| I | INTRODUCTION |
Florida, state in the southeastern United States,
bordering the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, which is an arm of the
ocean. Florida, sometimes called the Peninsula State, consists of a large
low-lying peninsula and, in the northwest, a strip of land known as the
panhandle. It is a region of low, rolling hills, vast swamps and marshes,
numerous lakes, and extensive forests. Superimposed on this varied pattern of
physical features are the farmlands, urban areas, transportation routes, and
other cultural features that have transformed Florida from largely a wilderness
area into one of the fastest-growing states in the Union. Florida entered the
Union on March 3, 1845, as the 27th state. Beginning in the late 1800s
development schemes brought a tide of new arrivals to the state, and the story
of Florida since has been one of nearly continuous growth.
Between 1950 and 1970 Florida’s population
experienced a phenomenal increase of 145 percent. Between 1970 and 1980 the
population increased by another 43.4 percent, and by 32.7 percent between 1980
and 1990. Much of this increase was attributed to the large influx of people
from elsewhere rather than natural increase. Many were people who had retired.
Many were refugees from Cuba. Others came to work in the state’s new and
expanding industries and to share in its general economic growth.
Tourism has been Florida’s major source of
income for many years. Although it initially attracted visitors from the
Northeastern states during the winter months, it is now a year-round
vacationland visited by tourists from every state, Latin America, and also from
Canada and other foreign countries. The state’s tourist attractions range from
the vast expanse of the Everglades in the south to the historic cities of Saint
Augustine and Pensacola in the north. The most popular attractions are the theme
parks around Orlando and the many resort cities that rim the coast. Their
importance is reflected in the distribution of the state’s inhabitants, most of
whom live in cities along the coast or in a corridor stretching between Tampa
and Daytona Beach and including Orlando. While Jacksonville on the northern
Atlantic shore is the state’s largest city in population, the state’s largest
metropolitan area centers on Miami, near the southern tip of the state.
Tallahassee, in the panhandle, is Florida’s capital.
The Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León called
the region La Florida, roughly translated as Land of the Flowers, when he
visited it in 1513. It is thought that he chose this name because he was
impressed by the many colorful flowers of the region and because he sighted it
on Easter, which is called Pascua Florida in Spanish. The state’s
official nickname, the Sunshine State, reflects the economic importance
of its climate, which has been called its most important natural resource. Among
the other nicknames, all unofficial, are the Everglade State and the Orange
State, for its most renowned crop.
| II | PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY |
Florida ranks 23rd among the states in size,
covering 170,305 sq km (65,755 sq mi), including 12,100 sq km (4,672 sq mi) of
inland water and 3,395 sq km (1,311 sq mi) of coastal water over which it has
jurisdiction. The major part of the state is a peninsula that extends southward
for some 610 km (380 mi) to Cape Sable, which at latitude 25°7’ north is the
southernmost point of the United States mainland. The peninsula has an average
width of about 200 km (about 125 mi). At the southern end of the peninsula the
Florida Keys, a chain of small islands, or keys, curve southwestward from
Biscayne Bay to the Dry Tortugas. Northern Florida includes a narrow panhandle
stretching for about 300 km (about 200 mi) along the coast of the Gulf of
Mexico. The state’s irregular shape gives it a large maximum extent: From north
to south the state’s greatest distance is 724 km (450 mi); from east to west it
is 758 km (471 mi).
Florida is a low-lying area with an average
elevation of only 30 m (100 ft) above sea level. It ranks with Louisiana as the
second lowest state in the Union, after Delaware. The highest point in Florida,
a hill in the panhandle, is 105 m (345 ft) above sea level.
| A | Natural Regions |
Florida lies wholly within two major
natural regions: The Atlantic Coastal Plain and the Gulf Coastal Plain. The
Atlantic Coastal Plain, in Florida, occupies most of the state and can be
subdivided into two sections. The so-called Floridian section, or Florida
peninsula, covers all of the region except the extreme northeast, where the Sea
Island section extends into Florida from Georgia and the Carolinas.
The Floridian section lies south of a line
joining the mouth of the Saint Johns River on the Atlantic Coast and Deadman Bay
on the Gulf Coast. It is an extensive region of low, rolling hills and large
swamps and marshes. South of Lake Okeechobee, much of the land is covered by the
Everglades, a watery expanse of saw-grass prairie—which the Seminole termed
Pay-hai-o-kee (“grassy water”)—dotted with cypress trees and Sabal palms,
the state tree. To preserve the plant and animal life of the swamps, part of the
Everglades has been set aside as the Everglades National Park.
To the east of the Everglades a low ridge
of land several miles wide separates the freshwater swamps from the Atlantic
Coast. Although the ridge is less than 3 m (10 ft) higher than the swamps, it is
well drained and is the site of such south Florida cities as West Palm Beach,
Fort Lauderdale, and Miami. A series of barrier islands, separated from the
mainland by lagoons, rim the state’s Atlantic Coast. Miami Beach occupies one of
these barrier islands. There is no continuous strip of higher land west of the
Everglades, and the Everglades merge with a belt of saltwater mangrove swamps
along the Gulf Coast.
North of Lake Okeechobee the interior of
the peninsula is generally hilly and is pitted by numerous lakes. The highest
hills are a little more than 90 m (300 ft) above sea level, but the area is
sometimes called the Central Highlands or the Backbone of Florida. The hills are
covered by grass and patches of palmettos, but extensive areas from Orlando and
farther south have been cleared and planted with citrus groves. Part of the
region is also sometimes called the lake district because of its numerous lakes.
West of the lake district is an area known as the lime-sink district because of
the many sinks, or natural basins, that occur in its limestone surface or
subsurface. Small lakes have formed in some of the sinks.
The small part of the Sea Islands section
in northeastern Florida is a flat, low-lying area. Okefenokee Swamp, a huge
wilderness area on the Florida-Georgia state line, occupies much of the interior
of the region. A wide belt of swamps and sandy ridges occupies the coastal
regions. The largest area of well-drained land is a strip behind the mainland
coastal beaches. A continuation of the ridge to the south, it rises up to 3 m
(10 ft) above sea level and is mainly pine covered.
The Gulf Coastal Plain, in northwestern
Florida, rises to 105 m (345 ft) above sea level, which is the highest point in
the state, near the Alabama state line. From the low hills in the northern part
of the panhandle the land slopes southward at the Cody Escarpment to extensive
stretches of swamps, salt marshes, and pine forests that are found along the
Gulf Coast.
| B | Rivers, Lakes, and Springs |
The Saint Johns River, measuring 459 km
(285 mi), is Florida’s longest river. It rises near the Atlantic Coast at about
the middle of the peninsula and then flows northward to the Atlantic Ocean, east
of Jacksonville. In the 19th century the Saint Johns was a busy waterway for the
greater part of its course. Now, however, dense mats of water hyacinth render
navigation almost impossible on the river’s upper course. The water hyacinth, a
beautiful aquatic plant with purple flowers, was accidentally introduced into
the region in the 1880s, and it spread with alarming rapidity throughout the
upper reaches of the river. The plant is very difficult to eradicate, and it has
also clogged the channels of other Florida rivers. To increase drainage of the
Everglades, which drain naturally to Florida Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, a
number of drainage channels and canals have been built across southern
Florida.
Among the rivers flowing from the
peninsula to the Gulf of Mexico are the Suwannee, Caloosahatchee, Peace,
Hillsborough, and Withlacoochee. The Suwannee, famous as the Swanee River of
Old Folks at Home by Stephen Foster, rises in Georgia and is navigable in
its lower course. The Caloosahatchee River is also navigable and is connected
with Lake Okeechobee by a dredged channel that forms part of the Okeechobee
Waterway, also known as the Cross-State Canal.
In northwestern Florida several major
rivers flow across the panhandle from neighboring Alabama and Georgia. Among
them are the Perdido, the Escambia (Conecuh in Georgia), the Yellow, the
Choctawhatchee, the Blackwater, and the Ochlockonee. The northwest is also
crossed by the Apalachicola River, which is formed near the Georgia-Florida
state line by the junction of the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers. The
Apalachicola River forms the lower part of an extensive waterway for
barges.
Florida has more than 7,000 lakes greater
than 4 hectares (10 acres) in size, most of which are in the lake district of
the Florida peninsula. The largest one in the state is Lake Okeechobee, which
also is the fourth largest natural lake wholly within the United States. It
covers an area of 1,717 sq km (663 sq mi). It is a shallow lake, with a maximum
depth of 6 m (20 ft).
Florida is noted for its springs, many of
which bubble up from large underground reservoirs. Their waters are usually
warm, 21°C (70°F) or more, and are very clear. Some of the springs are inhabited
by alligators and a variety of fish. Many are fringed with mosses and ferns and
are overhung by hardwood trees. A number give rise to swift streams called runs.
Springs are also a source of water for major rivers, such as the Saint Johns.
The best-known springs are Rainbow Springs, near Dunnellon, and Silver Springs,
near Ocala. Each of these springs pours out more than 1.9 billion liters (500
million gallons) a day. Wakulla Spring, near Tallahassee, which is 56 m (185 ft)
deep, is Florida’s deepest spring.
| C | Coastline |
Florida has the longest marine coastline
of all the states after Alaska. The coastline is 2,173 km (1,350 mi) long, but,
including all indentations and islands, it measures 13,560 km (8,426 mi). The
Atlantic coast, or eastern coast, has few indentations. There is an outer arc of
sandy Sea Islands, many of which have been developed as tourist resorts. Behind
the beaches lie long, narrow saltwater lagoons, which are called rivers on parts
of the Atlantic Coast. The longest such lagoon is Indian River, near Cape
Canaveral. Indian River is sheltered from the ocean by the offshore barrier Sea
Islands, and it forms part of the Intracoastal Waterway, which is used by small
coastal vessels and pleasure boats. The best harbor on the Atlantic coast in
Florida is the estuary of the Saint Johns River, near Jacksonville. Just south
of Miami is Biscayne Bay. South of the bay lie the Florida Keys, separated from
the mainland by Florida Bay.
