Reddit reviews Tales of Old Florida

Don't have a tl;dr but if you want to read what Florida was like when we were first settling it, this book is pretty good. It's old newspaper/magazine articles from late 1800s.

(Tip: if an article is boring, skip it; there's a lot of amazing articles but also some very tedious ones. IMO the front half has a lot of these boring bits... but what can you do.)

Oh, you mention old beach conditions. Do yourself a favor and buy this book…

http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Old-Florida-Frank-Oppel/dp/1555212255

It is a collection of stories about Florida from the late 1700s on. They are reprints from old magazines like Harper's and the New Yorker. It describes Brevard County beaches in the late 1800s. Many times fisherman would be over on the beach fishing or flipping turtles for food and they would be chased into the water by bears. That story cracking up. Apparently, bears is to be so common here that they were a nuisance. Also, the Indians described the Indian River Lagoon as being so thick with fish that you could walk across their backs to get to the other bank. It sounds like it would've been really cool place.