Tallahassee Historical Society November 14 Meeting
Don’t they look alike? Our own J. Doug Smith, and his kinsman, George Washington Saxon? Same eyes, same smirk, same attitude. They could be twins.
Seriously, I was in kindergarten when Doug started writing this biography, and now I’m in high school (LOL) so he’s been working on it a long time. It is more than 600 pages long; I have read portions of it as he has progressed, and as the title indicates, it is as much a book about business development of the Middle Florida area than it is just one man’s story.
G. W. Saxon founded Tallahassee’s oldest existing business, the Capital City Bank; he helped route the Dixie Highway at the end of World War I so that it came through town, which was huge. He understood and expedited the changing post-civil war economy so that it was not just “cotton and quail.”
Doug is going to speak twice in November, first on November 7 at the Tallahassee Museum on the Tallahassee Street Railway, and then a week later on the 14th at our regular meeting at Mission San Luis on G. W. Saxon himself. This is the registration email for the November 14th meeting! And yes, he will have copies of this book for sale, if the printer has completed the run. It is a limited printing, so bring your checkbook if you want one. The thing about Doug’s talks are they end up being lessons in historical research. He tends to get caught up in these things so we may have to have a hook to get him off stage, but both presentations will be worth it.
A very special thank you to Dave Lang, who will be sponsoring the food for November's meeting! Dave is a past president and historian extraordinaire, whose contributions to the historical society are too many to be counted.
If you are interested in being one of our food sponsors, contact Rebecca Cruz at rebeccacruz1515@gmail.com.