Category: History

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Celebrating Women’s History Month: Artist Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, “Self-Portrait with Her Daughter, Julie,” 1787, oil on wood (105 × 84 cm), Musée du Louvre, Paris.

I remember studying Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun’s “Self-Portrait with Her Daughter, Julie” back in my university days. She was a single mother like myself at the time, and an influential figure to my career. 

During my first visit to Austria, I had a long layover in Vienna, so I hopped on the train and took it over to the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Not knowing which works, specifically, to expect to see, I eventually found myself standing directly in front of a Vigée Le Brun (room VII).

The good news is that there is no need to go all the way to Austria to see Vigée Le Brun’s work. Her portrait “Julie Le Brun as Flora”(1799) can be viewed at the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg right here in Florida. It is a beautiful portrait that muses her daughter as the Roman goddess of flowers during Vigée Le Brun’s period of exile from France. It was painted in St. Petersburg, Russia, enveloping the Neoclassical exquisition mirrored in many of her works done for her elite clientele. For South Floridians, St. Pete’s may be a bit of a drive, but for art lovers, Vigée Le Brun’s masterpieces are definitely worth checking out.

Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun. Vigée Le Brun emerged in late‑18th‑century France as one of the most gifted portraitists of her generation. She rose to prominence at a time when women artists faced steep institutional barriers. Born in Paris in 1755 to a modest, artistic family, she absorbed the fundamentals of painting early. She quickly surpassed the expectations set for her. 

By her early 20s, Vigée Le Brun had become a sought‑after portrait painter among the aristocracy. She was admired for her ability to capture warmth, elegance, and psychological presence. Her refined style was identified in luminous skin tones, expressive eyes, and a gentle naturalism that distinguished her forms separately from the more rigid academic conventions of the era. Vigée Le Brun’s talent and reputation eventually brought her into the inner circle of Queen Marie Antoinette, and she ended up painting for the queen more than two dozen portraits. This ultimately solidified her status as one of the most influential artists at court.

Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, “Marie Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria, Queen of France,” ca. 1792–1795, oil on canvas, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

However, the French Revolution dramatically altered the course of Vigée Le Brun’s life. Branded as too closely tied to the monarchy, she fled France in 1789 with her young daughter and spent more than a decade in exile. Still, she continued working across Italy, Austria, Russia, and Germany. This was far from a diminishing career, because this period expanded her international acclaim. Vigée Le Brun became a celebrated portraitist in nearly every European capital she visited.

When she finally returned to France in 1801, she resumed painting and later published her memoirs, which offered vivid insight into the cultural and political upheavals that she had witnessed. Vigée Le Brun’s long, prolific life ended in 1842, leaving behind an extraordinary body of work that continues to shape our understanding of portraiture, femininity, and artistic agency in the tumultuous age that bridged the Enlightenment and the modern world.

Julie Le Brun as Flora, Roman goddess of flowers. Vigée Le Brun’s “Julie Le Brun as Flora” carries within it the quiet architecture of its “living geometry” that creates a portrait. In this painting, her daughter Julie becomes a sort of moving axis. The soft oval of her face acts as the focal chamber, while the drapery and floral garland spiral outward like a gentle vortex. Vigée Le Brun always painted emotion as if it were a natural law. For example, the use of light behaves like breath, her color use behaves like memory, and the rosy warmth across Julie’s cheeks in this painting shares with the viewer that it is not merely pigment used, but the maternal gaze translated by form. The work reflects a kind of visual heartbeat.

Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, “Julie Le Brun as Flora” (1799), painting, oil on canvas (129.5 x 97.8 cm), Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida.

The composition adheres to Vigée Le Brun’s signature principle—to which the subject is not placed in the world but emerges from it, as if the figure is the vanishing point of the portraitist’s own atmosphere.

The significance that this portrait was painted in St. Petersburg, Russia, adds a historical resonance. While Vigée Le Brun created it during her exile, it was subsequently when she was embraced by the Russian imperial court. Here, she found a second artistic home far from the turbulence of revolutionary France. It was in St. Petersburg, which for her became the stage where she rebuilt her identity. Also, painting Julie there meant capturing her daughter not only as Flora, the goddess of spring, but as a fragile anchor in a life uprooted. Clearly, the Russian light, colder and more crystalline than Vigée Le Brun’s Parisian glow of origin, subtly influenced the integrity on the palette. The whites are indeed sharper, the shadows are more silvery, and the flowers are almost trembling with northern clarity (e.g., a Dutch vanitas or early German/Flemish naturalism).

The fact that this Russian-born painting, “Julie Le Brun as Flora,” now resides in St. Petersburg, Florida, inflects a kind of accidental transcontinental echo within the chambers of its subject matter. The artwork’s journey mirrors Vigée Le Brun’s own across borders, climates, and political eras. Its presence in St. Petersburg, FL, is as if that duality itself, of exile and arrival, old world and new, deepens the portrait’s aura, making its current location feel almost fated. Coincidence?

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The ancient story of Valentine’s Day

In a world of conspiracy theories and cynicism, it’s hard not to believe that Valentine’s Day was created by Hallmark to sell more cards in the winter. So it may shock some readers that the story of Valentine’s Day spanned millennia.

The symbol of Valentine’s Day, Cupid, was personified in Roman and Greek mythology before the Saint Valentine and formal establishment of Valentine’s Day.

Cupid is the Roman counterpart of Eros, in Greek mythology. The son of Venus (the goddess of love) and Mars (the god of war), Cupid plays a significant role in countless myths regarding the hearts of mortals and gods alike.

The myth of Cupid we remember the most is that his arrows—one gold-tipped set to inspire irresistible love, the other lead-tipped for hatred and immediate aversion—are used to affect the hearts of his targets. The Roman Cupid is often depicted as a playful, often blindfolded child, representing the mischievous, unpredictable, and irrational nature of love.

With the coming of Christianity to the Roman Empire, so came the official Valentine’s Day. Historians debate on the origin of Saint Valentine—some believe it was a combination of two, possibly three men—but they all share a similar story about the saint martyred by a Roman emperor on Feb. 14, so it could just be the fog of history clouding the origin story of the saint.

One popular legend is that a priest, Saint Valentine of Rome, decried the injustice of a Roman emperor, Claudius II, who favored a policy of outlawing marriage for young men, as he believed that single young men made better soldiers. As a local priest, Saint Valentine continued to perform secret marriages for young lovers, defying the imperial decree, until his arrest.