The Gulf coast, or western coast, of
Florida is deeply indented. Mangrove swamps, uninhabited islands, and miles of
beach fringe the coast south of Naples. A number of sandy barrier islands extend
from Fort Myers to Tarpon Springs. The islands reappear farther north, just west
of Apalachee Bay, and they continue westward to the Alabama line. Behind them
lie extensive stretches of swamp and marsh. Hillsborough Bay at Tampa forms the
state’s finest harbor. It is protected from the open waters of the Gulf of
Mexico by a long line of offshore sandbars and islands. Other harbors similarly
protected behind the barrier islands include Pensacola Bay, Choctawhatchee Bay,
and Charlotte Harbor.
| D | Climate |
Florida’s climate has been called the
state’s most valuable natural resource. Most of the state has a humid
subtropical type of climate, but the southern tip of the peninsula has a more
tropical climate. The climate attracts millions of tourists and permanent
residents who seek sunshine and warmth all year, but particularly in winter. It
is also important to growers of crops that are easily damaged by frost, such as
citrus fruit and sugarcane.
| D1 | Temperature |
In the wintertime southern Florida is
one of the warmest places on the U.S. mainland. Average January temperatures
there range from about 18° to 21°C (about 64° to 70°F). Daytime temperatures in
winter are generally in the lower 20°s C (70°s F) at Miami and other southern
coastal resorts. In northern Florida average January temperatures range from
about 11° to 13°C (about 52° to 56°F). However, temperatures vary considerably
from day to day, occasionally reaching well below freezing.
Summers are hot throughout the state.
However, temperatures are generally no higher than in many northern cities, and
ocean breezes tend to modify the climate in southernmost Florida. During summer,
Miami has an average temperature in the upper 20°s C (lower 80°s F). Although
the south is closer to the tropics, it has fewer very hot days each summer than
does the north.
| D2 | Precipitation |
Rainfall ranges from more than 1,500 mm
(60 in) in the Everglades and the northwest to about 970 mm (about 38 in) at Key
West. However, rainfall varies considerably from year to year, and severe
droughts and floods often occur. Most rain falls in summer, often during brief
but heavy thundershowers. Snow rarely falls in the north and is almost unknown
in the south.
Hurricanes frequently strike the state.
Winds of hurricane force, accompanied by heavy rains and high seas, can cause
widespread damage, especially in the south, where so much of the land is at or
near sea level. However, modern construction techniques and an alert weather
watch for potentially dangerous storms have helped reduce the losses of life and
property caused by hurricanes. The risk is not gone, however; in August 1992
Hurricane Andrew ripped through southeastern Florida, killing 41. Cities in the
area reported property damages in excess of $20 billion. In Homestead, near
Miami, 90 percent of the city’s buildings sustained damage from the hurricane.
In 2004 Florida experienced four hurricanes, the first time that many hurricanes
have affected a state in a single season since Texas in 1886, according to the
National Hurricane Center. The hurricane season lasts from late June to early
November, but hurricanes occur most frequently in September.
| D3 | Growing Season |
Florida has one of the longest growing
seasons, or frost-free periods, of all the states. It lasts all year at Key
West, and it varies between 310 and 365 days on the peninsula south of New
Smyrna Beach. Farther north it decreases to about 250 days in the hills of the
panhandle.
| E | Soils |
Sandy soils, which are not productive
unless fertilized, cover much of the state. Fortunately there are vast local
supplies of fertilizer available in the phosphate deposits of the Florida
peninsula. Well-drained sandy loams cover most of the lake district and are
ideal for citrus groves. The best soils in the state are the muck and peat
deposits of the southern peninsula, soil types derived from the decayed
vegetation of the marshes and swamp forests. Used for growing vegetables, they
can produce very large crop yields when they are properly cultivated. However,
they require careful drainage, and in dry periods they need to be irrigated to
prevent them from drying out and shrinking due to oxidation. Parts of the dry
strip of land along the Atlantic coast and the lower Keys have hardly any
topsoil at all.
| F | Plant Life |
Florida is noted for its variety of trees
and other plant life. Some trees and plants are native to the state, but various
species have been introduced from other areas of the world, particularly from
the tropics. Some of these introduced species, such as melaleuca, cogon grass,
and Brazilian pepper, have become serious pests in natural areas and
agricultural lands. The northern half of the state lies in the great belt of
evergreen forests that occupies much of the Coastal Plain south of Virginia. The
southern part of the state, however, is one of the few areas of the United
States where subtropical ferns, trees, and flowering plants flourish.
The principal species of pine in Florida
are longleaf, loblolly, and slash pines. Florida has some of the largest
remaining longleaf pine forests, which once covered large areas of the
southeastern Coastal Plain. Palm trees are found throughout the state. The Sabal
palm, or cabbage palmetto, is the state tree. Other palms include a number that
are imported, such as coconut and date palms. The bald cypress, pond cypress,
black gum, or black tupelo, and water oak grow well in swampy, poorly drained
areas. The live oak, so named because unlike other oaks it retains its leaves
throughout the year, grows throughout the state. Gray-green Spanish moss
festoons trees, especially the live oak and cypress, in moist areas throughout
Florida. Among the many unusual trees found in Florida, especially in the
southern part of the state, are the strangler fig, mahogany, gumbo-limbo, and
sausage. The red mangrove is the principal species in the dense thickets of
plant life in the swampy lands along the coast.
Native flowering plants of note include
the southern magnolia, Jamaica dogwood, Spanish bayonet, and rhododendron.
Imported plants such as the hibiscus, royal poinciana, bougainvillea, gardenia,
and camellia flourish in the warm southern region. The blossom of the orange
tree is the state flower.
| G | Animal Life |
The Everglades and cypress swamps of
southern Florida provide one of the last refuges in the eastern United States
for a number of wild animals. Among the most rarely seen there is the so-called
Florida panther; the only cougar found east of the Mississippi today, it is
classified as an endangered species and protected by state and federal law. The
black bear is numerous in northern forests. The white-tailed deer is common
throughout the state. The tiny Key deer, found only in the lower Keys, is
protected by state and federal law. Other animals in the state include the gray
squirrel, fox squirrel, cottontail rabbit, marsh rabbit, gray fox, raccoon,
opossum, bobcat, and nine-banded armadillo. Wild pigs, descendants of domestic
hogs that escaped into the wilderness, are found in some swampy areas. The
manatee, or sea cow, a marine animal that was once hunted almost to extinction,
is still occasionally seen along the bays and river estuaries of Florida.
Reptiles flourish in Florida. Alligators
are numerous in the rivers, lakes, and swamps throughout the state, and
occasionally, crocodiles are seen in coastal inlets at the southern tip of the
peninsula. Both are protected by law, but a limited harvest of alligators is
permitted. Snakes are found in large numbers, but only a few species are
poisonous. They are the coral snake, the water moccasin, or cottonmouth, and two
species of rattlesnakes. Marine turtles are found along the coast, and land
turtles are sometimes seen inland.
An estimated 400 species of birds are
native to Florida. Among the water birds found there are the roseate spoonbill,
the anhinga, or water turkey, several species of egrets, and herons. The brown
pelican is common, and the white pelican is occasionally seen soaring
effortlessly in the sky. Florida also has many species of vireos, warblers,
hawks, and sparrows. The mockingbird is Florida’s state bird. Among the unusual
or rare birds of Florida are the white-crowned pigeon, the mangrove cuckoo, and
the Florida jay, which has never been recorded outside of Florida. Major game
birds include the turkey, mourning dove, bobwhite quail, and waterfowl such as
ducks and geese.
Saltwater fish along Florida’s coasts
include the barracuda, sailfish, tarpon, bonefish, pompano, black mullet, red
snapper, gray snapper, menhaden, marlin, wahoo, weakfish, amberjack, sea bass,
and snook. Most of them are game or food fish. In addition, many brightly
colored tropical fish are found in Florida waters, and dolphins and sharks are
common along both coasts. Freshwater fish include the black bass, speckled
perch, bream, and bluegill. Shellfish include shrimp, crab, spiny lobster,
oyster, scallop, conch, and coquina (small clams). The most substantial bed of
living corals in the United States outside Hawaii is found along the southern
tip of the peninsula and off the Florida Keys.
| H | Conservation |
The state and federal governments maintain
a number of programs for the conservation of Florida’s natural resources,
particularly forests, fisheries, wildlife, soils, and water supply. In 1993 the
Florida legislature combined the state departments of natural resources and
environmental regulation into the Department of Environmental Protection. The
new department is responsible for all aspects of protection and conservation.
Federal agencies active in the state include the United States Forest Service,
which administers the national forests, and the National Park Service. In 2006
the state had 50 hazardous waste sites on a national priority list for cleanup
due to their severity or proximity to people. Between 1995 and 2000 the amount
of toxic chemicals discharged into the environment increased by 27 percent.
Florida’s extensive pine forests were once
seriously depleted by over-cutting and by improper methods for obtaining
turpentine from the trees. However, their economic value has been restored
through reforestation efforts.
Soil erosion is not a major problem in
most of Florida. Only the northwestern corner of the panhandle has suffered
serious erosion. However, in the Everglades, hundreds of acres of valuable peat
and muck soil have been destroyed by overdraining or burned as a result of
accidental fire in drained swamplands.
As one of the wettest states in the
nation, Florida has ample supplies of water. Most of the annual rainfall seeps
down through the limestone rock, where it makes its way slowly to the sea
through deep underground reservoirs. The state’s water supply comes primarily
from wells that tap these vast underground reservoirs. In some coastal areas the
underground freshwater reserves have been overdrawn and contaminated by
intruding salt water. Where excessive amounts of water have been pumped out to
supply the rapidly growing urban centers, the level of water in the natural
reservoirs has been lowered and salt water from the sea has filtered in. In an
effort to prevent this saltwater intrusion, the legislature enacted the 1957
Water Resources Law to develop a system of water rights allocation. The program
also included provisions for implementing a number of flood control and drainage
projects in the state.
