Syndication News Column:
Florida

The lights of Miami illuminate the cityscape of the second largest city in Florida.  Jacksonville is almost
twice the size of Miami in population and more than 30 times the size the Miami in territory.  Metropolitan
Miami has more than 6 million residents, while Metropolitan Jacksonville has 1.5 million people living in its area.
(This image was provided courtesy of Jorge Molina through Pixabay, 2015.)

Juan Ponce de León is the individual that is credited with giving the name “Florida” to what is now part of the United States of America.  The Brevard County Department of Parks and Recreation indicated that the explorer from Spain landed on April 2, 1513, in what is today Melbourne Beach.

According to The History of Puerto Rico, From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation, published in 1903, and provided through the Library of Congress, Ponce de León named the land “‘la Florida,’ some say because he found it covered with the flowers of spring;  others, because he had discovered it on Resurrection day, called ‘Pascua Florida’ by the Spanish Catholics.”  The Florida Department of State indicated that Ponce de León “called the area la Florida, in honor of Pascua florida (‘feast of the flowers’), Spain's Eastertime celebration. Other Europeans may have reached Florida earlier, but no firm evidence of such achievement has been found.”

(The State of Florida noted that more than 100,000 Native Americans of several nations were living in what is today Florida at the time of the area’s “discovery” by the Spaniards.)

For a number of years, there were efforts to create “Florida County” in New Mexico.

Efforts began in 1881 to create a new county from southern portions of what was then Grant County.  Proposed boundaries for this new county included the Florida Mountains.  Twenty years later, on March 16, 1901, Luna County was created by action of the New Mexico Territorial Legislature from portions of Grant County and Doña Ana County.  (The portion of Doña Ana County included in the new county was only added during negotiations in Santa Fe in 1901.)  According to a news article dated March 22, 1901, in the San Juan County Index of Aztec, more than 80% of the taxable property in Luna County had come from Grant County.

For much of those twenty years, “Florida County” was the name proposed for the new governmental entity.  The Western Liberal in Lordsburg noted in a news article dated February 27, 1891, that efforts to create Florida County had failed:  “Still Florida county is a portion of Grant.”  The Daily New Mexican in Santa Fe included a sub-headline in its edition dated January 17, 1895, that “The Florida County Project Materializes and Its Supporters Score a Point.”  As late as February 23, 1901, The Deming Headlight was detailing efforts to create “Florida County” – not “Luna County”.

According to the Deming-Luna County Chamber of Commerce, “Logan and Florida were proposed as names for the new county, but when the county was finally created it was named in honor of Solomon Luna whom without his support the effort would not have succeeded.”  “Don Solomon Luna” was a prominent political leader in the New Mexico Territory, noted the Chamber of Commerce, “and a successful sheep rancher and banker from Valencia County” who helped lead the effort to create the new county.

(The Village of Los Lunas, located in Valencia County south of Albuquerque, was named after the Luna Family.)

The changeover from “Grant County” to “Luna County” began within the week of the new county being created.  While the masthead of the edition of The Deming Headlight dated March 16, 1901, indicated that the newspaper was published in “Deming, Grant County,” the newspaper heralded the creation of the new County of Luna by noting in its edition dated March 23, 1901, that it was now published in “Deming, Luna County.”  (The newspaper was a weekly newspaper in 1901.)

This is a view of Owl Canyon in the Florida Mountains, located about 70 miles southeast of Silver City in Luna County.
(The photograph was provided courtesy of Mr. Patrick Alexander through Flickr, 2015.)

© 2020 Richard McDonough