In one account, while under arrest, Saint Valentine is said to have healed the daughter of the local judge, Asterius, who had asked the priest what he could do. The legend speaks of the priest praying for the daughter, and her eyesight was restored, resulting in the conversion of Asterius.

The saint was later arrested again by the prefect of Rome and Emperor Claudius II. After failing to be persuaded by Saint Valentine, and refusing to embrace Christianity, Claudius ordered the death of the priest. He was martyred in Rome on Feb. 21, 269, according to official Catholic hagiographical sources. Pope Gelasius I in 496 declared Feb. 14 to be a feast date to remember his martyrdom for the cause of love and faith.

Before his execution, Saint Valentine wrote to Asterius’s daughter and signed “From your Valentine,” which has since inspired many romantic missives.

The Romans historically celebrated a festival dedicated to the god of agriculture on Feb. 13–15, where matchmaking was often practiced, and it continued into the celebration of Valentine’s Day after the 5th century.

By the time of the Middle Ages, Saint Valentine’s day appeared in many works of literature. Geoffrey Chaucer, the English poet from the 14th century, is credited for poems celebrating Valentine’s Day as a day for lovebirds. One poem attributed to him honors the engagement of King Richard II and Anne of Bohemia. In the poem, it references the idea of lovebirds:

For this was on Saint Valentine’s Day

When every fowl comes there to choose his match

Of every kind that men may think of …

The French also wrote Valentine’s messages around that time. One recorded message was from Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife, while he was held prisoner in the Tower of London by the English after the Battle of Agincourt. The letter referred to his wife, “Ma tres doulce Valentinée,” or in English, “My very sweet Valentine.”

Shakespeare also mentioned Saint Valentine in the play “Hamlet”:

To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day,

All in the morning betime,

And I a maid at your window,

To be your Valentine.

Then up he rose, and donn’d his clothes,

And dupp’d the chamber-door;

Let in the maid, that out a maid

Never departed more.

By the 1700s, books like “The Young Man’s Valentine Writer” were offering suggested verses for not-so-romantic young men, to help compose their version of love poems. Soon, with the wider availability of printers, preprinted cards started to appear, with verses or sketches for sending paper valentines.

Many of the cards featured the winged Cupid, which is still used today as a symbol of Valentine’s Day. It was popular to mail these premade cards by the early 1800s, even though postage was expensive then. By 1850, it was stated that “Saint Valentine’s Day … is becoming … a national holiday.”

Chocolate maker Cadbury first sold its decorated box of chocolates in 1968 to help young lovebirds exchange as gifts, and by the 20th century, the practice extended to all manners of gifts, like jewelry.

The celebration of the day of love extends beyond the traditional Christian nations. Valentine’s Day is celebrated worldwide, with the Chinese and South Koreans spending the most on Valentine’s gifts in Asia. In South Korea, tradition states that women give men chocolates on Feb. 14, and men give non-chocolate candy to women on March 14. Those who did not receive any Valentine’s candy would eat black noodles, lamenting their “single life.”

For those who are suspicious of the commercial nature of Valentine’s Day, it may be refreshing to learn that Valentine’s Day—and Cupid—was not born out of a corporate boardroom as some may suggest. It is a living remembrance of a man who died believing in love, and ancient mythology celebrating the unpredictable nature of love. Like the blind Cupid, it may be a mystery as to why we love someone, but we all walk the long journey of those before us, who have loved unconditionally; and for one day, we celebrate that and exchange gifts to show that affection.

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The comeback of Florida’s spirit animal

As South Florida celebrates another Stanley Cup championship by the local Florida Panthers hockey team, let us not forget the continual struggles of their namesake, Florida’s state animal, the Florida panther. Luckily for the local big cats, through the efforts of conservationists, they are on the path to recovery.

Florida panthers are the North American cougar that has adapted to the Florida climate. The panthers have found a home among the tropical forests and swamps, and it is the only population of cougars in the eastern United States.

The panthers have had a challenge as Florida developed. Hunting throughout the history of Florida, and losing their natural habitat range to new developments, caused their population to shrink. By the 1970s, only about 20 Florida panthers were still alive in the wild.

Since 1981, as mandated by the Endangered Species Act, the Florida Panther Recovery Plan has been in place, run by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). This program’s efforts have rebuilt the population to around 200 panthers.

The recovery had to overcome many challenges. The population by the start of the program was so small, the panthers’ genetic pool was already severely depleted. Studies showed that the low genetic diversity increased the likelihood of inbreeding among the remaining population. This was confirmed by studies on newborn panthers, and documenting their congenital issues.

A genetic rescue mission was initiated. Pumas from Texas were brought to Florida. They were  given time to adapt to the local environment. After they were deemed ready, they were released to the wild and helped to reduce inbreeding among the local Florida panthers. These newcomers were successful, and the local population showed increases after their introduction.

A new rehabilitation center was also created to help injured panthers at White Oak Conservation. Injured cats, along with orphaned kittens, were cared for at the facility. The organization, partnering with FWC, has rehabilitated and released 19 sick or injured Florida panthers as of 2020.

Why are we spending so much effort to protect the panthers? Florida panthers are at the top of the food chain in South Florida, and a keystone species in the ecosystem. They are essential in maintaining a balance in the ecosystem, and they help regulate the populations of native wildlife and manage nuisance animals.

Nuisance animals like wild hogs and pythons have grown significantly in population in Florida. The wild hog population is highest around Lake Okeechobee in forested areas, right in the history range of the Florida panthers. These wild hogs cause extensive destruction and damage to both agricultural and native plant life in South Florida. A recovery of the panthers should help in our fight to keep their population in control.

Scientists have also seen evidence of large cats predating on Burmese pythons. The invasive pythons have been attacked by Florida panthers, and smaller bobcats, especially during the colder months when pythons are naturally less active.

The recovery of Florida panthers is still ongoing, so they are not out of the woods yet. They are no longer considered critically endangered, but they are still endangered. As their population recovers, another threat is becoming more common—vehicle collisions are increasing. To avoid hitting a panther, please take care driving in rural areas of South Florida, and support efforts to create wildlife corridors, which allow the panthers to avoid crossing major roads.

The Florida Department of Transportation also runs the Florida Panther Conservation Plan, which, together with federal forestry service, sets up binding agreements between private landowners and the government to minimize and mitigate the impact of land development in critical areas, in exchange for marketable credits.