Oil spills and stream pollution by
inadequately treated waste have created new concern for preserving a wholesome
water supply. Both public and private agencies are now seeking ways of avoiding
further pollution of Florida waters, but much remains to be done.
| III | ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES |
Farming has been important to Florida’s
economy ever since the Spanish introduced citrus fruit, sugarcane, and cattle
into Florida in the middle of the 18th century. These three industries are still
important to the state. Late in the 18th century, the British introduced the
plantation system of agriculture to Florida to produce indigo and cotton, but
the indigo plant is no longer cultivated and cotton, although still grown, is no
longer a significant crop. The state’s vast pine forests have been a source of
pitch and tar, called naval stores, as early as the 16th century, and lumbering
became important in the 19th century.
In the late 19th century, Florida’s
tourist industry began to develop, with the construction of railroads and resort
facilities. In the 20th century tourism became the largest single source of
income for the state. Manufacturing in Florida developed in the 20th century,
and by the beginning of the 21st century it had been greatly diversified and
expanded.
The largest contributor to Florida’s
economy in 1999 was the services sector, which contributed 77 percent of the
state’s gross product. It includes such industries as finance, insurance, real
estate, and retail trade. A cornerstone of this commerce is the tourism
industry. Much of the service industry is devoted to meeting the needs of
tourists; retail outlets cater to tourists for a significant proportion of their
sales, and the real estate and finance industries construct developments to
entice tourists to stay or at least spend part of the year in Florida.
Florida had a work force of 8,989,000
people in 2006. The largest share of them, 42 percent, were employed in the
diverse service sector doing such things as working in restaurants or data
processing. Another 22 percent were employed in wholesale or retail trade; 14
percent in federal, state, or local government; 23 percent in finance,
insurance, or real estate; 5 percent in manufacturing; 7 percent in
construction; 20 percent in transportation or public utilities; and 2 percent in
farming (including agricultural services), forestry, or fishing. Just 0.1
percent held jobs in the mining industry. In 2005, 5 percent of Florida’s
workers were unionized. The state has a right-to-work law, which prohibits union
membership as a condition of employment.
| A | Agriculture |
In 2005 there were 42,500 farms in
Florida. Just 38 percent of them had annual sales of more than $10,000. Many of
the rest were part-time operations for people who held other jobs. Farmland
occupied 4 million hectares (10 million acres). Of that land 36 percent was
planted in crops, and the rest was mostly pasture. Some 44 percent of the
cropland was irrigated.
The sale of crops accounted for 78
percent of Florida’s farm income in 2004. The sale of livestock and livestock
products accounted for the remaining 22 percent. The principal crops are oranges
and other citrus fruit, greenhouse and nursery products, tomatoes and other
vegetables, and sugarcane. Livestock raised in Florida include beef and dairy
cattle, chickens for eggs and meat, hogs, and Thoroughbred horses.
| A1 | Patterns of Farming |
In the Florida panhandle, where
commercial agriculture is not a major activity, livestock, cotton, peanuts, and
other crops are raised on a relatively small scale. Farther east and southeast,
in the northern part of the peninsula, agriculture is more important. In this
area the chief crops are tobacco, peanuts, cotton, and vegetables. Dairy cattle
and chickens are also raised. In central Florida, the leading crops are oranges
and other citrus fruits. However, this area is also noted for its vegetable
farms, ornamental horticulture, cattle ranches, and horse farms. In south
central and southern Florida, the principal crops are vegetables and sugarcane.
Cattle are also raised.
| A2 | Citrus Fruit |
Florida leads all other states in the
production of citrus fruits. Each year the state accounts for two-thirds of the
total U.S. citrus crop. It ranks first in the nation in the production of
oranges and grapefruit. Other kinds of citrus fruits grown include tangerines,
tangelos, and limes. The fruits are grown in groves that generally cover less
than 8 hectares.
The preferred land for growing citrus
fruit is the rolling lake district of the central Florida peninsula, where the
numerous bodies of water retain their warmth in cold weather and help reduce
frost hazards. The gently sloping terrain causes cold air to sink into hollows
below the level of the fruit. Most citrus in Florida is grown without
irrigation, but sprinkler systems are used to irrigate the groves during
especially dry years. These systems also supply water for spraying the fruit
during brief episodes of below-freezing, nighttime temperatures. The water
freezes on the citrus fruit and insulates the fruit’s interior.
Hard freezes, which are especially
damaging to the citrus crop, have occurred at least once a decade in the last
100 years. Two hard freezes in the 1980s caused farmers north of Lakeland and
Orlando to abandon growing citrus fruits in their groves, and the industry has
been slowly shifting southward ever since. In the past the shipment to market of
low-quality fruit, damaged by freezes, caused disastrous price slumps and often
ruined citrus growers. However, strict market control by the Florida Citrus
Commission over quantity and quality of fruit sold now helps to keep up prices
after severe winters. Also very damaging to the crop is the tiny Mediterranean
fruit fly, which has threatened Florida many times in the second half of the
20th century. The Florida citrus market is also challenged by overseas
competition, especially from Brazil where orange-juice producers aggressively
expanded their markets in the 1990s.
| A3 | Sugar |
Sugarcane is extremely sensitive to
frost, and where frosts occur, it must be replanted every year. The southernmost
part of Florida is one of the few places in the mainland United States where
such replanting is not necessary. Six to seven crops may be obtained from one
planting. The city of Clewiston, on the southern shore of Lake Okeechobee, is
the center of Florida’s sugarcane cultivation. Production was expanded after
1961, when the United States stopped importing Cuban sugar because of political
differences.
| A4 | Vegetables and Noncitrus Fruits |
Florida is noted for the production of
early vegetables and fruit. The growing of vegetables and fruit for sale early
in the year is a modern development that owes its advance in part to the demand
for fresh vegetables in states north of Florida. Florida’s warm near-tropical
climate allows its farmers to produce crops earlier than farmers in most other
states and thus to obtain good prices in cities north of Florida. Tomatoes are
the most valuable winter crop, and potatoes, sweet corn, celery, carrots, and
lettuce are also grown.
Watermelons are a valuable summer crop
in Florida and, like early vegetables, they are shipped mainly to Northern
cities. Strawberries are another important crop. The Plant City area, east of
Tampa Bay, is the center for strawberry cultivation. Together with Sanford, it
is also a leading celery-producing center. Cucumbers are grown mainly in
northern Florida, and early white potatoes are a specialty of the Hastings area.
Among the other kinds of fruit grown in Florida are avocados, figs, persimmons,
guavas, mangoes, pineapples, peaches, and grapes.
| A5 | Livestock |
Florida is one of the major
cattle-raising states east of the Mississippi River. The rolling grassland in
central Florida is the heart of the beef cattle country. Rodeos, ranches, and
cowboys there provide an atmosphere more characteristic of the West than of the
Atlantic Coast. Dairying meets the demand for fresh milk and other dairy
products within the state. Thoroughbred horses are also raised in large numbers.
Most of the stud farms are in the Ocala area of north central Florida. Poultry
raising is an important, growing segment of the state’s livestock industry. Some
hogs and sheep are also raised in Florida.
| A6 | Other Agricultural Products |
Tobacco is grown mainly in northern
Florida. Cultivation began in the 1920s, after the boll weevil destroyed much of
the cotton crop. The city of Live Oak is the leading tobacco market. Tung trees,
whose nuts yield an oil used in paints and varnishes, are also grown in northern
Florida. Flowers and foliage plants are grown in greenhouses and nurseries in
the central and southern parts of the state.
| B | Fisheries |
Florida’s principal fishing ports are
Pensacola and Apalachicola on the Gulf Coast, Fernandina Beach and New Smyrna
Beach on the Atlantic coast, and Key West. Pink shrimp, which is landed mainly
from Tampa to Key West, is the most valuable seafood in the south. White and
brown shrimp are landed in Apalachicola Bay. Other fish and shellfish caught
commercially include lobster, red snapper, grouper, king and Spanish mackerel,
black mullet, weakfish, and blue and stone crab. In addition, there are oyster
beds in Apalachicola Bay. Florida is also the principal U.S. source of sponges,
but overfishing and the onset of a sponge disease in the 1940s greatly reduced
Florida’s sponge output.
Sport fishing is popular in Florida. It
is an important tourist lure and an important source of income in many
communities. Game fish abound in the state’s inshore and offshore waters. Lake
Okeechobee, the chief fresh water fishing area, is noted for black bass. The
Florida Keys are known for a variety of oceanic fish species including tarpon,
marlin, snapper, and grouper.
| C | Forestry |
Forests cover 47 percent of Florida’s
total land area. The state’s pine forests were noted in earlier centuries as a
source of lumber and of pitch and tar, called naval stores, and in the 19th
century they were greatly depleted. However, new forests were planted on much of
the cutover land. Lumbering activities in the state have greatly expanded since
the 1940s.
| D | Mining |
Phosphate rock is the most important
mineral mined in Florida, and Florida leads the nation in its production. The
phosphate occurs in shallow beds in central and northern Florida, and the center
of the industry is in Bartow near Lakeland. Most of it is used in
fertilizers.
Petroleum and natural gas became two of
Florida’s most important minerals after the discovery of a large oil field north
of Pensacola in 1970. By the mid-1980s, most of these oil and gas reserves were
virtually depleted. However, it is believed that significant deposits may lie
below the ocean floor of the Gulf of Mexico, particularly off the state’s
northwestern coast. Despite pressure from oil and gas companies to secure leases
for exploratory drilling, the state government refuses to permit drilling within
160 km (100 mi) of the Florida coast and strongly opposes all offshore drilling
in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Other leading minerals include stone, cement,
clays, and sand and gravel.
Florida accounts for most of the
nation’s production of zircon, which is used in making furnace brick and
electronic equipment. The state ranks first in the production of titanium
concentrates, which are used in the manufacture of white pigments for paint.
