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Land of Dreams: A Short History

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By WALT BELCHER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 17, 2007

TAMPA - TAMPA - ''It was like going to heaven. It was so wonderful. We were able to go swimming in the winter time. It was just beautiful because there were so many trees and flowers when, up North, they were having snow.''

— Frances Shaw Stavros, a Tampa resident who discovered Florida in the 1940s

In the early 1950s, postcards spread the "Florida Dream."

Pictures of a tranquil, unspoiled tropical paradise of sun, surf and sea.

Beautiful young women dressed as Southern belles strolling through Cypress Gardens.

Quaint roadside stands, alligator farms, natural springs and trees loaded with oranges and tangerines.

Over the next five decades, as the population grew from 2.7 million to 18.5 million, that dream changed. How and why is covered in a film debuting at 9 tonight on WEDU, Channel 3.

"The Florida Dream," produced by the Florida Humanities Council and WEDU, tells the state's story using old film clips, historical photographs and interviews with scholars and longtime residents. It traces the social, cultural and economic forces that have shaped the state since the end of World War II.

Producer Larry Elliston has crafted a colorful and compelling history lesson.

The fourth-generation Floridian is well-known in the Tampa Bay area for his "Down Home Florida" reports that used to air on WTVT, Channel 13. He was the producer for the nationally syndicated "Jack Hanna's Animal Adventures" and for a PBS film on circus magnate John Ringling and his wife, Mabel, and their contributions to Florida history.

Narrated by actor Ed Asner, "The Florida Dream" crams a lot into 60 minutes.

It covers the post-World War II housing boom; the effects of the civil rights movement; the arrival of NASA at Cape Canaveral; the immigration of Cubans fleeing Fidel Castro; the rise of retirement communities; the draining of half the Everglades; the destruction of the Kissimmee River; and how Walt Disney World changed tourism and the state's image.

It is both a nostalgic glimpse of the state's past and a cautionary warning about the future.

As Florida continues to grow — more than 36 million residents are projected by 2050 — the state will face issues even bigger than the current hot-buttons: burdensome property taxes and skyrocketing homeowners insurance.

"In the long run, those are trivial compared to water," says historian Gary Mormino, a University of South Florida professor. "Half of the state — North Florida — is water rich, and half — South Florida — is water poor," he notes in the film. Water supply will be an even bigger problem in the not-too-distant future, he says.

The continued paving of paradise to put up parking lots, strip malls and condominiums is another issue Floridians will have to face, says University of Florida history professor Jack Davis.

"There are only scraps of virgin landscape left,'' he adds, noting that the Everglades, a globally unique ecosystem, is half the size it once was.

Mormino's book, "Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams: A Social History of Modern Florida" (University Press of Florida, 2005) inspired the film. A Florida history specialist, Mormino writes the Tribune's History & Heritage column.

Elliston says he couldn't cover everything in the book.

"The film is designed to be a quick history for people who haven't lived here since the 1950s and for young people," he says. "Future generations need to know where we've been and what we stand to lose."

It will be made available to schools and air on PBS stations throughout Florida. Viewers will be encouraged to learn more at www.floridadream.org.

Before World War II, Florida was the least populated state in the South, with fewer than 2 million people, the film notes. It also was one of the poorest and most rural.

That changed with the development of 200 military training facilities, where millions of soldiers discovered the tropical paradise.

"Where Florida had been a poor state, a small state, it suddenly became, thanks to the investment by the federal government, a fairly dynamic state," says David Colburn, another UF history professor.

After the war, many of those soldiers returned here. The postwar economic boom, combined with improved highways, better automobiles and the marketing of home air-conditioning, made the Florida dream possible for millions. The population rapidly doubled.

Elliston interviewed people who followed their dreams here, including Tampa residents Gus and Frances Stavros, who, like many others, came from the North.

Gus Stavros said he fell in love with the state in 1943 when he trained in Gainesville. "This boy from New Jersey had never seen such a wonderful climate," he says.

Ann Cull, another transplant, who lives in Cape Coral, notes, "You have a different outlook on life when the sun shines." Years from now, people will look back at the period from the 1950s to the 1970s as Florida's golden era, Mormino speculates.

"It was when the Florida dream was attainable for the working- and middle-class," he says. "A retired mailman from Chicago could afford to move here and live comfortably on the water. Florida really was affordable."

That's no longer true, he said in a recent interview.

"That working-class retiree wouldn't be able to come here [today]. We're also losing the working-class mom-and-pop-owned motels and other businesses."

By the 1980s, development was racing across Florida. Now, condominiums crowd the skyline and orange groves are being turned into gated communities. More than 50 of the state's native species are endangered or threatened.

"Despite all that has happened, we've still got what many people consider a paradise," Mormino says. "The key question is how much more growth can the state handle before it stops being special and Florida becomes paradise lost?"

Reach Walt Belcher at (813) 259-7654 or wbelcher@tampatrib.com.

ON TELEVISION

The Florida Dream

The State Of Florida

WHAT and WHEN: "The Florida Dream," a documentary tracing the social, cultural and economic changes in Florida since 1945, debuts at 9 tonight. "The State of Florida," a discussion among historians and the mayors of Tampa and St. Petersburg about the impact of rapid growth, follows at 10.

WHERE: WEDU, Channel 3

INFORMATION: Go to www.wedu.org, www.flahum.org or www.floridadream.org.

Sunshine State Timeline

1942: World War II military training camps bring millions of soldiers to Florida

1949: Florida ends open range policy; ranchers must put up fences

1949: Florida enacts first state sales tax

1950: The state's population hits 2.7 million

1950: The development of home air conditioning makes Florida tolerable year-round.

1959: Fidel Castro takes over Cuba, and more than 1 million Cubans immigrate to the United States over the next two decades, many settling in Florida.

1959: NASA sets up shop at Cape Canaveral

1960: Florida's population reaches 4.7 million

1961: Developer Del Webb opens Sun City Center, typical of a new housing trend — planned communities for retirees

1971: Walt Disney World opens, marking a dramatic shift in tourism

2000: Florida's population hits 15.9 million

- Walt Belcher

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