With all these continuing programs, the future of Florida panthers is hopeful, and with the efforts by local organizations, along with state and federal programs, we hope to see Florida panthers thrive as the state animal.

Native tribes believe that panthers represent courage, power, and stealth. The Seminole tribe considers it a protector, and a guardian spirit animal, while the Miccosukee tribe see panthers as a symbol of change of adaptability. It is that adaptability that may see the panthers thrive in the new ecosystem, and doing their part as the apex predator to keep the balance in the wild.

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The Politzer Saga – One Woman’s Journey from Secrets to Self-Discovery

“You are the sum of your ancestors,” says a Jewish proverb, expressing the sentiment that each individual is a living continuation of those who came before them.

In the wake of the Holocaust, it’s not unusual for people to unearth long-lost Jewish roots, and a lineage they may not have known about. Out of fear for their survival, many people concealed their Jewish identity.

Such is the case for Virginia resident Linda Ambrus Broenniman, 69, when an unexpected discovery after a 2011 fire in her parents’ home led her to uncover a treasure trove of a lost Jewish heritage and relatives going back eight generations to 18th-century Hungary.

Buried within 77 boxes in her parents’ attic were documents, photographs, heirlooms, letters, and other ephemera of lives lived and lost, and a long history of accomplished artists, doctors, business owners, freedom fighters, art collectors, and musicians—all of whom Broenniman was unaware.

Broenniman was the middle child of seven born to Julian Ambrus and Clara Bayer, Hungarian physicians who survived World War II and started their new life in Buffalo, New York, in 1949. She was raised Catholic in a family that went to church every Sunday. She had no idea that her father was Jewish and that her non-Jewish mother had actively hid Jews, including her father and his mother, during World War II and the Nazi occupation of Hungary.

The revelation was like opening a door to a lost part of herself, igniting an eight-year journey back in time, culminating with a book she researched and wrote, titled “The Politzer Saga,” which reconnected Broenniman with the people, traditions, and history that silently shaped her identity.

Broenniman was in South Florida in March to talk about her book and spoke at the Sinai Residences in Boca Raton and at Harbour’s Edge senior living in Delray Beach. “I didn’t intend to write a book,” says Broenniman, who has an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University and worked as an entrepreneur and in corporate America.

“I just wanted to understand my family’s history,” she says. As she learned about that history, she read many books about the era her relatives lived in and says the more she read, the more she realized she needed to capture it and make sense of it all, and she began writing it all down.

While as a child, Broenniman had a sense there were family secrets, it wasn’t until she was in business school in 1983 at the age of 27 that she learned of anything. Her older sister went to a medical convention in Montreal, Canada, and stayed with a relative. Her question, “What was our great-grandmother like?” elicited a surprising response. “Well, like most strong, Jewish women…,” the relative began, and “shocked her sister into silence.”

Busy in graduate school, Broenniman didn’t fully absorb the clue until a friend, Yona Eichenbaum, gave her Daniel Mendelsohn’s book, “The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million,” one of the first books to come out searching for lost Jewish ancestry.

“I’m so proud of Linda and what she has accomplished,” says Eichenbaum, an essayist for The Forward and The Toronto Globe and Mail. The two met in graduate school and have remained friends.

In 2023, Eichenbaum and her husband accompanied Broenniman to Hungary where they attended Shabbat services in the Dohány Street Synagogue, the largest in Europe, and sat in the same seats as had Broenniman’s grandparents. “Linda is one of the smartest and most resourceful people I know,” Eichenbaum says. “I’m so proud of what she’s accomplished.”

As a child of Polish Holocaust survivors, Eichenbaum saw similarities in her family’s story of immigration to Canada with that of Broenniman’s family story immigrating to the U.S. “I was bowled over by Linda’s discoveries of her family history,” she says. “Bowled over, but not surprised.”

Eichenbaum encouraged Broenniman to write down everything she was uncovering and said, “If you don’t write it down, they [your relatives] will have died twice.”

Broenniman took her friend’s advice. In 2006, her mother had received a letter in the mail from Yad Vashem, Israel’s memorial museum dedicated to preserving the memory of those Jews murdered in the war, wanting to honor her with a designation, “Righteous Among the Nations,” an honor given to non-Jews who took great personal risks to save Jews during the Holocaust.

At just 19 years old, Broenniman’s mother, Clara Bayer, risked her life and endured nine months of terror, hunger, and cold to save Jews during the Holocaust.

In addition to her future husband and his mother, she hid her friend Éva Fisher Klein and her boyfriend, Rabbi Béla Eisenberg, as well as both their families. Ironically, in 2006, while her father gave the acceptance speech in New York (“inspirational,” says Broenniman), he never once mentioned that he was Jewish and that Bayer had saved his life by hiding him from the Nazis.

Despite having advanced Alzheimer’s disease at the time, when receiving the honor, Broenniman’s mother said, “I did what any decent human being would do,” something Broenniman is proud of to this day. It was the first time she learned of her mother’s heroic actions during the war.

To write “The Politzer Saga,” Broenniman enlisted the help of Hungarian researcher András Gyekiczki, and the two uncovered not only a long line of accomplished ancestors, but also tales of resilience and achievement.

“I was blown away by the incredible rich heritage that we found,” says Broenniman, whose own sense of identity and belonging has evolved as she pieced together the threads of her family’s past and discovered a newfound interest in Jewish history and culture. Many of her ancestors came from the town of Politz in then-Czechoslovakia and had the surname Politzer.

One of the most well known was Ádám Politzer, a famous otolaryngologist known as the “founder of clinical otology” (the study of the ear), who lived in Vienna (1835–1920) and treated the Emperor Franz Josef and Tsar Nicolas II.

To this day, the Politzer Society for Otologic Surgery and Science is an active society with annual meetings and awards. Politzer was known for his skills as a physician, researcher, teacher, historian, and artist. “Ask any ENT surgeon today, and they will know the name Ádám Politzer,” says Broenniman. “He was the most influential otologist of the 19th century.”

Learning about Politzer’s life and achievements had a special resonance for Broenniman, who came to realize that her father, an oncologist who loved his patients and students, almost certainly modeled himself and his career after Politzer’s. “To hide that knowledge and awareness must have been very tough for my father,” she says.

