SUMTER COUNTY, FLORIDA

 

Sumter County is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population is 129,752. It has the oldest median age (68.3 years) of any US county and the highest percentage of residents aged 65 and older—at 55.6% in 2014-2018. Sumter County was created in 1853. It was named for General Thomas Sumter, a general in the American Revolutionary War. The county in the past, and to this day by some, is nicknamed "Hog County" most likely because it is home to a large population of wild hogs.

CHRISTMAS, FLORIDA

 

FLORIDA WEATHER EXTREMES

Element	Value	Date	Location
Maximum Temperature	109°	June 29, 1931	Monticello
Minimum Temperature	-2°	February 13, 1899	Tallahassee
24-Hour Precipitation*	23.28 in.	November 11-12, 1980	Key West
24-Hour Snowfall	4 in.	March 6, 1954	Milton
Snow Depth	4 in.	March 6, 1954	Milton

*The reported extreme of 38.70 inches at Yankeetown on September 5, 1950 is an estimated depth of rainfall calculated as part of a post-storm survey of Hurricane Easy (Cedar Keys Hurricane). Value has historically been considered reasonably accurate (and even an underestimate of actual rain fall), but an estimate cannot be considered an official observation from a reliable precipitation gauge.

Source: NOAA

PEGASUS AND DRAGON

Pegasus and Dragon is a 100-foot tall statue of Pegasus defeating a dragon in Gulfstream Park, Hallandale Beach, Florida. It is the third-tallest statue in the United States*.  It is also the world’s largest and tallest equine and European dragon statue. The Pegasus is poised with its front hoof on the neck of the dragon, which lies prostrate far below the level of the equine. The statue complex is 200 feet in length and 115 feet in width. Pegasus is made of 330 tons of steel and 132 tons of bronze. The dragon is made of 110 tons of steel and 132 tons of bronze. At night the statue is home to a fountain show featuring 13 musical pieces, 350 fog nozzles, 116 water nozzles, special LED lighting and dragon breathing fire 20 feet during the show. *Wikipedia lists Birth of the New World in Puerto Rico as tallest statue in the U.S. and the Statue of Liberty as the second tallest.

DOAK S. CAMPBELL STADIUM AT FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

Doak S. Campbell Stadium is a football stadium on the campus of Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. It is the home field of the Florida State Seminoles football team of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Opened in 1950, it was named Doak Campbell Stadium in honor of Doak S. Campbell, the university’s president from 1941 to 1957. With a stadium capacity of 79,560, it is the largest continuous brick structure in the United States.

Entrance to Doak S. Campbell Stadium

TELEPHONE AREA CODE 3-2-1

Area code 312 was the original area code assigned to the Chicago metropolitan area. It remains today as the area code for downtown Chicago. When area codes were initially assigned under the North American Numbering Plan (NANP), area code 321 was reserved for future use in the Chicago area. In 1999, the 407-area code in central Florida was to be split with the east coast (Space Coast) to be assigned a new area code. A local resident by the name of Robert Osband launched (pun intended) a drive to have 3-2-1 assigned as the new area code. The code refers to the countdown sequence for spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral. Osband’s efforts were successful and 321 was activated for the Space Coast in 2000. When it was activated in 2000, area code 321 was used as an overlay for most of area code 407 in the Orlando area. (An overlay is a telephone numbering plan that assigns multiple area codes to a geographic numbering plan area (NPA)). 321 is the only area code in North America that is the overlay of one area code and the sole area code elsewhere. 10-digit dialing* is mandatory in both areas.

*Your humble blogger happened to live in central Florida when 10-digit dialing became mandatory. For those of you not familiar with 10-digit dialing, this meant that you had to dial the area code for all calls. For example, if I wanted to call my next-door neighbor, who also had an area code of 407, I still had to dial the area code + the telephone number (10-digits). As an aside, it quickly became routine to dial 10 numbers every time you made a call. So much so, that when I moved from area code 407 and no longer had to do 10-digit dialing, it became a difficult habit to break.

NORTHERNMOST AND SOUTHERNMOST POINTS IN THE CONTIGUOUS U.S.

