FLH Article Library
Explore Florida Learning Hub's free library of Florida History Minis and feature articles about the people, places, roads, forts, landscapes, and communities that shaped the state.
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Explore the Mini Article Library
Short, classroom-friendly Florida history articles built from documented sources, with vocabulary, quick facts, discussion questions, and sources for further reading.
The Lost Treasure Fleets of 1715
Florida shipwrecks, treasure, and historical evidence.
Read MiniFlorida’s Forgotten Shipwreck Treasures
Florida shipwrecks, treasure, and historical evidence.
Read MiniThe 1733 Treasure Fleet
Florida shipwrecks, treasure, and historical evidence.
Read MiniThe Treasure Hunters of the Treasure Coast
Florida shipwrecks, treasure, and historical evidence.
Read MiniThe Atocha and Mel Fisher
Florida shipwrecks, treasure, and historical evidence.
Read MiniThe Everglades Payroll Legend
Florida shipwrecks, treasure, and historical evidence.
Read MiniBefore Flagler
Florida transportation and pioneer travel history.
Read MiniMilitary Roads
Florida transportation and pioneer travel history.
Read MiniWagon Travel
Florida transportation and pioneer travel history.
Read MiniFlorida’s Forgotten Ferry Crossings
Florida transportation and pioneer travel history.
Read MiniRiver Travel
Florida transportation and pioneer travel history.
Read MiniFrontier Camps
Florida transportation and pioneer travel history.
Read MiniStage Routes
Florida transportation and pioneer travel history.
Read MiniMapping Early Florida
Florida transportation and pioneer travel history.
Read MiniTravel Before Railroads
Florida transportation and pioneer travel history.
Read MiniSettlement Patterns
Florida transportation and pioneer travel history.
Read MiniFlorida Trails Before Highways
Florida transportation and pioneer travel history.
Read MiniThe Roads That Became Highways
Florida transportation and pioneer travel history.
Read MiniCrossing the Suwannee
Florida transportation and pioneer travel history.
Read MiniTraveling the Florida Frontier
Florida transportation and pioneer travel history.
Read MiniThe Railroad That Almost Changed America
Florida transportation and pioneer travel history.
Read MiniThe War That Broke Florida’s Railroad
Florida transportation and pioneer travel history.
Read MiniWhen the Rails Reached Gainesville
Florida transportation and pioneer travel history.
Read MiniLiving From the Lagoon
The working waterfronts and families of Florida’s lagoons.
Read MiniThe Watermen of Sebastian
The fishing heritage of Sebastian and the Indian River Lagoon.
Read MiniFlorida During the Civil War
Florida’s experience during the American Civil War.
Read MiniThe Battle of Olustee
Florida’s largest Civil War battle and its aftermath.
Read MiniFlorida’s Cow Cavalry
Florida cattlemen and the wartime beef supply.
Read MiniSalt Makers of the Gulf Coast
How Florida’s Gulf Coast produced essential wartime salt.
Read MiniFlorida’s Blockade Runners
How Florida’s coastline supported blockade running during the Civil War.
Read MiniFlorida’s Unionists
Floridians whose loyalties remained with the Union.
Read MiniKey West: Florida’s Union Island
How a divided Key West remained under federal control.
Read MiniTobacco Country: North Florida’s Forgotten Cash Crop
The Suwannee Valley’s bright-leaf tobacco economy.
Read MiniA Midnight Errand at Cotton Wood
The buried boxes and competing accounts of Cotton Wood.
Read MiniGamble Plantation
The plantation and the flight of a Confederate official.
Read MiniJacob Summerlin: The Rise of Florida’s Cattle Kingdom
Jacob Summerlin’s cattle trade, a contemporary herd estimate, and documented contributions to Bartow and Orlando.
Read MiniWhy Cabins Were Built Off the Ground
Why Florida wooden cabins stood on piers, how sills and joists carried the floor, and the limits of elevation against moisture and floods.
