After a year of frenzied construction, northeast Florida’s WAPE-AM passed its FCC inspection and was ready to rock ’n’ roll. WAPE blogger David Israel reported that in the early afternoon of Thursday, October 23, 1958, “a bespectacled Ted Jones stepped up to the microphone and read the sign-on announcement for the first time. The massive…
Read more
Florida Architecture magazine described the building in gushy terms generally reserved for a luxury resort, not a utilitarian radio station. “The free shape swimming pool meanders into the interior of the lobby.” The “extensive use of wormy chestnut and walnut paneling greets the eye giving an overall impression of modernity properly associated with amusement of…
Read more
In the years before accurate charts, navigation aids, and reliable weather forecasts, the reefs and shoals off Florida’s east coast and Keys were deadly danger for ships bringing goods and people to the new southern frontier. But one group’s pain is another’s profession, as skilled seamen known as “wreckers” took to the waters after storms…
Read more
In 1824, a transplanted Marylander named William Cooley with his family settled on the north bank of New River near the forks. He immediately went to work building not only a large home, but also an impressive manufacturing plant to process the thick roots of the cycad fern known first to the Indians and then…
Read more
Despite heady competition from Miami and Jacksonville, Tampa Bay’s WDAE-AM became Florida’s first licensed radio station, signing on May 15, 1922, from the headquarters of its licensee, the Tampa Daily Times. Because radio was so new, still much the purview of experimenters and hobbyists, the newspaper took it upon itself to educate its readers on…
Read more
I was pleased to see my book, Legends & Lore of Fort Lauderdale’s New River, prominently displayed in the bookstore at Fort Lauderdale International Airport. If you’re not planning a trip to the airport anytime soon you can buy the book directly from me for $21.99 plus tax — and I’ll happily sign it for…
Read more
New River owes its existence to Pay-hai-okee, now known as the Everglades, the mysterious wetlands and marshes that originally composed most of the southern half of the Florida peninsula. The name “Everglades” has American heritage; it first appeared on a map shortly after Spain ceded its territory, La Florida, to the United States in 1819.…
Read more
“I live on the north fork of the New River just west of the 11th Ave. bridge. I just got your book today and am about 40 pages in. I just put it down to step outside, and I must say, I’ll never look at where I live the same way again. Thank you for…
Read more