Time Away from the Everyday

I am sorry that I didn't post this earlier in the week. I have been selfish with my time and traveling to a few historic Florida towns. That is, historic by American standards; we are still a young country. 

There are few things more rejuvenating than taking a little time to relax and spend time with people I love. This week, Sarah and I took a trip into Florida's past with my sister and her friend Tom. Some of the places we went may become settings for short stories or new books. This week, they were a break from the everyday. 

Our first stop was Winter Park, a beautiful town set on the shores of five small, spring-fed lakes. The town dates back to the 1840s when white Americans chased the Seminoles off their native lands and formed the state of Florida. Most of the tribe was relocated to Oklahoma. Those they couldn't catch fled to the Everglades, where they still live. Meanwhile, Winter Park became a winter home for wealthy industrialists of the nineteenth century. 

There is an advantage to having lots of money when building a town. The good citizens of Winter Park had canals dug to connect the lakes and built spacious mansions along the shores. They spared no expense in creating their winter playground. Some of the houses still remain, but many have been torn down by today's wealthy residents who built even bigger homes. The four of us took a tour of the lakes on one of the five custom-built pontoon boats that cruise the canals hourly. The tour is considered one of the most scenic in Florida. There are cypress trees and live oaks growing along the canals that were here when Seminoles walked the lake shores. Today, beautifully landscaped lawns slope down to the water's edge and the campus of Rollins College occupies seventy acres of lakefront property. 

Our next stop was Daytona Beach, the location of one of the oldest automobile races in the world, the Daytona 500. In the 1920s, the race was on the beach. There is still a section of the beach that cars are allowed to drive, but for the safety of the beachgoers the city no longer allows cars to race the length of the shore. The race has been moved to Daytona Speedway, but it is still one of the premier auto races in the county. 

Sarah and I are planning to set one of the Three Snowbird books in Daytona, maybe centered on another popular sport there: speedboat racing. I understand Daytona is one of the more challenging places to race, boats often having "washing machine surf" that they have to just plow through and waves that are five or six feet high. The Professor would love the excitement, but poor Cornelia might have heart failure if he goes out on one of those racing boats.

Our last stop on the trip was Silver Springs and a glass-bottomed boat tour that dates back to the 1800s. Silver Springs is now a state park, and the grounds are beautiful. The shopping pavilion was closed for renovations, much to my sister's disappointment. The tour was wonderful. The deepest of the underwater springs is 85 feet, but the water is so clear that it doesn't appear to be more than a few feet deep. Alligators lounge on the shore of a small island where birds nest. They settle on the ground under the nest and wait, hoping that one of the fledglings will fall and provide them with an afternoon snack. 

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Many movies have been filmed at Silver Springs and some of the props still remain, including a boat that was intentionally sunk for the film Don't Give Up the Ship, and three seven-foot-tall statues of Greek gods that were props for an I Spy episode. There is also a dug-out canoe made of Florida cypress that is older than the United States. A sample of the wood was sent to the University of Florida to try to determine just how long the canoe has been resting at the bottom of the spring.

Now that we are back from the trip, I hope to be back on schedule with the blog next week. In the meantime. I hope you enjoyed hearing about my little adventure into Florida's past.

Signs of the Time

The Gandy Bridge

One of the most difficult problems I struggle with when writing historical mysteries is how to accurately portray the times without having our troubled history take over the story. This week the Three Snowbirds had to cross the Gandy Bridge to question a suspect in St. Petersburg. To understand how a simple drive across a bridge can be a problem, you have to be aware of an ugly historic fact. When the Gandy Bridge was completed in 1924, a car crossing toward St. Petersburg side would see a sign that read “No Jews Wanted Here.” Pow! History just delivered a punch to the gut. 

Okay, history, what do you have to say for yourself?

As it turns out, the anti-Semitic history of St. Petersburg is well documented. Signs at resorts and restaurants that read “Restricted Clientele” or “Gentiles Only” reflected the exclusionary policies of many local institutions. Throughout much of the early and mid-century, the city was considered one of the most anti-Semitic in all of the United States. 

When Sarah and I approached writing Murder at the Million Dollar Pier, we had to take that part of the history of the city into account. The difference in this particular sign is the all-encompassing nature of where it was posted. This was not an individual business or a single institution. The city of St. Petersburg rolled out an unwelcome mat in big black letters. 

Despite the bigotry, the Jewish citizens of St. Petersburg didn't leave or start forming Jews only groups. It wasn't easy. Keeping their Jewish identity in the Sunshine City required a strong will and dogged determination. As a result, the Jewish community in St. Petersburg is still thriving, and the unwelcome sign has rotted away.

Tampa Bay Travel in the 1920s

I spend a lot of time doing historical research for my novels. Sometimes the research includes visiting a location or finding an old photograph. At other times the details of a particular day are important. For instance, the current chapter of my WIP is a trip from Tampa to St. Petersburg. Florida was a little different in the 1920s than it is in the 2020s. The Gandy Bridge was new and charged a quarter to each car that crossed the bay. At that time the six-mile-long Gandy was the longest bridge in the world. To put it simply, travel across Tampa Bay was much more time-consuming than it is today. The new bridge cut the driving time between the two cities in half and added an amazing view of Tampa Bay.

