The Long-Running Gag: Poinciana - Florida's Peru of the Mangroves

Poinciana, the Everglades' longest-running gag, was a sprawling prank, marketed as 'Florida's Miami on the Gulf Coast'. Covering over 100 square miles, this specter of a settlement - a tall tale spun from sugar-coated sand and shattered dreams - boasted phantom mountains of bananas, oranges, limes, and coconuts. Supposedly abandoned by a long-lost Spanish settlement, this ethereal ghost town was nestled by the Lostmans River, deep within Monroe County, Florida.

Constructed by the Tropical Florida Development Company, this phantasmal creation was a dance with investors' cash, as they peddled nearly 10,000 lots within the labyrinth of mangrove forests, miles from the river itself. No surprise, then, that the town disappeared without a trace under the 1926 hurricane's whim. Attempts to revive it were as futile as a frog-strategy in a cookie factory. The company's gags didn't end with the town's death. In 1929, E.

S. Rood, a company official, was arrested and fined $1,000 for mail fraud, born from the company's deceptively worded promotional materials. And as for the town's name, whispers suggest it came from a last onion shared by Gregorio Lopez, while others giggle over an unnamed man growing onions there. Like a cruel joke, