The Laker/Lutz News

Serving Pasco since 1981/Serving Lutz since 1964

Doug Sanders

Setting Pasco County’s historic record straight

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There’s a sign outside the Historic Pasco County Courthouse in Dade City, which shares facts about the county’s creation.

The historic marker, erected this spring, says Pasco County was formed on June 2, 1887.

This sign stood outside of the Historic Pasco County Courthouse for 60 years, sharing a slice of the county’s history. The problem is — May 12, 1887 — is not the day Pasco County officially formed. Bill Dayton, former president of the Dade City Historic Preservation Advisory Board, once told a Tampa Tribune reporter that whoever did the sign, ‘just did a sloppy job.’ (Courtesy of Doug Sanders)

It replaces a sign — that stood for 60-odd years  — that was inaccurate.

That one said that Pasco was created by splitting off a portion of Hernando County, on May 12, 1887.

The incorrect sign was erected in 1961 by the Florida Board of Parks and Memorials, on the west lawn of the county’s red brick courthouse.

Pasco County Commissioner Ron Oakley requested this new sign, which sets the record straight. (Courtesy of Doug Sanders)

No one knows where the inaccurate date came from.

This column is a follow-up from my previous column published in The Laker/Lutz News on Dec. 1, 2021.

The previous column, which traced the origins of the county’s creation, was suggested by Jeff Miller, a longtime Pasco historian, who passed away this summer.

Jeff and I were trying to figure out how an incorrect date ended up on a historic marker in such a prominent place.

In my Dec. 1 column, I reported that J.A. Hendley, a prominent attorney from Blanton, had written about Pasco County’s early history in a 1943 account.

Hendley was the last surviving member of the Florida Constitutional Convention of 1885.

In recounting the history of Pasco‘s formation, he described residents of southern Hernando County meeting together for the purposes of forming a new county in May of 1887.

“We agreed in convention assembled to make an effort to get away from Brooksville,” Hendley writes.

There was “unanimous sentiment” that was later recalled by Dr. Richard C. Bankston in a letter dated Nov. 25, 1927: “We all were weary of traveling the sand trails of Brooksville, the county seat, to attend court, or transact other business of varied nature.”

Bankston and Hendley were appointed to lobby for the new county in Tallahassee.

Jeff Miller, a longtime member of the West Pasco Historical Society, suggested a column be written about the sign’s mistaken date. The long-time historian passed away this summer and did not see the new sign. (Courtesy of Gulf High School)

They were successful only after seeking the support of Florida’s newest senator, Judge Samuel Pasco.

At the height of his popularity, Pasco agreed to have the new county named after him.

What followed next took only four hours on June 2, 1887, when Gov. Edward A. Perry signed into law “A Bill to Divide the County of Hernando and make therefrom the Counties of Citrus and Pasco.”

My column wasn’t the first to notice the discrepancy between the posted sign at the courthouse and the actual date of the county’s formation.

The erroneous information also came to light during the Pasco County centennial celebration held in 1987.

Eddie Herrmann, a member of the Pasco County Historical Preservation Committee, traveled to Tallahassee to specifically learn more about why the historic marker cited May 12, 1887 as the date of the county’s formation.

At the time, Herrmann told Carol Jeffares, a reporter for The Tampa Tribune, “I researched the dates and there’s nothing there as why that date ties in.”

At least two sources also reported the May 12, 1887 founding date.

One is a book that listed all of the historical markers provided by the Secretary of State at the time, and another is a 1920s brochure promoting Pasco County.

Another incorrect founding date — July 18, 1887 — was published in 1962 by Ralph Bellwood’s “Tales of West Pasco.”

Commission Record No. 1 (1887-1903) shows that appointments were made for the county clerk, county treasurer, county tax assessor, county sheriff, county judge, county school superintendent and the county surveyor on July 18, 1887. (Courtesy of Florida Pioneer Museum & Village)

Bellwood wrote a newspaper column on local history and was the executive secretary of the New Port Richey Chamber of Commerce.

It turns out the July 18, 1887 he cited is actually the date of the county board’s first meeting, when county officers were appointed. That’s according to minutes on file at the Pioneer Florida Museum & Village.

The incorrect date of the county’s creation also appears in The Florida Almanac. It turns out that mistake was due to a typographical error, an almanac editor said.

More confusion arose in 1973, as proponents of a Split Pasco movement wanted the eastern portion of the county to be called Burnside County, in honor of Stanley C. Burnside and his father, Archie J. Burnside.

Between them, the Burnside men served 68 years as the clerk of the circuit court in Pasco.

Burnside County never came to be.

And now, when people visit courthouse square in Dade City, they can check out the new historic marker.

After learning about the error on the old sign, Pasco County Commissioner Ron Oakley suggested pursuing the acquisition of a new sign and his colleagues agreed.

Oakley, who represents East Pasco, brought the issue to the attention of Florida Senate President Wilton Simpson, who lives in Trilby.

Then Simpson got involved.

Others who played a role in getting the new sign erected were Michael Hart, with Florida’s Division of Historical Resources, and Ryan Hughes, with Pasco County’s media relations office.

Now, when visitors read the historic sign, posted outside what’s arguably Pasco County’s most iconic building — they’ll read about the actual day when Pasco took on an identity of its own.

Plus, now, everyone involved in the effort to accurately preserve history can keep a clipping of this column, as a keepsake.

Published September 28, 2022

Explorer Hernando de Soto traveled through Dade City

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Explorer Hernando de Soto, commissioned by King Charles V, of Spain, took formal possession of La Florida, on June 3, 1539 — two days after landing near a native village at the head of Charlotte Harbor.

Those were among the facts offered during a talk at the Florida Pioneer Museum & Village, presented by author Charles Enloe Moore.

Moore details de Soto’s expedition, including travels through specific areas in Pasco County, in his 2020 book, “The Long Road to Mabila.”

This map shows 34 locations of the De Soto Trail in Florida, including Zephyrhills, Dade City and Brooksville. (Courtesy of National Park Service)

De Soto and his men became famous as the first European expedition to explore the interior of the North American continent.

Spain’s quest for gold was a prime motivator for de Soto’s expedition, which traversed what would become 14 future states in the United States, according to the author.

Diaries kept along the 4,000-mile trek provide historians a glimpse of what life was like during the days of de Soto’s travels, Moore said.

