Editorial: Little known facts about Florida history

Did you know that not one Floridian voted for Abraham Lincoln in 1860? ​​​​​ Historic City News has collected some fun, little known facts about Florida history and we’d like to share them with you.

• In 1867, commissioned U.S. postal carriers treaded through 60 miles of sand between West Palm Beach and Miami to deliver letters and packages.

• Did you know that alligators and crocodiles don’t coexist anywhere else in the world except South Florida?

• Bessie Stringfield was the first black female motorcyclist to bike alone across the United States.  To avoid a citation during the Jim Crow era in Miami, she was asked by a cop to do bike tricks.

• The largest snowfall recorded in Florida was four inches on February 13, 1899, in Union County.

• About 3.48 million Canadians arrived in the Sunshine State last year, up from 3.35 million in 2016, which reverses three years of declining numbers from our neighbors to the North.

• Florida is home to the world’s most dangerous tree – the Manchineel tree. Sometimes knows as the “beach apple,” it’s found in the Everglades and on the Caribbean coast.

• Florida ranks third in the number of endangered or threatened species in the U.S. Hawaii is first.

• Fernandina Beach, the small North Florida town, was so filled with pirates, thieves and smugglers that President James Monroe called it a “festering fleshpot”.