Archaeological and Historical Conservancy

By: Cathy Guerra | August 14, 2018 The Deering Estate Foundation’s award-winning film On This Land, The Charles Deering Estate will be featured during a Lunch and Learn event at the Coral Gables Art Cinema on Tuesday, Aug. 28, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. The event is sponsored by the Coral Gables Chamber of Commerce in partnership with the Junior League of Miami, Coral Gables Museum and Deering Estate Foundation. A panel discussion will include historian Arva Moore Parks and archaeologist Bob Carr who appear in the film. On This Land, The Charles Deering Estate was written by author and preservationist Becky Roper Matkov and produced and directed by Carl Kesser of Kesser Post Production. Research involved trips to Chicago, Sarasota and Sitges, Spain and interviews with historians, archaeologists, a former Florida governor and descendants of Charles Deering. The new documentary was created as a project of the 100 Ladies of Deering, a philanthropic circle of the nonprofit De...

The Cuban missile crisis celebrated its 50th anniversary on November 20, 2012. For two days preceding the anniversary a reunion was held of veterans of the four Nike Hercules missile bases constructed in south Florida to counter the Russian nukes in Cuba. The main event was a tour of Section C, a base built on an agricultural holdout in Everglades National Park known as the Hole in the Donut. The hole was finally absorbed into the park, and through the efforts of one veteran, Charles Carter, the base was preserved as a historic site and listed in the National Register of Historic Places, with park rangers assigned to interpret it. AHC staff Bob Carr and Tim Harrington became acquainted with Carter while working on The Everglades , a cultural history of the park recently published by Arcadia. Carter offered the use of his archive of photographs for the last chapter in the book which concludes with the Cold War era. He also invited the authors to attend the reunion as his guests, from wh...

The Everglades Robert S. Carr, Timothy A. Harrington Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Library Editions Paperback ISBN: 978-0-7385-9127-8 Pubdate: 3/12/2012 Details: 128 pages, 6.7 x 9.6 inches Paperback: $ 20.00 ( contact ) "A must read book for history of the Florida Everglades." --Amazon. The Everglades once blanketed a quarter of Florida. Stretching from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay, its saw grass prairies, mangrove swamps, and hammocks were home to a profusion of animals, plants, and prehistoric Native Americans, as well as Seminoles, Miccosukees, and Gladesmen of historic times. In 1904, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward ran for Florida governor with the political platform of creating farmland by dredging the Everglades and spilling its water into the ocean. By 1914, this spectacular natural feature was on the verge of destruction, and environmentalist May Mann Jennings led a grassroots movement to preserve Royal Palm Hammock. In the 1930s, Ernest Coe a...

Digging Miami Robert S. Carr Hardcover ISBN 13: 978-0-8130-4206-0 Pubdate: 9/30/2012  Details: 320 pages, 6.125 x 9.25 Hardcover: $ 25.00 ( contact ) "A wonderful, moving narrative of the archaeology of greater Miami."--Paul George, editor of Tequesta "Amazing. In spite of the intense urban development of Southeast Florida, valuable archaeological contexts are still present and continually being discovered."--Randolph Widmer, University of Houston The pace of change of Miami since its incorporation in 1896 is staggering. The seaside land that once was home to several thousand Tequesta is now congested with roads and millions of people while skyscrapers and artificial lights dominate the landscape. Ironically, Miami's development both continually erases monuments and traces of indigenous people and historic pioneers yet also leads to the discovery of archaeological treasures that have lain undis...