Desperately seeking water towers

This week I was able to conduct three telephone interviews with informants from the MacDonald Training Center and a former supervisor who worked with the Orlando and Ft Myers locations. They were all very helpful and have led me down several new pathways.

On Thursday, I made a trip to Ft Myers and then back to Arcadia. This was a fascinating trip. The Ft Myers center was the last Sunland to close, in June of this year. Prior to closing, it had been called the Gulf Coast Center for several years. It's located on a sprawling and well maintained campus. I was able to gain permission to photograph the area and I really enjoyed this trip and talking to the assistant director of the center. The site has now been incorporated into Florida Gulf Coast University. They will eventually repurpose it into a track and field area for the athletes. For the moment, it is closed and the buildings are being preserved. Attached are two photos of the campus.

Following that visit, I returned to Arcadia. I was looking for the former airfield known as Dorr Field, located a few miles east of Arcadia on SR 70. I drove through several miles of nowhere and had almost given up when I spotted what I have come to realize is a key indicator: a water tower. Most Sunlands were self contained communities with their own power and water supply. The water tower was definitely the tip off that I had finally spotted the location. In case I did not mention this before, I had already been told that the old air field, first converted to a Sunland Center, is now the site of a correctional facility. Soon I was greeted with the miles of razor wire that comprise Desoto Correctional Institute. Needless to say, the staff members there were considerably less enthused with my need for photographic evidence of the centers. It was pretty much a no go as no one working there now recalls Sunland ever being there. The reason for this is that the Arcadia Sunland was shuttered after just a few years of operation in the 1960's.

I'm glad I finally got to see the location of this center, which is located in a remote part of a very rural county. I've been told that this was the most problematic Sunland in terms of staffing and care issues, and I assume these problems were the reason for the short time spent as the 7th Florida Sunland. I hope to find some additional documentation of this on my next trip to the state library in Tallahassee.