Local History

A New Gate in Gifford

On August 15, 2009, members of the Gifford Cemetery Association and the community at large gathered to dedicate the imposing new gate that now adorns the entrance to the Gifford Cemetery on 49th Street.

Mystery of the Lincoln Mask

The first thing you notice is how big his features are. His nose, large and aquiline, projects from a lightly creased, prominent brow.

Strictly for the Birds

Steve Massey never knew Paul Kroegel, but tales of the German immigrant’s passion for protecting the wildlife on Pelican Island passed down by his great-grandfather was one of the things that prompted Steve to become a member of the Pelican Island Preservation Society.

Thanks For The Memories

It’s a scene played out dozens of times each night, seven nights a week, at Bobby’s Restaurant on Ocean Drive along the Beach.

Florida’s Most Beloved Storyteller

“My favorite book is A Land Remembered. My name is Saige Osceola and I am a Miccosukee Indian. I am 11 years old and my favorite author is Patrick D. Smith.

Seeing 20/20 with Tori Ueltschi Barnett

Victoria (Tori) Ueltschi Barnett graduated from Saint Edward’s School in 2000, earned a degree in journalism and political science, and began her career in the non-profit arena for a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C.

Crazy About Crackers

My husband Don and I used to go to an ancient saloon in Sweetwater with a sawdust-covered, beer-washed floor, where a live band played country western music while we nibbled on frog legs – deep fried in sizzling peanut oil – and in between sets, listened to recordings of Eddie Arnold.

This Land is Your Land–At 6 Cents An Acre

Throughout most of history, land ownership was not even a distant dream for most ordinary working people.

Why Windsor Works

Nearly 420 acres of grapefruit groves stretched to the horizon when Canadian Galen Weston and his wife Hilary first set eyes on the property we know today as Windsor.

Is There A Doctor in the Country?

The sticky-toed tree frog had fallen from a palm tree. I found him on a frigid morning, motionless and missing a leg.

Veterans of War…and Life

In 1986, when the Challenger explosion shocked the world, I was a junior in high school stuck home with the flu. I was annoyed that my one chance to watch cheesy daytime television was interrupted by what I naively thought was a hiccup – a mistake to be corrected with parachutes and a mulligan.

The Lonely Ghosts of Yeehaw Junction

The middle of the day, like the middle of the night, is when time goes slowly. This is when ozone is reaching its daily peak, contributing to the haze of late afternoon, and thunderstorms develop in the west, cumulonimbus clouds towering over each other until they shape themselves into an anvil, when lightning strikes start fires that smoke the horizon and turn pines into blackened stumps.

Little Island of Memories

On Sept. 29, 2007, a small group of former prisoners of war gathered on a tiny island in the Indian River just south of the Merrill Barber Bridge.

Bridge: A Matter of Life and Death

While Vandal hordes hammered at the gates, St. Augustine, the fifth-century patron saint of theologians and sore eyes, put his fingers in his ears and theorized that time did not exist before the beginning of the world.

At War and Peace in the Cockpit

It’s hard to pinpoint when Jim Denmark’s leadership qualities started to emerge, or when he first set his sights on a career as an officer and aviator in the United States Navy.

Four Thousand Miles From D-Day

D-Day (J-Jour to the French) began in the early morning of June 6, 1944 on a spring low tide when 150,000 Allied soldiers in a 5,000-vessel armada crossed the English Channel to disembark on a rocky, seaweed-strewn stretch of the beaches of Normandy.

What Really Happened To Flight 19?

Vero Beach has been the scene of several of the most intriguing mysteries discovered in Florida: the bone fragment found by James Kennedy that seems to feature the earliest artwork known in North America; the skeletal remains of an Ice Age man that were unearthed, then lost; the ancient fossilized bones of a gigantic sloth that also roamed the area.

September Remember… Who Can Forget?

Autumn doesn’t announce itself in Florida with flannel shirts and frosted pumpkins.

See You Later, El Lagarto

I grew up in Miami feeling sorry for people up north who had to wear earmuffs and who weren’t famous for Al Capone, Seminoles and alligators. No one I knew had ever actually seen Al Capone, although my father once claimed that he smoked the same cognac-dipped, bahia-wrapped cigarillos that Scarface smoked.

Goodbye, Grand Dame

More than 80 years after opening its doors, the elegant Mediterranean Revival-style building at 2225 Club Drive is awaiting the demolition squad, unless a preservationist steps in to relocate it.

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