The following quotes come from an article in a 1950 booklet, Guide to The Scenic Highlands of Florida.  The article, “Wintering in the Highlands,” was written by Mrs. Louis Walter Winterberger.
    

     The idea of the booklet was to acquaint travelers with the ridge section along U.S. 27 and the small towns along the way.
    

     Winterberger writes about spending the winter months at a small hotel in the “Scenic Highlands” – possibly the Jacaranda:  “As I write I see the faces of those who shared with me a care-free existence in that little hotel in the heart of the city.  There were 36 of us, and before the winter was over we came to know one another very well.
           
     ”There were only three days chilly enough to warrant the laying of a fire in the large lobby fireplace.  On those days we sat around the fire listening to the tales of one of the guest, a man who had been a schoolteacher for many years – stories of his boyhood, and of boys and girls whom he had taught.
 

     “There was no feeling of pressure, and each found diversions to suit him.  Two of the older men played dominos everyday, sometimes with one or two of the rest of us joining in.  Every evening there would be two or three tables of card-players in the lobby.
 

     “We had with us four fishermen who were experts.  Out of the big lake only two blocks away they succeeded in making a haul sufficiently large enough to have a fish fry.  Five well-packed cars drove to the lovely state park (Highlands Hammock). While a committee fried the fish, others set the long table, piling on the salad and other good things we had brought with us.  In the afternoon we gathered lovely pinecones to place in a basket on the hotel hearth.
 

     “At the ‘season end,’ one by one, we saw them off, waving them out of sight.  There were the usual promises to write – and the assurances that we would meet again next year at the little hotel.”