Don't Get Mad Chokoloskee, Get Even.

Chokoloskee, FL by focusontheeverglades.com

 The summer is getting away from me. I've spent a week in my friend Teresa's 'cabin' (3X the size of my house) just outside Yosemite, and another at a friend's cabin in Mammoth Lakes. If you think I've been sitting on the decks with my feet on the railing, think again. I've been writing and rewriting the book for Scholastic. Then this morning, a friend sent me this article by Scott McIntyre for The New York Times.

Smallwood's Store in Chokoloskee, FL

The book I've written for Scholastic is about a dolphin. The first book I wrote, thirty some odd years ago, was also about a dolphin. Smallwood's Store played a huge part in Dolphin Sky. The last scene took place there. If you haven't read Dolphin Sky (now out of print and only available on Kindle) but the Smallwood Store sounds familiar to you, it might be because Peter Matthiessen's Killing Mister Watson took place there. My husband was their accountant. Iris Smallwood was a friend, and became one of my favorite characters in the book. I have ties. Strong ties.

Here's the quote from the Times story:

"Most famously, it was the spot where, on Oct. 24, 1910, Edgar Watson, an outlaw and fearsome sugar cane plantation owner with a reputation for killing instead of paying his workers, was gunned down by a group of fed-up residents. The shootout was richly told by the writer Peter Matthiessen in “Killing Mister Watson,” the first part of an award-winning trilogy about the man."

Ted Smallwood

Smallwood Store by floridafringetourism.com

“Smallwood Store is the last of its kind; there should be a little more public respect for it,” said J. Robert Houghtaling, a Florida musician who wrote a song about the fight. “We don’t want to read about what it used to be like after it’s gone.”