Florida also ranks first in the output of masonry cement and peat.
| E | Manufacturing |
Florida’s manufacturing and processing
industries have expanded rapidly since the 1950s. In 2007 manufacturing employed
4.7 percent of the workers in the state. The major manufacturing centers are
metropolitan Jacksonville, Tampa, and Miami. There are also many factories in
smaller communities. The principal industry in terms of income generated is the
manufacture of electrical and electronic equipment. Other leading industries
include the manufacture of processed foods, instruments, printed materials,
transportation equipment, chemicals, and industrial machinery.
The development during the 1950s of the
Cape Canaveral area as a missile testing and launching center spurred the growth
of many electronics and other engineering plants in eastern Florida. Also
manufactured are radios and televisions, telephones, laser equipment, and
semiconductors.
Foodstuffs made in Florida include dairy
products, meat products, seafood, and a wide variety of other products. Frozen
juice concentrate accounts for a large percentage of the citrus crop. The waste
peel and pulp are made into cattle feed. Other citrus by-products include citrus
peel oils, wines, marmalades, and jellies. Polk County, east of Tampa, is one of
the principal citrus-processing centers in Florida. Vegetables and noncitrus
fruit are also processed in small towns throughout the state.
Instruments for search and navigation
purposes are products in Florida’s manufacturing sector. The printing industry
centers on companies publishing newspapers and periodicals, although commercial
printing for businesses has grown. Firms building and repairing ships and boats
are the leading employers in the transportation equipment sector, joined by the
manufactures of aircraft and aircraft parts, guided missiles and space vehicles,
and bodies for trucks and buses.
Florida’s chemical manufactures include
numerous phosphate compounds. In addition, by-products of the wood pulp and
paper industry are used in the output of oils, rosins, fatty acids, plastics,
and other chemicals.
Industrial machinery makers in Florida
include firms making computers and machines used to package other products.
Manufactures of fabricated metals are diverse, making things such as structural
metal components, metal cans used in fruit and vegetable processing, and sheet
metals.
Florida’s forests are a source of wood
used in the manufacture of wood pulp, paper, and paperboard. Naval stores,
including turpentine, lumber for construction, and many wood products are also
produced.
Cigar making is one of the state’s
oldest and best known industries. Ybor City, a section of Tampa, has been the
principal cigar-making center since the 1880s. Cigars and other tobacco products
are also manufactured in Jacksonville. However, many cigar plants were closed
during the early 1960s, as a result of the U.S. embargo on Cuban goods, which
cut off supplies of Cuban tobacco.
| F | Electricity |
Thermal generating stations produce 84
percent of the electric power in Florida. These power plants are fueled by coal,
petroleum, or natural gas piped in from as far away as Texas. In 1972 and 1973,
two nuclear power plants began operating at Turkey Point on Biscayne Bay near
Miami. Three other nuclear plants, two on Hutchinson Island near Fort Pierce and
the other at Crystal River on the Gulf Coast, began supplying power in the late
1970s and early 1980s. The nuclear plants combined produce 13 percent of the
electricity generated in the state.
Most of the state’s electric power is
generated and distributed by four major private utility companies. In addition,
a number of cities provide their own utility services, and there are cooperative
power companies in the rural areas of the state.
| G | Tourist Industry |
Tourism is a vital component of
Florida’s economy. With its warm temperatures, numerous beaches, and many
attractions, the state draws millions of people each year. Money from tourism is
the largest single source of income for Floridians. Tourists spent $54.5 billion
when visiting Florida in 2002.
South Florida is among the most popular
destinations for tourists, particularly Miami and Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale,
and the West Palm Beach area. Other major resorts include Daytona Beach, Fort
Myers, Saint Petersburg, Panama City, Pensacola, and many others. The
internationally known theme parks near Orlando, clustered around Walt Disney
World, annually attract more than 40 million visitors. Tourism has also
indirectly spurred expansion of the state’s construction industry as hotels,
motels, and restaurants are built to accommodate tourists.
| H | Transportation |
The development and expansion of
transportation facilities in Florida have played a major role in the state’s
economic expansion. There are 194,018 km (120,557 mi) of highways, including
2,367 km (1,471 mi) of interstate highway, in the state. Principal north-south
routes are interstates 95 in the east and 75 in the west. Interstate 10 spans
the panhandle region. Other major routes are Florida’s Turnpike, formerly known
as the Sunshine State Parkway, which connects Interstate 75 north of Orlando
with heavily populated South Florida. The southernmost leg of Interstate 75,
sometimes known as “Alligator Alley,” crosses the Everglades and connects Naples
with Fort Lauderdale. United States Highway 1 extends south from Jacksonville,
parallels Interstate 95 all the way to Miami, and then forms the lifeline of the
Florida Keys from Key Largo to Key West by connecting the dozens of islands that
form the keys.
Railroads played a central role in the
development of Florida beginning in the 1880s. In 2004 the state had 4,571 km
(2,840 mi) of railroad track. Some 63 percent of the tonnage of goods hauled by
rail and originating in the state are nonmetallic minerals. Amtrak operates
three long-distance passenger routes.
In 2007 Florida had 25 airports, some of
which were private airfields. The largest is Miami International, one of the
busiest in the nation and a primary point of entry into the United States from
the Caribbean and Central and South America. Other major airports in the state
include Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International, Palm Beach International, Tampa
International, and Orlando International.
Although steamboats gave way to
railroads as the major form of transportation in Florida during the 1880s, the
state’s canals, lakes, and rivers are still widely used for pleasure boating and
shipping. More than 1,900 km (1,200 mi) of the Intracoastal Waterway, a
toll-free federal waterway for coastal vessels and pleasure craft, extend around
the coast of Florida except in the southwest between Fort Myers and the Florida
Keys.
Two unusual forms of tourist
transportation are used in the Everglades. The flat-bottomed airboat, powered by
an airplane engine and propeller, can skim across the shallow waters and swamp
grasses. The marsh buggy, a truck with large balloon tires, can go across rough
ground and the extensive swamplands of the Everglades.
| I | Trade |
Tampa, on the Gulf coast, is Florida’s
chief port by tonnage due to its phosphate exports. Jacksonville is the leader
in dollar value as it is a major destination for automobile imports. Miami is
the nation’s leading port for cruise ships. Other major ports are Canaveral
Harbor and Port Everglades, the deepwater port for Fort Lauderdale.
Overseas trade is of major importance.
Florida trades mainly with Latin American countries and also exports citrus
fruit to Canada and Europe. Leading exports are phosphate rock, fertilizers,
foodstuffs, paper products, machinery, motor vehicles, iron and steel scrap, and
wood pulp. Chief imports are petroleum products, chemicals, clays, cement and
other building materials, limestone, foodstuffs, motor vehicles, steel mill
products, and paper products.
Peter O. Muller reviewed the
Economy section of this article.
| IV | THE PEOPLE OF FLORIDA |
| A | Population Patterns |
Since 1920 Florida has been among the
four fastest-growing states in the Union. Its population in 2000 was more than
16 times the size of the 1920 population of 968,470. According to the 2000
national census, Florida ranked fourth among the states, with a total population
of 15,982,378 (an increase of 23.5 percent over the 1990 total of 12,937,926).
In 2006 the average population density was 130 persons per sq km (335 per sq
mi).
The population is not evenly distributed.
Some 89 percent of the population live in urban areas, and the remainder live in
small communities in rural areas. Most people reside in towns and cities along
the coast. The center of the peninsula and the western panhandle support a
fairly large rural population, but large areas of southern Florida, including
most of the Everglades and many offshore islands along the Gulf coast, are
practically uninhabited.
People over the age of 65 made up 18
percent of the state’s population in 1997, compared with the national average of
13 percent. Many older people from the rest of the nation and also some from
Canada move to Florida after they have retired.
In 2000 whites comprised the largest
share of the population, representing 78 percent of the people. Blacks were 14.6
percent of the population, Asians were 1.7 percent, Native Americans were 0.3
percent, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders were 0.1 percent, and
those of mixed heritage or not reporting race were 5.3 percent. Hispanics, who
may be of any race, were 16.8 percent of the population. Many of the Hispanics
in Florida are Cubans or their descendants who left the island nation before or
soon after a revolution there in the late 1950s. Others came during the early
1980s when Cuba temporarily lifted exit restrictions.
Many of the Native Americans now in
Florida are descended from the Seminole, who retreated into the Everglades
following the end of the second Seminole War in 1842. One group lives on a
reservation in the swamps north and east of Lake Okeechobee. Another group
occupies a reservation in the Big Cypress Swamp, northwest of the Everglades. In
1957 the Native Americans set up the Seminole Tribe of Florida, Inc., and
established their first constitutional government since 1848.
| B | Principal Cities |
Jacksonville, since it consolidated with
all but three of the communities in Duval County in 1968, is the most populous
city in Florida, with an estimated 2006 population of 794,555. It is the major
northern Florida city and an important seaport, and has an extensive financial
and insurance industry. The Miami metropolitan area, which is coextensive with
Miami-Dade County, had a population of 2.2 million, of whom 404,048 lived in
Miami proper. Combined with the adjoining Fort Lauderdale metropolitan area, the
population was 3.9 million in 2000. Miami is the principal commercial and
manufacturing city in the state. The Miami area is the major center for
Florida’s Hispanic population, who make up three-fifths of the local population.
The Tampa-Saint Petersburg-Clearwater
metropolitan area, with 2.7 million people, is the largest urban complex on the
Gulf coast. Orlando, with 220,186 inhabitants, serves a metropolitan area of 2
million. It is a recreation destination for people from around the world, a
major citrus marketing center, and has many industries related to the space
program on nearby Cape Canaveral. Tallahassee, the capital city, has a
population of 159,012. Daytona Beach and Palm Beach are important Atlantic urban
centers and beach resorts. Key West, the southernmost city, and Pensacola both
have U.S. naval facilities. Saint Augustine is the nation’s oldest continuously
inhabited city.
| C | Religion |
The early history of Florida was marked
by religious conflict, which was linked to the national rivalry between Spain
and England. Under Spanish rule, which began in the 16th century, the Roman
Catholic Church was the established church in Florida. Protestantism was first
introduced by French Huguenots in 1562. After 1763, when Spain ceded Florida to
Great Britain, the Church of England was the official religion.
