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USA West 2018 #7 Mar 29, 2018

Gulf Islands National Seashore

This national seashore stretches 160 miles along several barrier islands from the panhandle of Florida west to eastern Mississippi bayous with access by car to several of the Florida islands where we camped for a night of wind and thunder at Fort Pickens Campground.

Historic Fort Pickens at the western tips of Santa Rosa Island in Pensacola Bay preserves over a century of American coastal defensive structures. After the War of 1812 masonry forts like Fort Pickens were constructed to protect US harbors. These forts were unbeatable when cannons fired round balls and ships were made of wood.

Fort Pickens                                                                       Gun emplacements 

By the end of the Civil War in 1965 rifled cannon and ironclad warships defeated these harbor defenses. In the 1930’s such forts were upgraded with new weapons and tactics. The last batteries at Fort Pickens were built in 1943.

Edison Ford Winter Estates

Many believe that the most important day in Fort Myers history, was March 6, 1885, when Thomas Alva Edison landed in what was then a sleepy tropical village. Unlike some of the lavish, fanciful retreats built by magnets in other Florida cities, the Edison Winter Home illuminates the work as well as the life style of the owner. 

The many varieties of bamboo growing in the Ft Myers area may have enticed Edison to purchase the property in 1885 because it was the material he used as the filament in early light bulb.

After purchasing the land, he ordered two post-and-beam homes to be pre-cut in Maine and transported by ship to the Ft Myers location and assembled on site by local laborers.

In 1927 Thomas Edison planted a collection of ficus trees in Ft Myers, Florida along the Caloosahatchee River to research a domestic source of latex for the production of rubber. The Caloosahatchee River was the primary means of transportation in this area until the railroad arrived in 1904.

Blooming azaleas                                                           Orchids in the palms

Seminole Lodge with royal palms                                                         Edison phonograph

Henry Ford purchased an adjacent home, “The Mangoes”, in 1916 which he used about three weeks each year when the Ford family arrived to help Edison celebrate his birthday in February.

In 1927 Edison, Ford and Firestone formed the Edison Botanic Research Corporation with the purpose of finding a source of latex that could be grown and produced in the US to be used to produce rubber. After laboratory testing over 17,000 plant samples, he eventually concluded the best source was the goldenrod plant.

The banyan tree, a ficus, was one of the plants tested for rubber research. This tree was planted around 1927 and is one of the largest in continental US.

                     Mr. Edison and a single banyan tree                                                 Ficus trees

There are over 13 kinds of ficus trees throughout the Edison and Ford estates.

Sunshine on the Florida west coast

Venice Beach on the Gulf of Mexico                                             Warm sunshine in Venice, FL

Following our visit to family - Barbara and Steve Canfield in Venice, then the Dormans  Aunt Fran, Uncle Chuck, and Jackie  in Stuart, FL on the east coast –we travel north to Charleston, SC.