Other ancestors that Broenniman came to cherish and feel connected to include her great-grandmother Margit (Broenniman’s middle name is Margaret) and Rachel, a young woman at the time who chose Judaism when her parents converted to Christianity and moved to the U.S. After her older brother convinced the family to convert from Judaism and emigrate to the U.S., Rachel refused to be baptized and to leave home. She fled from her father’s home in the middle of the night, and the rest of her family left Zalaegerszeg in western Hungary for the U.S. without her. “Your descendants will be blessed forever,” she was told by the rabbi.

“My eyes welled up when I read this story,” Broenniman writes. “I was one of Rachel’s descendants, her great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter.

“I sighed, grateful that her courage and convictions were rewarded with such a blessing,” she writes. Hard to put into words, she was touched by the story and its meaning.

Broenniman also admires another relative, Ignácz Misner, an attorney who helped found the Hungarian bar and who was the father of her namesake, Margit. They were forced into the Jewish ghetto in 1944 under the Nazis and to wear the yellow Star of David, and the family home and all their possessions were confiscated. They were ordered to move into a “yellow star home” and forced to share the home with other families, one family to a room.

“Ignácz did not want to take off the yellow star; he wore his Judaism as a matter of pride,” Broenniman quotes a cousin in the book.

“I found remarkable relatives who believed in truth and justice and had unshakeable faith,” says Broenniman. She has reconnected with lost relatives, and she’s found Politzers in Hungary, England, and France.

In addition to the book, the results of Broenniman and Gyekiczki’s research turned into a permanent exhibition in the education and cultural center of the 1872 Rumbach Synagogue in Budapest, Hungary. Along with Zsuzsa Toronyi, director of the Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives, Broenniman worked to create the exhibit, comprising 10 lyrical and artistically rendered seven-minute films about eight generations of Politzers, all based on the stories Broenniman uncovered.

“Zsuzsa shares a vision that my family’s stories can stimulate new awareness, especially among Hungarian Jews, about the power of ancestral legacies,” Broenniman writes in her book.

Broenniman herself has a newfound awareness of her Jewish background and says she was most surprised by her family’s “incredible, rich heritage.” She writes, “It wasn’t enough to find the family my father never spoke of, I needed to write their stories.”

She says, “It is a way to connect to their lives and to make them even more real. I honor my ancestors’ memories and experience the true meaning of the Jewish statement of condolence, ‘May their memory be for a blessing.’”

And while Broenniman hasn’t replaced going to Sunday services at church with Saturday services at synagogue, she does say she has found a new appreciation for Jewish culture and is more sensitive to the effects of anti-Semitism.

“I am more aware of Jewish holidays, ‘Jewish-isms,’ and keep abreast of Jewish issues,” she says. “My mother always raised us to treat everyone with respect, dignity, and compassion, and I live by that.”

To learn more, visit politzersaga.com.

 

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Hillsboro Inlet Lighthouse: A historic treasure

One of the brightest lights in the world shines from Hillsboro Inlet—the light beam emanating from the Hillsboro Inlet Lighthouse, which can be seen from 28 nautical miles (just over 32 miles) away. Built in 1907, the lighthouse has withstood major hurricanes and fires to guide ships through the shallow waters and coral reefs of Hillsboro Inlet for the past 118 years.

In 1855, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers designated Hillsboro Inlet as hazardous to the safe navigation of ships and recommended that Congress authorize the funding of a lighthouse. However, due to a lack of funds, more than 50 years passed before the approval and construction of the Hillsboro Inlet Lighthouse began.

During that time, Hillsboro Inlet continued to challenge ships. In 1900, the SS Copenhagen, a British cargo steamer, sank after striking a reef in 25 feet of water off the coast of Pompano Beach. Finally, in 1901, the United States Lighthouse Board persuaded Congress to authorize the construction of a lighthouse at Hillsboro Inlet. “The sinking of the SS Copenhagen really jumpstarted getting this lighthouse,” says David Velez, a Hillsboro Lighthouse Preservation Society (HLPS) volunteer. The HLPS, a nonprofit organization, works with the U.S. Coast Guard to maintain the lighthouse.

At 147 feet tall at its highest point, the Hillsboro Inlet Lighthouse is one of the tallest lighthouses on the East Coast. One hundred and sixty-seven winding steps lead to the watch deck of the lighthouse, which offers sweeping views of the coast and overlooks part of the Florida Reef, where sharks and fish are commonly spotted.

One of the lighthouse’s most unique features is its second-order, bivalve Fresnel Lens, which dates back to 1907 and was the most technologically advanced at the time. “The lens is original from 1907,” says Amber Velez, membership chair of the HLPS, whose grandfather was one of Hillsboro Inlet’s original lighthouse keepers. “Only a few of these lenses are still active, one being ours. Others are on display in museums. Ours is rotating just as it was in 1907.”

The lens comprises 356 glass pieces that form a large diamond. “When it was first put into service, the lighthouse had a vaporized kerosene light visible up to 15 nautical miles out,” explains David Velez. “They created the lens in such a way that no matter where the light was coming from the kerosene flame, it would refract and create a horizontal beam shooting out into the ocean.”

In 1932, the lighthouse went from kerosene to electrical power, and in 2021 it switched to an LED light visible from 28 nautical miles out. “That’s only at 50% brightness,” says David Velez. “If we increased it to maximum brightness, we’d probably get complaints from residents.”

Originally the Hillsboro Inlet Lighthouse used a mercury bath to rotate its Fresnel lens, which weighs about 3,500 pounds. Floating the heavy lens on a pool of liquid mercury allowed it to rotate quickly with minimal effort, creating the bright flashing signal that lighthouses are known for. “This was done on mercury because mercury is frictionless,” explains Ralph Krugler, a historian with the HLPS and author of “The (Almost) Complete History of the Hillsboro Inlet Lighthouse.”

“Once the lens was floating, with one finger, you could push a giant lens around in circles,” says Krugler.

The lighthouse keepers were responsible for maintaining the mercury bath. When dust, sand, or other impurities built up in the mercury, they had to strain it. “They would drain the mercury and run it through a cheesecloth,” says Krugler. “These guys weren’t wearing gloves and were doing all this by hand.” Sadly, keepers were commonly referred to as “mad hatters,” as constant exposure to the bath often led to mercury poisoning and abnormal behavior.

Throughout the years, several major hurricanes caused some mercury to spill out of the basin. Thankfully in 1998, all mercury was removed from the lighthouse, and the mercury bath was replaced with a ball-bearing system that would rotate the lens. In 1974, the lighthouse became fully automated, meaning keepers were no longer needed.

