| WORKING FOR A LIVING: LAKELAND GOES TO WORK
| | | Dick Trawick works the soda fountain at Jewett's Drugstore, 1938. |
|
|
INTRODUCTION
|
Lakeland has from its beginning been a hard working blue collar community. Its earliest settlers came from among the railroad crews building railroad track between Tampa and Kissimmee. As the community has grown over the years, it has maintained the work ethic demonstrated by its first settlers. The work was in many cases backbreaking physical labor and included working in the phosphate pits, harvesting and packing citrus, drilling for water, digging ditches, and, during the Great Depression, harvesting Spanish moss for use in upholstery or as packing material.
During the Depression, Lakeland residents found work at drugstore soda fountains, Henley Field concession stands, the telephone company, the local newspaper and radio stations, at the local weather bureau, and in city government. The jobs were very different, as were the people who did them. But they all have a common thread: Lakelanders wanted to find work and worked hard at the jobs they found.
The small exhibit that follows shows the people of Lakeland Working for a Living.
|
|
