This 1929 photograph shows some of the Louisville & Nashville (L&N) Railroad workers in DeFuniak Springs. The photo was taken on the tracks looking west with Circle Drive and the depot in the left background. The two men on the left have not yet been identified. The man in the center is Alex B. Powell. […]
Anna (often called “Annie”) Becker was born on October 22, 1849, in the village of Schodack Depot, New York. She attended a private “Young Ladies Academy” in northern New York. Wallace Bruce and Anna married on June 29, 1870, at Schodack Depot. They had three children. The photograph of Anna was taken in Edinborough, Scotland, […]
Gladys Delores Nichols was born at Caney Creek in south Walton County on May 26, 1924. She was the daughter of Lonnie and Lillie Mae Anderson Nichols. She married a high school classmate, Huey Milton, and had seven children. Gladys Milton was licensed to practice midwifery in 1959 after the Walton County Health Department sponsored […]
Myrtice Vera McCaskill (left, in 1922) was born June 15, 1896, in DeFuniak Springs. She was the daughter of the first City Marshal (1901-1903) Malcolm McCaskill and his wife Mary Stanley. Malcolm was born in Knox Hill in 1861 and was the brother of John Jette McCaskill and the uncle of R. E. L. McCaskill. […]
For many years, visitors to DeFuniak Springs were told that the Florida State University was founded there. While the city was home to several educational institutions in its early years, Florida State was not one of them. One prominent college in DeFuniak Springs was the State Normal School (above) that opened in 1887. At that […]
Park Trammell has no known connection to Walton County but, in his “Address upon the Closing of His Administration and Retirement from Office as Governor of Florida” on January 2, 1917, he introduced incoming Governor and Walton County resident, Sidney J. Catts. Here follows the introduction: It is now my pleasant privilege to turn to […]
Robert Tyng Bushnell was the Attorney General of Massachusetts from 1941 until 1945, and he also enjoyed raising chickens. He first learned of the Four Mile Point section of southern Walton County in a land sale advertisement in a poultry magazine. He soon visited the area and fell in love with its beauty. In 1944, […]
The original Hotel DeFuniak stood on Baldwin Avenue between Tenth and Eleventh Streets. The location is now vacant and is often referred to as the Piggly Wiggly parking lot. In the 1890s, the hotel was known as the Martin House. At some point in the mid-1900s, it was purchased by Mrs. Ruth L. Bruner and […]
Camillus F. Hinesley owned The Florida House from 1914 until 1928. It was located on the northeast corner of Nelson Avenue and Eighth Street, across from what is now the Hotel DeFuniak. The hotel was renamed The Florida Hotel and continued in operation until 1962 when it was consumed by fire. The Orlando SentinelMonday, January […]
The Hotel Chautauqua was built in time for the first Florida Chautauqua Assembly in 1885. It was located on the site that was until recently occupied by Gulf Power on Circle Drive. The photograph above was taken by G. Willard Shear in 1887. Note the fence on the lakeside, which kept cattle in the lakeyard […]