The History of Northeast Florida

  In 1971 Rex Gyger, 26, and Wallace McDonald, 43, met while incarcerated at Raiford State Prison.  Gyger was serving a two year sentence for breaking out of jail in Tampa .  McDonald was there for ten years for an armed robbery in Jacksonville .  He had previously escaped from jail in Ohio and Louisiana three times. Both men were employed by the prison furniture shop.  Both men were trained in wood and metal working.  Both men desperately wanted to escape from prison. On the afternoon of Saturday, November 13, 1971 the prison shop was closed for the day.  Gyger and McDonald broke into the shop.  Using the tools and materials at hand and the skills they had learned while in prison, the two constructed a “tank” out of a forklift.  They attached two layers of ten gauge sheet metal to each side of the machine, and four layers on top.  They cut a small slit in the front of the armor so that they could see out.  Then they waited. ...

This article is reprinted from the book   Florida Felons: Stories from the History of Raiford Prison On July 27, 1981 Reve Walsh took her six year old, Adam shopping at a Sears store in Hollywood , Florida .  She left him playing video games in the toy department for a few minutes.  When she returned Adam was nowhere to be found.  Two weeks later the boy’s head was discovered by fishermen in a canal near Vero Beach , nearly 120 miles away.  Adam’s body was never found.  Over the following years, Adam’s father, John Walsh, became an activist on behalf of murdered and missing children and went on to host the television show “ America ’s Most Wanted.” While the case was never officially solved, both the police and John Walsh believe they know who was responsible for Adam’s abduction and murder:  Ottis Elwood Toole of Jacksonville , Florida . Ottis Elwood Toole was born in the Springfield area of Jacksonville on March 5, 1947.  As a young boy, ...

President Abraham Lincoln was concerned about his re-election chances in 1864.  The country was in the middle of a terrible Civil War that had claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens in the last three years. Despite victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg the previous year there still seemed to be no end in sight for the war.  Many people did not agree with Lincoln ’s conciliatory attitude towards the rebel states.  Others believed that he had gone too far when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation effectively turning the war from a campaign to save the union into one whose purpose was to abolish slavery.  Absolutely no one liked the draft.  In short, Lincoln needed votes and his thoughts turned to Florida . Florida had become the 27 th State on March 3, 1845.  It entered the union as a “slave state” and was highly dependent upon slave laborers for its agrarian economy.  Almost half of Florida ’s entire population was slaves who wor...

In the late 1800s Northeast Florida was a major winter destination for visitors from the northern states.  Henry Flagler’s railroad was pushing southward and with it came hotels and tourists.  The folks from “up north” wanted to experience Florida ’s warm climate and exotic environs.  All of these people needed to be entertained.  Of course, they wanted to see those strange prehistoric creatures that they had heard about – alligators.  Local entrepreneurs were happy to oblige by establishing amusement parks and alligator attractions.  For good measure, ostrich shows – featuring a species not native to Florida – were added to the mix.  After all, exotic animals are exotic animals. It all began on Anastasia Island , just outside of St. Augustine , in the 1890s.  A tram had recently been installed to ferry people from the City of St. Augustine to the beaches of Anastasia Island .  A St . Augustine resident set up a small exhibit at the...

  Thousands of tourists flock to St. Augustine at Christmas each year to experience the Nights of Lights, a dazzling display of millions of colorful lights.  Merriment, laughter and wonder fill the streets of America ’s oldest city.  It was not that way for the residents of St. Augustine during the Christmas of 1702.  The city was under siege and all 1500 of its residents had been inside the walls of Castillo de San Marcos for over a month. For almost half a century, England and Spain were at odds over the colonization the southeastern portion of North America .  Escalating tensions resulted in the outbreak of Queen Anne's War  fought primarily between English controlled South Carolina and Spanish controlled Northeast Florida .  The Governor of Carolina, James Moore, had long coveted Spanish Florida and used the war as an excuse to invade.  His plan was to take the capital city of St. Augustine . Moore raised a sizable force of about f...