The Roman Catholic Church makes up the
largest religious group, especially in Miami, Tampa, Pensacola, Saint Augustine,
and other cities with large numbers of Spanish American residents. The parish of
the Cathedral of Saint Augustine, which was organized shortly after the city was
founded in 1565, is the oldest Roman Catholic parish in the United States.
Baptists and Methodists are the leading Protestant groups. In addition, there
are large Jewish congregations in Miami and nearby communities, as well as in
other large cities.
| V | EDUCATION AND CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS |
| A | Education |
Before the American Civil War (1861-1865),
Florida had few public schools. The development of public education in the state
was given impetus after the war, when the federal government established schools
for freed slaves. In 1868 a new state constitution included a provision
authorizing a statewide system of public education. In 1869 a state board of
education was created.
A great effort to improve the public
school system was begun in 1947 with the adoption of the minimum foundation
program. The program makes state funds available to each county that needs money
to provide a minimum school term of 180 days and a satisfactory minimum quality
of education for each child.
School attendance in Florida is compulsory
from age 6 through 16. Most of Florida’s private and parochial schools are
maintained by the Roman Catholic Church. Some 12 percent of Florida’s children
attend private schools.
In the 2002–2003 school year Florida spent
$7,773 on each student’s education, compared to a national average of $9,299.
There were 17.9 students for every teacher (the national average was 15.9). Of
those older than 25 years of age in the state, 84.5 percent had a high school
diploma, while the nation as a whole averaged 84.1 percent.
| A1 | Higher Education |
The University of Florida, in
Gainesville, one of the oldest and largest schools of higher learning in the
state, was started in 1853 at Ocala as the East Florida Seminary. It is now part
of the state system of higher education. This system also includes Florida State
University, in Tallahassee; the University of South Florida, in Tampa; Florida
Agricultural and Mechanical University, in Tallahassee; University of West
Florida, in Pensacola; Florida Atlantic University, in Boca Raton; University of
Central Florida, in Orlando; University of North Florida, in Jacksonville; and
the Florida International University, in Miami. A tenth state school, Florida
Gulf Coast University, opened in 1997 near Fort Myers.
In 2004–2005 Florida had 40 public and
123 private institutions of higher learning. Noted private schools included
Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach; Florida Institute of Technology in
Melbourne; Jacksonville University; Rollins College in Winter Park; Stetson
University in De Land; and the University of Miami in Coral Gables.
| B | Libraries |
The first public library in the state was
the Jacksonville Public Library, which was established in 1905. There are now 72
tax-supported public library systems. Each year the public libraries circulate
an average of 5.3 books for every resident. Many libraries are maintained by
colleges and universities, professional institutions, and historical and other
associations. Noted collections on Florida history are held by the State Library
of Florida, in Tallahassee; the P. K. Yonge Library of Florida History, at the
University of Florida; and the Saint Augustine Historical Society.
| C | Museums |
The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art,
at Sarasota, has a noted collection of works by Flemish painter Peter Paul
Rubens and other European masters. It also houses a Museum of the Circus, in
honor of John Ringling, the famous circus owner. There are also art galleries
and art museums in West Palm Beach, Clearwater, Miami, and Saint Petersburg. The
Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida, in Gainesville,
has numerous historical and scientific exhibits and houses the noted Key Marco
Collection of Native American artifacts. A number of small museums throughout
the state are devoted to special subjects, such as marine life, seashells,
archaeology, and Native American artifacts. The Salvador Dalí Museum in Saint
Petersburg exhibits works reflecting impressionist and cubist styles, Dalí’s
transition period, the famous surrealist works for which he is best known, and
his later “classic” works, which show his preoccupation with religion, history,
and science.
| D | Communications |
Some 43 daily newspapers are published in
Florida. The East Florida Gazette, founded at Saint Augustine in 1783,
was Florida’s first newspaper. The Florida Union, founded at Jacksonville
in 1864, is now the Jacksonville Florida Times-Union, and it is the
oldest continuously published newspaper in the state. The Miami Herald, a
nationally prominent newspaper, is known for its extensive coverage of the
Caribbean. Other major newspapers include the Sun-Sentinel, published in
Fort Lauderdale; the Orlando Sentinel; the Saint Petersburg Times;
the Tampa Tribune; and the Spanish-language Diario Las Américas,
published in Miami.
The first radio station in Florida, WQAM,
was established in Miami in 1921. The state’s first television station, WTVJ,
began broadcasting in Miami in 1949. In 2002 there were 151 AM and 172 FM radio
stations in the state and 66 television stations.
| E | Music and Theater |
Several of the larger cities and most of
the colleges and universities in Florida support symphony orchestras. Among the
most popular music festivals held each year in the state are the Bach Festival,
at Rollins College in Winter Park, and the Florida International Festival, in
Daytona Beach, featuring the London Symphony Orchestra.
Community theater groups are found in most
of the state’s larger cities, and there are professional theaters in Miami,
Daytona Beach, and Palm Beach. The Florida State University Center for the
Performing Arts, in Sarasota, is home to the Asolo Theatre Company.
| VI | RECREATION AND PLACES TO VISIT |
Florida is renowned as one of the country’s
most popular vacationlands, and almost the entire state is oriented toward the
numerous forms of recreation available. Among the most popular are water sports,
including swimming, boating, water-skiing, and fishing. Other diversions offered
include hunting, golf, tennis, jai alai, polo, horse racing, dog racing,
automobile racing, baseball, and rodeos. In addition, many areas in the state
have been set aside by the federal and state governments for recreation and
conservation.
| A | National Parks |
The principal national park in the state,
Everglades National Park (566,116 hectares/1,398,903 acres), is a vast
wilderness area covering the southern tip of the peninsula. Adjoining the
Everglades is Big Cypress National Preserve. Biscayne National Park includes
dozens of islands and keys in Biscayne Bay, south of Miami. Canaveral National
Seashore is north of Kennedy Space Center. Gulf Islands National Seashore is
south of Pensacola.
The oldest existing masonry fort in the
United States lies within Castillo de San Marcos National Monument. The national
monument is in the historic city of Saint Augustine. South of the city is Fort
Matanzas National Monument. On Tampa Bay is De Soto National Memorial, which
commemorates the landing in Florida in 1539 of the Spanish explorer Hernando de
Soto. Fort Caroline National Memorial, near Jacksonville, lies near the site of
the second French settlement in the present United States. Fort Jefferson is
located in Dry Tortugas National Park, 105 km (65 mi) west of Key West. It is
the largest all-masonry fortification in the Western world.
| B | National Forests |
There are three national forests in
Florida, the largest of which is Apalachicola National Forest. Apalachicola lies
in the center of the Florida panhandle, in a picturesque region of swamps,
lakes, and rivers. Osceola National Forest, the smallest, also lies in the
north. Farther south, in the lake district, is Ocala National Forest. It is a
vast wilderness area of pines and other trees and springs and lakes. Many
national wilderness areas are located in Florida’s national forests, including
Big Gum Swamp.
Among the six National Wildlife Refuges
in Florida is Pelican Island, noted as the country’s first such refuge,
established in 1903. From this beginning has grown a National Wildlife Refuge
System of nearly 500 refuges encompassing about 38 million hectares (93 million
acres). The waters and wetlands of Pelican Island support a major ecological
system that sustains hundreds of species of birds, fish, plants, and
mammals.
| C | State Parks and Forests |
Florida state forests cover 6.7 million
hectares (16.5 million acres). They include Cary, Pine Log, and Blackwater River
state forests, all of which lie in northern Florida, and Myakka River State
Forest, which is located in the south-central part of the state.
Florida’s 110 state parks include
facilities for water sports, picnicking, and other recreational activities. John
Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park and Myakka River State Park are the largest. The
former, near Key Largo, covers 22,667 hectares (56,011 acres), and is 95 percent
underwater. It includes 40 species of living coral and a variety of colorful
tropical fish. Among the other state parks are Florida Caverns State Park, near
Marianna, Cape Florida State Recreation Area on Key Biscayne, and Sebastian
Inlet State Recreation Area, near Melbourne.
Numerous state historic memorials are
scattered across Florida. Among the more notable is Constitution Convention
State Museum, at Port Saint Joe in western Florida, which stands near the site
of Florida’s first constitutional convention. Stephen Foster State Folk Cultural
Center, on the Suwannee River, has a museum and carillon tower honoring the
famous composer.
| D | Other Places to Visit |
Marineland of Florida, on the coast
between Saint Augustine and Daytona Beach, is the world’s first oceanarium. It
includes saltwater tanks containing live porpoises, sharks, whales, and other
rarely seen forms of marine life. There are similar marine life aquariums at
Miami, Islamorada, Titusville, Saint Petersburg Beach, and near Fort Walton
Beach. Saint Augustine Alligator Farm and Zoological Park, situated near Saint
Augustine, has one of the largest collections of captive alligators in the
world. Hialeah Park, in Miami, is one of the country’s famous horse-racing
tracks. In North Miami Beach is a reassembled 11th-century monastery from Spain.
It is a major tourist attraction.
Places of interest noted for their exotic
plant and animal collections include Busch Gardens, in Tampa; Caribbean Gardens,
near Naples; Parrot Jungle and Gardens, near Miami; and Everglades Wonder
Gardens, near Bonita Springs. Recreational centers that have excellent plant
life collections include Cape Coral Gardens; Fairchild Tropical Gardens, near
Miami; and Cypress Gardens, in Winter Haven. Among the many outstanding natural
springs located in Florida are Wakulla Springs, the deepest at 56 m (185 ft),
near Tallahassee, Silver Springs, and Blue Springs.
The Oldest House, in Saint Augustine, is
believed to date from late in the 16th century. The winter home of Thomas A.
