The Yield

As you look forward to Super Bowl LV in Tampa on Sunday, have you ever wondered about the history of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers team name? To understand the significance of buccaneers in Tampa’s culture, you must first know the story of the notorious pirate named Jose Gaspar. While a lot of people will visit Tampa Bay this year to watch the Bucs and Tom Brady play in the Super Bowl, another annual event is essential: the Gasparilla Festival.

You can read this article and find more great content about Florida history on TheLandJournal.net.

Negotiating conservation easements can be tricky and will have a permanent impact on the owner of private land. Dean Saunders, ALC, CCIM, is a real estate broker and conservation easement expert. He sat down with us to explain how to negotiate conservation easements.

Saunders used an example scenario in conservation easement negotiation. These negotiations are an important part of coming to an agreement between a landowner and a land trust or government agency at the state and federal level.

Read more or watch the video at thelandjournal.net.

Alfred duPont and Edward Ball Created a legacy in Florida that is felt to this day.

Edward Ball, the last of the Florida robber barons, died at age 96, still running his company and fighting every day for the control he’d always enjoyed. At the end of his life, he was in a legal battle with his own company over whether or not a frail older man should still be allowed to run such a large enterprise.

But who was Edward Ball? Where did he amass his fortune? And why is he a controversial figure?

To understand where Edward Ball came from, you have to know about Alfred Irénée duPont.

Alfred I. duPont is known today for the Nemours Foundation and the Nemours Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children, but he also played an important role in Florida’s history.

Watch the video at thelandjournal.net.

Dean Saunders, ALC, CCIM, the founder and managing director of SVN | Saunders Ralston Dantzler Real Estate, began working with real estate conservation easements a quarter-century ago. Though more common now as a means of preserving land and protecting wildlife, at the time, the practice was far more limited.

Watch the video at thelandjournal.net.

Before the Daytona 500 was held at the Nascar International Speedway, the beaches of Daytona were home to auto racing. With its humble beginnings, it's remarkable how auto racing went from causal competitions on the beach to a billion-dollar industry.

Watch the video at thelandjournal.net.

As the middle class evaporated, the rich continued to move into the city to be around other wealthy families, and the poor continued to move to the outskirts. Cheap labor kept the hub of St. Augustine running, but it created severe inequality among its residents. This divide is a large part of what led to creating the civil rights movement in St. Augustine. See the video at thelandjournal.net.

In this episode, we’ll hear from Dean Saunders, who served in the Florida House of Representatives from 1992 to 1996 and initiated legislation for Florida’s Bright Futures scholarship program. 

He describes his initial inspiration for what would eventually become the Florida Bright Futures Scholarship Program. A lottery-funded, merit-based scholarship for Florida high school seniors.

At the time, proceeds from the Florida Lottery had mostly been given directly to the individual school districts around the state. However, during a recession that hit in 1990, those funds were more widely distributed throughout the government, causing those that had voted for the Florida Lottery to feel a sense of betrayal.

Listen as Saunders tells us the whole story of this important Florida legislation and watch the videos at thelandjournal.net.

 While sandy beaches are usually the first images that come to mind at hearing the word “Florida,” many born-and-raised Floridians have found that they prefer the particular delights offered by natural springs.

In this episode, Trent Saunders talks about Florida’s historic natural springs. Year after year, people flock to these idyllic spots and we’ll hear about some of the most visited springs in the state.

Watch the video at thelandjournal.net.

In the fourth part of our series of interviews, Deitche discussed the possible connections between the Tampa mafia and the event that has drawn the most speculation in modern history, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. 

Since the day that Kennedy died, speculation has run rampant about who was behind the assassination. The Warren Commission officially designated by President Johnson to investigate the assassination came to the conclusion that it was undertaken by Lee Harvey Oswald, a lone gunman who was later arrested. Oswald himself was murdered by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby on November 24, 1963. 

One group that has often been theorized about in regards to involvement in the Kennedy assassination is the organized crime syndicates including those that operated in Tampa under the leadership of Santo Trafficante Jr. at the time.

Get more great content about Florida History at https://blog.thelandjournal.net/tag/florida-history

The Land Journal recently sat down with Scott M. Deitche, author of Cigar City Mafia, to talk about the history of organized crime in Tampa. In this installment, Deitche described the low decline of organized crime that took place from the 1970s to the late 1990s. 

Deitche started off by describing what he referred to as the "first wave" of Cuban mafiosos that flourished in South Florida throughout the early 1960s. This first wave included men connected to the Trafficante family that were a part of the Anti-Castro movement and even took part in the Bay of Pigs invasion. 

Deitche then went on to describe how organized crime morphed throughout the next couple of decades, expanding its role in selling drugs such as cocaine as the popularity of illegal gambling decreased in the face of the now legal Florida Lottery.

Get more great content about Florida History at The Land Journal.