The Gandy Bridge was the first, but the Davis Causeway (now the Cortney Campbell Causeway) was in the planning stages.  Davis Construction Company, wouldn't start construction until 1927. David (DP) Davis, was behind the project. His current building efforts included dredging the bay to turn two small islands into three, which could support a planned community complete with golf courses, hotels, apartments, a business district, and private houses. Environmental impact wasn't a consideration during the Florida Land Boom. Builders at the time only worried about how much money they could make.

The Howard Frankland Bridge was a dream that many thought could not be built.  It would be several decades before technological improvements in construction equipment allowed the dream to become reality. Perhaps they should have kept dreaming a while longer.  The bridge opened in 1960 and was soon nicknamed the "Howard Frankenstein Bridge" by the locals because of the many accidents that backed up traffic for hours. 

A Truly Awful Way to Die

Most of us have heard the story of how Socrates chose death by hemlock after being convicted of corrupting the youth of Athens and impiety to the Gods of the City. Okay, what he really said when he was asked to name his own punishment was that he deserved a wage paid by the government and free dinners for the rest of his life, to finance the time he spent as Athens' benefactor. The hemlock beverage was the choice of the court. I can't help thinking he might have been more resistant to the hemlock if he been offered the native North American water hemlock. 

The plants are from the same family and look somewhat alike, but the New World plant has no helpful numbing effect; it is a truly awful way to die. The spotted water hemlock, pictured in full bloom above, was well known to Native Americans. Diluted amounts of the plant were used to treat bruising and reduce swelling. It was used internally for suicide rituals. Wow! Who wakes up and decides they want to commit suicide by enduring two hours of agony?

Its toxin, called cicutoxin, can cause delirium, nausea, convulsions, abdominal pain, seizures, and vomiting within 60 minutes of ingestion and, within two hours, a final convulsion ending in death. All parts of water hemlock are toxic, but the poison is especially virulent from the roots. The lower stem and upper roots of Cicuta contain numerous internal partitions or air spaces that can be revealed if sliced lengthwise. Would-be natural food gourmets are well-advised to avoid parsley-like plants with this combination of leaflet and root characteristics.

True to its common name, water hemlock occurs primarily on wet soils associated with ditches, stream banks, pond margins, and marshes. It can be found in every part of North America except the island of Newfoundland. There is a secondary concern because birds are seemingly immune to the toxin. Waterbirds often eat the corky, rounded fruits of water hemlock without ill effect, though anecdotal reports suggest that humans who eat these birds can be sickened by the toxins in their flesh.  That sounds like an excellent reason to avoid waterfowl during the fruiting season. 

So why am I discussing spotted water hemlock...? Well, I spend a lot of time thinking up ways to kill people. This seems like an evil way to commit murder.  There is no minimum dose for this poison. It is deadly to all mammals. Ingesting a walnut-sized amount of spotted water hemlock, also known as cowbane, can kill a 1200 pound bull. While even tiny amounts of spotted water hemlock can be deadly, consumption does not always result in death. Nobody knows why, but sometimes people survive with immediate dosing of various barbiturates and benzodiazepines. However, it is unlikely that anyone would have barbiturates or benzodiazepines on hand. If they did, there is still no guarantee that they would work.

Cornelia grew up on a farm. She would be familiar with cowbane, and probably had to make sure the livestock was not accidentally poisoned by the plant. A single plant mowed into a bale of hay would be deadly. Fortunately, we mystery writers kill people, not animals. I have my poison. I've picked out the setting. Now all I need is a victim who richly deserves a horrid death. Do you know anyone wicked enough to deserve two hours of agony followed by death? They opened a lovely spa here in Safety Harbor in 1925.

Beginning a New Project

The image above is the beginning of a grand Spanish style hotel built in Homosassa Springs, Florida in the 1920's. This hotel and the arcade across the street were the start of a new planned tourist town the likes of which had never been built in Florida. City plans called for a rail station, expansive streets, sidewalks nine feet wide, and a resort centered around a beautiful clear spring where manatees wintered.

Sarah and I are stepping back into this time as a setting for a new mystery story. For a while now, the two of us have been writing short stories involving two retired army nurses who served in France during World War One. We are thinking of bringing them to Florida during the land boom of the 1920's to look at a property in Homosassa Springs that they could use as a winter retreat.

Our big decision now is what length story. We both have a passion for short fiction, but are considering a traditional closed room mystery novel for this plot. Lots of wealthy investors were being lured to Florida by developers. Before the land bust of 1926, property on Florida's Gulf Coast attracted sportsmen, industrialists, the idle rich, and gangsters.

The idea of writing "Murder on the Mullet Express" has a certain appeal. There is one problem: from October of 1925 to May of 1926, Florida railroads placed an embargo on passenger trains. The demand for Florida produce in the North, and building materials in the South had increased rail traffic to capacity. Developers in Homosassa Springs resorted to bringing potential customers into Jacksonville by train, then transporting them to the hotel by limousine. A seven passenger Packard wouldn't have room for enough suspects for a novel. We would have to set this story earlier than our previous stories or make it a short story plot. Writing it after the embargo was over is not an option. By the time the embargo was lifted, the real estate market was in decline.