Sunny Point on the St. Johns

One of the statements that makes me bristle is when someone says "Florida doesn't have any history." Florida has a rich, colorful history but often you have to know it's there to find it. Case in point is Sunny Point, now known as the Bronson-Mullholand House in Palatka. From the perspective of this former Gainesville resident, Palatka was the town on the way to something else: our weekend retreat in Welaka, Crescent Beach or even St. Augustine. We would often stop and eat at Holiday House or Sonny's BBQ, but never linger. Only as an adult have I taken the time to take a longer look at this little gem on the St. Johns River and subsequently learn about its fascinating past.

One of the founders of Palatka was Judge Isaac H. Bronson. Bronson was a New York attorney and member of the U.S .Congress who was appointed to be circuit judge of East Florida. When Florida joined the Union as a state in 1845, Bronson was appointed as one of four circuit judges for the state. Bronson purchased a 1,220 acre plot of land in Palatka and later sold part off keeping the portion known as "Sunny Point" where he built his estate.

Infographic © Old Florida- photo by Ebyabe

Sadly the Judge died one year after the completion of the Simplified Greek Revival Style house and his wife Sophronia returned to the North during the Civil War. Before the war, however, Sunny Point was said to be the center of social activities in Palatka. Both Confederate and Union troops used the home as a lookout during the war.

Charlotte Henry White occupied the house after the Bronsons and after the war it was used by the Freedmen's Union Commission as a school for former enslaved people. When Mrs. White's husband fell into ill health, Mrs. White hired Mary Mulholland as a live-in nurse. After years of taking care of the Whites, Ms. Mulholland became heir to Sunny Point after Mrs. White's death in 1904.

Mary Mulholland and her adopted daughter, Edelmira were owners of the mansion until after World War II when it was subdivided into apartments. By 1965 the house had fallen into a sad state and it was sold to the City of Palatka. The heroic restoration efforts by the Putnam County Historical Society allowed the the house to be opened by the public in 1977.

The windows were designed so that they could function as doorways when the panels beneath them were opened. The house has ten fireplaces.

Many of the furnishings are appropriate to the Victorian period of the house's history.

Followers of this blog will know of my bizarre obsession with taxidermy.
This house is full of wonderfully quirky pieces created by Frank Sands.

The house has lovely details throughout.

While heavily modified during its days as apartments, the Putnam County Historical Society
 has worked diligently to return the house to its former glory.

Some of the home's original furnishing were donated
by Mary Mulholland's adopted daughter Edelmira.

It was a brilliant sunny day when I pulled up to Sunny Point with the fellow members of what I have dubbed the Florida Road Trip. Our guide Phil Eschbach was very familiar with the home and Judge Bronson's place in Florida history. The docent was enthusiastic and knowledgeable and did an excellent job of giving us just the right amount of information in each room. The house is modest in comparison to over-the-top mansions like Stetson House or Henry Flagler's White Hall. But few homes in Florida are this old, with this much history. This is a place where soldiers of both sides in the Civil War once resided. A place constructed from virgin stands of ancient cypress floated up the St. John's River. When it was built, Florida had only been a state for nine years.

If you want history, go to Palatka, they serve it there sunny side up!

The little church on the river

I was trying to imagine Green Cove Springs in the 19th century: steamboats dropping off passengers, deluxe Victorian resort hotels, and visitors taking the waters in search of restorative health. As I ambled down St. Johns Avenue, taking photos of some of the houses lining the street, my friend Robin from Authentic Florida yelled out "we'll meet you at the church." I continued down the road until I saw a white wooden building that I assumed was the church. (It turns out that structure was a WWII-era building from Camp Blanding in Starke.) As I walked alongside the structure and turned the corner – Bam! Right next to the river was one of the prettiest Carpenter Gothic style churches I've ever seen... anywhere!

St. Mary's Episcopal Church, perched a mere 40 feet from the St. Johns River was built in 1879. Phil Eschbach, our guide on this photo journey of north central and northern Florida, is working on a book documenting the thirty-some Carpenter Gothic churches in the state. This is one of his favorites and he pointed out details like triangular shaped battens and panels below the windows that open to allow for cross ventilation.

