1Jacksonville, Winter Filming Capital
Jacksonville, Florida was the winter filming capital of the early US movie industry but conservative residents objected, a mayor was elected on an anti-movie platform, and so the industry moved on to Southern California.
2. There are so many water-filled caves under Florida that divers can swim between sinkhole-created lakes, under highways, businesses, schools, and houses.
3. Building codes in South Florida require exterior doors to swing outwards because it offers better protection against hurricanes. It was enacted after Hurricane Andrew.
4. The Sugarloaf Key Bat Tower was built in the Florida Keys in 1929 and it was filled with bats to control the mosquito problem. The bats flew away, never to return, and the tower toppled after Hurricane Irma.
5. The Florida Department of Citrus, through a partnership with Marvel, created Captain Citrus in an effort to spread the nutritional message of orange juice in Florida classrooms.
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6Florida Man Phenomenon
The “Florida man” phenomenon exists because freedom of information laws in Florida make it easier for journalists to obtain information about arrests from the police than in other states.
7. The 1111 Lincoln Road Parking Garage in Miami Beach is described as having a “stunning” design and it has hosted weddings, wine tastings, and even dinner parties.
8. The Florida School for Boys was a reform school that was shut down in 2011 after it gained a reputation for abuse, beatings, rapes, torture, and even murder of students by staff. 50 unmarked and undocumented graves have been located on the property using radar.
9. The town of Lauderhill, Florida was supposed to present actor James Earl Jones with a plaque for their annual Martin Luther King celebration. The company in charge of making it printed the name "James Earl Ray" on it. James Earl Ray was the man who killed Martin Luther King.
10. The longest continuous sidewalk in the world is along Bayshore Boulevard in Tampa, Florida. It is 4.5 miles long.
11Osborne Reef
The Osborne Reef in Florida is a 36-acre artificial reef which was constructed entirely out of tires. The “reef” failed as no marine life was able to inhabit it. The site is currently an environmental disaster.
12. Lake Okeechobee, despite being Florida's largest freshwater lake and covering an area of 730 square miles, has an average depth of just 9 feet.
13. The state of Florida does not allow married couples to divorce while one of the partners is pregnant.
14. There is a bog in Florida that was an ancient burial pond and it contains human remains that were buried almost 2000 years before the first pyramids. The skeletal remains were preserved so well that researchers have managed to collect soft brain tissue from the skulls.
15. Murder rates in Miami, Florida were so high during the 1970s and 1980s that the Dade County Medical Examiner’s Office had to rent a refrigerated trailer from Burger King to handle the overflow of corpses.
16Gainesville Fried Chicken Ordinance
In 1961, the city of Gainesville in Florida established a city wide ordinance that to this day prohibits diners from eating fried chicken with anything other than their bare hands.
17. The Devil's Chair is a graveside bench in a cemetery in Cassadaga, Florida. According to local legend, an unopened beer left on the chair will be empty by morning. The Devil is sometimes said to appear to anyone bold enough to sit in the chair.
18. Chemical castration is mandatory in Florida and California for pedophiles convicted of their second offense.
19. If you draw a line directly south from Jacksonville, Florida, the entire continent of South America is east of that line.
20. One of the most dangerous trees in the world, the manchineel, is found in Florida and the Caribbean. Its sap is so poisonous and acidic that merest contact with human skin causes a breakout of blisters, and blindness can occur if it touches a person’s eyes.
21Orlando Disney World
Disney World in Orlando is its own city. It was built between two counties. Disney petitioned the Florida State legislature to let the company govern its own land, essentially making Disney World a separate city.
22. In 1987, the city of Hialeah in Florida passed an ordinance making it illegal to kill any animals in an attempt to curtail the practices of a Santeria church. This law however exempted slaughterhouses, pest control, and the feeding of live rabbits to greyhounds.
23. In the early 80s, The Mutiny Hotel in Miami was a cocaine-fueled hotspot in the city where CIA partied side by side with notorious drug traffickers, celebrities, and politicians.
24. In 2017, Florida officials had to bring in 2 Irula tribesmen from India to catch the invasive Burmese pythons in Florida. About 1000 hunters before them were able to catch just 106 snakes. The duo who were brought in caught 27 snakes in just 4 weeks, including a 16 feet long female.
25. Give Kids the World Village is a totally free resort in Kissimmee (Orlando) for children facing life-threatening illnesses and their families. It was founded by Henri Landwirth, a childhood Holocaust survivor.
