For Immediate Release: Chapter Nineteen, Part 1

Essays and Lessons From 30 Years in Politics and Government

Hi, and welcome to the Sun Shine Republic. I’m really glad you’re here.

This is “For Immediate Release,” my essays and stories of politics, government, and a little bit of life in between. They span 30 years, from Little Rock, Arkansas to Washington, D.C. to St. Petersburg, Florida. I’ll be sending it out to paid subscribers here on Substack over the coming days and weeks. I hope you’ll consider a paid subscription and check it out. If you are a paid subscriber, thank you very much. I couldn’t do this without you.

As always, thanks for reading.

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2014-2020
St. Petersburg, Florida

Sunrise at the St. Pete Pier. Image courtesy the City of St. Petersburg, Florida. October 8, 2020

St. Petersburg has had a pier since at least the time of President Franklin Pierce, the 14th President of the United States. Eight presidents and a Civil War would come and go before what is widely accepted as the “first” pier was built, the Railroad Pier, in 1889. The Orange Belt Railway ran 152 miles from Sanford to St. Pete, built by the Russian exile Peter Demens, who would go on to name the town at the end of the peninsula, on the other side of the bay from Tampa, after his childhood home in Russia. It served as a commercial pier, with steamships and freighters pulling right up to the rail lines.