[FHStoday] TODAY IN FLORIDA HISTORY FOR DECEMBER 17

[Nick Wynne]

TODAY IN FLORIDA HISTORY
DECEMBER 17
1840            Fighting continued in the Everglades as units of the 
American Army under Major Fauntleroy continued their pursuit of Seminole 
warriors.

1861            The Florida Legislature appropriated $10,000 for the 
purchase of cloth to be given to patriotic women's societies to manufacture 
uniforms.

1861            The Legislature authorized the City of Pensacola to print 
$25,000, to be issued in small bills, for which the city's resources would 
pledged to redeem.

1861            The Legislature, meeting since November 18, adjourned today.

1863            The U.S. bark, the Roebuck, reported the capture today of 
the British blockade runner, Ringdove, and its five-man crew off the Indian 
River Inlet.

1897            The town of LaCrosse was incorporated today.

1897            Steamship service from Miami to Nassau and Cuba was 
inaugurated today by Henry M. Flagler.

1928            Doyle Edward Conner, the seventh Commissioner of 
Agriculture of the State of Florida, was born in Starke.  Conner was 
elected to the House of Representatives in 1950, while he was a sophomore 
at the University of Florida.  He was only 21 years old at the 
time.  Conner was subsequently re-elected for four more terms, and in 1957, 
served as the Speaker of the House at age 28.  He was elected Commissioner 
of Agriculture in 1960.

1957            The United States succcessfully launched the Atlas ICBM 
today on a 500-mile flight from Cape Canaveral.

1981            Leah Aleice Simms was appointed County Judge of Dade County 
by Governor Bob Graham today.  She was the first African-American woman to 
hold a judgeship in Florida.  Judge Simms was educated at Howard University 
and the Willamette University School of Law.