Apalachicola in Pictures

Beverly Mount-Douds daydreams about elegant tea parties hosted by "Sunshine" Gibson.

She envisions Minnie Barefield roaming the streets of Apalachicola, collecting rent money in her syrup bucket.

And she wishes she'd had the pleasure of meeting Margaret Key, a fellow author, historian and genealogist.

As the first edition of her photographic history book, Apalachicola, rolls off the presses, Mount-Douds can't stop thinking about the black and white images of Apalachicolians past.

"I feel like I know them," said Mount-Douds, flipping through her latest book, part of Arcadia's "Images of America" series.

"They've come to be like live people in mind because I've read so many stories. It brings them alive to me."

Mount-Douds, a Highland View resident, knew little about Apalachicola when she first began researching the historic city two years ago.

As a research assistant for a Florida State University project aimed at identifying historic landmarks for an online and print publication, Mount-Douds became intrigued by Apalachicola's rich history.

Having previously completed a photographic history of Gulf County and a chronicle of area lighthouse keepers, Mount-Douds knew she'd found her next project.

"A light bulb went off in my head," recalled Mount-Douds. "'Why not do one on Apalach?'"

In collecting historical photographs of Apalachicola, Mount-Douds found invaluable guides in Sweet Shoppe proprietor Dolores Roux and former librarian Ann Sizemore.

Roux introduced Mount-Douds to members of Apalachicola's prominent families and Sizemore made available the library's photographic collections.

After a year of collecting and cataloguing photographs, Mount-Douds organized her book into seven sections.

Chapters are devoted to people, industry, recreation, celebrations, the historic Chapman High School, homes and landmarks.

Regular attendees of the Florida Seafood Festival may be surprised to learn that the event began as a Mardi Gras festival around 1915.

The book's 1916 cover shot depicts a sharply dressed Homer Oliver driving Mardi Gras queen Genevieve Pierce and maid of honor Dorothy Sawyer in a 1915 Buick.

The festival evolved into the Harbor Day festival in the 1960s, then the Apalachicola Seafood Festival in the 1970s, and now the Florida Seafood Festival.

The seafood industry is well depicted in the book, with images of the Standard Fish and Oyster Company, Taranto's Seafood and the C.H. Lind Oyster and Fish House.

No book on Apalachicola is complete without its famous export, the oyster.

The book showcases the seafood festival's first oyster-shucking champion, Zora Lee Alford (50 oysters in 2 minutes, 48 seconds) and Edward Philyaw, slurping a raw one down at age 5.

Other images depict Apalachicola's once prominent sponge industry, steamboats sailing the Apalachicola River and the Coombs Lumber Company, one of the most successful sawmills of its day.

Sprinkled among prominent historical figures like botanist Dr. Alvan Wentworth Chapman, and ice machine inventor Dr. John Gorrie are lesser known figures like Barefield, a mixed-race woman with an interesting past.

Barefield's boyfriend, lumberman Charles Dobson, built her a stately home using the same blueprint as the historic Coombs house.

Though the census described Barefield as a boarding house owner, those in the know note that she operated "Minnie's Palace of Pleasures," a brothel.

In a poetic twist of fate, the brothel later became a convent for nuns with the Holy Family School. It was purchased and relocated to 11 mile by Eldon and Ruth Schoelles in the 1970s.

Mount-Douds most enjoyed researching the lives of former Apalachicola residents like Gibson, who operated the Gibson Inn with her sister, Annie and "had more clothes and outfits" than anyone Mount-Douds has ever seen.

In sorting through Key's collection of writings in the Apalachicola library, Mount-Douds felt a kinship with the former author and wife of novelist Alexander Key.

"She loved genealogy, she loved history and she loved collecting it, compiling it and sharing it with the world," said Mount-Douds, who gleaned many little-known facts by reading Key's marginal notes.

"You learn so much looking at her scribbles," she said.

Though she has completed her book, Mount-Douds said she is keeping her folders open.

She hopes to begin work on a photographic history of Franklin County in five years.

The project will allow her to research some of her unanswered questions, chiefly the identity of an African-American woman called "Aunt Bell."

Mount-Douds found what she described as a "classic" photograph of Bell in Key's collection. Lacking any further information, she did not include the image in her book.

"The picture of her sitting on that front porch with that scalloped lacing around the bonnet, it was so classic," said Mount-Douds. "It just spoke to me: 'Find my story, find out about me.'"

Just give her five years.

Upcoming Book Signings

Oct. 29 (5:30 p.m.) Coombs House Inn's Camellia Hall, hosted by Apalachicola Area Historical Society

Nov. 6-7 - Florida Seafood Festival

Nov. 14 (4-6 p.m.)Palm Tree Books, Port St. Joe

Nov. 21 (2-5 p.m.) Dolores' Sweet Shoppe, Apalachicola

Nov. 27 (5 p.m. – until) Raney House, Apalachicola

Nov. 30 (4-6 p.m.) Port St. Joe Public Library

Dec. 12 (1-3 p.m.) Downtown Books, Apalachicola

To pre-order Apalachicola, contact Beverly Mount Douds at 850-229-1094 or e-mail bmdouds2002@yahoo.com.