Oddities
Only in Florida
There’s just something about the Sunshine State that attracts wackos, scam artists and other folks essential for a lively newspaper. The St. Pete Times digs out another example of Florida weirdness:
RIVER RANCH ACRES – Forty years ago, a large Florida land developer subdivided 44,800 acres of wilderness in Polk County into 11/4-acre lots and sold them to people all over the world, many with dreams of one day retiring here.
Hard-sell land peddlers solicited prospective property owners by phone or on the streets, from New Haven and New Orleans to Rome and Hong Kong. But the 70 square miles of land, a portion of it under water, was never developed. It was one of Florida’s great land scams.
Today, thousands of these land owners and their descendants still own a tiny piece of Florida, but with little benefit. For the past 25 years, the property has been controlled by a group of hunters and others intent on keeping it the way it always has been: a gated enclave with absolutely no government and few rules.
“I don’t know any place like it where you got this kind of freedom,” said Becky Surls, 62, a retired school bus driver from Okeechobee who has owned land inside River Ranch since 1984. She transported her grandmother’s cabin and rebuilt it about 4 miles inside the heart of the property. “And so far, we still got that freedom.”
Freedom to be weird, I suppose.
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Note the story mentions a book written by someone who supposedly inherited ‘land’ and tried to go build a cabin there. I read that book a few months back and it is really scary. This is a fascinating story.
You got that right. I own a piece of land in River Ranch which I purchased from the County Office in Bartow in the mid to late 90’s. I also had a camp set up out there once with a former dead beat boyfriend and one camp site on my own. Brave lady I was at the time. I cannot believe the recent land scams taking place on EBAY. Those people are being taken BIG TIME. I often wish I could find me a sucker like that to pay some BIG BUCKS for my land out there but so far haven’t tried. Some one needs to do something about what is NOW taking place. What a big scam. I haven’t read Covington’s book but I could only imagine. I could tell you some outraged story’s from my experience at RIVER RANCH. I don’t believe I could be involved out there anymore but it was an experience.