On Friday, March 14, the HLPS is hosting its annual fundraising gala. Those who attend will be treated to a private tour of the lens room and an up-close look at the original 1907 Fresnel lens, an experience not available on public tours.

Proceeds from the gala—which takes place under the full moon on the lighthouse grounds—will go toward upkeep, repairs, and HLPS’s restoration project.

The million-dollar restoration project involves a complete overhaul of the struts, cables, and turnbuckles, along with the blasting and repainting of the lighthouse to restore it to its original color scheme composed of three black sections and two white.

“It’s a 10-year restoration plan with a 10-year guarantee,” explains Amber Velez. “We’ll have 10 years of guaranteed service, so if anything happens with the paint or rust starts coming back, the restoration company will come back and take care of it.”

Because the lighthouse is located on U.S. Coast Guard grounds and is bordered by the Hillsboro Club, it is only open to the public once a month for public tours. Upcoming tours are scheduled for March 8, April 12, May 10, and June 15. Visitors meet at the Sands Harbor Resort and Marina in Pompano Beach and are transported by boat to the lighthouse grounds.

For more information, visit www.hillsborolighthouse.org.

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The 26-mile horse trail that wasn’t

Parkland is known for its horse-loving history. In fact, when Parkland was incorporated in 1963, its residents fought to maintain a rural lifestyle where people were few and horses were plentiful.

According to the Parkland Historical Society — an organization dedicated to preserving local traditions and providing opportunities for the community to learn about Parkland’s heritage — Parkland founder Bruce Blount loved and raised animals and originally wanted the city to be called “The Ranches.” His intent was to attract residents who liked animals and country living.

But over time, the city evolved, with development changing Parkland’s agricultural lifestyle and creating a shift in attitude away from horses. As roads, shopping centers, and houses began to significantly alter the rural feel of the city, and infringe on land for horse trails, some residents lobbied to preserve Parkland’s horse-centric roots — even calling for the development of a county-wide horse trail.

Led by City Commissioner Mary Jane Sexton between 1986 and 1987, this ambitious project sought to create a 26-mile horse trail that would begin at C.B. Smith Park in Pembroke Pines and end at Tradewinds Park in Coconut Creek. The proposed path would wind north through Markham Park and then have riders following the Sawgrass Expressway toward Tradewinds Park.

Another proposed path (as detailed in Sexton’s 1987 letter to former Coconut Creek City Planner Craig Benedict) had the trail originating at Tree Tops Park in Davie and running north through the Everglades Conservation Area, up into the Loxahatchee Preserve. By building the trail along the levee alongside the Everglades, it would keep the horses away from traffic. This alternate route also included a trail connecting riders with Tradewinds Park via a path through Parkland and Coconut Creek that would require cooperation from local residents.

Sexton faced plenty of opposition to the plan — including that of non-horse-riding Parkland residents with homes along the cross-country trail’s proposed path, who were concerned about the cleanup of horse feces left along the trail. Without cooperation from these residents, connecting the trail to Tradewinds Park would prove difficult.

Despite continued efforts by Sexton and the South Florida Trail Riders, a volunteer horse-riding association, ultimately, the dream of a county-wide trail was never realized.

This article was made possible by archived newspaper clippings generously provided by the Parkland Historical Society. For more information, or to research more history about Parkland, visit www.parklandhistoricalsociety.com.

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… That our flag was still there

This July 4th we will be celebrating our nation’s birthday with gatherings, fireworks, and singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

The good ole red, white, and blue are the colors that the Founding Fathers chose to represent our values. According to Charles Thompson, Secretary of the Continental Congress, the color white stood for purity and innocence; the color red represents hardiness and valor; while blue stood for vigilance, perseverance, and justice.

These values unified the 13 original colonies into declaring their independence from the British monarchy and victory in the War of Independence, and the continual growth and success for the past 246 years.

All of us have faced stress in recent years, some more than others. Many are still facing the challenges of caring for loved ones, the increased cost of living, rollercoaster investment portfolios, and anxiety for the future.

So this year, it is even more important to not forget that we, the people of the United States, are founded on perseverance and hardiness. This community has joined to hold each other after facing the evil of the MSD shooting. We have stood together with each other throughout the past couple of years of the pandemic’s ups and downs. We have lent a helping hand to each other when times were tough.

So when we sing “Gave proof through the night, That our flag was still there,” reflect on the resilience of our community. Quoting a former president, “The colors of our flag signify the qualities of the human spirit we Americans cherish.” So we should have faith that our common values, symbolized by the flag, will unite us and persevere through the tough times.

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6888th: Heroes of the Central Postal Directory Battalion

In early 1945, as the Battle of the Bulge concluded, Army officials reported that a lack of mail was hurting morale. Warehouses were filled with millions of pieces of mail destined for the seven million Americans serving in the European theatre. The task of getting that mail to its intended recipients fell on the 6888th, nicknamed the “Six Triple Eight” Central Postal Directory Battalion.

Except for a few smaller units of nurses, the Six Triple Eight was the only all-Black unit from the Women’s Army Corps to serve overseas during World War II. Major Charity Edna Adams was selected to command the battalion and became the first Black woman to hold a commission in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.

The Six Triple Eight confronted the packed warehouses in Birmingham, England. These buildings were unheated and dimly lit, and the windows were blacked out to prevent light from showing during nighttime air raids. As it was a cold winter, they wore long johns and extra layers of clothing under their coats while working in these warehouses.

The unit members were organized into three separate shifts daily, so work continued around the clock, seven days a week. They tracked individual service members by maintaining about seven million locator cards, including serial numbers to distinguish different individuals with the same name. They dealt with “undeliverable” mail that was sent to their location for redirection. They investigated insufficiently addressed mail for clues to determine the intended recipient, and they handled the sad duty of returning mail addressed to service members who had died.

Once the immense backlog in Birmingham was gone, the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion sailed to France in 1945, shortly after V-E Day. They encountered another backlog of undelivered mail dating back as far as two to three years, which again would take an estimated six months to process.

