FLORENCE 



2212 



FLORIDA 



ence became the capital of the Grand Duchy 

 of Tuscany, and after the new kingdom of 

 Italy was constituted it was for a time the 

 seat of government (1865-1871). It is now 

 the capital of the province of Florence. In 

 1915 the city and suburbs had an estimated 

 population of 242,147. B.M.W. 



FLORENCE, ALA., an important manufac- 

 turing center, and the county seat of Lauder- 

 dale County, situated in the extreme north- 

 western part of the state, on the Tennessee 

 River, at the foot of Muscle Shoals Canal. 

 Birmingham is 125 miles southeast, Nashville 

 is 125 miles northeast ; Chattanooga is 150 miles 

 northeast, and Memphis is 150 miles north- 

 west. Two railroad lines, the Louisville & 

 Nashville and the Southern railways, provide 

 transportation. Electric railways operate be- 

 tween Florence, Sheffield and Tuscumbia, and 

 steamboats connect with Chattanooga, on the 

 north, and the Gulf of Mexico, on the south. 

 The town was laid out in 1818 by an Italian 

 from Florence, and he named it for the famed 

 Italian city. In 1889 a city charter was granted, 

 and in 1914 the commission form of govern- 

 ment, with three elective officers, was adopted. 

 The population in 1916 was 6,689. 



The city is located on a plateau 200 feet 

 above the river, which at this point is spanned 

 by a steel bridge. Wildwood Park of 250 acres, 

 a large Indian mound and an old military 

 road through the city, cut out by General 

 Andrew Jackson from New Orleans to Nash- 

 ville, are features of interest. The most nota- 

 ble buildings are a $140,000 Federal building, 

 completed in 1914, and the Jefferson Hotel. 

 The state normal school was erected at a cost 

 of $85,000; the girls' dormitory, built in 1913, 

 cost an additional $75,000. This and the Bur- 

 rell Normal School, the Florence Synodical 

 Female College, Mars Hill Academy and a 

 library offer excellent advantages for higher 

 education. 



Florence is situated in a coal, iron and lum- 

 ber region, and though the manufacture of pig 

 iron, boilers, engines, wooden pumps and wag- 

 ons is extensive, the people are largely en- 

 gaged in cotton and fertilizer industries. The 

 water power of the Muscle Shoals at this point 

 is considered second only to that of Niagara 

 Falls, and plans are under way for develop- 

 ing this power by the construction of three 

 dams, which will greatly increase manufactur- 

 ing facilities. EJ. 



. LORIDA, the "land of flowers," the win- 

 ter playground of Eastern America, the home 

 of the pineapple and of a large part of the 

 tropical fruit supply of the United States, is the 

 southernmost state of the American Union. 

 As five-sixths of its length, or 375 miles, with 

 an average width of about ninety-five miles, 

 is almost entirely surrounded by water, it is 

 called the Peninsula State. The name Florida 

 is the Spanish word for flowery, and was given 

 by Ponce de Leon, who discovered it on Easter 

 Sunday, which in Spanish is called Pascua 

 florida, or flowery Easter. 



Alabama and Georgia touch its almost 

 straight northern boundary of about 400 miles ; 

 and dividing it from Alabama on the extreme 

 northwestern corner is the Perdido River. On 

 the east is the Atlantic Ocean, on the south 



and west, the Gulf of Mexico. A chain of 

 islands extending in a curved line 200 miles 

 along the coast at the south, called the Flor- 

 ida Keys, is included within these boundaries. 

 Florida has the longest coast line of any state 

 almost 1,200 miles more than half the dis- 

 tance between Chicago and San Francisco. 

 Covering an area of 58,666 square miles, it is 

 about the same size as Georgia, but has less 

 than one-third the population, this being re- 

 ported as 904,839 on January 1, 1917. The 

 province of Alberta is over four times the 

 size of Florida, but its population is only a 

 little over three-fifths as great. 



The People and the Cities. Over forty-one 

 per cent of Florida's population is colored. Of 

 the remainder, about 34,000 were foreign-born 

 from the West Indies, England, Germany, 



