Florida Frontiers

1969 – Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Ed Aldrin, and Michael Collins were launched from the John F. Kennedy Space Center (Cape Canaveral) aboard Apollo 11 on this date. Apollo 11 was the fifth manned mission of the Apollo program and the target was to land a man on the moon, thus fulfilling a promise made to the world by President Kennedy nearly a decade earlier. The Saturn V SA-506 rocket left Pad A at 9:32 a.m. (EDT), and the lunar module landed on the moon’s surface on July 20th.

1885 - Construction began on the 55 mile stretch of railroad from Tavares to Kissimmee. This line, originally named the Tavares, Apopka and Gulf Railway Company, was purchased by the Seaboard Air Line Railway in 1926 and merged with the Atlantic Coastline System in 1967. Vegetables and produce were the main products transported on the line in the late 19th century which gained the title the “Tug and Grunt.” The entire line was abandoned in 1969.

1987 – At a press conference in Tallahassee on this date, Governor Bob Martinez, Lieutenant Governor Bobby Brantley and artist Judy Rutz unveiled Florida’s new lottery logo. The Florida lottery officially began a few months later on January 12, 1988 after Florida voters decided in a 2 to 1 margin for a constitutional amendment allowing the lottery in November of 1986. The aim was to provide extra funding for Florida’s schools through the sale of lottery tickets.

1971 – Rhonda Spence became the first person under the age of 21 to cast her vote in Florida on this date. Ms. Spence, a 20 year old student, was one of 66 people between the ages of 18 and 20 qualified to vote for three city councilmen in the town of DeFuniak Springs. In March of 1971, Congress passed the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which lowered the voting age in national elections from 21 to 18, although local and state election decisions were still determined by the states. Florida is one of only seven states that never ratified the amended however.

1965 – The First Baptist Church of Gainesville was demolished on this date. Founded in 1831 as the Shiloh Baptist Church, it grew steadily over the course of the 19th century within a number of wooden structures until August 29, 1909 when a new brick structure was dedicated. The new church featured wooden pews arranged in a semicircle around the pulpit and a large stone bell tower. In 1936 a devastating tornado swept through downtown Gainesville damaging the church, but it was soon repaired and back open to parishioners.

1867 – The first statewide Republican convention met in Tallahassee on this date. Thirty counties were represented and 125 delegates attended the meeting. Approximately half of the attendees were African American. Harrison Reed was elected chairman of the party and was subsequently elected governor of the state of Florida a year later, the first Republican governor of Florida. He held that position until 1873. Reed first came to Florida in 1865 after President Johnson appointed him postal agent for Florida at the end of the Civil War.

1875 – Author, educator, and African American Civil Rights leader Mary McLeod Bethune was born in Mayesville South Carolina on this date. The 15th child of former slaves, Bethune knew from a young age that education was the key to success. She attended Scotia Seminary School, and the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. Bethune moved to Palatka Florida in 1899 and began teaching. She moved to Daytona in 1904, and in October of that year opened the Literary and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls.

1835 – William Dunnington Bloxham, the 13th and 17th Governor of Florida, was born in Leon County on this date. After attending primary schools in Florida he was sent to Virginia, eventually earning a law degree from the College of William and Mary in 1855. While in the Florida House of Representatives, Bloxham formed a company of Confederate Infantry in 1862. Bloxham’s first term in office was marked by the sale of 4,000,000 acres of public land in Florida to Hamilton Disston for $1,000,000.

1951 - William Thomas Cash, the first state librarian for Florida, died on this date. A teacher and school superintendent in Taylor County, Cash was also a member of the Florida House of Representatives (1909, 1915, 1917) and a member of the State Senate (1919). From 1925 until 1928, he was the editor of the Perry Herald, and in April 1927, Cash was appointed state librarian, a post he held until his death. During his administration, he built the library up from a small collection of 1,500 uncatalogued volumes to over 50,000 volumes.

1865 – Lewis Thornton Powell was hanged for his role in the conspiracy to kill President Abraham Lincoln on this date. Powell was not a native Floridian, but he had lived in Live Oak since 1859 with his family, and joined the 2nd Florida Infantry in Jasper in 1861 at the outbreak of war. He fought in a number of battles with the 2nd Florida, including Gettysburg before being injured and captured as a POW. He later escaped and worked with the Confederate Secret Service until the end of the war. His part in the assassination conspiracy was to kill U.S. Secretary of State William H.