As de Soto headed north in Florida, Moore explains, the ambitious explorers wanted to find gold as quickly as possible.

The explorer’s party included 620 men and 223 horses, as well as “knights, artisans, wives, war dogs, priests, boat builders, servants and cattle,” Moore wrote.

At the time of his death, at age 42, Hernando de Soto had completed expeditions in Peru, Nicaragua, the Yucatan Peninsula and territory in the modern-day United States. (Courtesy of Charles Enloe Moore)

It is considered likely that wild pigs still found in Florida today are descendants of the large herd of pigs that were part of de Soto’s expedition, the author said.

Shortly after leaving their fleet of ships in Charlotte Harbor, the expedition encountered Juan Ortiz, a Christian native and guide, who helped them follow trails that later became major highways.

They visited places that would become future Florida cities.

For instance, the de Soto expedition passed through what is present-day Mulberry and crossed over a “Great Swamp,” now known as the Green Swamp.

In the Green Swamp, the Spaniards witnessed a vast wilderness of giant cypress trees draped with bromeliads and orchards that would remain undisturbed until the logging boom that occurred 300 years later.

Charles Enloe Moore spent 11 years researching and five years writing his manuscript — by hand — in his quest to publish ‘The Long Road to Mabila,’ a book that details the Hernando de Soto expedition. (Courtesy of Brian Swann)

The huge contingent crossed the Hillsborough River, heading in the general direction of what would become U.S. 98 and entered into an area now known as Dade City.

Averaging at least 11 miles a day — and traveling for five days at a time — the de Soto expedition took the time to rest in Dade City.

One account, chronicled in Moore’s book, recounted that the expedition was “encamped in some very beautiful valleys having large maize (corn) fields, so productive that each stalk had three or four ears…”

In another report, the book notes: “The governor (de Soto) ordered all the maize which was ripe in the fields to be taken, which was enough for three months.”

Rumors persist, among residents of River Road, that Spanish explorers from Hernando de Soto’s expedition hid gold on land, north of Dade City, now owned by Linda Groover. (Courtesy of Doug Sanders)

As a conquistador and nobleman, it was de Soto’s duty to lead his men from the restful Dade City retreat to continue their quest.

They headed north and crossed the Withlacoochee River where they spotted “red deer like large bulls, very large bears and panthers,” Moore wrote.

As the namesake for Hernando and DeSoto counties in Florida, de Soto and his expedition, known as the entrada, entered Georgia where they fought the Indian warriors of Chief Tuscaloosa at a small fortress settlement called Mabila.

Continuing their long journey from 1539 to 1543, the de Soto expedition made its way through the Carolinas, Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, and sent scouts as far north as present-day Chicago.

Searching for an elusive passage to the Pacific Ocean, de Soto sent scouts as far west as San Antonio, Texas.

Finding no gold or food, de Soto perished on the banks of the Mississippi River, in 1542.

His contingent, which had dwindled in 1543 to less than 300, fled south toward Mexico City where Spain’s major outpost was located on the continent.

At least 30 lancers of de Soto’s men headed back and stopped to rest in Dade City, before returning to Spain.

Published August 24, 2022

Moonshining had a colorful history in Pasco County

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At least two Pasco County Sheriffs — Isaac Washington Hudson Jr., and Frank Leslie Bessenger — were known to be on both sides of the law when it came to making moonshine in Pasco County.

During a recent presentation at the Pioneer Florida Museum & Village, there was a general consensus that it wasn’t always easy to separate the good guys from the bad guys.

Bessenger, for example, had a blind black man who sold the sheriff’s liquor “…but if you handed him money he could tell if it was a one-dollar bill or a 20-dollar bill” according to Wayne Carter, who remembers helping his family make moonshine when he was a child.

Pasco County Sheriff Isaac Washington Hudson Jr., left, and his deputies confiscated 164 moonshine stills during Hudson’s his first six months in office. (Courtesy of Pioneer Florida Museum & Village)

The speakers at this event, Madonna Wise, Susan Shelton and Carter, explained that people from all walks of life got themselves in trouble for selling moonshine in Pasco County — including a former slave, who was thought to be 105 years old at the time of his arrest.

Also, there was Mayor George J. Frese, of San Antonio, who was out on bond after his arrest for running a moonshine still on the second floor of his residence. The home was described as being on “the most prominent corner in town,” according to a news article at that time.

The making of moonshine in Pasco County was a family affair and, in fact, children were known to be used as decoys to lead intruders away from the stills, speakers during the museum presentation said.

Selling moonshine became a source of revenue after Prohibition became the law of the land, through the passage of the 18th Amendment to the United States.

It was illegal to make or sell alcohol after Jan. 16, 1919. The law took effect on Jan. 1, 1920, according to History.com.

The result? Illegal moonshine stills began popping up.

Federal agents, known as “revenuers,” were charged with enforcing the law, often intruding into the lives of moonshiners, such as Preston Overstreet, according to Shelton, the great-granddaughter of Overstreet.

She explains how Overstreet had stills hidden in the woods and swamps along the Withlacoochee River in East Pasco County.

Moonshiners used copper stills to ferment and distill corn, sugar and water into liquor recalls Carter.

“You need 150 pounds of corn and 150 pounds of sugar to make about 5 gallons of moonshine,” he added during his part of the presentation at the museum.

Sometimes, efforts to enforce laws against moonshining turned deadly.

Around 1931, 19-year-old Lonnie Tucker watches for revenuers. He is pictured in Wesley Chapel with his moonshine still. (Courtesy of Madonna Jervis Wise)

In October of 1922 — three years after Prohibition began — Federal Agent John Van Waters and Pasco County Deputy Arthur Fleece Crenshaw were killed, east of Dade City according to The Dade City Banner.

In an Oct. 6, 1922 account, “Prohibition Agent Waters and Deputy Sheriff Crenshaw Killed,” the Banner reported that the Pasco County Commission put up a $5,000 reward for “the arrest and conviction of the slayers” of Waters and Crenshaw.

Several suspects were questioned.

Overstreet was charged with first degree murder.

His trial began on Dec. 4, 1922.

After deliberating for 45 minutes, jurors found Overstreet not guilty.

“The two men who did shoot Waters and Crenshaw were very close friends to the Overstreets and later married into the family,” explains Shelton. “Both men later became Baptist preachers!”

