Sunday Favorites: From Desolate to Desirable

Probably the most blatant marketing falsehood ever told was that of New Scotland.

In the 1880s, The Florida Mortgage and Investment Company published a newspaper advertisement in Scotland and England promising investors homes on 40 acres of fertile land in an up-and-coming tropical development. The cost was only 100 pounds of sterling, approximately $3,000 today, according to the article "A Promise of Paradise" by Compass Rose History Experiences.

Fifty-one colonists signed up for the offer, boarding the steamship "Furnesia" in November of 1885. It took 15 days for them to cross the Atlantic Ocean. They arrived in New York City on December 15, expecting to find their mortgage broker waiting for them. It was three days before the broker, Selven Tate, made an appearance. The rest of the trip took 23 days -- they took a ship to the east coast, then a train to Cedar Key where they had to wait weeks for lumber for their homes to arrive (despite their expectation of fully complete homes).

When they finally arrived in Sarasota, the idyllic paradise they'd been promised was nothing but some muddy trails and a few wooden buildings. There was nowhere for them to stay, there wasn't even a dock for the boat to pull up to. They instead beached the steamer on a sandbar and waded to shore carrying all their belongings.

Despite being told by the investment company to be patient, most of the immigrants left within a few months. To them, the promise of a better life turned out to be a con. Many of the colonists traveled to big, well-established cities. Some departed and went back to their homeland and others stayed and actually made Sarasota work for them.

The truth is, marketing the sunshine state has taken place for more than a century. The economy grew on a mixture of agriculture and tourism. While many settlers benefited from planting and harvesting crops and seafood, others began running small hotels and winter headquarters for well-to-do globe trotters and adventure seekers.

In 1884, William Drysdale, a correspondent for the New York Sunday Times, wrote of a trip he took up the Manatee River called "Among the Alligators," while staying at the Palma Sola Hotel, which was owned and operated by Warburton Warner and his wife. The escapade is very Hemmingway-like with descriptions of characters from the hotel and details of how the group hunted and fished for sport while site seeing along the way.

While leisure travel was limited to only the wealthiest families in the late 1800s and early 1900s, affordable automobiles changed what vacations looked like for middle-class Americans. By the late 1910s, tin can tourists began arriving from all over the country, driving to the sunshine state and staying in campers in mobile home parks.

To further promote the area as a tourist destination, St. Petersburg became the first city to hire a publicist in the entire United States. John Lodwick was hired in 1919 for the sole purpose of bringing residents to Florida and promoting the state as a tourist destination, according to the video "How Florida Sold the Sunshine State" by the Tampa Bay Times.

Postcards and ads from the 1920s promoted the area as one of relaxation. However, Lodwick took that a step further. He got the city mentioned in headlines across the nation by creating a fake scandal about controversial bathing suits. He leaked that a Purity League was expressing outrage over the scantily dressed beachgoers and demanding the city hire a bathing suit inspector. Despite the Purity League being a complete fabrication, the story caught wind with versions showing up in some of the country's most well-known newspapers. The mayor even played along, measuring bathing suits with a ruler on public beaches as reporters snapped photos.

Lodwick's plan worked and he was a valued employee. While law enforcement, firemen, and other essential workers were laid off during The Great Depression, Lodwick retained his position with only a pay cut. He worked for the city until his death in the 1940s.

Today, the state practically sells itself with the many theme parks, beaches, hotels, and restaurants, but getting to that point took some, err, we'll say creativity on the part of visionaries who made it all happen.