The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1936-03-13
Vagabond
from
Indiana
ERNIE PYLE
BANANA CITY, Fla, March 49,

-
u Say, you ought to see what I've
found! It's a whole section of
country that has futurel And it
isn't like any other place in the
United States.
1t gives you funny feeling to
find something like this. Makes you
think you're Columbus or Cortez or
one of the original Discovery Boys
First. let's get it located. Coming
up from the west coast of Florida,
you have to drive inland, behind the
swampS. You never see the Gulf.
You keep swinging to the northwest
until you have rounded the great
curve of the Gulf Coast and are up
on the mainland" of North America
again.
Then your road swings back south
and west, and pretty soon you pop
out on to the Gulf of Mexico again.
There's where that stretch I'm talk
ing about starts.
1t runs west for 25 miles to Apa-
lachicola, on west for SIS miles to
Panama City. and on west another
los miles to Pensacola.
A LII this coast is in Florida, but
1 N it isn't like Florida. It's far
from the seething winter resorts of
the lower coasts. There Is prac+
tically nothing along this 200 miles
of lovely coast. just two small
cities, and half a dozen crossroads
settlements.
The tourists don't come this way.
There are few, of course, but
they're just going through.
Sleepy COWS and half-wild razor
back hogs run loose on the road
way. You have to stop dead still
now and then to keep from wrap
ping your car around a COW.
The few people, and the few
towns, look neither like Florida nor
the deep South. They look more
like the West. You see lots of
goats. I saw a calf hitched UP to
an old wagon.
y y
BANANA CITY is the center of
4 this 200-mile stretch. Panama
City has a destiny, as sure as the
sun will rise tomorrow.
But there is a quick change at the
waters edge. The town is on the
banks of st. Andrews Bay, and you
never saw a lovelier spot. The wa
ter is deep blue, and across the bay
you see Shorelines of trees, and if
you look in the right direction you
can see the opening in the tree line,
and beyond the glistening water of
the Gulf.
A railroad man from Chicago
named George west founded Pana-
ma City % years ago. He opened a
bank, and started a newspaper, and
put in water. He is dead now. His
widow still owns a good part of the
city, and edits the newspaper he
started.
TIE viSioned this spot as some day
l. l. being a great port. He called
it Panama City because it was on a
direct line between Chicago and
Panama, and he could see it as the
teeming division point where all the
Panama traffic changed from train
to boat.
Five years ago Panama City had
5000 people. Today they claim
around $4,000. And a man who
ought to know Che's not a civic
booster either tells me that five
years from now it will be $4,000. -,
Unfortunately, Panama City, like
many little boys, is going to get ugly
as it grows up. For its future de-
ponds, not on the beauty of its set
ting, but on industry.
The biggest industry here now is
the paper mill, which employs 1900
people and makes brown wrapping
paper out of the Florida pine trees.
The mill, two miles out of town, is a
vast, smoky, malodorous place. and
when the wind blows right, the sick
ening sulphurous smell will wake
you up at night. More paper mills
and railroads and wharves are COM
ing.
y
TINE road along half of this 200
Il mile stretch of coast is new,
just opened. Today, as you drive
along it, you don't see a human
being once an hour.
There is a lonesome enchantment
about it. You'd like to take whole
stretch of it, and plant some palm
trees, and build a cottage under
them, and put up sign out of
sight around the bend saying:
This is my private beach. Don't
anybody come near here. I found
it first"
1t is my guess that 10 years from
now that whole 200 miles will be
lined with little palm trees, and
tourist cottages, and life guards,
and that every so often therell be
a smoking little factory city.