Edison in Fort Myers is also the site of a laboratory that was used by the
inventor. The Mountain Lake Sanctuary, near Lake Wales, contains Bok Tower
Gardens. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Kennedy Space Center,
at Cape Canaveral, is a major tourist attraction. In 1971 Walt Disney World,
with its giant amusement park, opened just south of Orlando. Disney World has
expanded since then, and with other theme parks in the area, including Sea World
and Universal Studios, has made the Orlando region a major tourist
destination.
| E | Sports |
Florida’s professional sports teams
include the Miami Dolphins, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Jacksonville Jaguars
football teams; the Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic basketball teams; the
Florida (Miami) Panthers and the Tampa Bay Lightning hockey teams; and the
Florida Marlins (Miami) and Tampa Bay Rays baseball teams. Many major league
baseball teams also conduct their spring training and play preseason games in
Florida. The Daytona 500 stock-car race is held every February in Daytona
Beach.
| F | Annual Events |
Major football games are played in
Florida each New Year’s Day in the Orange Bowl at Miami, in the Gator Bowl at
Jacksonville, in the Citrus Bowl at Orlando, and in the Holiday Bowl in Saint
Petersburg. Another event that is held annually in February is Old Island Days
in Key West. The Florida Citrus Exposition is also in February, at Winter Haven.
The Florida State Fair, in Tampa, is also held in February.
Presentations of the Black Hills Passion
Play are given from mid-February until mid-April in an outdoor amphitheater near
Lake Wales. Major automobile races are held at Sebring in March and at Daytona
Beach in February and July. The four-day-long Seaside Fiesta is held at New
Smyrna Beach in late April or early May. The Kingfish Derby, in March and April,
and the Tarpon Round-Up, from May 1 to July 31, are held at Saint Petersburg.
Later in the summer the Florida International Music Festival is held in Daytona
Beach.
| VII | GOVERNMENT |
Florida’s sixth and present constitution
was adopted in 1968. Amendments may be proposed by a three-fifths majority of
each house of the state legislature, by a commission appointed to amend the
constitution, by a petition of voters, or by a constitutional convention. To
become effective, amendments must be approved by the voters of the state.
| A | Executive |
The constitution provides for an
executive branch of government headed by a governor, who is elected for a
four-year term and who is limited to two consecutive terms. A lieutenant
governor is elected on a joint ticket with the governor. The cabinet is made up
of a secretary of state, attorney general, comptroller, treasurer, commissioner
of agriculture, and commissioner of education. The cabinet officers are elected
for four-year terms and may succeed themselves. Many duties normally executed by
the chief executive in other states are carried out in Florida by boards and
commissions made up of various combinations of cabinet members and the governor.
This “cabinet system” gives Florida a comparatively weak governor whose
authority is shared with independently elected administrative officials. At the
time of election the governor, the lieutenant governor, and each cabinet member
must be at least 30 years of age and must have been a state resident for the
preceding seven years. The attorney general must also have been a member of the
Florida Bar for the preceding five years. The governor may veto legislation, but
a two-thirds vote in each house of the legislature may override his veto.
| B | Legislative |
The state legislature consists of a
40-member Senate and a 120-member House of Representatives. State senators are
elected for four-year terms, half of them every two years. State representatives
are elected for two-year terms.
The legislature meets each year in
Tallahassee for 60 days. The governor may call 20-day special sessions. The
length of regular or special sessions may be extended by a three-fifths majority
vote in each house.
| C | Judicial |
The highest court in Florida is the
Supreme Court. There are seven justices who select a chief justice from their
ranks by popular vote. Justices are appointed by the governor from a list of
people recommended by the Judicial Nominating Commission. When justices’ terms
expire, their names appear on the general election ballot for a merit retention
vote, if they wish to remain in office. The Supreme Court hears cases including
final orders imposing death sentences and district court decisions declaring a
state statute or provision of the state constitution invalid.
Lower courts include district courts of
appeal, circuit courts, county judges’ courts, county courts, criminal courts of
record, juvenile courts, civil courts of record, small claims courts, and
municipal courts.
| D | Local Government |
Florida is divided into 67 counties,
most of which are administered by a board of five elected commissioners. The
county commissioners are responsible for matters at the county level, including
local elections, taxes, public welfare, and education. Other elected county
officials include a county judge, sheriff, tax assessor, tax collector,
superintendent of public instruction, and surveyor.
Most of the larger cities in Florida are
governed under the council and city manager form of municipal government.
Notable exceptions are Jacksonville, Orlando, and Tampa, which have the mayor
and council form of municipal government. Some cities, such as Jacksonville and
Miami, have municipal governments that are wholly or partially consolidated with
the governments of the counties in which they are located.
| E | National Representation |
Florida elects two U.S. senators and 25
members of the House of Representatives. The state casts 27 electoral votes in
presidential elections.
| VIII | HISTORY |
| A | Early Inhabitants |
There were an estimated 350,000 Native
Americans in what is now Florida when Europeans first arrived early in the 16th
century. They belonged to three major nations, the Calusa along the southwestern
coast, the Timucua in the northern half of the peninsula, and the Apalachee
where the peninsula joins the panhandle. Peoples dominated by the Calusa lived
along the southeastern coast.
All were settled agricultural peoples,
as skilled with the hoe as they were with canoes or with bows and arrows. They
lived in villages, where they cultivated corn, beans, and other crops. Noted
warriors, they fiercely resisted early attempts to bring them under submission,
but coexisted peacefully with the Spaniards for most of the first 198 years of
Spanish occupation.
The populations of these Native
Americans were drastically reduced by diseases introduced by the European
explorers. They had no resistance to pathogens such as measles, smallpox, and
typhoid fever that Europeans normally survived. The Native Americans also lost
ground because of slaving raids by English forces from South Carolina and
Georgia. By mid-18th century these nations no longer existed. The modern Native
Americans of Florida are the Seminole, originally Creek from the Georgia-Alabama
border, who entered Florida in the period 1716 to 1767. Today they have five
reservations in the state. They farm, hunt, and fish, run tourist-related
businesses, and operate a large bingo hall near Miami.
| B | The 16th Century |
| B1 | Spanish Discovery and Exploration |
The Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de
León landed on the Atlantic Coast of what is now Florida, probably at or near
Melbourne Beach, early in April 1513. He is generally credited with being the
first European to set foot in Florida, although he may have been preceded by
slavers from the Spanish-held island of La Isla Española (Hispaniola) in the
Caribbean Sea. In 1521 Ponce de León returned with two shiploads of colonists to
found a settlement on the Gulf Coast, probably in the vicinity of Charlotte
Harbor, but he was driven off, mortally wounded, by a Native American attack. A
dubious legend of later years attributed his explorations in Florida to a quest
for a magic fountain of youth.
Later explorations gave Spain a claim
to the vast, uncharted area north and west of the peninsula. For many years the
name La Florida, given by Ponce de León to the peninsula, was applied by
Spain to the entire Atlantic coastline of North America as far north as
Newfoundland.
In 1528 an expedition of 300 men led
by Pánfilo de Narváez landed on the Gulf coast, probably at Tampa Bay. The party
marched northward through forests and swamps to the area north of Apalachee Bay.
Having found no gold there, and beset by continual Native American attacks, they
set out for Mexico in crude wooden barges. Most of the members of the expedition
were drowned when a sudden storm swamped the barges near Texas. In 1539 the
quest for gold brought explorer Hernando de Soto and a force of more than 600
Spanish soldiers to the Tampa Bay area. After exploring the land to the north
and northwest, they ventured westward, and, in 1541, discovered the Mississippi
River.
| B2 | French and Spanish Rivalry |
In 1562 Spanish claims to Florida
were challenged by Jean Ribault, a French naval captain, who discovered the
mouth of the Saint Johns River and thought it a likely site for a French
settlement. Two years later René Goulaine de Laudonnière, one of Ribault’s
officers, established Fort Caroline there. Spain, a Roman Catholic country,
objected to the French settlement for religious as well as political reasons
because the French colonists were Huguenots, or Protestants.
In 1565 Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, the
newly appointed Spanish governor of La Florida, commanded a colonizing
expedition that landed 64 km (40 mi) south of Fort Caroline and established San
Agustín (now Saint Augustine), the first permanent European settlement in what
is now the United States. Menéndez led a successful overland attack on Fort
Caroline, while a French fleet, which was attempting to attack Saint Augustine,
was destroyed by a violent storm. The Spaniards massacred most of the French at
Fort Caroline and executed all but a few survivors of the shipwrecked fleet.
Three years later, in revenge for the Fort Caroline massacre, a French
expedition destroyed the Spanish garrison there. However, no further French
settlements were made on the peninsula.
After the founding of Saint
Augustine, Menéndez established a number of coastal outposts and a second major
settlement, Santa Elena, at Parris Island in present-day South Carolina. Santa
Elena was abandoned in 1586.
| C | The 17th and 18th Centuries |
| C1 | Settlement and Conflict |
Early in the 17th century, Franciscan
priests converted most of the Timucua and Apalachee of northern Florida to
Christianity. An interior chain of missions eventually extended from Saint
Augustine to present-day Tallahassee, and another chain ran north along the
coastal islands of Georgia.
England and France contested Spain’s
claim to the vast area that the Spaniards called La Florida. For 150 years
following the establishment of the first permanent English settlement in America
at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, English colonists pushed slowly southward into
Spanish territory, establishing settlements in the Carolinas and in Georgia. The
English saw the Spanish missions as a threat to their claims. Throughout the
early part of the 18th century, English raiders, accompanied by their Native
American allies of the Creek and Yamasee nations, attacked Spanish settlements
in northern Florida. All of the Spanish missions were destroyed, and most of the
Timucua and Apalachee were killed, captured as slaves, or driven into
exile.
Meanwhile, René-Robert Cavelier,
Sieur de La Salle, and other French explorers of the interior of the continent
reached the mouth of the Mississippi River in 1682. To counter their activities,
the Spaniards in 1698 founded Pensacola in the panhandle. Over the next 20
years, the French founded settlements at Biloxi (now in Mississippi), Mobile
(now in Alabama), and New Orleans (now in Louisiana). The French captured
Pensacola in 1719, but returned it to Spanish rule in 1722. By 1750 France
controlled the Gulf Coast area west of Pensacola, and Great Britain (a union of
England, Scotland, and Wales) controlled the Atlantic Coast north of the Saint
Marys River.