According to her family’s history, “The Overstreets of East Pasco County (1828-1981),” Preston was an excellent marksman who could hit a 50-cent piece with one shot — and refused to pay monthly “insurance” in the amount of $50 to Sheriff Hudson.

In early February of 1925, Hudson’s chief deputy and the sheriff’s son, also a sworn deputy, had staked out the Overstreet family stills and were hiding in the palmettos according to Shelton’s family history.

Spotted when arriving at his stills, Overstreet suddenly heard, “You are under arrest!”

Before he could turn around, Overstreet was shot in the back.

Gravely wounded, he died shortly later in the woods.

Shelton writes: “The deputies put the body of Preston Overstreet in his car to take into town. On the way in, they stopped at Preston’s home and showed his wife Lizzi what had happened to her husband. Two of his daughters recalled watching the deputies as they opened the back door of Preston’s car and seeing their daddy’s arm hang out that open door.”

In her book, “Images of America: Wesley Chapel (2016),” Madonna Wise describes a “rugged history” of moonshiners in Pasco County and identifies Stanley Ryals as one of that area’s leading moonshiners.

With sugar and whiskey in the house, Ryals had a sleepless night, after spotting a revenuer who was on his property in an unmarked car.

Ryals, like most other moonshiners, decided to get out of the business for good.

“We got rid of everything,” Ryals recalls in Wise’s book. “Well, I might have used the rest of that sugar, but I was done making whiskey.”

Published March 23, 2022

This German POW’s art made an indelible impression

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The April 14, 1944 headline on the front page of The Dade City Banner read, “Nazi War Prisoners Arrive in Dade City.”

The story described a camp designed and built by U.S. Army engineers for 250 German prisoners of war and 60 military police.

These POWS were veteran members of Erwin Rommel’s famed “Afrika Korps”— a name Adolf Hitler personally chose for his expeditionary force heading into North Africa in February of 1941.

The hand-painted mural by German prisoner of war Heinz Friedmann remains visible 77 years after it was created. The mural is in the Florida offices of the Indianapolis-based Superior ROW Services, which is located at the Dade City Business Center. (Courtesy of J.W. Hunnicutt/Paul Prine)

As Germany’s most effective tank commander, Rommel was called “The Desert Fox.” He was the field marshal for Hitler’s Operation Sonnenblume (Sunflower).

Until the defeat of the Afrika Korps in May of 1943, Rommel had fought military campaigns for Nazi Germany in Libya, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.

But the loss of an estimated 378,000 German and Italian soldiers, who became POWs, ended Hitler’s quest to conquer the deserts of Africa.

The POWs were shipped to 500 camps in the United States and were spread throughout 45 states.

Florida received 10,000 POWs that were scattered among 22 camps, including Branch Camp No. 7, in Dade City.

The grounds of the former POW camp now are occupied by Naomi Jones Pyracantha Park, along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

During the two years the German POWs lived in Dade City, they picked fruit and built a warehouse at Pasco Packing Association.

It was not uncommon during this time for the German POWS in Dade City to receive food or clothing as equal as the U.S. servicemen who guarded them.

At the same time, German POWs in Russia were routinely slaughtered, according to historical accounts.

“Most of the prisoners are young and groups of them last evening were singing. They would no doubt be singing ‘God Bless America,’ as they seemed rather content to be here,” a Banner report said.

The good treatment inspired POW Heinz Friedmann, who was a professional artist, to create a large, aerial-view mural of the citrus plant buildings, water tower and surrounding orange groves on the walls of the executive office of the president of the Pasco Packing Association, L.C. “Mark” Edwards Jr.

Charles Arnade, a former professor of Government and International Affairs at the University of South Florida, wrote an account in 2003, which helps create a fuller picture of Friedmann.

Arnade, who is now deceased, wrote that Friedmann “also drew a huge orange on the company’s water tower. Mr. Friedmann also sketched local citizens’ portraits, of which two have survived in personal possessions.”

Not forgotten by the plant’s director, Friedmann later received shoes from Pasco Packing for his bride-to-be, as shortages lingered with many things in postwar Germany.

The artist also was brought back to Dade City in 1986 to take part in the citrus plant’s 50th anniversary.

Martha Knapp, a retired schoolteacher and past president of the Pasco County Historical Society, also did research involving the German POWs in Dade City.

Files at USF, from Knapp’s donated collections, include information gleaned from interviews of seven surviving Germany POWS gathered in Stuttgart in late 1997.

Plans for them to reunite in 1998 did not come to fruition.

Published March 02, 2022

Correcting an error that’s gone unnoticed for 60 years

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In one of downtown Dade City’s most visible places, there’s a historic plaque commemorating the establishment of Pasco County.

The problem is — that celebrated memorial, located in courthouse square — contains an inaccurate date.

“Pasco County was created from Hernando County on May 12, 1887,” the sign reads.

Some errors can go a long time before anyone notices. In this case, the historic marker erected 60 years ago reports an incorrect date for the formation of Pasco County. (Courtesy of Doug Sanders)

On the face of it, that seems like an important thing to remember.

However, the historic sign perpetuates the wrong date.

It turns out that the separation of the counties was signed into law by then Gov. Edward A. Perry on June 2, 1887.

The document he signed was titled, “A Bill to Divide the County of Hernando and make therefrom the Counties of Citrus and Pasco.”

In a way though, it’s almost fitting that the marker is wrong because it serves as a reminder of the many challenges that arose, during the naming of Pasco County.

It took much compromise to arrive at that name, according to Jefferson Alexis “J.A.” Hendley.

Hendley wrote about the efforts in a work published in 1943 that chronicles a gathering of residents of southern Hernando County, who met in May 1887, with the purpose of forming a new county.

“We agreed in convention assembled to make an effort to get away from Brooksville,” Hendley writes, in an account he dedicated to the schoolteachers of Pasco County.

J.A. Hendley, shown here, and Richard C. Bankston lobbied in Tallahassee for the formation of Pasco County. Hendley later wrote that it took Gov. Edwin A. Perry only a few hours to approve the new county. (Courtesy of Jeff Miller/fivay.org)

Forming counties in Florida during the 1800s was nothing new.

Hernando County, itself, was part of Hillsborough County before it was separated, and became its own entity, on Feb. 27, 1843.

