Eric Musgrove Contributor This week, we will continue looking at some of the more interesting stories in the book “American Siberia” by J. C. Powell, captain of the convict camp for many…
Category: History
On this day in history…
• 1918 – First woman enlists in the United States Marines: After joining the Marine corps, Opha May Johnson was assigned desk duty at the Marine Corps headquarters in Arlington, Va. •…
Remembering Suwannee: Convict leasing system, Part 4
Eric Musgrove Contributor This week, we will continue looking at some of the more interesting stories in the book “American Siberia” by J. C. Powell, captain of the convict camp for many…
Remembering Suwannee: Convict leasing system, Part 3
Eric Musgrove Contributor This week, we will continue looking at some of the stories related to the convict lease system and Suwannee County. The main source of this material is the book…
Remembering Suwannee: Convict leasing system, Part 2
Eric Musgrove Contributor Last week, we began looking at the convict leasing system, especially as it related to Suwannee County. We ended the article with a look at the first paragraph of…
The history of tattoos
Leah Androski [email protected] Tattoos have been around for approximately 5,000 years, with the oldest documented tattoos found on an iceman named Otzi who scientists say lived during 3,300 B.C. Here is some…
Henry B. Plant, “The King of Florida”
Hailey Heseltine [email protected] Henry B. Plant was dubbed “The King of Florida” by a magazine called Success in 1898 for his tremendous impact on the development of Florida’s transportation and tourism industries…
From boom to bust
Hailey Heseltine [email protected] It was the Roaring Twenties, and the postwar world seemed to be finding new life with its economic prosperity. That decade, Florida entered an era which transformed the state…
On this day in history…
• On July 23, 1923, John Herbert Dillinger joins the Navy in order to avoid charges of auto theft in Indiana, marking the beginning of America’s most notorious criminal’s downfall. • On…
Remembering Suwannee: Convict leasing system, Part 1
Eric Musgrove Contributor While writing about various facets of Suwannee County’s history, I long ago realized that some events, systems, and so on, must be explained in more detail to fully understand…
Remembering Suwannee: William Forsyth Bynum, MD
Eric Musgrove Contributor Doctors have held an important position in the history of Suwannee County. The frontier life was hard on the early Suwannee Countians, and doctors were often the difference between…
The lost town of Port Leon
Hailey Heseltine [email protected] The towns we see in North Florida today, such as Live Oak, Madison, Monticello, Perry, Quincy and more, are relatively few when compared to the ones that were originally…
Remembering Suwannee: Lewis Thornton Powell
Eric Musgrove Contributor As a historian, I have always believed we should discuss not only the good people and events in our history, but also the bad. As I have told many…
Remembering Suwannee: Live Oak in 1905, Part 7
Eric Musgrove Contributor This week, we will complete an article first published on Nov. 25, 1905, by “The Sun” of Jacksonville. The article describes Live Oak during its heyday, with many interesting…
Remembering Suwannee: Live Oak in 1905, Part 6
Eric Musgrove Contributor Today is the sixth of seven articles from a 1905 newspaper describing Live Oak when it was Florida’s fifth-largest city. “Two banks with a combined capital of $125,000 take…
History’s sports hero: Jim Rice
Mickey Starling [email protected] When we think of an athlete being a hero, it usually means they made an outstanding play that won a game or at least kept a game competitive. However,…
The bound histories of North Florida and South Carolina
Hailey Heseltine [email protected] Any town’s history is always tied to its people, and there are many common threads among the people of North Florida towns. One of those common threads is that…