Toward the end of the French and
Indian War (1754-1763) between France and Great Britain, Spain allied itself
with France against Great Britain. But the British won the war and by the terms
of the Treaty of Paris received Florida from Spain. The acquired land stretched
as far west as the Mississippi River. The Spaniards retained New Orleans, near
the mouth of the Mississippi.
| C2 | British Colonial Period |
Under British administration, the
territory was divided into two colonies, East Florida and West Florida. East
Florida, with its capital at Saint Augustine, occupied most of the present-day
state. West Florida, with its capital at Pensacola, extended westward from the
Apalachicola River to the Mississippi and included parts of present-day Alabama,
Mississippi, and Louisiana.
During the 21 years of British rule,
many colonists from England and other parts of Europe settled in Florida. Indigo
plants, which yield a blue dye, were grown on plantations to supply the British
textile industries, and furs, citrus fruit, lumber, and naval stores were also
produced for export.
When the 13 colonies of Great Britain
on the Atlantic Seaboard declared their independence as the United States,
during the American Revolution (1775-1783), they invited East and West Florida
to join them. The Florida colonists, however, remained loyal to Great Britain.
During the revolution many Loyalists—colonists who remained loyal to the British
king—fled to East Florida from Georgia and South Carolina. Raids and
counterraids were common along the East Florida-Georgia border, but there were
no major military actions between the patriots and British forces.
| C3 | Second Spanish Period |
In 1779 Spain joined the
Revolutionary War on the side of the United States. Spanish forces from New
Orleans attacked West Florida, capturing Mobile in 1780 and Pensacola in 1781.
After the Revolution, in a second Treaty of Paris in 1783, the British formally
returned both East Florida and West Florida to Spain. As a result, thousands of
settlers left Florida for Britain’s island possessions in the West Indies.
The Spanish governor arrived in 1784.
During this second period of Spanish colonial rule, until 1821, Florida received
little attention from Spain. British traders were allowed to continue their
profitable businesses in Florida, and immigrants from the United States began to
settle there. These new settlers strongly supported annexation by the United
States, and their views were encouraged by the U.S. government.
The United States and Spain disagreed
about the location of the northern boundary of West Florida. The United States
maintained, on the basis of language in the peace treaty of 1783, that it was
latitude 31° north. Spain claimed the boundary to be latitude 32°30’ north, the
boundary established during British rule, and refused to remove its army
garrison from Natchez. Finally, in 1795, under the terms of the Treaty of San
Lorenzo, Spain accepted latitude 31° north as the northern boundary of West
Florida.
| D | The 19th Century |
| D1 | United States Intervention |
In the second decade of the 19th
century, Florida’s diverse population included Spaniards, United States
settlers, English traders, adventurers, runaway slaves, and the Seminole. Spain
maintained a few garrisons in the principal ports, but for the most part left
the countryside alone and the Seminole to themselves. An offshoot of the Creek
nation of the Georgia-Alabama frontier, the Seminole included remnants of other
native peoples and a number of escaped black slaves from Georgia, Alabama, and
Mississippi. They occupied lands in northern Florida that were coveted by
residents of Georgia, although Florida belonged to Spain. Georgia residents were
also unhappy over the Seminole practice of giving refuge to fugitive
slaves.
In 1810 United States settlers in
the western part of Florida rebelled against Spanish rule and declared their
independence as the republic of West Florida. This area and other territory
between the Mississippi and Perdido rivers was subsequently annexed by the
United States. The eastern part, between the Perdido and Pearl rivers, was
incorporated into Mississippi territory, while the area west of the Pearl was
included in the Territory of Orleans (now the state of Louisiana).
During the War of 1812 the Spaniards
allowed the British to occupy Pensacola and set up a naval base there. In 1814
American forces led by General Andrew Jackson attacked Pensacola and drove the
British out. After the war the United States intervened in Florida on several
occasions on behalf of American interests. The First Seminole War (1817-1818)
began when U.S. troops, commanded by Jackson, invaded Florida to retaliate for
border raids by the Seminole. Jackson seized a military post at Saint Marks and
took as prisoners two British traders, Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert Chrystie
Ambrister. He had them court-martialed for inciting the Seminole and then,
having been found guilty, executed. Learning that the Seminole had fled toward
Pensacola, he made a forced march and captured the post a second time.
Jackson’s actions created an
international incident. Both Spain and Britain were incensed. Most of President
James Monroe’s Cabinet was ready to repudiate Jackson, but Secretary of State
John Quincy Adams, who had been negotiating with Spain for the sale of Florida,
insisted that Jackson had not exceeded his orders. He persuaded Monroe to accept
his view, and then instructed Spain that it should either govern Florida more
effectively or cede it to the United States.
After long negotiations, Spain
agreed in 1819 to cede Florida to the United States. A probable factor in the
decision was that Spain was troubled at that time by revolts in its South
American colonies and could ill afford to go to war with the United States.
Under the terms of the treaty, called the Adams-Onís Treaty, the United States
agreed to assume payment of claims, up to $5 million, which American citizens in
Florida had lodged against Spain. The United States took formal possession of
Florida in 1821.
| D2 | Territorial Period |
For several months, Jackson served
as military governor of Florida. Then Florida was organized as a territory with
its present boundaries, and William P. DuVal was appointed its first territorial
governor in 1822. Tallahassee was chosen as the site of the territorial capital
in 1824. Settlers poured into the territory from neighboring states, and a
typical Southern plantation system, based on cotton, corn, and tobacco, was
established in northern Florida.
As the territory’s population
increased, settlers pushed southward, displacing the Seminole. A treaty was
forced on the Seminole in 1832 by which they were to move west of the
Mississippi River within three years. However, many of them, led by Osceola, one
of their war leaders, repudiated the treaty. Efforts to enforce it led to the
Second Seminole War (1835-1842), which took the lives of 1,466 American soldiers
and even more Seminole. When the fighting ended, most of the Seminole were
removed from the state, but some took refuge in the Everglades, where many of
their descendants now live. After the Third Seminole War (1855-1858), about half
of those remaining were moved west. The rest stayed in Florida.
| D3 | Statehood |
A state constitution was drafted in
1838, and Florida was admitted to the Union on March 3, 1845. William D.
Moseley, a planter from Jefferson County, was elected first governor of the
state of Florida.
Between 1845 and 1860 the number of
inhabitants in the state increased from about 70,000 to more than 140,000. Most
of the people lived in the northern part of the state, and vast areas of
southern Florida remained uninhabited. Cotton, which was the chief cash crop,
was produced by slave labor on plantations in middle Florida, between the
Apalachicola and Suwannee rivers. Cattle were raised along the Peace and Saint
Johns rivers. Some lumber, turpentine, leather, coarse cotton cloth, and salt
were produced in the state. By 1861 the chief cities in northern Florida were
linked by railroads.
| D4 | Civil War |
Slavery was one of the most divisive
political issues in the Congress of the United States in the early 19th century.
Many Congress members from the Northern states pressed to end slavery, both
because it was considered immoral and because white labor could not compete with
unpaid black labor. Members from Florida and the other Deep South states
believed that slavery was essential to their cotton-based agricultural system
and that the North was trying to dominate the national economy.
By the 1850s, Southerners saw their
power slipping in Congress, the clamor by Northern abolitionists—those who
wanted an immediate and total end to slavery—was at a high pitch, and many white
Floridians came to believe that secession from the Union was the only way to
protect “Southern rights,” including the right to own slaves.
After South Carolina seceded from
the Union in December 1860, Florida’s proslavery Democratic Party demanded the
state’s immediate secession from the Union, and in January 1861 Florida
officially seceded. The next month, after seven states had seceded, they
organized as the Confederate States of America and began mobilizing for war. The
American Civil War began officially on April 12, 1861, when Confederate
artillery bombarded a federal fort in the harbor of Charleston, South
Carolina.
During the Civil War, Union troops
captured Jacksonville, Saint Augustine, Fernandina, Pensacola, and other coastal
towns. Repeated Union attempts to gain control of the interior of the state
failed, and Tallahassee was the only Confederate capital east of the Mississippi
to escape Union occupation during the war. Inland routes were used to transport
large quantities of beef, bacon, and salt supplied by Florida to the Confederate
armies farther north. Confederate ships, operating out of sheltered inlets along
the Florida coast, carried cotton, tobacco, and turpentine to the West Indies,
where these commodities were traded for arms, ammunition, and medical supplies.
Only one major battle was fought on Florida soil, on February 20, 1864, when
Confederate troops defeated Union forces at Olustee.
| D5 | Reconstruction |
After the Confederate surrender in
1865, President Andrew Johnson, as part of his plan of restoration, or
Reconstruction, of the Union, appointed Provisional Governor William Marvin to
reorganize the state government. A new state constitution was drawn up, formally
abolishing slavery. The new government, however, was dominated by former
Confederates. It enacted the so-called Black Code, similar to codes passed in
other ex-Confederate states, which significantly denied blacks freedom of
movement and of occupation.
Partly because of these acts by the
Southern legislatures, the Radical wing of the Republican Party in Congress
wrested control of Reconstruction from President Johnson and imposed the harsher
regime called Radical Reconstruction. In March 1867 Congress put all the
ex-Confederate states except Tennessee under military rule. Their readmission to
the Union was made conditional on their adoption of new constitutions acceptable
to Congress. When Florida ratified such a constitution in 1868 and accepted the
Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, guaranteeing
civil rights for blacks, it was readmitted to the Union. Moderate Republicans,
many of them from the North (called carpetbaggers by their enemies), drafted the
constitution and held most of the offices until 1877. Assisting them were white
Southerners who were willing to cooperate (called scalawags). During this period
a number of blacks held political office, and blacks generally made modest gains
as citizens.
However, many whites refused to
accept the situation. Blacks were intimidated by terrorist organizations that
engaged in such tactics as burning of homes and flogging or lynching of blacks
they labeled as “dangerous.” Partly as a result of such terrorism, the Democrats
were returned to power in the 1876 elections. Because the Southern Democrats
were committed to white supremacy, blacks were relegated to an inferior
position, in which they were forced to remain for nearly a century.