While in Rouen, the 6888th experienced a tragedy. On July 8, 1945, PFC Mary J. Barlow and PFC Mary H. Bankston were killed in a jeep accident, and Sergeant Dolores M. Browne died on July 13 from injuries resulting from the accident. Because the War Department did not provide funds for funerals, the women of the 6888th pooled their resources to honor their deceased members. First Lieutenant Dorothy Scott found three unit members who had experience with mortuary work to take care of the bodies, and unit members paid for caskets. Memorial services were organized and held for the deceased, and Major Adams wrote to inform their families in the United States of their fate. Sergeant Browne, PFC Barlow, and PFC Bankston were buried with honors in the Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer (there are only four women buried there).

In February 1946, the remainder of the unit returned to the United States and was disbanded at Fort Dix, New Jersey, without further ceremony. There were no parades, no public appreciation, and no official recognition of their accomplishments, although Charity Adams was promoted to lieutenant colonel upon her return to the U.S.

This is not a story about the mail. This is a story about 855 Black women, who found a way to serve when the nation needed them most. In 2019, a bipartisan effort was started to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the 6888th. Both senate and house passed the measure and President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan bill on March 14.

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Portrait of a lady: Marjory Stoneman Douglas

She was an environmentalist, a suffragist, and called herself a “writing woman.” Marjory Stoneman Douglas was born April 7, 1890, in Minneapolis. Douglas graduated from Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, in 1912, where she had been elected Class Orator. Wellesley, in fact, had a Department of Expression that Douglas believed “prepared me for all my later public speaking.”

Her mother, Florence Lillian Trefethen, but she went by Lillian, died of breast cancer after Marjory finished college. She was the one who made the funeral arrangements. She had been told her father was living in Florida at the time, her parents having separated when she was 6. In September 1915, after a brief and unsuccessful marriage to a man named Kenneth Douglas, she left Massachusetts and moved down to Florida to live with her father, Frank Bryant Stoneman.

Stoneman had started a paper in Miami, the “News Record” in 1906. He strongly opposed Governor Napoleon Bonaparte Broward’s eff orts to drain the Everglades. Marjory believed this is where her earliest love of the Everglades came from Stoneman and Frank Shutts reorganized the paper as the “Miami Herald” in 1910. Marjory started work at the “Herald” as the society editor. After a year, her father and step-mother took a month’s vacation and Marjory oversaw the editorial page in her father’s absence.

In 1916 Marjory Stoneman Douglas was enlisted by Mrs. William Jennings Bryan, along with Mrs. Frank Stranahan, founder of Fort Lauderdale, and the widows of two former Florida governors, to speak to the state legislature about ratifying the suffrage amendment.

“All four of us spoke to a joint committee, wearing our best hats.” She writes in her autobiography. “Talking to them was like talking to graven images. They never paid attention to us at all. They weren’t even listening.”

That same year Douglas was assigned a story for the “Herald” on the fi rst woman to enlist in the Naval Reserve in the state of Florida. She didn’t just get the story, she became a part of it as she, herself, enlisted. The Navy made her a yeoman first class. She convinced the commandant at Key West to help her put in for an official discharge in 1917. “The Navy was as glad to get rid of me as I was to leave,” she writes.

Douglas then joined the American Red Cross, Civilian Relief department. By the summer of 1918, she was on her way to an overseas assignment in France. She was gazing down the Rue de Rivoli when the peace treaty ending World War I was signed in June 1919. “…the guns went off from up and down the river…” and “everybody was kissing everybody,” she wrote. Douglas stayed on with the American Red Cross overseas, traveling from place to place and writing stories about the turning over of Red Cross clinics to local authorities.

Douglas returned to Miami in 1920. She returned to the “Herald” as an assistant editor making $30 a week. She also got her own column called “The Galley,” which she describes as “a string of short items, sayings, and musings on local and national affairs.” Douglas spent time with many friends after her return, including Ruth Bryan Owens, daughter of William Jennings Bryan, and Mrs. Bryan. Owens “lectured, ran the women’s clubs, and eventually ran for the legislature.” Ruth Bryan Owens was elected to the 71st Congress in 1928.

The idea for Everglades National Park started with landscape designer Ernest F. Coe, known as “The Father of the Everglades,” and Douglas supported it in print. A committee was formed which included botanist David Fairchild, writer and explorer John Oliver LaGorce of the “National Geographic,” and, of course, Douglas herself.

She writes: “The seasons of the Everglades are the mosquito season and the non-mosquito season. During the worst part of the mosquito season, people would move their cows up to Florida City where the cows wouldn’t be killed by the bugs.”

“People sent hives of bees down from Pensacola on flatboats to get the mangrove honey, but in the mosquito season, they’d take
the bees away so the mosquitoes wouldn’t kill them, either.”

In 1924 Douglas began to experience nervous fatigue. Eventually, her father called a doctor who said the “Herald” was too much pressure and she needed to get away from it. After returning from WWI she had contributed to other magazines.

In the summer of 1924, Douglas visited relatives in Massachusetts and the agent who had been selling her work, Robert Thomas Hardy. He recommended she write for the “Saturday Evening Post,” and she decided to freelance full time.

Douglas’ house in Coconut Grove was finished in the fall of 1926. The work had gone slowly as she had to pay the contractor based on the money she made selling her writing. The City of Miami designated it an historic site in 1995. From 1926 to 1941, Douglas continued writing magazine pieces, and for the local civic theater. In February of 1941, her father died. He and Shutts had sold the “Miami Herald” to the Knight family in 1939.

She took this time to get out of the newspaper business and write a novel, “The River of Grass,” about the Everglades. Her friend, publisher, and fellow novelist Hervey Allen had asked her to write about the Miami River, but she managed to change his mind.

She was referred to state hydrologist Garald Parker and worked with him through her three to four years of research. The book itself took four to fi ve years to complete but came out longer than the agreed-upon 120,000 words. Her publisher told her to cut 20,000. She wired back: “Cut 19,000. Refuse to cut another word. If you don’t agree, I withdraw the book from publication.”

“They say I’m pigheaded,” she cheerfully confessed.
“Pigheadedness covers a multitude of virtues as well as sins.”

“The River of Grass” was printed in November 1947 to great commercial success. It also coincided with the founding of the Everglades National Park. Douglas attended the ceremonies where President Harry Truman formally dedicated the park. Ernest Coe had wanted the park to encompass a much larger area and was upset with the result. He had to be convinced to attend the ceremony.

Douglas began lecturing in the 60s, and “The Rivers of America” series, of which her “The Everglades: River of Grass” was a part, was quite successful. She was also recruited to write a book for a series about regions of Florida. “Florida: The Long Frontier”was published in 1967.

