It was "Ding" Darling's legacy, that he fought for conservation of Sanibel and Captiva, and had a major role in the establishment of The Sanibel Wildlife Refuge in 1945. He literally stood in the way of some of the construction plans for that land, but the small successes were not enough to satisfy his desire to save unspoiled Florida. He sold his property and moved away, but came back for visits.
He discovered that across the United States, commercial fertilizers and pesticides were wreaking havoc on the environment and conservation was a "dirty word". In the 1950's everything in the United States was about progress and "keeping up with the Jones'". Commercialism was touted as a very good thing, because new cars and new homes meant new roads and new furniture and modern appliances. And that all translated to new jobs and new prosperity for families that fought the Great Depression and the returning soldiers who fought Nazis, Fascism and Imperialism and soon after, North Koreans.
(Marjorie Stoneman Douglass remarked that many soldiers who came to Florida for training before going over to fight in WWII, fell in love with Florida and became part of the population surge in the late forties and the fifties, wanting to raise families in "Paradise". She also lamented the increased tourism, but pointed out that began with a boom in the twenties, when she was a relocated Yankee, too.)
"Ding" Darling died in February, 1962, and soon after a Memorial Committee succeeded in renaming The Sanibel Wildlife Refuge in his honor, making it the very first time a wildlife refuge was named in an individual's honor. Stef had learned all of this from Mom and Dad who enjoyed Florida's environmental history.
Pelican Island in the Indian River Lagoon was the very first National Wildlife Refuge established in March of 1903 they liked to point out. A bronze statue of Game Warden, Paul Kroegle, has been on display in Sebastian, Florida since 1998, to commemorate his role in recognizing the importance of the island's attraction to so many species of nesting birds. Stef had enjoyed being the one to share with MYKA, the history of the Audubon Society in Florida, and to be the one to bring in some movie trivia.
"You are familiar with the old movie Wind Across the Everglades? It was filmed in the Everglades, in color, way back in 1958. The director Nicholas Ray actually had a melt-down on location. The cast actually does look very hot and sweaty. And speaking of hot, Gypsy Rose Lee was part of the cast! What a weird cast: Burl Ives plays a no good called "Cottonmouth" and he is into the plumage trade, and Christopher Plummer plays the ornithologist tracking him down. This was way before The Sound of Music and Christopher Plummer joins in singing as he drinks down more and more booze, and it's not "Edelweiss". Emmett Kelly the famous clown, and Peter Falk, before he was Columbo, and Totch Brown before he did the environmental films about the Ten Thousand Island area near Chokoloskee, (near Marco Island, for you elite travelers). This film gets really down and dirty, going through the Everglade Swamp. Oh, and the writer of this story is Sumner Williams who also is an actor in the movie playing "Windy", I suppose because Wind Across the Everglades was the title he gave his work. He was the nephew of the director Nicholas Ray who had the melt-down, but produced several good movies with all-star casts and retired to Lakeland, Florida where he died back in 1994. Lots of movies were made in Florida. Tarzan movies and The Creature from the Black Lagoon were made up in Silver Springs."
YOU ARE READING
Stealth Journeys with the Steam Mapper
AdventureA 2019 Wattys entry deeply into climate change, global warming, and environmental destruction, especially the nuclear kind! A lot of true facts are embedded in this story which has both true and fictional characters. Who is to be believed is for y...
