Robert Buccellato - Presidential Vacations in Florida

F OREWORD

Some of my favorite pictures of Harry Truman were taken while he was vacationing in Key West. To see him in a Hawaiian shirt, invariably smiling broadly, one can feel the relaxation radiating from the images, offering us, in our current troubled times, a tonic from a bygone era. When Truman visited Florida, he seemed unworried by the enormous responsibilities pressing down upon him.

When the oil magnate Henry Flagler began laying railroad tracks up and down Florida around the turn of the 20th century, he only hoped to attract guests to his resort hotels. But those tracks laid the foundation for what would become the states most lucrative industry: tourism.

President Taft was an early tourist, riding Flaglers rails from Key West on his way back to Washington after visiting Panama in December 1912. Back in Grandview, Missouri, that December, Harry Truman was 28 years old, single, and living with his parents on their farm, undoubtedly preparing for the long winter to come. Did the young Truman read about Tafts trip in the Kansas City Star? Almost certainly. Did he ever imagine that he, as president of the United States, would also visit Key West one day? Probably not.

Florida, of course, has become a presidential election swing state, the winner of its electoral college votes earning an easier path to the White House. So the presidents keep coming to soak up not only the sunshine, but hopefully, a few votes as well.

Some presidents have seemed more comfortable by the sea than others. Kennedy, of course, was nautically inclined. Nixon, who never felt comfortable in anything but a business suit, was not exactly a beach bum, though he accepted the 1968 presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach.

In a way, Florida has revealed something about the personalities of our presidents. I think again of Truman, a farm boy from Missouri, who found, somewhat incongruously, solace by the sea. Even long after his presidency had ended, until the final years of his life, he kept returning to Key West.

Robert Buccellato has assembled an extraordinary collection of photographs revealing various aspects of the presidency as it relates to Florida. The development of Florida since Henry Flagler built his railroad corresponds with the growth of the American presidency into an institution with prestige and power unparalleled in history. Enjoy these images of people and places important not only to the state of Florida, but to all our United States.

Matthew Algeo