Writing in a letter on Nov. 25, 1927, Dr. Richard C. Bankston, recalled that at the time of Pasco County’s creation, there was “unanimous sentiment” to support it.

“We all were weary of traveling the sand trails of Brooksville, the county seat, to attend court, or transact other business of varied nature,” he wrote.

Bankston and Hendley were selected to lobby for the change, in Tallahassee.

Bankston was a member of the Florida Legislature, from Tampa; Hendley was a Blanton lawyer and a member of the Florida Constitutional Convention of 1885.

Hendley knew it was not going to be easy based on his own experience in west Texas, where he helped to organize Mitchell County.

Plus, both men had already read “a very discouraging letter,” from James Latham, a Florida House of Representatives member, from Hernando County.

Pasco County is named after Samuel Pasco, who had recently been elected as Florida’s representative to the United States Senate. He was at the height of his popularity when the county was named. (Courtesy of Doug Sanders)

Latham’s letter said it was too late in the session to accomplish anything.

The subsequent reply from south Hernando County was a political threat to “split the county right in the middle of Brooksville,” if the suggested new county was not formed.

The group also suggested three names for legislators to consider for the new county. They recommended: “Tropic,” “Banner” and “Emanuel.”

Bankston and Hendley preferred the name, “Banner,” for the new county.

That was a problem.

“As we learned that nearly every member thought he came from a banner county,” Bankston wrote.

They knew they’d have to come up with a less-objectionable name.

It so happened that the state’s lawmakers were in joint session that week voting for Florida’s next U.S. Senator.

In those days, senators were elected by state legislatures and the decision was rarely made in a single vote.

It took 89 ballots for Florida’s state Democratic party to choose Judge Samuel Pasco, of Monticello, as their compromise candidate.

It took another 25 ballots for the full legislature to elect Pasco, with a vote of 87-17 on May 19, 1887.

This photograph of the Historic Pasco County Courthouse was taken in 1909. (Courtesy of fivay.org)

Pasco was at the height of his popularity — and, Bankston and Hendley were inspired by these events.

They figured if they wanted their new county, the best way to get it done was to garner the support of the English-born Pasco.

He was a Harvard graduate, a Civil War Hero, a lawyer, a Baptist, and, above all — a Democrat.

“It struck me as an inspiration to call our county ‘Pasco,’” Bankston wrote.

Finding a committee room with a desk, he immediately changed the name on the legislative documents from Banner to Pasco.

Bankston recounts: “We gave the finished bill to Sen. A.S. Man, who at once introduced it in the Senate, and it passed unanimously. It was expedited to the House and sponsored by Frank Saxon, where it passed unanimously. The governor was favorable and signed it. Having accomplished all we proposed, we returned home, able to report the complete success of our mission.”

The governor approved the formation of Pasco County within four hours, according to Bankston’s account.

Nearly 20 years after Hendley’s history of Pasco County was published, the state posted the marker on the west lawn of the county’s red-brick courthouse, with its neoclassical dome and clock tower.

Flash forward to the present.

Even though the historic marker was erected in 1963, the Pasco Historical Society in Dade City and the West Pasco Historical Society in New Port Richey are interested in making a joint request to the Pasco County Commission to put the correct date — June 2, 1887 — on the marker.

Stay tuned, to this column, to see what happens next.

Doug Sanders has a penchant for unearthing interesting stories about local history. His sleuthing skills have been developed through his experiences in newspaper and government work. If you have an idea for a future history column, contact Doug at .

Published December 01, 2021

Cummer Sons Cypress played huge role in Lacoochee

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Two events occurred in 1923 that would have a significant impact on the community of Lacoochee, in Northeast Pasco County.

Arthur and Waldo Cummer — as the grandsons of Jacob Cummer — brought the Cummer Sons Cypress Company to the county.

The fully electric cypress sawmill and box factory would go on to become one the largest sawmill operations in the United States.

The company also would play a role in providing jobs for survivors of the Rosewood Massacre, which occurred in January 1923.

Nearly a century ago, one of the largest sawmill operations in the United States was located in Lacoochee, in northeast Pasco County. (Courtesy of Bob McKinstry)

Contemporary news reports said that massacre — which destroyed the tiny Black community in Levy County — resulted directly from a white woman’s false claims that she’d been raped by a black man.

In his book, published in 2005, author William Powell Jones recounted how managers for Cummer “arranged for a train to drive through the swamps, picking up survivors of the Rosewood Massacre and offering them housing and employment in the brand-new colored quarters in Lacoochee.”

Arthur and Waldo Cummer’s father, Wellington Wilson Cummer, first arrived in town with his riding gear, complete with jodhpurs and boots, holding a riding crop under his arm.

“It was strange attire compared to the casual dress (of the day),” noted Nell Moody Woodcock, a long-time resident of Lacoochee and later a reporter for The Tampa Tribune.

Woodcock’s name is among nearly 100 links on the Pasco County history website, Fivay.org — featuring people sharing memories of the Cummer Sons Cypress Company.

Jacob Cummer, known as “Uncle Jacob” to family and friends, had vast timber holdings in several states.

Arthur Cummer explained why the company chose to locate in Lacoochee, in testimony given before the U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission, in 1934.

“We located the sawmill plant at Lacoochee in order to be in reasonable reach,” Arthur Cummer said.

Described as a point of entry for what is now known as the Green Swamp of Florida, logs arrived at the new Lacoochee sawmill from land that totaled more than 50 square miles in Pasco, Sumter and Polk counties.

Bill McKinstry, a company manager for the Lacoochee sawmills, rides a logging train to Lacoochee on April 25, 1939. (Courtesy of Bob McKinstry)

The Green Swamp is one of the state’s largest watersheds as the headwaters for the Peace River, Withlacoochee River, Ocklawaha River and Hillsborough River.

In the 1920s it was “a vast reservoir of 100-year-old cypress trees,” as described by Woodcock, in her recollections on the Cummer mills in Lacoochee.

At its peak, workers lived in approximately 100 homes along sand streets with wood sidewalks in Lacoochee.

Cummer was the largest employer in Pasco County with more than 1,100 employees, and it was one of few employers across the country that provided jobs during the Great Depression.

Having the largest payroll in the county made the Lacoochee office a prime target — and the company fell victim to three masked bandits who escaped with $11,700 in cash.

The work was grueling.

