Between 1946 and 1963, St. Petersburg was the quintessential Sunbelt city experiencing a post-World War II boom and wrestling with the problems that accompanied rapid growth. The city's old-school techniques of promotion expanded the population from about 60,000 to more than 180,000 in eighteen years. The city developed a split personality--it aimed to be modern but retained a dated, rustic appearance. Follow St. Petersburg author and journalist Jon Wilson as he details how the city coped with relative isolation, an aging business district and cultural changes brought about by the coming of integration, the emergence of rock-and-roll, cookie-cutter subdivisions and the still-novel medium of television.

Memphis had its Beale Street, Atlanta its Sweet Auburn, and St. Petersburg its 22nd Street South, nicknamed “The Deuces.” It was  the business and entertainment heart of St. Petersburg’s Black community during the segregation era. Rosalie Peck is co-author.

The people who helped build St. Petersburg lived in segregated neighborhoods during the Jim Crow era: the residential community along 22nd Street South, the Gas Plant area (now the site of Tropicana Field), Methodist Town on the city’s near north side, and Pepper Town, the original African American community situated just east of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street along Third and Fourth Avenues South. Rosalie Peck is co-author.

Cracker Westerns are rip-roarin, action-packed, can't-put-'em-down tales set in the frontier days of Florida. They are full of adventure, real heroes, and vivid, authentic details that bring Florida's history to life.

Tom Bridger, the handsome, cocky son of a wealthy New York businessman, has come down in 1885 to find his long-lost uncle and a hidden treasure. When he arrives in Jacksonville, he finds a rough-and-ready port town where he quickly learns a man is only as good as his fists. Though he's a city slicker who loves a game of chess and looks like an easy mark for the desperate men lurking in the shadows, Tom's also a trained boxer, lightning quick with his hands and afraid of no one. He heads west across Florida's wild frontier on the trail of the treasure, first on a riverboat to Palatka, then on a train to Ocala and Brooksville. His quick temper brings several brushes with death, including gator-filled swamps and a footrace with a stagecoach. There are villains aplenty: the wooden-legged Elijah Dicken, the slick but mysterious Mr. Satin, and the rough DeBell clan. But Bridger also finds friends in Cheese Joseph, Archie Hankins, and the lovely and feisty Miss Lily. And he finds much more than he bargained for on the deserted peninsula west of Tampa. Back in New York, his uncle Mike had trained young Tom in the art of boxing, and it all comes down to a match (London rules, i.e., no gloves) at the Point of Pines between young Tom Bridger and Bongo Jones, the Key West Slasher. The story opens with a spectacular shipwreck, and the ending tops that with the big fistfight, a riot, a death, and a surprise.