Most underrated channel on KZbin. I have a small FL history blog on Instagram with about 10k followers, can I share some of your content with links? Your content is so good and deserves more viewers

Love this..Thank you so much! I have a picture of myself, my dad, and little brothers, all riding an elephant at circus world!

I went to bootcamp at Orlando RTC & attended “Basic Electricity & Electronics School” there way back in 1978. After going to “Electrician’s Mate Class ‘A’ School” in Great Lakes, I came back to the Orlando NTC in 1979 to attend the 6 month long “Naval Nuclear Power School” (Class of 7904) before heading to Saratoga Springs, NY to attend another 6 months attending the “Naval Nuclear Power Training Unit” to learn how to operate an actual nuclear reactor, qualifying on the S3G reactor plant. The Orlando base is gone and the NY nuclear training center is gone. Even the submarine I served on was finally decommissioned, though it has not been scrapped yet.

Great seeing a timeline of all the parks! And interesting to contemplate the definition of a theme park and what does (or does not) qualify. Universal has called Volcano Bay a 'theme park' but I think that's certainly up for debate... surely if that is, then Disney's two water parks also count, right?

Sure wish you had some photos from the summer of 75.

Attended BC July 75-September 75

Beautiful

Journey to Atlantis opened at SeaWorld in 1998.

Great video, learned some new things! I remember Circus World as a child (about 6 years old). The Thriller Coaster was unbelievable, and Disney didn’t have anything like it at the time.

"blue jackets" were the name of the folders we were required to carry folded vertically in half in our back pockets at all times. it had our Plan of the Day and other important info about us and our companies. once on the NTC side, as non recruits, it was no longer required. recruits also had to salute all petty officers...it was easy to recognize fresh (recently graduated) boots from the RTC side because the habit of saluting non officers was hard to break at first...lol.

The demographics back then looked so nice. Just regular, normal people.

Very interesting! Thanks for the great Florida stories!

Enjoyed this video. There are two Woodmen Memorials in a cemetery in Tallahassee, FL with the date of birth but the deceased date is missing. The husband and wife are still alive!

I ate there in the late 60's and early 70's when we came to visit my grandparents with fond memories. Sadly, the music store is closed and I was able to walk through before it did. The building is crumbling. The owner never kept it up. Tiles coming off, ceilings were caving in. It was a mess. Hopefully someone will restore it. Everyone is worried it will get sold to developers.

Also, the Vacation Club Resort was renamed Old Key West Resort.

Interesting video, thank you.

does the villas being torn down except the treehouses) to build saratoga springs count? obviously dixie landings became port orleans

i don't recall ever being asked for my license, unless i tell them i am staying at the resort. if i have dining reservations, it's typically either a wave through, if it's dinnertime, or showing the MDE screen with the reservation, if it's morning.

Disney's Dixie Landings Resort is the other resort that changed it's name. It's now Port Orleans Riverside

BTW , thank you Tom for your incredibly well done videos of Florida. Ocala resident here.😊

As a retired Disney world tech, I could tell even more about the security of WDW and especially post 9/11. Best advice from me.....don't do ANYTHING on WDW property that you wouldn't do in front of an audience in Times Square 😂😂

Is Old Key West the other resort which had a name change?

7:05 Disney has buses running between parks when park hopping hours open up.

I am so grateful that you document these Florida gems.

Great video I can imagine hours of research went into this one. Just a correction: the image you show @6:40 was not the location for the old Venice municipal airport. The old landing field was located where you can now find Venice Elementary and Venice High School along the Intracoastal waterway dredged in the 60s Shut out to the cities that kept the airports or even better examples like Lakeland that converted them into areas of use for every citizen

I grew up going to the Kapok Tree 60 years ago. It was so beautiful and lots of fun. We played hide & seek through the gardens and the food was wonderful. It is such a happy memory.

Oh my goodness.I forgot all about this orange bird. He was so cute. I guess this is when the united states was trying to promote good food😂

Wow beauitiful cant believe people are not lined up to see this place😱

Hello and thank you so much for this video and all of the time and energy to do the research. I recently acquired a complete deck of these cards and am thrilled to learn so much more. I know it's a deck about American Space programs but the 4❤ sure looks like Yuri... 🤔

There is “Wards City” in Pompano Beach. Check it out

The Peter Pan has since been fully demolished and is now a dairy queen 😢 you’re also pronouncing Urbana wrong but it’s beside the point. I appreciate this video because I actually just recently learned the Peter Pan had a sister restaurant and I was hoping to plan a visit over the summer to go check it out but read the building was closed off and now I’m hoping it’s still there at all after this hurricane

I didn't know Tiki Gardens even existed. I am so sorry I missed it. I have been to the Ft.Lauderdale Mai-Kai numerous times; Celebrated my mother's birthdays and my own wedding anniversaries there. It has always been the most mesmerizing themed restaurant to me with lit narrow winding rivers,wooden bridges & tropical live greenery in between tables and Hawaiian dance shows. I just love the place.