Photo from the State Archives of Florida from the late 1800s

The interior is stunning as well. The church recently received a grant to allow for the restoration of the stained glass. Rising above the altar, the focal point of the church are three stained glass windows representing the virtues of St. Mary: faith, hope, and charity. Above each is a bird representing the same virtue: a Phoenix rising from the ashes, a pelican pecking at its breast, and a dove.

The beautiful Carpenter Gothic church reflected in the window of the building from Camp Blanding 

John the Baptist, one of two windows in the back of church

My photo doesn't do the space justice. Rich in history and soaked with the energy of decades of worship, it is quite stunning.

Our guide Phil, sits in a pew with the panel open to show how the church can be cooled with the cross breeze coming off the river.

On my previous visit to Green Cove Springs, I passed within a block of the church and never knew it was there. One of the things I learned on this road trip was that it's easy to overlook Old Florida right in your own backyard. While it's great to have a knowledgeable guide like Phil, it's also important to stop and check out the local business you've driven by for years, or explore what's down that dirt road you pass by every day. You'll never know what treasure you might discover once you get off the beaten path.

Note: This is the first in a series of posts based on a two and a half day road trip with Florida history tour guide Phil Eschbach and Authentic Florida's Robin Draper. More posts to come...

Pico Hotel in Downtown Sanford

It's always exciting to me to stumble across something significant right under your nose. I've been through downtown Sanford quite bit recently, but never seen this building before. I happened to spot these uniquely shaped windows and pulled over to learn more about the building. A plaque near the door identified this as the former PICO Hotel built in 1887. PICO is an acronym for the Plant Investment Company, run by Henry B. Plant, one of the pioneering railroad barons who helped make Florida accessible by rail to Northern tourists. Plant is best known for creating the railroad that opened up the west coast of Florida, while Henry Flagler established the easy coast as a Mecca for wintering Northerners. Plant's masterpiece was the Moorish Tampa Bay Hotel, which now houses the Henry Plant Museum and the University of Tampa.

Henry Plant, State Archives of Florida

The Tampa Bay Hotel, State Archives of Florida

The Pico Hotel, described by the plaque as Turkish in style, was the Sanford's terminal hotel for Plant's railroad lines and steam ships on the St. Johns, Florida's largest river. The plaque also describes the windows as having "horsehoe or ogee arches" and a "decorative bartizan tower" that remains today without it's original onion shaped dome. A striped awning used to surround the structure, which was added to the National Register of Historic Palces in 1976.

The Croaker Hole

Not all Florida's springs are deep clear pools or roadside attractions. The Croaker Hole is a salt water spring in the middle of the St. Johns River, south of Little Lake George. You either have to be an old timer who knows the spring's exact location or have a depth finder to find the deep hole in the surrounding 5-9 feet of water. The water in the St. Johns is root beer color, and there is no way to visually see this spring.

It's called the Croaker Hole because you can catch Croakers there which are a salt water species of fish. Other species normally found in salt water that like to hang out at the spring include shrimp, Blue Crab and Striped Bass. 

My most productive fishing trip of all time was an excursion to the Croaker Hole when I was a kid and my dad and I pulled out 15 Stripers and Sunshine Bass. Sunshine Bass are a hybrid that are spawned in captivity and released into the St. Johns by the Florida State Fish Hatchery. Slightly smaller than Stripers, Sunshine Bass can be identified by the broken stripe on the side, whereas Stripers stripes are uninterrupted.

I'm not sure if we were ignorant of the fishing limits, or just ignored them, but we should have only pulled out 6 fish apiece. I think perhaps we were caught up in the moment and weren't aware of how many fish we had. Anyway of the 15 fish, my father caught 12. I never could figure out how we could have the same bait and be at the same spot and how he would always catch all the fish. I guess some people are just natural fisherman, and my pops is. 

The excitement I felt that day, pulling one fish after another into the boat, made it understandable to me how one could get addicted to the sport. It's easy to see how in the days before television, computers and theme parks, one of Florida's biggest attractions was its fishing.