Ronald Stanley, who was put on a logging train by his father one summer in the early 1940s, was among the workers.

He described the tough working conditions he faced, recorded on the Fivay.org website.

He awoke at daybreak and spent hours waist-deep hauling sawed-down cypress logs out of the swamp.

It was hot, and there were mosquitoes, and the danger of snakes and alligators.

“For all this summer fun, I was paid $.45 per hour (typically under $5 per day),” Stanley recalls on Fivay.org.

One of three steam shovels that had been used to dig out the Panama Canal later was purchased by the Cummer lumber company to haul logs at the Lacoochee sawmill. (Courtesy of Pioneer Florida Museum & Village)

During World War II, Cummer employed 50 German soldiers from the prisoner of war work camp in Dade City.

One POW was 18-year-old Arthur Lang, a tank commander from Erwin Rommel’s famed Afrika Korps.

He was smitten by a teenaged girl named Mildred.

He managed to exchange handwritten notes to Mildred when no one was looking. She worked with her mother at the Cummer’s crate mill.

“I regret it to this day that on the last day there, I could not shake her hand,” Lang wrote after he was back in Germany, after the war.

At Lacoochee, the Cummer operations were immense for this self-contained company town.

The sawmill alone measures 228 feet by 45 feet. The mill also included a veneer plant, which was 228 feet by 45 feet. It also had a crate factory, of 200 feet by 100 feet; and a lathe and shingle mill, with a capacity of 60,000 lathe per day, according to the story “Big Cypress Mill Completed at Lacoochee, Florida,” published in The Manufacturer’s Record on Nov. 22, 1923.

From 1934 to 1940, the Cummer mill in Lacoochee averaged 13 million board feet each year. The company set a record in 1937, producing 25 million board feet.

To make sure that it was not all work and no play, the company sponsored a semi-pro baseball team called the Lacoochee Indians.

That team won the Central Coast championship in 1947, in a league that also included San Antonio, Dade City and Brooksville.

James Timothy “Mudcat” Grant recorded memories of his father working at the Lacoochee mills. He later became the first black American League pitcher to win a World Series game in 1965.

Mudcat also recalls weekend movies starring Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.

“Every time I go to Angel Stadium, Gene (Autry) comes through, and we get a chance to speak,” Grant told the St. Petersburg Times on April 9, 1989. “The first thing he says is: ‘How is everything in Lacoochee?’”

Autry was the owner of the Angels Major League baseball team from 1961 to 1997.

Alyce Ferrell, who worked at the Lacoochee Post Office, met her future husband at a dance at the armory in Dade City.

He would fly low over Lacoochee in his Corsair F4U fighter aircraft and dip one wing of his plane. That was a signal to let Alyce know he needed to be picked up at the Army/Air base in Zephyrhills.

In 1945, Alyce married that instructor for Marine fighter pilots: Edward Leo Peter McMahon Jr.

Years later ‘Ed McMahon’ would begin a 36-year career as the announcer and sidekick for television talk show host Johnny Carson.

During the decade of the 1950s, the Green Swamp was heavily logged by the Cummer Sons Cypress Company.

The company, which hummed along for decades, finally came to its end near the close of the 1950s.

“It took time to process all the logs which had been gathered at the Lacoochee sawmill, but the last cypress was finally milled on June 5, 1959,” wrote historian Alice Hall for The Tampa Tribune on July 14, 1984.

Although the community voted against incorporating as a town in 1954, several companies have attempted business operations at the old Cummer site including Wood Mosaic Corporation, Interpace, GH Lockjoint, and Cal-Maine Foods.

A precast concrete plant is currently up and operating as a supplier for major road projects in Florida. The Dade City Business Center bought this site in 2019 for $1.2 million and is leasing the land to the concrete plant. Nearly 100 new jobs are expected, once the plant is running at full capacity.

Doug Sanders has a penchant for unearthing interesting stories about local history. His sleuthing skills have been developed through his experiences in newspaper and government work. If you have an idea for a future history column, contact Doug at .

Published August 18, 2021

Searching for answers about Eddie Lewis

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The word “Ehren,” of German origin, means “to honor.”

And, an example of doing just that can be found at the Mt. Carmel Cemetery, in the once-thriving community of Ehren, off Ehren Cutoff in Land O’ Lakes.

For more than 114 years, a small grave in this 1-acre cemetery, has been marked by the name “Eddie” at the top of a small tombstone.

Karen Matthews, of Land O’ Lakes, and Patricia Puckett, of Dade City, clean the grave marker of Eddie Lewis, buried at the Mt. Carmel Cemetery in 1906. This burial ground is one of four historic African American cemeteries that still exist in Pasco County. (Courtesy of Doug Sanders)

This is the final resting place for Eddie Lewis, who died on Nov. 8, 1906, at the age of 14.

He was buried there, at a time of segregated homes, churches, schools and cemeteries.

“Eddie’s was the only marked grave with a headstone and mount when I first stopped to see the cemetery,” says Karen Matthews, of Land O’ Lakes, who lives six miles away.

“It’s obvious his parents put all their love and money in honoring their dead son, and I was overcome with wonder and curiosity about his short life,” she said.

Eddie Lewis was born on March 17, 1892, according to the grave marker.

Public records about Eddie Lewis’ life and death are elusive.

There was no hospital in Ehren at that time, and no medical records are available.

No death certificate is available, either.

Florida didn’t begin requiring death certificates until the 1920s, according to Jeff Cannon, the former director of the Pasco County Historic Preservation Society.

While not much is known about Eddie Lewis’ life, insights about the community of Ehren can be gleaned from historic records, accounts of local historians and from newspaper reports.

For instance, the Orange Belt Railroad arrived in 1888.

The local post office was established on Jan. 17, 1890, to serve 300 people, according to an application to the postmaster general in Washington D.C.

Elizabeth Riegler MacManus and Susan A. MacManus, authors of “Citrus, Sawmills, Critters & Crackers,” described the working conditions in the community more than a century ago.

White workers cut wood to feed the wood-burning trains, while Black laborers cut railroad ties to maintain and expand the railroad tracks, the historians wrote.

Before cleaning.
After cleaning.

During the 1900s, Blacks in Ehren worked at a turpentine still built southeast of the Ehren Pine Company, collecting resin from trees, in heavy barrels.

