The Great Depression and the New Deal in Florida

Florida's slump began when its economic bubble burst in 1926, and hurricanes in 1926 and 1928 and a 1929 fruit fly invasion deepened it, the Florida Department of State says (Florida Department of State).

The state history page says that when money and credit ran out in 1926, banks and investors abruptly stopped trusting the paper millionaires, and by 1929 Floridians had already grown used to economic hardship (Department of State). The National Weather Service Miami memorial page says damages from the September 1926 Great Miami Hurricane were estimated at $105 million in 1926 dollars (National Weather Service Miami).

Then came the fruit fly. The Mediterranean fruit fly reached Florida in 1929, and the state answered with a quarantine in which troops set up roadblocks and checkpoints to search vehicles for contraband citrus; Florida's citrus production was cut by about sixty percent (Department of State).

Last verified: October 18, 2026, from the Department of State period history, the Weather Service Miami storm record, and nine Division of Historical Resources markers, eight of them on New Deal projects, each opened and read on its own that day.

Governor David Sholtz, in office from 1933 to 1937, is described on a state historical marker as Florida's New Deal governor, who had aided the state's economic recovery (Florida Division of Historical Resources marker).

That marker, on the Tamiami Trail in Collier County, records a 1936 meeting. On February 22, 1936 Sholtz, members of his cabinet and a member of the Collier County Board of Commissioners went into the Everglades for a conference in a pine hammock attended by about 275 Seminoles, to discuss with Seminole leaders what government could do to assist them in those trying times (1936 Seminole Conference marker).

After a ceremonial welcome, Josie Billie and Corey Osceola spoke for the Seminoles, who appreciated the offer of aid but, fearing removal from the Everglades, replied Pohoan Checkish, which the marker translates as just leave us alone (1936 Seminole Conference marker).

State historical markers record the Works Progress Administration building schools, a gymnasium, a city hall, a fire house and a clubhouse in Florida, several with local labor and stone (Old Sopchoppy High School marker; Ormond Fire House marker).

In Carrabelle the WPA finished a city hall in 1938 that the marker calls state of the art for a town of its size, with the mayor's office, water department, police and jail on the first floor and the Justice of the Peace Court and City Commission meeting upstairs (Carrabelle marker). In Niceville a July 1936 hurricane destroyed the high school, and a WPA grant paid for a new building whose first class graduated in 1938 (Niceville marker).

At Sopchoppy the WPA used local labor in the 1930s to build the first limestone addition, two wings of seven classrooms and the auditorium; the school's walls of native limestone, mined about 12 miles north of town, are 18 to 20 inches thick (Sopchoppy marker). The Coral Gables Woman's Club, designed by H. George Fink and finished by the WPA in 1936, was built of oolitic limestone (coral rock) from a local quarry (Coral Gables Woman's Club marker). The Ormond Fire House, begun in 1935 with 52 local workers, is brick with a coquina veneer (Ormond Fire House marker).

The Tallahassee Country Club gave its course to the City of Tallahassee in 1935 on the condition that the city improve it, and that year the city won a WPA grant to expand it from 9 to 18 holes (Capital City Country Club marker).

Beyond the WPA, state markers record a Civilian Conservation Corps camp in the Panhandle and New Deal work at a federal Department of Agriculture experimental station in Hernando County (Niceville marker; Chinsegut Hill marker).

In 1933 Civilian Conservation Corps Company 1402 set up a temporary camp on the grounds of the Niceville school in Okaloosa County while its permanent camp was built across the highway (Niceville marker).

At Chinsegut Hill near Brooksville, the owners, Raymond and Margaret Robins, suffered severe losses in the national economic collapse and donated the estate to the federal government, working with the Department of Agriculture on an experimental station to benefit Florida farmers; New Deal workers improved the property and built two cabins in 1933 (Division of Historical Resources). The University of South Florida acquired the property in 1958 for use as a conference center (Chinsegut Hill marker).

Statewide park and highway figures for the CCC are not given here. The Florida State Parks pages that describe that work could not be read on October 18, 2026, so this guide reports only what the markers state.

The Florida Department of State links the period to a widening vote: women gained suffrage in 1920, Florida repealed its poll tax in 1937, and the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all-white primaries in 1944 (Florida Department of State).

The state history page says the 1937 repeal of the requirement that voters pay a poll tax gave poor African American and white Floridians a greater voice in government, and it describes state government as beginning to represent a larger share of its citizens in these years (Department of State). The 1944 court ruling ended a primary system that had limited the right of African Americans to vote, the page says (Department of State).

Several Florida WPA buildings still stand and are marked, some in public use and some on the National Register of Historic Places (Coral Gables Woman's Club marker; Ormond Fire House marker).

The Coral Gables Woman's Club at 1001 and 1009 East Ponce de Leon Boulevard joined the National Register in 1990, and one wing served as the first permanent location of the Library of Coral Gables (Coral Gables Woman's Club marker). The Ormond Fire House at 160 East Granada Boulevard served as a fire house and police station until 2006 and is both on the National Register and a City of Ormond Beach Historic Landmark (Ormond Fire House marker). Old Sopchoppy High School at 164 Yellow Jacket Avenue is on the National Register, and its restored Spanish mission style gym across the street hosts private, cultural and civic events (Sopchoppy marker).

Others found new uses. Archer's WPA gym, at 16671 Southwest 137th Avenue, reopened as the Archer Community Center in July 2011 after the city and volunteers rehabilitated it (Archer marker). Carrabelle's city hall at 106 Avenue B SE served for 70 years until city operations moved in 2008, and in 2002 it was renamed for Marvin N. Justiss, the brick mason who made its bricks and 62 pound concrete blocks (Carrabelle marker). The Tallahassee course at 1601 Golf Terrace Drive is on the Florida Historic Golf Trail (Capital City Country Club marker).