From fishin' to phosphorous to fishin'?

As a kid growing up in the sixties and seventies, I grew up liking chains. I loved franchised stores, restaurants, hotels, etc. because that's where everyone else went and I wanted to be like them. My dad, however, liked to get off the interstate at some little town, drive to the town square, and eat at the greasiest little diner he could find. As a kid I was horrified. Only today do I see my father's wisdom.

So I don't have fond childhood memories of the trip when we stayed in a fish camp on the St. Johns River. I remember boredom, summer heat and lots of fried, bony fish. The fish camp was called Angler's Paradise and it was located in Georgetown, Florida. I would have preferred to stay in a Holiday Inn with a pool and vending machines near an interstate and a McDonalds.

But as I matured and spent more time on the river, I learned to appreciate the subtle beauty of the St. Johns and now I see fish camps like Angler's Paradise as vintage Florida. There were several fish camps around our place in Welaka Florida including Andersons, which as far as I know is still in operation and has a great little restaurant on a bluff overlooking the river.

Fish camps were a big deal in Florida's tourist past and a great example was Lake Apopka, Florida's fourth largest lake. According to Wikipedia Lake Apopka was one of of Central Florida's main attractions through the 1940s, boasting 21 fish camps from where guests could pursue the quest for trophy largemouth bass. Lake Apopka is connected to a chain of lakes that extends northward  from Orange County into Lake County and eventually connects to the beautiful Oklawaha River.

The sad part of this tale is that in addition to fish camps, Lake Apopka also shared its shores with industry and large farms which contaminated the lake to the point that the aquatic life that once supported the fish camps could no longer survive. And the pollution of Lake Apopka spread through  many of the lakes throughout the chain.

But they are taking efforts to try to clean up the Lake Apopka and the rest of the Harris chain of lakes. Starting in the late '80s, clean-up projects have been under way to reduce the elevated phosphorous levels caused by runoff into the lake. In March, a water treatment facility will begin operation aimed at treating the dirty water. With any luck, maybe the lake will be able to support trophy bass again. 

Vintage images are from the archives of the State of Florida

The mighty St. Johns

I can remember very few jokes, but one that has always stuck with me was popular when the Georgia Bulldogs dominated the Florida Gators in football year after year. "Why does the St. Johns flow north? Because Georgia Sucks!"

One of the few rivers that flows north in the US, the St. Johns is called a lazy river because the total drop in elevation from its source to its mouth is less than 30 feet. This slow flow also makes it difficult for the river to flush itself of pollutants.

My relationship with the river began when I was in elementary school. My parents decided to buy a place on the river in a little town called Welaka as a weekend getaway. It was an hour and twenty minutes from our home in Gainesville and light years away from the social life I craved as a teenager. Looking back on it now, however, I wouldn't change a thing, the place was magical. 

I saw my first manatee there. Attempted to water ski. Drove a boat and had my own little fiberglass jon boat. Hunted Lubers and water snakes with my BB gun. Picked up ancient indian pottery shards when the water level dropped. Got scared by a Cottonmouth. Saw my dad squish a rattler with our car. Learned to drive. Walked to the convenience store to buy comic books. Went to the little aquarium again and again. Used my allowance on fishing tackle. Caught my limit in Stripers at the Croaker Hole, a rare salt water spring. Waded through Water Hyacinths at eye level to get to a spring with a rope swing. Saw giant catfish and gar in the crystal clear Oklawaha river. Laughed like crazy when our steering cable broke on our boat and we went careening into the shore of the same river. Walked into a sliding glass door while spying at girls by the pool. Caught Blue crabs in crab traps with hot dogs. Witnessed my favorite sunset of all time.

My memories on the St. Johns and of growing up are one and the same. From where we were, we faced the Ocala National Forest, and the river seemed wild and full of life. Today there is much debate over tapping the river down here in Central Florida. One side says it will take pressure off the shrinking aquifer. The other says that the environmental damage could be catastrophic. I don't know which side is right. I just hope that tomorrow's kids get the same opportunity to make incredible memories on the river like I did.