Paynes Prairie: A History of the Great Savanna.

Sarasota, Florida: Pineapple Press, Inc., (2001). First Edition. Octavo, green & blue boards (hardcover), 156 pp + ads. Very Good+, in a Fine, mylar protected dust jacket. From dust jacket: Paynes Prairie is a shallow-bowl basin covered with grasses and shrubs in a landscape otherwise crowded with pine and live oak trees. The Prairie’s huge basin was created when a number of sinkholes formed close to each other and eventually merged. Located south of Gainesville, the Prairie played an important role in much of the early settlement and development of north central Florida. Had the Prairie not been there, Florida’s history would have been very different. That history spans millions of years and includes a multitude of key players and events. Some of the most fearsome and tremendous prehistoric beasts -- mastadons, mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, giant ground sloths -- roamed the Prairie in large numbers before human beings ever set foot on this unique piece of land. The arrival of Paleo-Indians set the stage for those natives who would come later: Calusa, Timucua, Creeks, Seminoles. With the onslaught of Spanish, French, British, and finally American newcomers -- who brought with them white man’s diseases, missionaries, guns, and Manifest Destiny -- the Native Americans were almost constantly embroiled in wars and skirmishes that turned Paynes Prairie into a bloody graveyard. Writer and naturalist William Bartram, delighted and intrigued by the abundance of previously unrecorded animal and plant life on Paynes Prairie, had written in the eighteenth century of its tranquility and beauty. But as more and more people filtered down through Florida during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, “progress” inevitably and drastically changed the face of the Prairie. When the Prairie filled with water and became a lake, steamboats carried goods and people from one side to the other, and ditches and dikes controlled the flow of water. When it drained, railroads and highways were gouged into the surrounding land. During the last half of the twentieth century, a move towards conservation and reconciliation between humans the beleaguered Prairie resulted in the establishment of Paynes Prairie State Preserve, a sanctuary for countless animal species that humans may visit but may no longer develop. Author Lars Anderson concludes that although the Prairie will never return to its unspoiled state, there is reason to hope that today’s Floridians can undo some of the damage their predecessors left. Change has been and will continue to be the hallmark of Paynes Prairie.