Selling Vero Beach

Separating “Old Florida” myths from realitiesin a tourist haven with a deep Indigenous past

Themes of unspoiled paradise tamed byprogress can be seen in stories about pioneer history across the United States,especially in Florida. Selling Vero Beach explores how settlers fromnorthern states created myths about the Indian River area on Florida’s AtlanticCoast, importing ideas about the region’s Indigenous peoples and marketing theland as an idyllic, fertile place of possibilities.

In this book, Kristalyn Shefvelanddescribes how in the Gilded Age, Indian River Farms Company and other boosterspainted the region as a wild frontier, conveniently accessible by train viaHenry Flagler’s East Coast Railway. Shefveland provides an overview of local Aísand Seminole histories that were rewritten by salespeople, illustrates howagricultural companies used Native peoples as motifs on their fruit products, andincludes never-before-published letters between Vero Beach entrepreneur Waldo Sextonand writer Zora Neale Hurston that highlight Sexton’s interest in story-spinningand sales.

Selling Vero Beach unpacks real and fabricated pasts, showing how the settler memoryof Florida distorted or erased the fascinating actual history of the region. Witha wide variety of stories invented to lure investors and tourists, many ofwhich circulate to this day in a place that remains a top vacation destination,Vero Beach is an intriguing example of why and how certain pasts were concoctedto sell Florida land and products.

A volume in the series Florida in Focus,edited by Andrew K. Frank