Swampy’s Historic Photos: Colonial Plaza, Orlando, 1960s.

by on August 17, 2012 at 1:39 pm
Posted In: Swampy's Florida History

The place to go on a hot Summer day – The mall! Here’s Colonial Plaza Mall in Orlando in the mid 1960s. The Publix moved from it’s much smaller location on Mills Avenue to Colonial Plaza. The building it left was the art deco style of Publix structures. This was the 1960s version with the large winged signed.

The mall is now gone, but not the Publix location. It is now a Barnes and Noble. The Walgreens is now a pet store. Another building kept is the Belk’s building in the background.

This photo is from ‘Orlando – City of Dreams’ by, Swampy’s friend, Joy Wallace Dickinson.
You can purchase your own copy by clicking here.

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Swampy’s Tribute: Phyllis Thaxter

by on August 16, 2012 at 4:33 pm
Posted In: Swampy's Florida News

Long time actress Phyllis Thaxter died on August 14th in Longwood. We’ve been seeing many celebrities in their final days in Florida and thought we would start giving them a nod here. Both actors Ron Palillo and Davy Jones died in Palm Beach County just a series of miles from one another, for instance.

Thaxter is best known for her role as the mother, with Glenn Ford as the dad, in the 1978 Superman film starring Christopher Reeve. A photo is above. Below are movie posters of some of the films she shined in: ‘Bewitched’; ‘Jim Thorpe, All American’; ‘Act of Violence’ (She’s terrific in this film) and one of the best known of her films, ’30 Seconds Over Tokyo’. ’30 Seconds’ was partially filmed at Eglin Air Force Base in Fort Walton Beach. Not sure if Baxter was one of the stars that actually filmed in Florida.

 

  

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Swampy’s Historic Photos: Florida tourists in Brooksville, 1929.

by on August 15, 2012 at 4:45 pm
Posted In: Swampy's Florida News

Here’s a great photo of early tourism in Florida. This being  at the Shady Rest Tourist Camp in 1929 near Brooksville.

From the May 2012 copy of ‘Old Brooksville in Photos & Stories‘. This is terrific little monthly publication available at selected spots around Brooksville.

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Fishing Exhibit at the Winter Garden Heritage Museum.

by on August 15, 2012 at 2:10 am
Posted In: Swampy's Florida History

Here is a wonderful way to present a fishing exhibit. It at the Winter Garden Heritage Museum. A short distance away is what was once one of the premiere bass fishing areas in the country. That area is Lake Apopka. Lake Apopka today is pretty much a dead lake due to an immense amount of muck farming that occurred on it’s northern end.

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Do you have a Friendly Floridian card?

by on August 14, 2012 at 3:00 pm
Posted In: Florida Advertising, Florida Books, Swampy's Collectibles, Swampy's Florida History

Dick Pope, the owner of Cypress Gardens & stalwart Florida promoter, cooked up this pin & card around 1970 with the support of, then Governor, Claude Kirk, to encourage tourists to visit Florida as much as possible. Pope was under the impression that the coming Disney World would only make his Cypress Gardens attendance soar. He was less familiar with how Disney had been operating in California and planned to do in Florida, which was very different than the chummy relationship that earlier Florida attractions across the state had enjoyed.

The card is from the outstanding book by Lu Vickers, ‘Cypress Gardens – America’s Tropical Wonderland’.
You can purchase your own copy by clicking here.

 

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