Wallace and Grommet go to Belleview

On a cold day in December I don my ultrawarm Wallace and Grommet jacket and plan a short ride to explore Belleview. 

It is a town, like many others, which you drive through on the highway to get somewhere else and wonder why anyone would live there?

I ride around the older east side of the town to Lake Lilian Park and see the older kept up and renovated homes and the question is easily answered!

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The Withlacoochee River and Lake Panasoffkee

On a ride around Lake Panasoffkee I turned right off CR470 onto CR300 to see the Withlacoochee River at Carlson Landing. It is a pretty spot with a dam and a lock for recreation boats and the boat ramps make it a popular spot for kayakers and fishermen

In the late 1800s the steam paddle boat Sam Pyles could stop here to pick up or deliver freight on its way to Panasoffkee Junction at the south end of Lake Panasoffkee.

Continuing south on CR470 I stopped at Marsh Bend Park to see the Outlet River where the steamboats were able to enter Lake Panasoffkee and kayakers and fishermen still can.

 

By 1900 the water borne freight business could no longer compete with the railroads. In the picture of the Sam Pyles at Pansoffkee Junction you’ll see that low railroad bridges could somewhat hamper steam boat operations!

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Leesburg Moss Yard

Unloading moss at the Leesburg Moss Yard 1946 (photo: floridamemory.com)

 In Leesburg on 3rd St where I turned onto the bike trail there was a moss yard. Spanish moss was collected from trees and when cured went to furniture and upholstery companies or by train to Detroit where it was used in car seats.

 

Spanish moss is not actually a moss but an epiphyte, meaning it grows on other plants but is not parasitic. Native Americans weaved dried moss into clothing, and early white settlers braided it into ropes and netting and stuffed mattresses with it.

 

Curing the moss was known as ginning, the gray outer bark of the moss had to be removed by soaking it in water until it rotted away. The longer the moss soaked, the tougher and cleaner the inner fiber would become with the most valuable moss taking six months to cure. State officials in the 1950s estimated the overall value of the Florida moss crop to be about $500,000 per year but all this ended with the advent of synthetic materials.

 

 Boy delivering moss to Leesburg Moss Yard 1946 (photo: floridamemory.com)

 

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Tomato Hill Airport

Tomato Hill Airport Observation Tower

You've probably ridden up Tomato Hill and know that its summit is the highest point in Leesburg. What you probably don’t know is that it was also the site of Leesburg's first airport. In 1928 Fred Briles a WW1 aviation mechanic and the local Packard dealer cleared a strip of land on the east side of the road and bought an Ox-Winkle biplane. He said he had to gun the plane on the dirt but there was no trouble taking off if you could get to the top of the hill.

  

This is an Ox Winkle similar to Ed Briles’s powered by a Curtis V8 Ox engine. Piloted from the rear seat it carried two passengers in the front. In 1929 a flying circus came to the strip with two Wacos and a Ford Tri-motor and gave rides for 50 cents. Amelia Earhart is known to have flown in several times.

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A History of the Picciola Bridge in pictures

Most of you will have been over the Picciola Bridge which spans the Dead River and Lake Griffin on a ride out to the Methodist Camp on Picciola Island.

  Picciola Bridge 1953

(photo courtesy floridamemory.com)

 

Picciola Bridge 1953

(photo courtesy floridamemory.com)

 

Picciola Bridge 1955

(photo courtesy floridamemory.com)

 Picciola Bridge Today

 Picciola Bridge Today

 

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