Her next book project was a biography of ornithologist and naturalist W.H. Hudson. So, at the age of 77, sporting a black eye patch after cataract surgery, she traveled to Buenos Aires to begin research. She visited Hudson’s birthplace, then traveled to England to visit his old publishing house, J.M. Dent. She cut her travels short and returned to Miami when her eyes began to fail her completely. She turned over the rough draft to friend and editor Margaret Ewell.

In the late 60s, some 20 years after the publication of her seminal “The River of Grass,” Marjory Stoneman Douglas became an ardent environmentalist. The National Audubon Society in Miami got in a fi ght to stop a proposed oil refinery on the shores of lower Biscayne Bay. Immediately afterward, a jetport in the Everglades was suggested. Joe Browder, head of the National Audubon Society in Miami, showed up on Douglas’ doorstep to ask her to issue a “ringing denunciation” of the jetport. She said she felt those types of things were more effective if they came  from an organization. Browder then asked her to start one.

The Friends of the Everglades’ first member was weather historian Michael Chenoweth. Douglas enlisted a treasurer, vice president, and secretary, and started giving speeches wherever they would let her. The jetport was stopped, “not necessarily through my efforts,” Douglas said, “but through the efforts of many people and the responsiveness of the Secretary of the Interior under President Nixon.”

In 1990, a high school in Parkland, Florida was named after her when it opened, for her 100th birthday. In 1993 President Bill Clinton awarded Douglas the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor granted by the United States of America. Marjory Stoneman Douglas was active in environmental conservation in Florida until her passing in 1998 at  108.

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Valentine’s Day origin hardly romantic

How did our current Valentine’s Day celebration come about? As with many of our favorite holidays, there are dark and murky tales surrounding its origins.

Not-so-lovely beginnings

One school of thought is that the Valentine’s Day holiday originated with the Roman fest of Lupercalia, held February 13 – 15, which included fertility rites.

Another possible explanation is that Roman Emperor Claudius II executed two men, both named Valentine, on February 14th back in
different years during the 3rd century. The martyred men were recognized by the Catholic Church with sainthood and thus the recognition of St. Valentine’s Day.

Yet another interpretation says that a jailed priest named Valentine was in love with his jailor’s daughter, and sent her a letter before he was beheaded. The Feast of Saint Valentine was recognized by Pope Gelasius in 496 A.D.

Through the years, Valentine’s Day evolved into a celebration
of love. The first mention of this is in Chaucer’s late 14th century poem, “The Parliament of Fowls.” Shakespeare mentions St. Valentine’s Day in A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream and Hamlet.

Heartfelt cards 

While Valentine’s Day cards were previously imported from Europe, in the mid1800’s, Esther Howland of Worcester, MA started designing and selling Valentines domestically, and is credited with starting the Valentine’s Day card industry in the United States.

By the late 1800s, cards were mass-produced, and by 1916, Hallmark began producing them. According to the Greeting Card
Association, with nearly 150 million Valentine’s cards sent each year — not including kids’ classroom cards—it’s the second largest card-giving occasion, Christmas ranking number one.

Cupid 

Perhaps you are familiar with Sam Cooke’s 1961 hit, “Cupid,” which begins:

“Cupid, draw back your bow And let your arrow go Straight to my lover’s heart for me…”

Bows, arrows, and a flying cherub, how did they become symbols of Valentine’s Day?

Cupid is known as the god of affection. In Greek mythology,
he was known as Eros, the son of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. In Roman mythology, he was the son of her counterpart, Venus, but in a chubby- cheeked, child-like form.

While our Valentine depiction of him is shooting arrows to pierce the heart and make someone fall in love, legend has it he might carry two arrows, one golden arrow with a sharp tip to make people
fall in love, the other a blunt lead arrow to make someone fall out of love. Ouch!

Those sweet Valentine’s Day treats
Heart-shaped boxes of chocolate, or pink and red M&Ms, are among the most popular candies to give and get for Valentine’s Day, but what about those little candy hearts or conversation hearts, as
they’re known?

Their story dates back to 1847, to Boston pharmacist Oliver Chase’s candy machine invention that rolled lozenge dough into wafers, ultimately known as Necco wafers (an acronym for the New England Confectionary Company).

Supposedly inspired by the growing market for Valentines, in 1866, his brother, using vegetable dye, found a way to print words on candy. The iconic little heart shapes weren’t made until 1902, however.

Wishing you a sweet Valentine’s Day!

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The storied history of a South Florida-born Black baseball team

On December 16, 2020, Major League Baseball (MLB) officially designated the Negro Leagues as “Major League.” By doing this, MLB “ensures that future generations will remember the approximately 3400 players of the Negro Leagues during this period as Major League-caliber players.” MLB continued by stating, “the statistics and records of these players will become a part of MLB’s history.”

MLB and the Elias Sports Bureau (the primary source of statistics for ESPN, Comcast Sportsnet, Turner Sports, NFL Network, Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football,Thursday Night Football,  league and media websites, and dozens of broadcasters of MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLS telecasts) have begun a review process to determine the full scope of this designation’s ramifications on statistics and records.

This means Miami’s first MLB team is not the Marlins. Instead, South Florida was the birthplace of another illustrious “Major League” team, founded as the Miami Giants in 1936.

The team will see among its alumni many names baseball fans would recognize today – Hank Aaron, all-time MLB home-run record holder till it was broken in 2007 by Barry Bonds, and Satchel Paige,  the Hall of Fame pitcher. Also, the first female professional baseball player, Toni Stone, was on the team. All their history will now be incorporated into the story of MLB.

Unfortunately the owners, looking for a publicity stunt, decided to cash in on a faraway conflict. As Italian dictator Mussolini, in a prelude to World War II, invaded Ethiopia in 1935, the team was renamed to the Ethiopian Clowns.

The team owners appear to have borrowed from the headlines of local black newspapers, which often featured sympathetic headlines to the Ethiopian plight. The team’s Ethiopia reference was seen by some as the exploitation of black sympathy, which encouraged some Negro league owners to oppose adding the Clowns to their ranks.

Homestead Giants (playing in Pittsburg) co-owner C. Posey, for example, wrote in his weekly Courier column in 1942 that sportswriters would “always feel disgusted at Syd [the Clowns owner] for… capitalizing on the rape of Ethiopia when that country was in distress.” In the Afro-American, the longest- running black weekly newspaper in the US, E.B. Rea took a different view, calling the move to block the Clowns “as funny as the Clowns themselves.” “If so many were paying to see them joke and jest, how much more ardently would they turn out to see them play Negro American competition?”

