Pocahontas star herald., 1926-04-01

grapefruits as full Of bloom as they
will hold, and the fragrance as one
drives along the miles and miles Of
solid groves, especially at nights is
| Just gorgeous and exhiliarating be-
yond description.
| then moved on down to TAMPA
and established headquarters with Mr..
and Mrs. John Ireland. Mrs Ireland
Is sister of Mrs. Flora Hall, and such
hOspitable treatment as / received
would he hard to describe. After
spending ten days with them. their
relatives and their many lovely friends
in the city and surrounding cities, en-
joying several outings to interesting
places and enjoying the hospitality of
these lovely people, we moved on to
the east coast, leaving them begging
us to stay another week-real genuine,
old southern hOspitality-we explored
the western coast In the Tampa sec
tiOn for 10 miles and saw many won
derful scenes in this wonderful cOun-
! try that is as rich as the Nile and pro-
duces crops that seem almost incredi-
| BILE.
The Florida boom started in the
Miami sector and portions were made
over night. The developments and
changing hands of property Is inde-
scribable. The cities and towns grew
like magic. The most gorgeous bean
ty and grandeur that money could buy
adorned them everywhere. But as /
see it, the western or Gulf coast is the
Tampa and St. Petersburg sector has,
and is developing far more than the
east coast. So many towns and cities
CfWt Il
enterprises, | think | am safe in say
ing that we saw in the central and wes-
tern coast hundreds of those subdivi-
siOns building up as fast as it is possi-
BILE to get material.
Let me give you faint idea of how
the boOms are put on First, practically
all the land is laid off in lots, plats and
acreages, advertised and staked Off
They even go out in the country from
the towns and lay off a subdivision
and name it. The first thing they do
is build a great gateway into the new
town. These gateways are GO to 100
feet wide, of different styles and types,
great towering columns and arches.
Some are of wonderful architectural
design, of concrete or brick. Hundreds
of those gateways that we saw right
out on the commons, the brush and
| timber not cleared away, on or 5
mile square, cost as much as the aver
age business house in POcahOntas They
then start building public buildings,
department houses, schools, clubs,
churches, etc, costing from hundreds
Of thousands to millions, then the mil
lionaires go to building their homes
and so on until within a few months
they have the prettiest little city you
ever saw, right in the sticks. They
then start to beautify their grounds
and homes as fast as they can.
These subdivisions are everywhere.
i Not only a few but hundreds that we
saw and l have no idea how many we
did not see.
1 When you have seen all these won
derful developments you feel just like
you have passed to another mode of
existence, into fairy land or the Sol
den streets of the new Jerusalem" l
have been In our large cities but the
new Spanish designs far surpass our
older cities for beauty and grandeur.
They are made of stucco, not daubed
on like throwing mud on a barn, but
made of absolutely clean white sand,
artistically put on, representing the
names of the lakes and seas, tinted In
every hue and color and so blended
that it becomes a thing of artistic
beauty that it is indescribable. They
are not only building up those sub
divisions on the land but in the bays
as well. A multimilliOnaire has made
an island in Tampa Bay, scooping out
the bottom of the Bay, filling in the
| l.. ~. tel o,.I go ~.
four square miles, not even leveled
down except where they are building
up million dollar structures and are
making a city on the Island. The
mud that was taken from the bay is
lying there just as it was dumped. five
or six feet above the level Of the sea.
A sea wall four feet high. to protect
its other islands, is being made on
the east coast.
Tampa, st. Petersburg. Clearwater.
Bradenton, Sarasota, Palmetto and
many other towns are wonderful to
see. The causeway across the bay from
Tampa to ST. Petersburg is wonderful
piece of ingenuity, a structure made
of concrete six miles long. Driving
over 1t seems as II you were driving
across the sea. Many concrete'bridges
over rivers and lakes are from hun
dred yards to n mile long. The mid
die and west coast is much better in
fertility of soils and productions of
crops, fruits and vegetables than the
east coast. But the cities and towns
Of the east coast surpass those on the
west. AS ! see it. the central part,
in the sector of Orlando and Plant
City, is the garden spot Of Florida, by
reason of the productiveness of the
soils. 1t is the center of the fruit and
vegetable region.
have found out what is the matter
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