The Laker/Lutz News

Zephyrhills Founder's Day

Moonshine, Turpentine and Timber

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The theme of this year’s 108th Founder’s Day in Zephyrhills is “Timber, Turpentine and Moonshine.”

The trio of products played an important role during Zephyrhills’ early days.

Vast pine and cypress were abundant throughout the area and provided raw materials for building. Besides timber, they provided turpentine and related products.

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)

Greer’s Lumber Mill, operated by Jim Greer, was the largest employer for the first two decades and fortified settlers with resources to build their cracker homes.

The Great Depression closed Greer’s Lumber Mill.

But, the town began to flourish again after 1932, when I.A. Krusen purchased 13,000 acres and opened the Krusen Land & Timber Company.

Later, Camp Number 39 of Hercules Powder Company was opened in Zephyrhills and had the distinction of being the largest employer in the city from 1946 until its closing in 1962.

Farmers and ranchers within a 35-mile radius contracted with Hercules to remove pine stumps, which were processed into products such as rosin, turpentine and pine oil, as well as byproducts used in paper, paints, varnishes, adhesives, asphalt emulsions, gun powder and dynamite.

Although Zephyrhills was less distinguished for moonshine than neighboring communities, such as Wesley Chapel, an occasional settler turned to moonshine stills, as well as charcoal kilns and cash-crops, to subsist.

When Prohibition banned the manufacture, transportation and sale of alcohol, moonshine stills provided an alternative source of liquor. Even after Prohibition ended, occasional moonshining continued until the 1950s. Several families still hold moonshine recipes.

Marlo Hilton, a hometown girl and 1998 Zephyrhills High School graduate, remembers using a metal detector at her family’s ranch to explore the area to the west of her home, where Stanley Ryals, her great-grandfather, had his moonshine still.

“They were a tough breed,” said Hilton, who spoke lovingly of her iconic great-grandfather, who died in 2000.

Ryals used profits from bootlegging, as well as the sale of sweet potatoes, to purchase 640 acres in the Zephyrhills area. Later, he opened Zephyr Lumber and Saw Mill where he logged, cut and sanded timber.

Ryals contributed much to the city, serving as president of the chamber of commerce in the late 1950s and as a founding member of Zephyrhills Noon Rotary Club, where he had a 30-year perfect attendance record.

Ryals’ father-in-law was Wesley Wells, the chief of police in Zephyrhills.

Stanley Ryals, for whom the Founder’s Day brew, ‘Ryals n’ Shine,’ is named, is shown here with a draft horse in Zephyrhills. He was 45 at the time. Ryals was a Zephyrhills businessman who operated the lumberyard and earned funds in his early years from moonshining to purchase a section of land. Much of that land is still owned by his family on Eiland Boulevard. (Courtesy of Marlo Hilton)

His grandson, Boe Hilton (who is Marlo’s father and a 1971 graduate of Zephyrhills High) observed that his grandfather understood people and knew how to build upon their strengths.

The most notorious bootlegger in the area was Clarence Lane, who described himself, in a 2005 interview, as one of the top 10 moonshiner/bootleggers in Florida.

Lane said during the 1930s many of his customers were law enforcement officers and judges.

Lane said he began moonshining as a teenager, learning the skills from his father. His first still was in Kathleen. Later, he moved to Zephyrhills.

At age 19, Lonnie Tucker from Wesley Chapel, worked in Zephyrhills for I.A. Krusen during the day in the Lumber Company. He also operated a still near the current location of Saddlebrook Resort.

Tucker later worked at Moody’s Hardware, in Zephyrhills, for more than a quarter-century.

His daughter, Anna Jo Bracknell, will be on hand at Founder’s Day for one of the porch talks at the Howard B. Jeffries house.

She plans to share stories about moonshining during her 1 p.m. talk on March 10.

Zephyrhills’ 108th Founders Day
When: March 10 (Parade begins at 10 a.m.)
Where: Downtown Zephyrhills in the morning and early afternoon; Zephyrhills Airport in late afternoon
Cost: Free admission
Details: There will be an old-fashioned hometown parade; food and drink available for purchase; children’s activities, a skydive demonstration and fireworks to cap off the day.

By Madonna Jervis Wise

Published March 7, 2018

Sharing the story of women’s progress

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Madonna Jervis Wise, a local author who writes primarily about history, has been making the rounds lately, talking about women in the work force and “East Pasco Women Who Rocked.”

Women played an important role in munitions factories during World War 1.
(Courtesy of Madonna Jervis Wise)

Her talks, which have been delivered at the Pioneer Florida Museum and Village in Dade City, at the East Pasco Networking Group’s breakfast meeting and at the Zephyrhills Public Library, have traced the evolving role of women in society.

