Tales of Old Florida: Long Key Nature Center
Once upon a time, long ago in Old Florida , there was a man named Robert Hoyt. Mr. Hoyt was a horticulturalist in Clearwater. He was also an organizing member of the Florida State Horticultural Society . That might seem dull to you, but I assure you that reading about the Wild Wild West of Horticulture in 1880s Florida is far from dull.* But I digress. Mr. Hoyt, in true Florida fashion, went on a trip to India and brought back with him two Bombax ceiba seedlings. Of the two, one survived, and he planted it across from his orange grove. Over time, the tree grew massive and became a curiosity that tourists visited in the 1940s. In the 1950's, a tourist from Maryland named Richard B. Baumgardner visited Clearwater with his family. Seeing how popular the tree was, he decided to purchase the land it was on (and the orchard) to build a 'destination restaurant' called The Kapok Tree Inn. It was as ostentatious, opulent, and gaudy as a restaurant-tourist trap in Old F