Historic Florida Courthouses.

• Position: Review

Historic Florida Courthouses has been written "to help native Floridians, newcomers, wanna-be Floridians and others interested in the state, to remember our colorful past, and not to forget the struggle to develop a wonderland from the rugged wilds of four centuries ago," says author Henry Hampton Dunn, a self-described Florida "cracker."

This hardcover book has photos of Florida's 67 courthouses with a concise history of each county's development going back to the state's territorial days. In addition to these photos, it includes those images so closely associated with the state: orange picking, melon cuttings, boating, fishing, conch shell vendors, and beach skylines.

Some of Dunn's informative sidebars reference the state's Civil War battle of Olustee; explorers Ponce de Leon and Hernando de Soto; Francis Asbury Hendry, "cattle king of South Florida"; E.N. Dimick, first mayor of Palm Beach; Marguerite Baldree, one of the state's first female sheriffs; and Jacob Summerlin, Florida pioneer who donated property for Lake Eola Park in Orlando and loaned Orange County $10,000 to build a courthouse, provided it was constructed in Orlando.

In tracing each county's background, Dunn mixes authenticity of facts with anecdotes of local color such as the proper pronounciation of "Lafayette" County.

Occasional nostalgia marks the author's introduction: "Oh, how I miss that distinctive, smelly old Hillsborough County Courthouse at Tampa. Hardly a day goes by that I don't hear other old-timers lament the demolition of that red brick building with the silver dome, erected in 1892 and designed by the architect who gave us the elegant Tampa Bay Hotel. J.A...