The Clowns were known for their antics. The box scores featured King Tut, Abbadaba, Tarzan, Ulysses Grant Greene, Wahoo, Goose Tatum, Highpockets West, Peanuts Nyassas, and Haile Selassie, emperor of Ethiopia.

At the same time, the Clowns were also known as a first-rate baseball team. Legendary pitcher Satchel Paige, playing on a visiting team in 1939, described the team as, “fast-fielding, hard-hitting” and “one of the greatest clubs [he] has ever played against.” Exactly what all baseball teams aspire to be remembered for.

The Clowns won the Negro American League championships in 1950, 1951, 1952, and 1954.

The Clowns name stayed with the team through its transition to the Indianapolis Clowns, where it signed a 17-year-old shortstop and cleanup hitter with the nickname “Porkchop,” because of his fondness for them.

“Porkchop”, aka, Hank Aaron, played three months for the Clowns before being purchased by the Boston Braves for $10,000, but it had an impact on him.

“Everything I learned [from the Clowns] got me ready for the big leagues,” Aaron said in an interview with mlb.com. “I honestly believe that I wouldn’t have gotten to the big leagues as quickly as I did if I hadn’t even played those few months with the Clowns.”

The team left the Negro American League in 1955 to pursue a full-time barnstorming schedule (like the Harlem Globetrotters). You can get a taste of their antics if you have seen the 1976 movie “The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings”, starring James Earl Jones, Richard Pryor, and Billy Dee Williams. The movie is loosely based on the barnstorming Clowns.

On August 16, 2020, the Florida Marlins honored the first South Florida Major League team by donning the Miami Giants uniform on the 100th anniversary of the Negro League’s founding. They played against the Braves, long time home to the “Hammerin’ Hank”, who outgrew his earlier Clown nickname.

The Marlins did not quite channel the “fast-fielding, hard-hitting” Clowns, by losing 4-0 to the Braves.

RIP Hank Aaron, one of baseball’s greatest, died at 86.

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From dirt supply line to six lanes of bustle and business

Drivers regularly travel roadways like “telegraph road” or “post road” without giving the names a second thought. Yet, road names often have historical roots with interesting stories behind them. South Florida’s Military Trail is one with a history older than Florida’s statehood.

Today’s Military Trail is a 46-mile, north and south, commuter route running from Jupiter to Pompano Beach, teeming with modern development and prone to congestion. It’s a far cry from its origins as a trail blazed by Tennessee and Missouri military volunteers during the Second Seminole War (1835- 1842).

Well before Florida became a U.S. territory in 1821, the Seminole people were being driven out by settlers moving into their homeland. Conflicts naturally ensued, eventually leading to the three Seminole Wars between 1817 and 1858.

The second war erupted after the U.S. government tried to forcefully remove all Seminoles from Florida.

Seminoles were adept at guerrilla warfare and used their knowledge of the Everglades to their advantage. Outnumbered and outgunned, however, by 1842, according to britannica.com, “some 3,000 to 4,000 Seminoles had been resettled, and only a few hundred remained. The Armed Occupation Act of 1842 promoted white settlement in Florida and the Second Seminole War was declared over on August 14, 1842.”

Toward the beginning of the second conflict, President Andrew Jackson dispatched General Thomas Jesup to assume control of the Florida troops. The military began building a string of posts in South Florida, starting with Fort Dallas (today’s Miami) in 1836, then Fort Jupiter in 1838.

Jesup ordered 233 Tennessee volunteers to cut a supply trail from Fort Jupiter to the New River in what is now Broward County.

The group was led by Major William Lauderdale, a longtime colleague of Andrew Jackson and fellow Tennessean. Volunteers followed the dryer ground of a coastal pine ridge, cutting a 63-mile path through the hammocks to the river in just four days. There, they established the garrison eventually named Fort Lauderdale. That path, originally known as “Lauderdale’s Route,” was used for military transport during the next two decades of the Seminole conflict and eventually dubbed “Military Trail.”

After the Seminole wars ended, the trail continued to see foot traffic and passenger and freight movement via covered wagons. Eventually, the trail slipped into relative disuse, until Henry Flagler put his mark on Florida in the late 19th century.

Flagler’s East Coast Railway and the resort hotels he built along the coast put South Florida on the map. Soon, rampant land speculation took hold across South Florida, which included the area along Military Trail. By the early 20th century, moneyed Northerners were lured by sales-literature rife with praise for what was otherwise wilderness and swampland. They arrived first by train and eventually by automobile, all wanting their piece of Florida.

By the 1920s, coastal towns like Palm Beach and Lake Worth were blossoming. To handle the influx of people and their automobiles, better roads were needed. Along with new roads, improvements were made to existing routes like Military Trail. Some sections along Military Trail were paved as early as 1923. Other stretches were improved, often by hand, under Franklin Roosevelt’s WPA in the 1930s.

Yet, up to WWII, much of South Florida remained undeveloped and lengths of Military Trail still unimproved, mainly serving area farms and ranches. Rather than residents and vacationers, herds of roaming cattle filled the landscape.

Post-WWII, another real estate boom brought an even greater influx of arrivals than in the 1920s. Palm Beach became one of the fastest-growing metro areas in the country, with its population doubling in the 1950s. Military Trail grew into a transportation artery as Palm Beach and other coastal cities spread westward.

Amazingly, even into the 1960s, there were sections of Military Trail that were still two-lanes and even dirt roadway. Delray Beach, not much more than a sleepy retirement village in the 1960s, contained a dirt length of the road flanked by farmland.

In Boca Raton, Lynn University began life in 1962, astride a dirt stretch. As late as 1979, Military Trail in Boynton Beach remained a single-lane dirt path mainly used by area farms and ranches. Most everything west was still agricultural. In 1980, a shopping center with a Kmart being built west of Military Trail was hailed as a big deal. A small stretch of single-lane pavement designated as “Old Military Trail” still exists in Boynton Beach.

Military Trail experienced its own growing pains alongside South Florida’s exponential growth in the 1980s. Now often at six lanes, it’s hard to even envision the wilderness trail troops carved by hand nearly two centuries earlier. And, while shorter, today’s 46 miles still follow the path soldiers marched from Fort Jupiter to Fort Dallas and serves as a reminder of a somber chapter in Florida’s history.

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