"An eloquent memory of an entity that cannot speak for itself. Voices of the Apalachicola should be read and read again."--Gail Fishman, author of Journeys Through Paradise: Pioneering Naturalists in the Southeast (UPF)

"Candid history."--William W. Rogers, author of Outposts on the Gulf: Saint George Island and the Apalachicola from Early Exploration to World War II (UPF)

"The history of a big river is much like the water itself. Travel down it, and you'll find people and places sure to surprise and enlighten you. So it is with Voices of the Apalachicola. . . . History buffs, writers, researchers, biologists, and naturalists should find the book valuable."--Tallahassee Democrat

"Captures the uniqueness of the Apalachicola basin, the technology that has channeled the river’s promise, and the threats to its health."--Panama City News Herald

"With this book, you can vicariously experience one of America's longest and wildest continuous wetlands. . . . [A] fascinating set of oral histories."--Red Hills Writers Project

One of the main water resources for Florida, Alabama, and Georgia, the Apalachicola River begins where the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers meet at Lake Seminole and flow unimpeded for 106 miles, through the red hills and floodplains of the Florida panhandle into the Gulf of Mexico.

Voices of the Apalachicola is a collection of oral histories from more than thirty individuals who have lived out their entire lives in this region, including the last steamboat pilot on the river system, sharecroppers who escaped servitude, turpentine workers in Tate's Hell, sawyers of "old-as-Christ" cypress, beekeepers working the last large tupelo stand, and a Creek chief descended from a 200-year unbroken line of chiefs.

Faith Eidse is a public information specialist at the Northwest Florida Water Management District.

No Sample Chapter Available

Awards
Samuel Proctor Award - 2007

"The book tells the story of one of Florida's most famous rivers in human terms and language of the people whose pioneer families settled it and family members today still live down in the river's valley - This oral history tells it like it is or was!"
--The Current, of Talquin Electric Company, Inc.

"Fascinating set of oral histories."
--redhillswritersproject.org

"History buffs, writers, researchers, biologists, and naturalists should find the book valuable."
--Tallahassee Democrat

…a story that could be repeated at many other locations…
--CHOICE

…captures the uniqueness of the Apalachicola basin, the technology that has channeled the river's promise, and the threats to its health.
--The Panama City News Herald

…captures the uniqueness of the Apalachicola basin, the technology that has channeled the river's promise, and the threats to its health.
--Panama City News-Herald

"It is a collection that will interest many-social historians of Florida and the South, environmentalists, government officials, and anyone else with an interest in the complexity of the communities that surround our rivers and the future use of water."
--H-Florida