Florida Heritage Trails is a series of guidebooks available in digital format and as booklets published by the Florida Department of State, Division of Historical Resources. Each guide highlights historical and cultural locations related to a specific time period or group of people, with an emphasis on communities, buildings, museums, archaeology, arts, and festivals. [1] The guides are geared toward tourists, residents, students and scholarly researchers, and all are accessible at no charge via the Florida Department of State web page. [2]
In the hope of creating new and innovative ways of teaching people about the state's African American cultural heritage, the Study Commission on African American History was formed by the Florida legislature in 1990. [3] Tasked with identifying buildings and other sites connected to the narrative of the black people in Florida with the express desire to turn such locations into tourist sites, the Commission published the Florida Black Heritage Trail, the first in the series, in 1991. That edition became the model for the guides that followed, and has undergone two revisions since.
There are four heritage trails that do not have individual guide books, however each one has a web page outlining a series of corresponding important sites, along with other background and historical data.
The history of Florida can be traced to when the first Native Americans began to inhabit the peninsula as early as 14,000 years ago. They left behind artifacts and archeological evidence. Florida's written history begins with the arrival of Europeans; the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León in 1513 made the first textual records. The state received its name from that conquistador, who called the peninsula La Pascua Florida in recognition of the verdant landscape and because it was the Easter season, which the Spaniards called Pascua Florida.
The Chisholm Trail was a trail used in the post-Civil War era to drive cattle overland from ranches in Texas to Kansas railheads. The trail was established by Black Beaver, a Lenape guide and rancher, and his friend Jesse Chisholm, a Cherokee merchant. They collected and drove numerous cattle along the trail to Kansas, where they could be shipped east to achieve higher prices. The southern terminus was Red River Station, a trading post near the Red River along the northern border of Texas. The northern terminus was a trading post near Kansas City, Kansas. Chisholm owned both of these posts. In the years of the cattle drives, cowboys drove large herds from ranches across Texas to the Red River Station and then north to Kansas City.
The Florida State Capitol in Tallahassee, Florida, is an architecturally and historically significant building listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Capitol is at the intersection of Apalachee Parkway and South Monroe Street in downtown Tallahassee, Florida.
A commemorative plaque, or simply plaque, or in other places referred to as a historical marker, historic marker, or historic plaque, is a plate of metal, ceramic, stone, wood, or other material, typically attached to a wall, stone, or other vertical surface, and bearing text or an image in relief, or both, to commemorate one or more persons, an event, a former use of the place, or some other thing. Many modern plaques and markers are used to associate the location where the plaque or marker is installed with the person, event, or item commemorated as a place worthy of visit. A monumental plaque or tablet commemorating a deceased person or persons, can be a simple form of church monument. Most modern plaques affixed in this way are commemorative of something, but this is not always the case, and there are purely religious plaques, or those signifying ownership or affiliation of some sort. A plaquette is a small plaque, but in English, unlike many European languages, the term is not typically used for outdoor plaques fixed to walls.
The Boston African American National Historic Site, in the heart of Boston, Massachusetts's Beacon Hill neighborhood, interprets 15 pre-Civil War structures relating to the history of Boston's 19th-century African-American community, connected by the Black Heritage Trail. These include the 1806 African Meeting House, the oldest standing black church in the United States.
Dade Battlefield Historic State Park is a state park located on County Road 603 between Interstate 75 and U.S. Route 301 in Sumter County, Florida. The 80-acre (32 ha) park includes 40 acres (160,000 m2) of pine flatwoods and a live oak hammock. Also called the Dade Massacre site, it preserves the Second Seminole War battlefield where tribal Seminole warriors fought soldiers under the command of Major Francis L. Dade on December 28, 1835. Each year, on the weekend after Christmas, the Dade Battlefield Society sponsors a reenactment of the battle that started the Second Seminole War.
Fort Mose, originally known as Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, and later as Fort Mose, or alternatively, Fort Moosa or Fort Mossa, is a former Spanish fort in St. Augustine, Florida. In 1738, the governor of Spanish Florida, Manuel de Montiano, had the fort established as a free black settlement, the first to be legally sanctioned in what would become the territory of the United States. It was designated a US National Historic Landmark on October 12, 1994.
The Fort Walton Mound (8OK6) is an archaeological site located in present-day Fort Walton Beach, Florida, United States. The large platform mound was built about 850 CE by the Pensacola culture, a local form of the Mississippian culture. Because of its significance, the mound was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964.
The history of Tallahassee, Florida, much like the history of Leon County, dates back to the settlement of the Americas. Beginning in the 16th century, the region was colonized by Europeans, becoming part of Spanish Florida. In 1819, the Adams–Onís Treaty ceded Spanish Florida, including modern-day Tallahassee, to the United States. Tallahassee became a city and the state capital of Florida in 1821; the American takeover led to the settlements' rapid expansion as growing numbers of cotton plantations began to spring up nearby, increasing Tallahassees' population significantly.
The John Gilmore Riley House is a historic home in Tallahassee, Florida. It is located at 419 East Jefferson Street. On August 1, 1978, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. It is now known as the John G. Riley Center/Museum of African American History and Culture.
The history of Pensacola, Florida, begins long before the Spanish claimed founding of the modern city in 1698. The area around present-day Pensacola was inhabited by Native American peoples thousands of years before the historical era.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the U.S. state of Florida:
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the U.S. state of Louisiana:
Tolomato Cemetery is a Catholic cemetery located on Cordova Street in St. Augustine, Florida. The cemetery was the former site of "Tolomato", a village of Guale Indian converts to Christianity and the Franciscan friars who ministered to them. The site of the village and Franciscan mission is noted on a 1737 map of St. Augustine. A cemetery for the inhabitants of the village was also located on the grounds, with a portion of this cemetery set aside for former American black slaves, who had converted to Catholicism after escaping bondage in the Carolinas.
The Battle of Island Mound State Historic Site is located in a rural area of Bates County, Missouri, in the western part of the state. The site was established to preserve the area of the American Civil War battle that took place in October 28–29, 1862 between Union forces and Confederate guerrillas. The battle was significant as the first time African-American troops on the Union side engaged enemy white troops in the Civil War. A correspondent of The New York Times reported on the battle; the headline noted the "desperate bravery" of the African Americans in achieving Union victory.
The Civil War Trust's Civil War Discovery Trail is a heritage tourism program that links more than 600 U.S. Civil War sites in more than 30 states. The program is one of the White House Millennium Council's sixteen flagship National Millennium Trails. Sites on the trail include battlefields, museums, historic sites, forts and cemeteries.
The Moravian Historical Society in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, was founded in 1857. Its mission is to preserve, interpret, and celebrate the rich culture of the Moravians. It is the third oldest historical society in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The Moravian Historical Society is housed in the 1740-1743 Whitefield House on the Ephrata Tract in downtown Nazareth. The Moravian Historical Society is affiliated with the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the repository for records of the Moravian Church in North America, Northern Province.
Gum Springs is a community in Fairfax County in Hybla Valley along Route 1. The African American community, the oldest in the county, was established in 1833 by West Ford, a freedman who had been manumitted by Hannah Bushrod Washington, in 1805. A historical marker was erected by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources in 1991.