To keep blacks in an inferior
position, whites restricted their voting rights using various methods. In the
late 1880s Florida adopted a poll tax—a tax on voting—that eliminated the
poorest voters, most of whom were black. Fraud and intimidation against black
voters were constant factors in keeping the Democrats in power.
In the last part of the 19th
century, Florida, like other Southern states, established racial segregation
through laws providing separate public facilities for whites and blacks.
Segregation became a basic rule in Southern society, helping to ensure that
blacks would not present a serious challenge to the social order.
| D6 | Agricultural Distress and Populism |
Farmers’ incomes declined sharply
after the Civil War, while their living and operating costs rose. Growers of
cotton, then Florida’s chief cash crop, were especially hard hit because the
price of cotton fell and stayed low until the turn of the 20th century. In the
1870s and 1880s American farmers formed cooperative groups called farmers’
alliances, which were part of a movement of agrarian unrest and protest called
populism. Among the causes of unrest were the interest rates charged by banks
and the discriminatory freight rates charged by railroads. The alliances soon
realized that their grievances had to be addressed with political action. At its
1890 national convention in Ocala, Florida, the National Farmers Alliance
adopted its Ocala Platform calling for a “subtreasury” system to replace
national banks and make low-interest loans to farmers; an increase in the money
supply; free and unlimited coinage of silver; government control of
transportation; and an income tax. This platform led to creation of a third
party, the People’s Party, to challenge the Democrats and Republicans.
In Florida, however, third-party
sentiment was stalled by a powerful Florida Alliance faction that preferred to
work within the Democratic Party. The Florida Democrats did endorse the Ocala
Platform in 1891, but it was not implemented. Dissatisfied Alliance members put
the People’s Party on the ballot in 1892, but because most black farmers—who
were a substantial part of Alliance supporters—could not vote, it was defeated
and withered away. The Democrats ruled without serious challenge for many years
afterward.
| D7 | Growth of Commerce |
Although agriculture was depressed,
Florida’s economy began its first major period of rapid growth in the 1880s.
Hamilton Disston, a Northern industrialist, bought 1,600,000 hectares (4 million
acres) of Florida land in 1881 and became one of the state’s first real estate
developers. Two Northern financiers, Henry M. Flagler and Henry B. Plant,
encouraged the development of Florida as a resort area by building railroads,
hotels, and tourist facilities. Exploitation was begun of the state’s phosphate
deposits, which were discovered in 1884, and new lands were opened for
agriculture in southern Florida. During the 1890s a series of comparatively
severe winters damaged the citrus fruit crops of northern Florida. Citrus fruit
growers moved southward on the peninsula in order to lessen the risk of frost.
Florida’s resort business expanded during World War I (1914-1918), when foreign
travel was restricted.
| E | The 20th Century |
| E1 | The Real Estate Boom |
After World War I the state’s
economy continued to develop rapidly. More than 1 million tourists a year
visited Florida in the early 1920s, and land speculators rushed to the state,
hoping to make their fortunes in real estate. Between 1920 and 1925 the
population increased four times faster than that of any other state. Real estate
prices soared, especially in the Miami area. Swamps and mudflats were drained,
forests were cleared, and roads and railroads were extended to the newly
developed areas. The real estate boom reached its peak in 1925 and then
collapsed in the spring of 1926. Land values dropped, banks failed, and many
personal fortunes were lost. In addition, Florida was struck by disastrous
hurricanes in 1926 and again in 1928. Nevertheless, the tourist industry
continued to develop and the economy had made a partial recovery by 1929.
| E2 | The Depression Years |
Income from tourism and other
economic activities in Florida dropped sharply during the worldwide Great
Depression, the hard times of the 1930s. After a few years, however, Florida’s
economy began to improve, partly as a result of federal and state aid programs.
During the depression, cooperative farm groups and farm markets were organized.
Wood pulp and paper mills were also established.
| E3 | World War II and After |
During World War II (1939-1945),
more than 2 million servicemen and women trained in Florida military bases,
while German submarines sank 24 merchant ships in the state’s coastal waters.
During and after the war, manufacturing expanded rapidly in Florida, providing
more economic diversity and comparative stability. In 1949 the U.S. Air Force
Missile Test Center was established at Cape Canaveral and soon became a center
for space exploration. The first U.S. earth satellite, Explorer I, was launched
from the base in 1958, and the first manned U.S. space capsule, Freedom 7, was
launched there in 1961. In 1969 the John F. Kennedy Space Center, also at Cape
Canaveral, was the launch site for Apollo 11, the first spaceflight to land
humans on the moon.
After World War II, another boom
developed in the real estate and construction industries. Spurring the growth
were new developments in air conditioning and mosquito control. Beaches, tourist
attractions, hotels, motels, restaurants, and improved roads brought in millions
of visitors, and many settled permanently in Florida. Between 1930 and 1980 no
other state matched Florida’s 564 percent rate of growth. The eighth most
populous state in the nation in 1980, Florida rose to fourth largest in the next
decade, when 900 new residents moved into the state each day. The spiraling
population increase, particularly in the southern counties, placed great strain
on urban infrastructures such as power, water, and sewer lines. By 1988 Florida
required each day 1.6 km (1 mi) of new highway, two new K-12 classrooms and
teachers, two more police officers, three more state prison beds, and 47 gallons
(178 liters) more water.
Immigration to Florida continues to
be strong, although not at the same high levels experienced in the 1980s. Much
of the immigration has given the state a Latin cast, especially in Miami and
Miami-Dade County. Since Fidel Castro’s seizure of Cuba in 1959, more than
800,000 Cubans have come to Florida. In recent years they have been joined by
immigrants from El Salvador, Colombia, Venezuela, and other Latin American
countries. One striking result is that Miami has become a major center for Latin
American banking, trade, and culture. In Miami-Dade County, 53.3 percent of the
residents speak a language other than English at home.
| E4 | Political Changes |
Major political changes occurred in
Florida after 1950. Many northern immigrants, unlike the older natives, were not
Democrats by tradition. A small Republican Party had existed in Florida since
the 1920s. As the national Democratic Party embraced issues such as civil rights
that were unpopular in Florida, Floridians increasingly turned to the Republican
Party.
When the state legislature was
reapportioned in 1968 to give equal representation to the new population of
southern Florida, it was widely expected that it would become more progressive
and spend more for social programs. Instead, the state remained conservative.
Many of the new residents were retired people or small businessmen and women
who, it turned out, opposed the higher taxes required for progressive government
programs.
Although both state parties are
conservative, the Republicans have often had the advantage because of the
national Democratic Party’s liberal image. After 1952 the state regularly voted
for the Republican candidates in presidential elections except for the 1964 and
1976 elections. Both Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates have
been elected since the 1960s, but in 1994 Florida’s state senate acquired a
Republican majority for the first time since Reconstruction. Democratic Governor
Lawton Chiles kept his seat in that election by the narrow margin of 51 percent
of the vote versus his Republican opponent’s 49 percent. In 1998, however,
Republican Jeb Bush was elected governor. He was reelected in 2002.
When the Supreme Court of the United
States ordered desegregation of schools in its Brown v. Board of
Education decision of 1954, many Floridians approved of Governor Leroy
Collins’s policy of peaceful—if reluctant—acceptance. However, racial tension
continued in certain areas, aggravated by the massive influx of refugees from
Communist Cuba and the economic troubles of the late 1970s. Angered by their
continuing poverty and what they perceived as unfair treatment by the police,
blacks rioted in 1980 in the Liberty City section of Miami; the rioting resulted
in 18 deaths, both white and black, and more than $100 million in property
damage.
| E5 | The Environment |
In the 1980s and 1990s Floridians
had to contend with environmental damage. Florida has 58 hazardous waste sites
on the national priority list of the federal Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA). Water quality has suffered greatly from unrestricted population growth.
Overdevelopment and urban sprawl have consumed or polluted water resources
throughout the state, and currently they threaten the purity of the aquifer that
supplies drinking water for 5 million people in south Florida.
A vocal lay environmental movement
has achieved notable successes, including the passage of legislation to control
encroachment on the fragile ecosystems that keep the peninsula—one of the
world’s few green landmasses at this latitude—from becoming a desert. Large
federal and state programs are attempting to reverse damage to the Everglades,
the vast sheet of fresh water that has nourished the entire southern tip but is
now poisoned by chemical runoff.
| F | Entering the 21st Century |
| F1 | Hurricanes |
In 2004 Florida experienced one of
the most devastating hurricane seasons in its history. Four hurricanes—Charley,
Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne—hit the state in August and September, the first time
a state experienced four hurricanes in a single season since Texas in 1886,
according to the National Hurricane Center. Hurricane Frances caused the largest
mass evacuation in the state’s history. The four storms were responsible for at
least 20 deaths in the state, at least $15 billion in insured property damages,
and the temporary loss of electrical power for millions of residences.
| F2 | Election Disputes |
In 2000 Florida became the focus of
national attention during the disputed presidential election between Democrat Al
Gore and Republican George W. Bush (brother of Governor Jeb Bush). Because both
candidates needed Florida’s 25 electoral college votes to win, voting procedures
in Florida came under great scrutiny, both during the dispute and after the
election was awarded to George W. Bush. Reports emerged of voting
irregularities, including confusing ballots and thousands of so-called
undervotes (ballots that did not register a vote for a presidential candidate
when they were run through the counting machines).
Throughout the state, some blacks
claimed they were denied the right to vote because of incorrectly processed
voter registration applications or older voting machines that did not function
properly. Various civil rights organizations filed a lawsuit against the state
charging that blacks were discouraged from voting. In 2001 the U.S. Civil Rights
Commission issued its findings on the election, concluding that there was a
“widespread denial of voting rights.”
In response to the election
problems, the Florida legislature passed a bill in 2001 known as the Florida
Election Reform Act. The bill prohibited punch-card ballot machines, provided
for a uniform statewide ballot design, and set standards for reviewing ballots
during a manual recount.
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