History in Florida

Discover 25 places to experience unusual history in Florida.

Locomotive 11 was the first car to roll into town once the Florida Southern Rail system was extended to Punta Gorda.

Punta Gorda, Florida

End of the Line Mural

This outdoor mural is one stop on a walking trail that weaves art and history together to tell a tale of local history.

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A variety of Disney items.

Lakeland, Florida

Lakeland Antique Mall

If you ever wanted to own an actual piece of Disney World, this is the place to shop.

Part of the Old Dixie Highway near Hastings, Florida.

Bunnell, Florida

The Old Brick Road

Part of a highway network meant to connect Miami to Montreal, this 10-mile stretch of road made from red bricks is still around 100 years later.

Don Quixote Dining Room

Columbia Restaurant

This grand Spanish-Cuban restaurant has been serving customers for more than a century.

Parts of the Berlin Wall just outside of the Morean Center for Clay in St. Petersburg, Florida.

St. Petersburg, Florida

Berlin Wall Section in St. Petersburg

History is hiding at the Morean Center for Clay.

The house sits on a thin sandbar off the Florida coast.

Stuart, Florida

Gilbert’s Bar House of Refuge

In a time before lifeguards, this house was a sanctuary for the shipwrecked.

Turtle Mound.

New Smyrna Beach, Florida

Turtle Mound

Mariners once used this prehistoric landfill as a navigational landmark.

The grave itself is overgrown with agave, poison ivy, and lots of other sharp pointy objects, so wear protective clothing!

Sanibel, Florida

Grave of Captain Oliver Bowen

The bizarre story of the mysterious death and hidden treasure of one of Sanibel Island's early homesteaders.

The African Cemetery at Higgs Beach, Key West.

Key West, Florida

African Cemetery at Higgs Beach

Near the ruins of a Civil War coastal fortress lies the only known African refugee cemetery in the United States.

St. Augustine, Florida

Andrew Young Crossing

Bronze footprints mark the path where a civil rights leader tried to march in peaceful protest before being knocked unconscious.

Tampa Theatre

One of the last of the great 1920s movie palaces is a Floridian Greco-Spanish-Persian dreamscape.

The glass wall of the Lewis Spring House.

Tallahassee, Florida

Lewis Spring House

One of only two pod-shaped homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

The Wonder House in 2014.

Bartow, Florida

Wonder House

Given just one more year to live, Conrad Schuck built his dream house in Bartow, Florida.

Vero Beach, Florida

Indian River Citrus Museum

This small museum concentrates on the juicy history of orange production in Florida.

Braden Castle Ruins

Bradenton, Florida

Braden Castle Ruins

These crumbling foundations are all that remain of the once-stately 1840s manor that gave the town of Bradenton its name.

Satellite view of the airport.

Ochopee, Florida

Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport

This isolated airport in the middle of the Everglades sees more alligators than planes.