Florida Frontiers

Memories of Palatka. By the mid-1800s, the historic town of Palatka was a transportation hub for steamboat traffic. In the early 20th century, it became a battleground against the Ku Klux Klan. In 1933, Ravine Gardens State Park became a WPA project. Beginning in the 1970s, The Florida School of the Arts provided performers for "Cross and Sword," the official state play of Florida.

Jonathan Dickinson's Journal. Newly discovered documents from 1696 add to familiar accounts of Jonathan Dickinson's shipwreck and survival in Florida.

Discovering A.S.J. Allen. In 1904, the African American community leader A.S.J. Allen was killed by a white neighbor over a property border dispute. Allen's great-grandson Alonzo Felder has researched his productive life and tragic death.

Plantations in Florida were part of an agrarian society that depended upon the labor of enslaved people. Remnants of Florida's plantation culture can still be seen today at places including Goodwood Museum and Gardens and the Grove Museum in Tallahassee, the Kingsley Plantation on Fort George Island in Duval County, and at Bulow Plantation Ruins Historic State Park in Flagler County.

Fort Christmas was built on December 25, 1837, during the Second Seminole War. A replica of the fort is at Fort Christmas Historical Park in east Orange County, along with a collection of pioneer homes and buildings.