The only other source of real income was agriculture where local farmers produced crops of watermelons, cantaloupes, onions, tomatoes, cane syrup and peanuts.

Historian Cannon described the devastation caused by a fire on March 28, 1920 that burned the Ehren Pine Company to the ground.

“Within a few minutes, the sawmill was ablaze along with a large boarding house and two homes,” Cannon wrote in 2011. Total losses were reported at $125,000, according to his research.

The Dade City Banner reported on April 2, 1920: “With the sawmill gone there is little left of Ehren, and its future depends largely upon whether Mr. Mueller and his associates rebuild or not.”

Historian Cannon observed: “Although research has revealed a great deal of information about the sawmill town, there still remains that which we do not know.”

It’s not even known precisely when Mt. Carmel Cemetery was founded.

Approximately 40 graves were found in the cemetery in September 2006, by SDII Global, which conducted a ground-penetrating radar survey of the cemetery.

Seven of those were marked with traditional headstones, but the others had wooden markers, which had rotted away.

“The earliest marked grave is the infant daughter of T. & M. Horton, dated Dec. 23, 1903,” according to Cannon.

The genesis of this column was a 2020 request from Matthews, who asked for help in tracking down more information about Eddie Lewis.

On June 20, 2009, the cemetery was officially designated a historic site by the county’s historic preservation committee.

Although little could be learned about him, some online searches helped to provide more details about his family.

The online source FindAGrave.com identifies Robert Milton Lewis and Jane Lloyd Lewis, as Eddie’s parents.

Additionally, handwritten records from the 1900 census (Pasco Ehren District #0129) reveal that Eddie had three brothers: Robert, born in 1890; Montine, born 1895; and Abraham, born in in 1900. He also had a sister, Ida, born in 1887.

Other information about Eddie’s family was found in additional census records and Ancestry.com.

Those records say that Eddie’s father was born in 1866 in Mississippi and his mother was born in 1871 in Florida.

His parents, according to the records, were married in 1886.

Records indicated that both parents could read and write, and Eddie’s father worked in a “log yard sawmill.”

Records from the 1910 census reveal that the Lewis family moved to Clearwater, and that Eddie’s father was the owner of a blacksmith shop.

Those records also indicate that Eddie had another brother, John, who was born in 1904, but that his sister, Ida, had apparently died because her name was not listed in the census.

Eddie’s parents are not buried at Mt. Carmel Cemetery, according to obituaries found on Newspapers.com.

His father died in Clearwater at the age of 89 on July 5, 1956. His mother died in Pinellas County in 1945 at the age of 74.

Although the ground survey did not identify any names at the Mt. Carmel Cemetery, at least four interments are listed by PeopleLegacy.com:

  • Minnie Blocker (1876 to 1954)
  • Lonnie G. Bowen (born 1875)
  • Lydia Gibbs (1867-1936)
  • W.G. Gibbs (Died 1935)

Any Information about others buried at the cemetery remains a mystery — at least for now.

Published July 14, 2021

Here’s a fish story for the ages

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Here’s a big fish story that has its origins in the year 1923.

The recounting of it begins with a visit to a house in San Antonio in 1974, to repair a ringer on a wall telephone.

Ken Zifer was assigned by Florida Telephone Company, at that time, to maintain the San Antonio 588 exchange.

Will Plazewski, local historian and water clerk for the City of San Antonio, helped to obtain this photograph, which shows, from left: Matt Klassen, an unidentified man in the center, and Frederick Joseph ‘Fritz’ Friebel holding his record largemouth bass in 1923. (Courtesy of Jack Vogel)

“When I left his house to put my hand tools back in the truck, Mr. Walter Friebel followed me outside,” recalls Zifer, who now lives in Cleveland, Tennessee.

“Being an avid fisherman all my life and associated with Great Bass Fisherman, I asked him if he was doing any fishing in this neck of the woods,” said Zifer, who was 27 at the time that he made the telephone repair.

Friebel lived across the street from the San Antonio City Park and the St. Anthony Catholic School, so Zifer knew the house was not far from Clear Lake, in neighboring St. Leo.

Friebel told Zifer that he had not been fishing for quite a long time.

Then he told Zifer: “I (once) was paddling the boat when my brother caught the World Record Bass.”

Zifer asked: “Would you mind telling me about it?”

And that begins a look at a relatively unknown chapter in Pasco County history.

Born in Germany in 1893, Friebel’s brother, Frederick Joseph “Fritz” Friebel, had used only one fishing rod and reel, and he did not let Walter fish that day.

Fritz Friebel was a traveling salesman.

Francis Finn was 75 when he told the St. Petersburg Times in a 2005 story that his uncle Fritz was a generous man who would bring roller skates, baseball gloves, bats and balls for the kids to play with during the Great Depression.

Fritz Friebel reportedly caught his bass from Moody Lake north of San Antonio. He wanted to keep other fishermen ‘off the track’ from where he really was fishing at Big Fish Lake (pictured here) on the Barthle Brothers Ranch northwest of San Antonio. (Courtesy of Southwest Florida Water Management District)

Fritz Friebel was an avid angler, too, who lugged his tackle along with him, as he made his rounds across Florida, selling hardware.

Sources say he went fishing with a couple of friends at Big Fish Lake in 1923.

Online records with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) indicate his famous fish catch happened on a Saturday, May 19, 1923.

That wasn’t the way the fisherman recalled it, in a story published on Oct. 12, 1952, in The Tampa Tribune.

In that account, he said: “It was a Sunday morning when I should have been in church, and I had to call a grocer to open his store to get the fish weighed.”

Fritz Friebel had landed a 20-pound, 2-ounce largemouth black bass that measured 31 inches long with a 27-inch girth.

According to Ken Duke’s story for ESPN Sports on Aug. 7, 2009, Fritz Friebel used a Creek Chub No. 700 Straight Pike Minnow “to catch the giant fish.”

Five years later he was featured in a rod and reel catalog under the heading: “The Black Bass Record has been Broken, Not Cracked or Bent, but Crushed, Torn Apart and Split Wide Open.”

The catalog added this: “Gentlemen anglers all! Please leap to your feet and throw your hats into the air. Rah, Rah! To Mr. Friebel and his black bass!”

Onlookers in 1923 accused Fritz Friebel of cheating by adding pounds with lead sinkers in his fish.