Read MiniSmokehouses
The construction and farmyard role of Florida smokehouses, with a documented Dudley Farm example and historical food-safety context.
Read MiniLog Construction Methods
The craft behind every pioneer cabin wall, from selecting the log to chinking the gaps.
Read MiniBuilding a Homestead
From first stake to finished farm, how pioneer families turned raw Florida land into home.
Read MiniBuilding with What the Land Provided
How Florida’s forests, swamps and prairies gave pioneer families what they needed to build a life.
Read MiniHolidays on the Florida Frontier
When the work paused, pioneer families insisted life was worth marking.
Read MiniSplit-Rail Fences
A fence with no nails, built from the forest it fenced.
Read MiniFrontier Barns
The practical buildings Florida farmers used for animals, equipment and crops—and why construction varied.
Read MiniThe Florida Smokehouse
Salt, smoke and the small dark building between a pioneer family and hunger.
Read MiniCorn Cribs
The small building that kept a pioneer family fed through the year.
Read MiniWells and Springs
The search for water was the search for a home.
Read MiniFrontier Tools
The blades, wedges and handles that built pioneer Florida.
Read MiniLost Bridges of Old Florida
A wooden bridge, a destructive 1921 hurricane and the choices Florida faced when restoring island access.
Read MiniRebuilding the Overseas Highway
A railroad bought for $640,000, and a road still going.
Read MiniWhen the Orange Groves Blew Away
Hurricanes did not destroy Florida citrus alone; they struck an industry already fighting disease.
Read MiniHurricanes and the Florida Cattle Industry
Florida cattlemen have been riding out hurricanes since long before anyone called them hurricanes.
Read MiniThe Storms That Changed the Everglades Agricultural Area
Two hurricanes, a flood and a crying cow shaped one of the richest farming regions in the country.
Read MiniFarming After the Flood
The slow, bureaucratic, chemical work of rebuilding a Florida farm after a hurricane.
Read MiniRecovering a Ranch After a Hurricane
The herd, the fences and the family, long after the wind stops.
Read MiniWhat Hurricanes Do to Florida’s Wildlife
Some species die, some multiply, and most fall somewhere in between.
Read MiniBirds Before the Storm
Bird responses vary. The famous warbler study concerned a tornado-producing storm, while hurricane winds can displace other birds far from home.
Read MiniThe Everglades After a Hurricane
What comes back, what never should have gotten loose, and why it matters either way.
Read MiniStorm Surge
A hurricane’s winds push seawater toward shore, putting low coastal communities at risk.
Read MiniThe Day the Wind Took the Barn
After a hurricane, broken fences, damaged barns and flooded crops can turn a Florida farm’s recovery into months of work.
Read MiniThe Flood That Changed South Florida
The dike held in 1947. The drainage system did not.
Read MiniBuilding the Herbert Hoover Dike
A farmers’ mud wall became a 143-mile dike, then needed a second dam hidden inside it.
Read MiniWhy Lake Okeechobee Became Dangerous
Lake Okeechobee’s shallow waters connect a history of deadly flooding with today’s water-management challenges.
Read MiniHurricanes and the Everglades
The Everglades shields South Florida from storms, and pays for it in trees, roots and seagrass.
Read MiniTake Care of the Water
South Florida’s flood-control system protects communities while changing the water flow that sustains the Everglades.
Read MiniThe Storm That Destroyed Flagler’s Railroad
Flagler’s railroad across the sea outlived its purpose and became the road to Key West.
Read MiniShipwrecks of the Florida Coast
Hurricanes sank Spain’s fleets off Florida, and the sea is still giving some of it back.
Read MiniWhen the Ferries Stopped Running
Florida once crossed its bays and rivers by boat. Most of those ferries are gone.
Read MiniWhy FEMA Was Created
More than a hundred federal agencies once shared disaster duties. The governors asked for one.
Read MiniThe Birth of Florida Emergency Management
A county official’s frustrated question on live television set off Florida’s modern emergency reforms.
