MY PICTURE TODAY IS ANOTHER FUN PLACE IN SANFORD, FL.:  http://www.galleryonfirst.com/  another place I stopped by for a look at the latest:

211 East First Street
Sanford, Florida 32771

Hours: Monday by appointment                                                                   Tuesday – Saturday 10am – 6pm                                                                   Sunday 12 – 5pm

GALLERY on FIRST is a unique gallery and working space for professional and emerging artists that invites the public inside the artistic process through shows, events, education and conversations with working artists.

 

I continue my journey through the back roads and small towns of Florida with:

MT. PLYMOUTH:  This is one of those boom towns that busted.  It was once located approximately where County Road 435 meets SR 46.

Now I must start out to advise that most people don’t know much about this town:  In the 20 or more books I have on Florida only one BEST BACKROADS OF FLORIDA (Waitley) has anything at all.

Mt. Plymouth  got its name from the slight rise that geologists termed the Mount Dora Ridge which extends from near the Georgia border and south where it becomes the Lake Wales Ridge—at one time in pre-history this ridge was the only part of Florida above water.

The town was founded during the 1920’s boom with  plans for  golf courses, ritzy homes, an upscale business center and an executive airport.

The ..Mount Plymouth Hotel, built in 1926 at the cost of $350,000.00, was the centerpiece of a golfing resort for the area…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Plymouth,_Florida  Though the original plan was for four courses only one was built before Florida went into the depression a few years (1927) before the rest of the country.  

Connie Mack brought his Philadelphia Athletics here for spring training.  Babe Ruth and  singer Kate Smith (who made “God Bless America” a big inspirational hit during World War II)  were visitors who were able to utilize the hotel’s airfield for arrival.

But the big celebrity/criminal (your choice) who came here was Al Capone.  Capone was reported to have brought his girlfriends to the hotel. He and several New York and Chicago gangsters were believed to have used it as a hideaway.  https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#safe=off&q=mt.+plymouth+florida

Capone who reportedly was a frequent visitor, with several stays at the hotel, enjoyed the steam room a lot but word is that he insisted on a bullet proof door and direct phone lines to his body guards.  The price of being Number 1?

 

ANOTHER FUN BLOG BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE DRAGON’S LAIR STORE—CHECK IT OUT ABOVE  AND CHECK OUT SOME GANGSTER COLLECTIBLES BELOW:

Scarface Al Capone Photo With 1947 Illinois License $75.00

 

Vintage Rolling Stones Bigger Bang Tour Al Capone Shirt   $149.99

Scarface Mob Al Capone 1959 Original Uk Movie   $204.99

 

In 1959, Florida Central Academy occupied the building and grounds of the 150 room Hotel. Originally, a boy’s boarding school, in 1971 the Academy began accepting girls. The school remained operational until June 1983. The building, condemned by county health officials, quickly became the target of vandals. In 1986 and 1987, fire destroyed the building.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Plymouth,_Florida

SR 435 goes past the golf course, but the old luxurious club house was burned to the ground by persons unknown and has been replaced by a much more modest building:  “hardly larger than a cady shack…” (Waitley).

Today Mount Plymouth is a census-designated place (CDP) in Lake County…. As of the 2010 census, the CDP population was 4,011. It is part of the Orlando–Kissimmee Metropolitan Statistical Area.

You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.—Al Capone