Corner of South Street and Whitehead Street in Key West, FL

The northernmost marker is located at Young’s Bay Resort in the community of Angle Inlet, MN.*

*For further information on Angle Inlet click here

FORT JEFFERSON

Fort Jefferson is a massive but unfinished coastal fortress. It is the largest brick masonry structure in the Americas and is composed of over 16 million bricks*. The building covers 16 acres. Among United States forts, only Fort Monroe in Virginia and Fort Adams in Rhode Island are larger. The fort is located on Garden Key in the lower Florida Keys within the Dry Tortugas National Park, 68 miles west of the island of Key West. The Dry Tortugas are part of Monroe County, Florida.

 *That’s a lot of bricks. The Big Stack (see post dated January 12, 2018) has 2,464,652 bricks. (JKS)

FORT JEFFERSON, DRY TORTUGAS

THE MOST DANGEROUS U.S. STATES FOR PEDESTRIANS

Florida is the most dangerous state for pedestrians.

You will find more infographics at Statista

PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA, CHICAGO AND THE PANAMA CANAL (HOW PANAMA CITY GOT ITS NAME)

A straight line from Chicago passes through Panama City, Florida and continues on to the Panama Canal.

The development in this once unincorporated part of Northwest Florida had previous names such as Floriopolis, Park Resort, and Harrison. In 1906, the development was named Panama City and it was first incorporated as Panama City in 1909. According to the Panama City Public Library's A History of Panama City, George Mortimer West hoped to spur real estate development in Bay County during a period of intense popular interest in the construction of the Panama Canal by changing the town's name from Harrison to Panama City, because a straight line between Chicago and the capital of the Central American country of Panama intersected the Florida town. Additionally, since required meanders around land formations in a seaborne route to the canal added distance when starting at other ports, Panama City was the closest developed port in the US mainland to the Caribbean entrance of the Panama Canal.

CLIMATE-WEATHER TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA COLDER THAN KETCHIKAN, ALASKA

Ketchikan has a climate greatly modified and moderated by its maritime location, featuring an oceanic climate which is likened to Scotland or Northern Ireland, though with much more rain.

The climates is so moderated that the record low temperature of -2 degrees in Tallahassee, FL is lower than the record low temperature of -1 in Ketchikan.

BROOKSVILLE, FLORIDA

Brooksville was named in 1856 to honor Preston Brooks, a Democratic congressman from South Carolina. Brooks was an extreme advocate of chattel slavery. In 1856, Massachusetts senator and staunch abolitionist Charles Sumner gave an impassioned speech condemning slavery, in which he insulted Brooks’ relative, Senator Andrew Butler. In response, Brooks attacked Sumner with a cane on the floor of the Senate, severely injuring him; Brooks did not stop until physically restrained by others.

U.S. COUNTIES IN MORE THAN ONE TIME ZONE

COUNTY	TIME ZONE	TIME ZONE	COMMENTS
Cherry County, Nebraska	Central Time	Mountain Time	Eastern third, including county seat of Valentine is in the Central Time Zone. Western two-thirds are in the Mountain Time Zone.
Elko County, Nevada	Pacific Time	Mountain Time	West Wendover is in the Mountain Time Zone. Other cities “unofficially” observe Mountain Time due to proximity and economic ties to neighboring Idaho.
Gulf County, Florida	Eastern	Central	Split by the Intracoastal Waterway.
Idaho County, Idaho	Pacific	Mountain	Time zones are divided by the Salmon River. Most of the county is in the Pacific Time Zone, but those areas south of the Salmon River are in the Mountain Time Zone
Malheur County, Oregon	Mountain	Pacific	Most of the county is in the Mountain Time Zone, but a small portion in the south is in the Pacific Time Zone.

TIME ZONES

If person A is in Pensacola, FL and wants to call person B who is Ontario (Malheur County), Oregon, there is only a one hour time difference, despite the fact that Florida borders the Atlantic Ocean and Oregon borders the Pacific Ocean.

CAN YOU BE IN 5 DIFFERENT U.S. COUNTIES SIMULTANEOUSLY?

The 5 Florida counties of Glades, Okeechobee, Martin, Palm Beach and Hendry all meet at a point near the center of Lake Okeechobee. You would need to be in a boat to do so, but you could be in all 5 counties simultaneously. There is no other spot in the U.S. where this occurs.