The family of Fritz Friebel had this new marker built and shipped to Florida, where new generations can read about the fishing legend in the San Antonio City Park. (Courtesy of Doug Sanders)

But, the fisherman debunked that assertion.

“Friebel pulled out his pocketknife,” Duke writes, “slit the fish’s belly open and suggested that they reach inside to find out.”

Fritz Friebel was a no-nonsense angler.

As his daughter explained to ESPN Sports, “Daddy didn’t own a boat. He wore the worst-looking clothes because he often waded into water up to his armpits while fishing.”

After he made the catch, the big bass was put in a block of ice at the Knights hardware store for people to come by to see it.

According to the FWC’s website, Fritz Friebel’s catch in Pasco County “…was weighed on a postal scale and witnessed, but a (state) biologist did not document it at the time to establish an official record.”

In other words, it is the largest unofficial big bass landed in Florida.

ESPN Sports says it registers as the 11th largest largemouth black bass ever caught in the world.

For years, a wooden sign commemorating Fritz Friebel’s accomplishment has stood in San Antonio’s downtown park.

Most conservation-minded anglers release large fish because of their future spawning potential.

Not Fritz Friebel: He treated his family to a big fish dinner.

Whoppers
WORLD RECORD
George W. Perry, 1932, Lake Montgomery, Georgia, 22 pounds, 4 ounces

FLORIDA RECORD: Uncertified
Frederick Joseph “Fritz” Friebel, 1923, Big Fish Lake, Pasco County, 20 pounds, 2 ounces

FLORIDA RECORD: Certified
Billy O’ Berry, 1986, unnamed lake, Polk County, 17 pounds, 2 ounces

Source: Florida Trend Magazine

Doug Sanders has a penchant for unearthing interesting stories about local history. His sleuthing skills have been developed through his experiences in newspaper and government work. If you have an idea for a future history column, contact Doug at .

Published March 24, 2021

Flying Eight-Balls member survived 30 missions

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At 6 feet and weighing less than 140 pounds, Jim Rossman was 20 years old in 1944, when he nearly lost his life over the English Channel in World War II.

A copilot of a B-24 heavy bomber, Rossman would fly 30 missions — and survive daylight attacks from Adolf Hitler’s German Luftwaffe.

Jim Rossman’s ‘Heaven Can Wait’ crew in World War II. Rossman was cross-trained to fly the B-17 Flying Fortress and the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber. (Courtesy of Jim Rossman/Ted Johnson)

“I don’t know how we did it,” Rossman told The St. Petersburg Times in 2005. “I guess we were young.”

As the future owner of Pasco County Insurance Agency in Dade City, Rossman had his part in the “Greatest Generation,” a time in our nation’s history described by Tom Brokaw’s best-selling novel about the sacrifices and struggles made by veterans in World War II.

Rossman’s journey with history began with as many bananas and milkshakes as he could consume to put on enough weight to make the cut with the Army Air Forces.

He was a teenager living in Tampa when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Soon after that fateful event, Jim Rossman joined up at MacDill Field in Tampa.

His group, known as the Flying Eight-Balls, would later set sail for the United Kingdom aboard the Queen Mary on Sep. 4, 1942.

Decorated on one side with a winged bomb cartoon of a pool hall 8-Ball, Rossman’s B-24 Liberator had a thin metal skin that offered little protection against German strafing in the air, or antiaircraft fire from below.

“You’d see that plane coming in at you, firing those guns, you knew you were in for it,” Rossman said in his interview with The St. Petersburg Times.

Jim Rossman and his crew survived this crash landing despite having a full load of bombs and 164,700 pounds of fuel, approximately 2,700 gallons, onboard. (Courtesy of Jim Rossman/Ted Johnson)

A full account of the American Air Offensive against Nazi Germany is archived at the American Air Museum in Britain.

Located north of London, visitors can read a document that details the story behind the formation of the 44th Bombardment Group at Shipdam, England, and you can learn the heroic story behind Rossman and the Flying Eight-Balls.

On March 12, 1944, Rossman and his men were scheduled for a sixth mission deep into Germany when bad weather forced them to take an alternate target, the museum records show.

A closer target meant more fuel reserves. But, when flying over France, they were suddenly attacked by enemy fire.

“We (received) some antiaircraft or flak damage and lost one engine over the target,” Rossman recounted.

Since Rossman’s crew was part of the Flying Eight-Balls that day with worsening weather, the pilots returning with the most aircraft damage dropped through the clouds first and then attempted a landing.

“Unfortunately, there was more damage to (our) fuel tanks and after flying around for 3 ½-hours it came our turn to let down. We did this and flew into the clear at some 600 feet and quickly spotted a small English Fighter Base with a grass landing strip,” Rossman said, according to the museum’s records.

Rossman’s navigator did the best he could heading the B-24 Liberator in a general direction that took them out over the English Channel.

At its peak strength in 1944, the U.S. Army Air Forces employed 450,000 Americans in Britain. That included operating the first U.S. heavy bomber airfield pictured here in England at Shipdam. Nearly 30,000 of these Americans never made it back home. (Courtesy of American Air Museum)

It was then they lost another engine.

“A B-24 doesn’t fly well on two engines and we certainly couldn’t climb,” the historic document says.

Rossman and his crew cleared the White Cliffs of Dover.

Then, they flew under a high-tension power line that was 200 feet high.

With a landing in sight, Rossman’s crew lost the third engine.

“By the grace of God and nothing else, I looked out my right window and there in perfect position for landing was the fighter strip. With no time to prepare or make decisions we turned to line up with the strip. (We) made a picture-perfect belly landing, sliding in on the grass, each moment expecting the plane to disintegrate and kill us all,” Rossman said, as recorded in the museum’s archives.

The crew members of Rossman’s B-24 boosted each other out of the aircraft when it started to burst into flames.

Black smoke quickly engulfed the crash site.

“After we were taken to the hospital on this English base to be checked out, something unusual happened. Hospital attendants came bearing a man on a stretcher. He had been cleaning the windshield on an English fighter parked there. He looked up at the last moment to see (our aircraft) pass over his head. With all engines dead we made no noise and the shock almost caused him to have a heart attack,” Rossman recounted.

The crew of 10 men made it back to flying duty at Shipdam.

“I was always real careful, real conservative,” Rossman said in his interview sixteen years ago.

