Outposts on the Gulf /

The struggle to make Apalachicola, Florida, a viable seaport and find some profitable use for its main barrier island is skillfully examined by Rogers in this book. Because St. George is off the coast of Apalachicola, their stories are told together. The founding of Apalachicola, its growth as port for the interior cotton plantations, and its Civil War blockade dominate the first four chapters of the book. Schemes of promoters, mainly William Lee Popham, to turn St. George Island into a summer resort and a center for the oyster industry provide the subject matter for the rest of the work. Rogers has done exhaustive original research in this first volume of his two-volume study of the Apalachicola-St. George area. In his attention to detail, his study meets the same high standards of scholarship as Bertram Groene's classic of Florida regional history, Ante-bellum Tallahassee (1971). A highly recommended historic portrait of Florida's Gulf Coast.-J. Jackson, Southeastern Louisiana University