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One of Florida’s most endangered river systems, the Apalachicola, comes alive through stories of its people in this new book.  Published on behalf of the Northwest Florida Water Management District by the University Press of Florida, the book collects 36 oral histories from people who made their livelihoods along the river and bay. They narrate changes to the river system over the last century when cars, bridges, pavement and electricity brought more changes than during any other period in history.  Interviews include subjects from Jackson, Gadsden, Calhoun, Liberty, Franklin, Gulf and Bay counties. They encompass the last steamboat pilot, sharecroppers who escaped servitude, turpentine workers in Tate’s Hell, sawyers of old growth cypress, beekeepers working the last large tupelo stand, the first black mayor of Apalachicola and a Creek chief descended from a 200-year unbroken line of chiefs.

Voices of the Apalachicola, compiled and edit by Faith Eidse, 2006. (Adobe Acrobat format)

Printed copies of the book are available from the University Press of Florida.