Read MiniInside Florida’s Emergency Operations Centers
On the worst days, an office building in Tallahassee becomes the nerve center of the state.
Read MiniHow Hurricane Forecasting Changed Florida
A century and a half of tools, each bought by a storm that arrived without enough warning.
Read MiniBuilding for the Wind
Andrew exposed four hundred codes and stapled roofs. Thirty years later, the rebuilt rules passed their test.
Read MiniThe Great Florida Evacuations
Opal gridlocked the Panhandle in 1995. Twenty-two years later, 6.5 million Floridians fled Irma.
Read MiniWhy Some People Stay
Staying is rarely carelessness. Six documented factors shape the decision.
Read MiniHow Florida Pioneers Predicted Storms
With no forecast at all, pioneers watched the sky, the sea and the birds.
Read MiniHurricane Warnings Before Radio
Cuban observers, telegraph networks and coastal flags shaped hurricane warnings before radio.
Read MiniSurviving a Storm in a Cracker Cabin
Raised floors, shutters, stored food and livestock traditions shaped pioneer households’ options before a storm.
Read MiniThe Great Miami Hurricane of 1926
A storm that struck a boomtown of newcomers who had never seen a hurricane, and ended an era of speculation.
Read MiniThe Okeechobee Hurricane of 1928
A five-foot mud dike failed in one night, and the dead were buried by race. The story behind the Herbert Hoover Dike.
Read MiniThe Labor Day Hurricane of 1935
A late rescue train, a Category 5 storm, and a question Hemingway refused to let go: who murdered the vets?
Read MiniHurricane Donna (1960)
A nine-day major hurricane that crossed the full length of Florida and then kept going to New England.
Read MiniHurricane Andrew (1992)
A compact Category 5 that stripped Homestead to its slabs and forced Florida to rewrite how it builds and insures.
Read MiniHurricane Charley (2004)
A compact Category 4 turned at the last moment into Charlotte Harbor and cut straight up the Peace River valley.
Read MiniFrances and Jeanne (2004)
Two major hurricanes hit the same stretch of Hutchinson Island twenty-one days apart.
Read MiniHurricane Wilma (2005)
The most intense Atlantic hurricane on record struck Cape Romano and raced across the state in four hours.
Read MiniHurricane Irma (2017)
A storm forecast for the Treasure Coast turned west and struck the Keys and the Gulf coast.
Read MiniHurricane Ian (2022)
A late southward shift put Lee County in the path of the costliest hurricane in Florida history.
Read MiniUlysses A. “Doc” Lightsey: The Fort Meade Cattleman Who Fenced the Kissimmee Range
Explore the Florida history of Ulysses A. “Doc” Lightsey: The Fort Meade Cattleman Who Fenced the Kissimmee Range.
Read MiniZiba King: King of the Peace River Cattle Country (Rev. 3)
Explore the Florida history of Ziba King: King of the Peace River Cattle Country (Rev. 3).
Read MiniThe Lightsey Family: Eight Generations of Cattle, Land, and Conservation in Central Florida
Since the 1850s, the Lightsey family has raised cattle on the Kissimmee prairie. Today their descendants Cary and Layne have placed 90% of that land under permanent conservation protection.
Read MiniEnoch Daniel Jr.
Scout, Soldier, and Unionist of the Charlotte Harbor Frontier. From the Alachua frontier and Third Seminole War to Unionist operations around Charlotte Harbor, Enoch Daniel Jr.'s life crossed some of nineteenth-century Florida's defining conflicts.
Read MiniEnoch Daniel Sr.: Before Florida Was American
A Pioneer of Elotchaway and the Alachua Frontier. Documented in Spanish East Florida by 1813 and Elotchaway by 1814, Enoch Daniel Sr. anchors a Florida family story that began before U.S. territorial government existed.
