When you are driving around today, do you ever wonder what things looked like before humans changed things so much? I do.

I think about it mostly in the context of deteriorating water quality and trying to wrap my head around the story of how we got to where we are today.

My mother, historian Sandra Henderson Thurlow, recently shared these photos. I think they make a point. Both photos belonged to Stuart’s renowned pioneer Kitching family. The first photo was hand titled “Lover’s Lane,” by Josephine Kitching and is marked 1907. That same photo was used by Mr Stanley Kitching to made into a beautiful color postcard to market our area. According to my mother, the quality color printing  was only offered in Germany pre World War 1, (1914-1918).

Compare the images. You can see that the second post card is the same image as the first, but now colorized and professionally entitled: “Tall Trees through the Pines, Stuart, Fla.”

My mother wrote of this photo: “Jacqui, This postcard was printed in Germany so it was before WWI. I think it was printed around 1907. It was one of a series ordered by Stanley Kitching and is very early. I think this is the trail that became U. S. 1 (Avenue E.) Mom”

In any case, if indeed this is the old Avenue E that became Stuart’s US1 look what it used to be – a Sand Pine Community, now one of the the rarest in the world. A community whose white sands used to clean and purify the water…There were thousands of acres in today’s Stuart, Martin County, and along all of Florida’s east coast and central high ridges. (https://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00000505/00001/1x)

Poof! It’s gone. Oh well, “progress,” right?!

To see what this habitat looked like before it was developed, you can still have a wonderful “Lover’s Lane” experience visiting Seabranch State Park in Martin County just south of Cove Road (https://www.floridastateparks.org/parks-and-trails/seabranch-preserve-state-park)
or Haney Creek Park near Baker Road in Stuart (https://conservemartin.weebly.com/haney-creek.html)

I am thankful for those who saved these habitats so we can see how rain water was once cleansed, naturally.

Sand Pine Habitat has a fascinating ecological history. Our history. You can read more here:

“Scrubs dominated by a canopy of sand pine are usually found on the highest sandy ridgelines. The pine canopy may range from widely scattered trees with a short, spreading growth form, to tall thin trees forming a dense canopy of uniform height. The sand pine scrub understory is characterized by either scrub oaks or Florida rosemary.”(https://www.fnai.org/PDF/NC/Scrub_Final_2010.pdf)

Sand pine grows in well-drained to excessively drained, acidic sandy soils of marine origin. These soils are primarily Entisols derived from quartz sand.
(https://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/tree/pincla/all.html)