The essence of her presentation traces the progress that women have made since ancient times to the present.

First, she delivers an overview of women in history and then she focuses on the contributions of seven East Pasco women.

While delivering her talk at the East Pasco Networking Group, Wise said she keeps her mother and grandmother in mind.

Irene Davis Dobson was a founding member the Head Start Early Childhood program in Pasco County, and also active in programs aimed at creating awareness of contributions of African-Americans throughout Florida and across the country.

“My mother was Depression-era woman who worked most of her life. My grandmother was equally as industrious,” she said.

“As we go through the presentation, please stop and think about the women in your life.

“Right now, we have 72 million women in the American workforce. That’s 30 million more than 1984, and women roughly make up about 50 percent of the workforce,” she said.

Despite their large numbers in the work force, women still trail men in terms of pay, Wise noted. Women receive approximately 81 percent of what men are paid, she said. And, only 14 percent of the executive positions in Fortune 500 companies are held by women.

There has been progress, however, compared to opportunities for women in the past.

“Women weren’t allowed to participate in any capacity, throughout most of history —in terms of speaking, political involvement, certainly not leadership,” Wise said.

“In the American colonies, women didn’t own property and certainly didn’t vote,” she said.

“I do a lot of genealogy. Sometimes you don’t even find the woman’s first name in genealogy.”

Bernice Rooks was in the first class at the University of South Florida. She was student No. 18. After graduating, she taught for 29 years.

Census data from the 19th century shows blank spaces for occupations because women’s work was not recorded, Wise said.

Women’s role in the world of work has evolved over time, she said.

“By the 1820s, women were starting to go into the textile mills. Pay was about $3 a week.

By the early 19th century, women still were mostly involved in domestic services, laundry, cooking, cleaning, some teaching, nursing, she said.

But she noted, women’s opportunities have expanded significantly — even during her own lifetime.

“I remember when I was in school. They’d say, ‘Are you going to be a secretary, nurse or a teacher?’,” Wise said.

Madonna Jervis Wise has been giving talks about women’s progress at various venues during Women’s History Month.
(B.C. Manion)

Women now have more career choices. They can belong to civic clubs that once banned them. And, there are more opportunities in athletics and the military, Wise said.

For generations, East Pasco women have played pivotal roles in expanding opportunities for the entire community, Wise said. She singled out these seven:

• Irene Dobson: She came from a large family and picked cotton as a child. She taught school in Georgia and later in Dade City, and was a founding member the Head Start Early Childhood program in Pasco County. She has been very active in the community and has helped to organize African-American programs to teach new generations about the contributions of African Americans in Florida and across the country.

  • Bernice Rooks: Even at age 94, she remains active in the community. She was the valedictorian of the 1940 class at Zephyrhills High School. She worked at MacDill Air Force Base and was a school bus driver. When the University of South Florida opened in 1958, she enrolled, becoming student No. 18. She graduated and taught for 29 years. She is also known for the family business, the Crystal Springs Roller Skating Rink which opened in 1939 just before World War II. For 35 cents, you could skate all day.
  • Lorena Leatherman Neukom: Known as Neukie and her husband, Charles, opened the iconic Neukom’s Drug Store drugstore in 1921. The store closed in 2001. She was in charge of payroll, buying and keeping the books until she was 93. The drugstore was a popular place for politicians, snowbirds and local residents.
  • Rosemary Wallace Trottman: She was a widely known educator and researcher. She published “The History of Zephyrhills; 1821-1921.” She founded the Zephyrhills Historical Association. Her research revealed the effects of the railroad on the community and detailed the colonial years of East Pasco, in which the day-to-day activities of the settlers involved log-rolling, sugar-caning, subsistence farming and the beginning of unique institutions. Her father was a pioneer settler of Abbott Station.
  • Willa Rice: She has the distinction of being first and only female mayor of Zephyrhills. After being voted into office in 1958, she revamped the police department by firing two of the department’s five policemen and accepting the resignation of the police chief.
  • Margarita Romo: Her work to champion the causes of of farmworkers in Pasco County and around the state led to her being named to the Florida Civil Rights Hall of Fame in 2012 & Hispanic Woman of the Year. She is founder of Farmers Self-Help, Inc., and has worked diligently for more than 40 years to help farmworkers help themselves.
  • Jean McClain Murphy: Most recently she was the 2017 Zephyrhills Founder’s Day Grand Marshal. She was an educator with Pasco County Schools. Known for her beautiful singing voice, she taught taught “Glee Club” at the high school level for six years. She remains the singing director at her Rotary Club, and has served as choir director for five different choral groups at the First Baptist Church in Zephyrhills.

Revised March 22, 2017