Florida is dotted with a wide array of public monuments, statues, and memorials that commemorate significant moments in regional and national history. Many of these honor people, places, or events that are well known, while others celebrate the obscure or nearly forgotten.In "A Brief Guide to Florida's Monuments and Memorials", award-winning travel writer Roberta Sandler presents a key to more than eighty of the most intriguing sites the states has to offer. Organized geographically, the book recommends stops throughout Florida and covers a full five centuries of state history. In-depth descriptions carefully chronicle the sometimes hidden stories behind the markers, including the person or the event honored as well as the process of erecting the monument or memorial.From Civil War to civil rights, from Spanish colonization to the twentieth-century founder of Coral Gables, from Florida natives to famous visitors, intriguing monuments and memorials stretch from Pensacola to the Keys.
Whether your interest is in the Okeechobee, Olustee, or Dade battlefields, the 1838 Constitution Convention, the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, John Ringling, Ponce de Leon, Herbert Hoover, Jackie Robinson, Ernest Hemingway, or a host of others, this book will reveal the stories behind the extraordinary people, places, and events celebrated throughout the state.It helps readers explore the state's most intriguing public markers, memorials, and monuments.