1Hampton Speed Trap
The city of Hampton in Florida annexed 1,260 feet of US Route 301 and used it to raise $211,328, earning it the reputation as a speed trap on a national level.
2. During the Great Depression, banker Mark Welch Munroe convinced struggling families in Quincy, Florida to buy Coca-Cola shares that traded at $19. Later, the town became the single richest town per capita in the US with at least 67 millionaires.
3. When it snowed for the first recorded time in Miami in 1977, a meteorologist initially thought it was a coke-drop that had gone wrong, until realizing that the flakes were snow.
4. There exists a space station of the sea, a permanent underwater laboratory (Aquarius) 3.5 miles off of the Florida Keys.
5. “The Villages” is an over-55 community in Florida which has recorded the highest consumption of draft beer as well as highest STD rate in the state.
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15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
6Florida Road Rangers
Florida Road Rangers will bring you gas if you run out. They also carry jumper cables, oil, radiator fluid, etc.
7. There is a bigfoot trap located in Jacksonville, USA. It was built in 1974 and was monitored and refilled daily for 6 years. No longer active, now it serves as a reminder that “there is still a mystery in the world.”
8. 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.
9. There are so many water-filled caves under Florida that divers can swim between sinkhole-created lakes, under highways, businesses, schools, and houses.
10. Building codes in South Florida require exterior doors to swing outwards because it offers better protection against hurricanes. It was enacted after Hurricane Andrew.
11Sugarloaf Key Bat Tower
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.
12. 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.
13. 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.
14. 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.
15. 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.
16Lauderhill's Biggest Blunder
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.
17. The longest continuous sidewalk in the world is along Bayshore Boulevard in Tampa, Florida. It is 4.5 miles long.
18. 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.
19. 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.
20. The state of Florida does not allow married couples to divorce while one of the partners is pregnant.
21Florida's Ancient Burial Bog
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.
22. 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.
23. 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.
24. 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.
25. Chemical castration is mandatory in Florida and California for pedophiles convicted of their second offense.
