Back in 1990, the riverboat, Grand Romance, was cruising the St Johns River from Sanford all the way to Jacksonville, with an overnight Holiday Inn stop to enjoy the night life in Palatka.
It had decorative smokestacks which folded down when the boat went under fixed bridges on the river. It cost $2,650,000. Top speed was 8 knots
Holiday Inn? Palatka? Nowadays your spell checker doesn't recognize that town.
A Guide to Florida's St. Johns River was handed out to passengers during the first few years of operation. It includes a brief history of Sanford and then has a series of maps of the river going to Jacksonville, which is shown as 142 miles away.
Several things pointed out on Lake Monroe are no more.
The Florida Power plant that was across the lake between Enterprise and Stone Island.
On Stone Island three 4000 year old Timucuan skeletons encased in clay marl were found along the shore.
Old oil docks of the Standard Oil Company
The Lake Monroe Inn, now the site of some apartments.
Eaton Grove, which is now under Interstate 4 on the Volusia side, where it was said a single tree bore 10,000 oranges.
Continuing on that side, past the bridges and the Florida Power and Light plant was Barwick Farm, with one of the only remaining shell mounds on the river out of 40 that were described in an 1875 book about the subject.
Marker 102 parallels Fort Florida. The name goes back to 1836 when a depot instead of a fort was established there. Later, during the Civil War, a chain or cable was strung across the river at Fort Florida to impede Union gunboat flotillas. It worked well.
The brochure goes on to detail the rest of the river up to Jacksonville. The part mentioned here, hopefully, is of interest to those in our locality.