Also, the snook at the underwater observation are massive because there's no fishing in area. And Lu was fed marshmallows by school kids early 80s given to us by park workers.

Lu makes me feel old. Saw him 44 years ago and 14 years ago. Hope he breaks all records and makes 80 or 90 or more

You should do a video on the history of the University of Central Florida starting from Florida Technical University to the current date plus they have the citronaut so it goes well with the orange bird

I learn a little bit more every time I hear about Lena.

LENA! LENA! LENA!

Hey!!! I’m so sorry to bother you, but would you have any way I could contact you, I have a few questions about this attraction you may be able to answer

I was there at Olustee on GPR Day in 1994. With both a deep interest in the battle and a background in soils engineering, I was very excited to get to see an experienced operator conduct a subsurface investigation with this then-emerging technology. It was as though I had fallen into my TV with it tuned to the Discovery Channel. I was a volunteer in the archaeological survey and active in the CSO. As I recall it, Dr. Mary Collins, a soils scientist at UF, had been contacted by Dan Penton, the lead archaeologist conducting the survey. Apparently Penton knew Collins and mid-way through the survey, he called in a favor and asked Collins to bring her GPR gizmo to Olustee. I am certain it was a freebie as the CSO budget for the archaeological survey was tiny and nearly all committed. I suppose before making a claim based on an anonymous source, I would try to hunt up the financial records of the survey. Pretty sure if Dr. Collins received any payment, it was minimal (certainly not the $250/hour she charged commercial clients). Dr. Collins was on site for perhaps two hours, about half of it devoted to packing and unpacking, laying out a grid, and calibrating the device. My recollection is that she ran four (maybe six) north-south lines through the open part of the cemetery, each around 100 feet long, then collected data by dragging the device along these guides. Then she left for Gainesville, the report of her findings was sent after data interpretation in her lab. The archaeological report seems to support my recollections from long ago. Rather than being shut down on the eve of success by unnamed locals as Gannon suggests, the GPR investigation was only ever intended, “... to test the effectiveness of the unit under the extant soil conditions and evaluate its applicability to the task of locating the mass Union grave.” That goal was fully met, so her work was done. Success was defined not by locating the mass grave, but testing the feasibility of a more extensive search. As noted in the archaeologist’s report, representatives of the cemetery were present and, to my eye, seemed as excited to be there as I was. Grant chasing is about writing your first report to establish the foundation for the next grant. For good or ill, that’s the game, and Dr. Collins did all of us a huge favor in her abbreviated site visit. The hope of generating interest to follow up with a well funded archaeological investigation to build on this initial one has not materialized. Living in the academic world, maybe Dr. Gannon could organize such a grant hunt, to light a candle as it were. With no remaining budget, nobody needed to swoop in and put a halt to further investigation, it was a foregone conclusion. Posting unsupported claims that conflict with the recollections of those who were there would seem to fall short of not just academic standards, but belies any genuine interest in progressing from the unknown to the known. Tom, thanks for this opportunity to reply. Have you asked Dr. Gannon to support any of her historical claims with something other than bold assertions? The main question would seem to be, does she have any evidence of the mass grave beyond what she found in Dicky Ferry’s 1986 article (and whose entire research file was provided to the archaeologists in 1994)? If yes, maybe another video presenting such evidence would find an interested audience.

White people built so many amazing and sustainable societies over the years, building America to the great country it is now. Thanks for the great history info!

There are some records of who was buried at Orange Hill! UCF has Carey Hand's Undertaker's Memoranda available online, and if you look for the years it was used, you can find a few of them.

We just discovered your videos today. Excellent and informative work. Thank you!

😢 allí pasamos bonitos momentos de la infancia

Great story! Great research! Ginger Peterson is great.

I grewup in Sarasota. This sounds interesting

Interesting but I wish you’d have interviewed in a quieter place

Very interesting Never heard of this story

I love your videos, Tom. Always informative and entertaining. Thank you for all your hard work. Keep it up, the world needs more of this and less Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok.

Tom, Sir -- I commend you for all your effort you continue to put forth, enlightening the current generation about the earliest days of Florida to the present. As you travel the State, I hope you will visit the recently opened Miami-Dade Military Museum & Memorial, which is dedicated to preserving the rich military heritage of South Florida. A very dedicated group led by Dr. Anthony Atwood are working hard, as they honor all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. They have a kin focus on the youth of South Florida and educating them about the role of the military in maintaining the freedoms we all cherish. I feel certain you'll enjoy the display of artifacts from South Florida veterans who participated in many theaters of operation from WWII to the present day.

2 years late but thanks for the video. 😊