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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The Leesburg Fire Bell

This 400 pound bronze bell was purchased by the Leesburg Fire Department in 1880 from the Buckeye Foundry in Ohio and it was mounted in the bell tower of the fire house. It now has a place of honor at the current fire station on the corner of Magnolia and Canal Streets and it has a lanyard for anyone to ring – it has a nice tone.

The Leesburg Fire Department had its roots in the 1860's when volunteers formed bucket brigades.The photo shows the crew with a new fire truck in 1918.

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Belleview Grotto

I was riding up to Belleview to see Lake Lilian and the Belleview Grotto which I'd read about. To the east of Rte 441 in the older part of town the homes have been kept up and it is a pretty area close to Lake Lilian. Not the impression of Belleview you get when passing through on the highway.

 

A waterhole known as the Grotto provided Belleview with water for many years and it was once a natural wonder the city used in its promotional material. A pump at the top of the Grotto pumped water directly out of a spring fed by the Floridian aquifer to residents. Occasionally, heavy rains would wash the pump into the spring, leaving the town without water until another pump was installed. Since then the water supply has been replaced.
Today, the Grotto, in reality a deep sink hole is protected from intruders by a fence.

 

Climbing up on the fence and holding my camera as high as possible I managed to get this picture where you can see water at the bottom of the hole. I chatted to an elderly lady who was passing and she said when the water was flowing in the grotto you could still hear it if you were close by. She told me that the Seminole chief Osceola was believed to have hidden in the grotto and local caves during the Seminole Wars (circa 1830). She knew this to be true because she and Osceola had had a torrid affair. Then she laughed her ass off. You had to be there!

 

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