Today I am sharing a historic photograph from my mother’s book “Jensen and Eden on Florida’s Indian River.” It is a remarkable photo that takes us to another time and place. Looking at the river viewed from the ridge, we witness our region’s pioneer history when hard-working people like Mr and Mrs S.F. Webb, and Capt. John and and Annie Miller bought acreage along the Indian River Lagoon, cleared the land, planted pineapples and built a school.
My mother writes: “Jensen Beach evolved from the historic communities of Eden and Jensen perched beside the Indian River. This estuary beginning above Titusville and stretching south along the Florida east coast for more than 140 miles to the Jupiter Inlet, served as a highway for early settlers when sailboats were the primary mode of transportation.” –Sandra H. Thurlow
The river may not be our primary mode of transportation today and the pineapple fields are long gone, but it is certainly the reason why many of us are here. The river continues to be our path…the way…
Vignette on area pineapples industry: by historians Alice and Greg Luckhardt/Stuart Heritage/ as posted on TC Palm: http://www.tcpalm.com/news/historical-vignettes–cost-freezes-destroy-pineapple-industry-ep-351011534-341978931.html
Oh what we’ve done to Paradise here in Fla. I came in 1955 when I was 12 for a summer visit to Orlando. No Disney, no traffic, natural waterways and plentiful wildlife and magnificent fisheries. Now just 60 years later we observe what unrestricted growth can do when there is no balance with the natural world. It’s such a shame that the pendulum has to swing so hard over before the masses rise up and demand action.
Thanks again for sharing these poignant stories. Wayne
Thanks so much Wayne. Yes they are rising up.
In the bottom photo its says the houses are all faceng the road along the lagoon.Even when I was a kid roads in Florida were a disaster because it is imposable to drive on sugar sand. US 1 was paved by pulling the SOFT coquina and shell out of the lagoon . Put the calcium back along the hundreds of miles of shore and the lagoon and ocean WILL come back—except all the creatures that are now exstinct..Spending taxpayer money in any other way to FIX the lagoon is fraud