Hidden History of the Florida Keys by Laura Albritton

Book Review - Five Stars

Hidden History of the Florida Keys by Laura Albritton.

This book is an in-depth look into what brought South Florida’s Monroe County to its present state of being.

I loved the author’s insightful story telling ability to put a human touch and face on how and what brought it about. When my wife and I first sailed into the Florida Keys back in the mid 1980s it was said about Monroe County that there were so many junkies there that you could become one by osmosis.

This is a very interesting and entertaining read.

EXCERPTS:

“Miami wasn’t a shipping port at the time. The only real natural port in those days was Key West. In 1900, it was Florida’s largest city, a bustling port alive with the cigar industry, fishing and sponging. So the impetus for building an overseas railroad was that Henry Flagler needed a port.”

Just a few years earlier, nobody had any need to “run” rum, whiskey, gin or any other spirit into the United States. But with the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment and the passing of the Volstead Act at the end of 1919, Prohibition became a reality. Suddenly, the law mandated that “no person shall manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, or furnish any intoxicating liquor.” Across the Florida Keys, it was as if the residents released one long, exasperated groan in response. From the sparsely inhabited shores of Key Largo to the city streets of Key West, the majority of residents—not to mention visitors—despised this new puritanical ban on alcohol. Because the Upper and Middle Keys saw a limited number of year-round residents in the 1920s, local law enforcement was almost nil. One lone officer made his way up and down the Keys, and somehow, the “coconut telegraph” ensured that people generally knew when he was coming. While rumrunners hid in Islamorada’s Little Snake Creek (around today’s mile marker 86.7, near the Montessori school), illicit watering holes catered to the thirsty on the island of Key Largo. Opened by Mabel Harris in 1928 in North Key Largo, Mabel’s Place served up favorites such as Florida lobster and key lime pie, along with prohibited hooch. Mabel Harris, sister of future politician Harry Harris, ran what was politely termed a “tearoom,” although customers did not necessarily have any interest in a pot of Earl Grey: “In the Prohibition years, ‘tearoom’ was a common code name for an establishment that served alcohol.” Not only could customers imbibe, but they could also indulge in the services of the on-site brothel.

John M. Grimsrud

City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America by Donald L. Miller-Book Review

Book Review - Five Stars 

City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America

by Donald L. Miller

A classic book worthy of more then five stars. It is extensively researched and magnificently edited. Miller tells this awesome story of American propulsion in the first century of the Industrial Revolution where explosive expansion set a standard that would be a tough act to follow.

I absolutely loved It!

Excerpts:

“A terrible calamity is impending over the city of Chicago! More I cannot say; more I dare not utter.” The following night, around nine o’clock, a fire broke out on the West Side of the city in the cow barn of Mrs. Patrick O’Leary. Aided by strong winds off the prairie, it turned into a one-and-a-half-day holocaust that consumed the entire core of the city of some 300,000 people, leaving 90,000 homeless and nearly 300 dead. It was the greatest natural disaster up to that time in American history. Frederick Law Olmsted, sent by The Nation to the stricken city, reported that many of those caught in the inferno thought they were witnessing “the burning of the world.”

The morning after the fire, fear gave way to disbelief. Everything was gone.

But more amazing than the destruction was the recovery. The rebuilding began while the ground was still warm in the burned district, and within week after the fire more than five thousand temporary structures had been erected and two hundred permanent buildings were under construction.

1893, when the city held the World’s Colombian Exposition to celebrate—one year late—the four hundredth anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of the New World, Chicago had the busiest and most modern downtown in the country, with a dozen and more of the highest buildings ever constructed. Chicago would never become as big or as consequential as New York, its greatest rival, but it had made good its boast as the city that could accomplish almost anything.

The epic of Chicago is the story of the emergence of modern America. Child of the age of steam, electricity, and international exchange, Chicago “[is] the very embodiment of the world-conquering spirit of the age,” an English writer observed in 1893.

The Cowboy Wannabe: Doings of Dudley Doolittle

 

Doings of Dudley Doolittle: This is the name I will use in the sometimes hilarious, outrageous, or cynical short stories posted monthly on https://bingsbuzz.blogspot.com/

A fictitious name will be used in most of the stories. It is there to protect the identity of the guilty.

These true stories are over half a century old or more.

The Cowboy Wannabe

by John M. Grimsrud © December 2021

Dudley Doolittle was born into a real no frills hardscrabble Northwest Wisconsin farm life in the early 1940s. A psychopath from birth, his cowboy lifestyle evolved. A fiercely independent renegade outlaw was what ultimately developed. This was the Dudley Doolittle we came to know.

At the time of our first encounter we were always open to hospitality at our Billings Park home in Superior, Wisconsin, where we kept our refrigerator stocked with beer and our larder of wine and booze was forever there to travelers who ambled in. Needless to say people who are free with their booze acquire lots of fair weather friends.

Dudley Doolittle was introduced to us by his cousin, an old classmate of mine. Our hospitality must have been adequate because Dudley Doolittle became a regular drop in thirsty visitor. We soon met his lovely wife that psychopathic Dudley Doolittle tried to burn to death as she slept in her bed...she escaped!

Dudley Doolittle went from one criminal escapade to another logging tons of time in jail. He loved to brag about his outlaw life style. His cowboy lifestyle inclinations included cattle rustling.

He got caught because of his partner in crime was his brother-in-law Jack, and Jack ratted him out.

There you have a brief look at one of the many social misfits that made our lives lively with never a dull moment.

Now the rest of the story:

While Dudley Doolittle cooled his heels in jail for his capers, his psychopathic mind had the time to think of a fitting justice.

Here is what evolved: Like a patient spider weaving his web his plot was put into action using a beguiling confidence man act of heart warming family friendship. Dudley Doolittle soon had his brother-in-law Jack unconditionally trusting and eager to please.

The web was ready.

As an act of friendship Dudley Doolittle said he wanted to take Jack out on the town, and he said it would be his treat. First to the bar for a friendly libation. A shot of booze to toast their friendship. Dudley Doolittle complimented Jack on his great ability to handle his whiskey.

Dudley Doolittle proposed a wager:

He bet Jack he couldn’t drink an ounce of booze a minute for one hour. Dudley Doolittle goaded him on...after all Dudley Doolittle was paying the tab and to sweeten the deal further he promised a hundred dollars for one hour of drinking at Dudley Doolittle’s expense. This was just too good to be true. Dudley Doolittle and Jack shook hands on the wager. The clock was in motion. Dudley Doolittle’s brother-in-law had already downed his first shot and only had 59 more to go.

The bartender lined up the shots on the bar and Dudley Doolittle kept score.

Dudley Doolittle said that he was truly amazed at Jack’s ability. He made it to 45 shots before he fell off the bar stool. No problem, Dudley Doolittle picked him up off the floor, got him back on the bar stool, and a few more shots were put away before Jack finally lost consciousness.

Dudley Doolittle paid the tab, and he told the bartender that he would take good care of Jack. Dudley Doolittle took unconscious Jack home and put him in bed to sleep off the booze.

The next morning Jack was stone cold dead.

Dudley Doolittle said that he even went to the funeral to make sure Jack was truly dead.

The story of the circumstances of Jack’s death made the news. The bartender was charged and nearly went to prison.

The patient plotting spider got his long awaited justice.

Links to other stories in series:  

2. Adventures - St. Augustine

3. Keg of Beer St. Augustine

John Grimsrud's author's page on Amazon