Read MiniCaptain James McKay and the Cuba Cattle Trade
The Scottish Mariner Who Played Both Sides to Keep His Cattle Trade Alive. McKay helped establish Florida's organized cattle trade with Cuba while navigating the divided loyalties and commerce of Civil War Florida.
Read MiniSpanish Watchtowers and Outposts
The Network Between the Famous Forts. Spain defended colonial Florida through a connected system of presidios, small outposts, and lookout towers stretching across the peninsula.
Read MiniMission San Luis de Apalachee
A Council House Built to Hold Three Thousand People. The shared Spanish-Apalachee capital in present-day Tallahassee reveals a colonial outpost built as much on alliance and cultural exchange as military defense.
Read MiniFort Caroline
France's Brief Foothold on the River of May. The 1564 French Huguenot colony lasted barely fifteen months but helped determine which European power would dominate early colonial Florida.
Read MiniFort Matanzas
Guarding St. Augustine's Back Door. The small coquina fortress protected the southern water approach that could bypass the Castillo de San Marcos.
Read MiniCastillo de San Marcos
The Fort That Learned to Absorb the Blow. St. Augustine's coquina fortress survived centuries of siege and changing flags without ever being taken by force.
Read MiniThe Battle of Natural Bridge
Florida's Only Major Land Battle of the Civil War. The March 6, 1865 battle south of Tallahassee brought U.S. Colored Infantry, Confederate regulars, militia, and teenage cadets into Florida's largest Civil War land engagement.
Read MiniHow Military Roads Opened Florida
Roads Built to Remove a People, Roads That Outlasted the War. How military roads served war and Seminole removal before becoming lasting corridors for settlement, travel, and commerce.
Read MiniFlorida's Military Legacy Today
The Same Ground, Still at Work. How Florida's strategic geography continues to influence military installations, commands, communities, and economic activity.
Read MiniBellamy Road
The Wagon Road That Broke Axles and Opened Florida's Interior. Florida's 1826 federal wagon road connected Pensacola and St. Augustine and helped open the territorial interior.
Read MiniSpain's Defense of La Florida
A Money-Losing Colony Spain Refused to Give Up. Why Spain kept defending Florida and the treasure-fleet route even when the colony itself did not turn a profit.
Read MiniHow Forts Protected Pioneer Families
Five Hundred Families, One Terrible January. How forts and fortified places became refuges for Florida families during periods of frontier conflict.
Read MiniRiver Supply Routes
Fort King Fed by Three Different Rivers. How Florida's rivers, steamboats, depots, and frontier posts formed a working military supply network where roads could not.
Read MiniTelegraph Lines and Supply Routes
A New Wire Reaches an Old Fort. How the telegraph transformed Civil War-era military communication, coordination, and supply decisions in Florida.
Read MiniArmy Wagon Trains
In the General's Own Hand. How wagon trains, draft animals, supply routes, and General Thomas Jesup's own diary illuminate military transportation in territorial Florida.
Read MiniArmy Ferries
The Single Canoe That Nearly Stalled a Campaign. General Duncan Clinch's difficult 1835 crossing of the flooded Withlacoochee River shows why river crossings could determine a campaign.
Read MiniFrontier Bridges
“One of the Best and Strongest Field Fortifications.” Fort Foster's bridge and defenses helped keep a crucial Second Seminole War supply route open.
Read MiniLife Inside a Florida Frontier Fort
Sixteen Days Behind a Wall of Pine. Fort Cooper's siege opens a window into the daily hardships, disease, isolation, and danger of frontier military life.
Read MiniLong-Form Florida Stories
The McMullen-Coachman Log Cabin
The House That Helped Build Pinellas. The story of the pioneer home, the McMullen and Coachman families, early schooling, midwifery, cattle, roads, fire, and preservation at Heritage Village.
Read ArticleThe Seven Brothers and the Stitched Path to Punta Pinal
How one pioneer family carried their world south into an untamed Florida — and helped shape the Pinellas Peninsula.
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