First Christmas- Tallahassee

Sixteenth Century Spanish conquistador Hernando De Soto and his army spent years exploring the American South, but their presence has been positively identified only in Tallahassee. While investigating the grounds of the historic home of former Governor John Martin in ...

First Thanksgiving-St. Augustine

52 years after Juan Ponce de Leon walked ashore on Florida’s east coast -- and over five decades before the Pilgrims founded Plymouth Colony -- Pedro Menendez de Aviles (Ah-vee-lays) stepped onshore at what would become the city of St. ...

Thomas Edison

Since the 19th century, Florida has been the winter home of prominent northerners looking to escape harsh weather. One of the most famous of these “snow birds” was inventor Thomas Edison, who first visited Ft. Myers from New Jersey in ...

Norman Studios

In the early 20th century when New York - not California, was the home of the silent film industry, Jacksonville, Florida, was known as the “World’s Winter Movie Capital.”

By 1917, some 30 studios had produced over 300 movies there. ...

Apalachicola, FL

The town of Apalachicola, located about 80 miles southwest of Tallahassee at the mouth of the Apalachicola River, was named by an Act of the Legislative Council of the Territory of Florida in 1821. The area was valued because of ...

Cathedral of Leon

The Cathedral of Leon in Nicaragua is one of the biggest cathedrals in Central America and the most prominent building in Leon. It is in the center of the city, next to the Central Park. During construction, wealthy citizens in ...

National Chavez Center

The 187-acre National Chavez Center is located in the Tehachapi Mountains, overlooking the San Joaquin Valley. The site known as Nuestra Senora Reina de La Paz is the final resting place for agricultural workers’ rights activist Cesar Chavez. Perhaps most ...

Ruby Diamond/ Jewish Heritage

During Jewish-American Heritage Month, we’d like to recognize the legacy of Ruby Diamond. Miss Ruby, as she came to be known, was a lifelong citizen of Tallahassee and a 1905 graduate of what is now Florida State University. Perhaps best ...

La Casa Azul

La Casa Azul, or the Blue House, is where the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo was born and died. Frida’s father built the house three years before she was born on July 6, 1907. Located on the corner of Londres and ...

Zora Neale Hurston Home

ALTHOUGH BETTER KNOWN FOR HER 1937 NOVEL

THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD,

FLORIDIAN ZORA NEALE HURSTON MADE SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTIONS

TO THE STUDY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN FOLKLORE.

HURSTON, A STUDENT OF NOTABLE ANTHROPOLOGIST FRANZ BOAS AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, WAS ONE OF THE FEW ...