He made his final bombing run on May 30, 1944.

A week later, the Allied forces began the D-Day invasion along the beaches of France.

Jim Rossman found out the airlines did not want to hire such a youthful-looking pilot like him when the war was over.

The American Air Museum in Britain has exhibits and archives on the men and women of the U.S. Army Air Forces who served in England during the Second World War. (Courtesy of American Air Museum)

That is when he decided to get into the insurance business.

He hired Scott Black, another youthful-looking man who later became a commissioner and mayor of Dade City.

“Jim was a fine gentleman and a very good friend,” recalled Ted Johnson at the time of Rossman’s death in October 2014.

Johnson visited the American Air Museum in Britain years later, where he was able to take updated photographs to bring back to Jim Rossman in Dade City.

Much of Ted’s research overseas was used as a reference for this column and is a part of the story behind the formation of the 44th Bombardment Group at Shipdam, England.

“He is a real hero in my book,” said Johnson, who also is vice president of the Zephyrhills Military Museum in East Pasco County.

Rossman’s story is so special, Johnson said, it should be preserved and shared.

Doug Sanders has a penchant for unearthing interesting stories about local history. His sleuthing skills have been developed through his experiences in newspaper and government work. If you have an idea for a future history column, contact Doug at ">.

Published December 16, 2020

Fence law changed Florida’s cattle industry

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Florida passed a fence law in 1949 — the same year Steve Melton was born.

“This is amazing to me that within my lifetime we have gone from open range cattle to what you see today,” Melton said, during a recent meeting of the Pasco County Historical Society in Dade City.

This cow, in northeastern Pasco County, stands in a pasture behind a barbed wire fence. Florida was the last state to pass a fence law, to keep cattle penned into properties. (File)

“When you drive in the morning and see the green pastures, and the housing developments, you have to remember it was open range not that long ago,” recalled Melton, whose family has farming and ranching operations on the northeastern edge of Pasco County.

How ranchers transformed the state’s agriculture open ranges and woods to improved pastures was the topic of Melton’s talk before an audience of roughly 50 people.

Those gathered had waited six months to hear from the cattle rancher and cowboy poet because of concerns about gatherings during the COVID-19 global pandemic.

The state’s fence law — Chapter 588 of the Florida Statutes — makes it possible for approximately 19,000 livestock farms to coexist with the state’s rapid population and commercial growth.

Complaints about traffic accidents with stray cattle had finally convinced more and more ranchers to permanently fence in their herds.

But, the state’s history with cattle began about 500 years before that.

Melton offered a historical glimpse of the role cattle has played in Florida, since explorer Ponce de Leon brought them to the New World, in 1521.

During the Civil War, Florida became the main supplier of beef to the Confederate army.

But, the cattle industry didn’t enter its golden age until the period of Reconstruction, when a thriving trade opened with Cuba.

Turpentine enterprises were abundant in Pasco County during the early 1900s. After the turpentine was removed, turpentine companies would abandon the properties or sell the land for $2 an acre or less, making it possible for ranchers and others to acquire large land holdings. (Courtesy of Jeff Cannon)

Ranchers bred and raised “cracker cattle” to graze on wire grass, and native plants in pinewoods and wet weather ponds.

That began to change in the 1800s.

“Not many know this, but turpentine was the state’s largest industry at that time,” Melton said.

Turpentine was manufactured from pine sap taken from old-growth trees. It was used for the so-called naval store industry for all products derived from pine resin, such as soap, paint, varnish, shoe polish, lubricants, linoleum, and roofing materials.

The distillation process left the trees mostly barren.

Then, Melton said, the turpentine companies would either walk away or sell their land for less than $2 an acre.

Low land prices create opportunity
“Cattlemen and others with some money started to buy huge tracts of land,” Melton said.

Landowners expanded their holdings, including the Barthle Brothers Ranch and the Krusen Land and Timber Company in East Pasco, the Wiregrass Ranch in Central Pasco, and the Starkey Ranch in West Pasco County.

“The main thing that changed our agriculture at this point was watermelons,” Melton explains.

Watermelon growers headed to the big ranchers and made deals to clear the land.

Since they needed fresh ground when planting, this meant that each year the trees would be pushed and cleared to plant a new crop of watermelon.

Hundreds of boxcars loaded with watermelons were shipped out from the railroad sidings in Trilby by local growers over 60 years ago. The Trilby depot can still be seen on the grounds of the Pioneer Florida Museum and Village north of Dade City. (Courtesy of Scott Black)

“They had a unique way of clearing the land,” Melton told his audience.

“They would take a couple of D8 Caterpillar bulldozers and tie a ship anchor chain between them, and drag this back and forth across the field to clear scrub and light timber,” Melton said.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, watermelon growers found an early market up north for shipping product for the Memorial Day family picnics.

The ranchers benefited because their land was cleared, for free, by the watermelon growers.

After the watermelon harvests, alyceclover was planted first as a seed crop.

When planting Baha as an improved pasture grass, and with genetics greatly improving the size and quality of beef, ranchers could average one calf per 13 acres instead of one calve per 15 acres.

“The beef industry in Florida completely changed,” Melton observed.

“Most all ranchers run a cow-calf operation. Meaning they keep the momma cow and sell the calves for beef.”

Steve Melton is an agricultural businessman, rancher, farmer, poet, and owner of one of the largest privately held farm machinery museums in Florida. (Courtesy of Doug Sanders)

Increased calf production necessitated economies in savings with giant feed lots operating in Texas, Kansas, Arizona and New Mexico.

“The calves are fed to be 2-year-old, 100-pound steers or heifers, and then sold to a packer,” Melton explains.

Only four or five packing houses in the United States are still cost-effective with the feed lots out west.

“Cattle ranching, which had once been a family enterprise utilizing the open-range, became a capital-intensive agribusiness by the 1980s,” Melton concluded.

Florida was the last state to pass a fence law.

Dade City’s William M. Larkin, a long-time cattle rancher and prominent lawyer, drafted the fence law that was adopted by the Florida Legislature.

Larkin wound up fencing about 15,000 acres of his ranch with woven wire, purchased from Sears, Roebuck and Company.

Doug Sanders has a penchant for unearthing interesting stories about local history. His sleuthing skills have been developed through his experiences in newspaper and government work. If you have an idea for a future history column, contact Doug at .

Published November 18, 2020