Northern Gold
With real estate holdings at Moore
aaven that went into the thousands
Of acres Of untitled land. Mrs. O'Brien
toek UP the work OF converting these
lands into divided paying holdings.
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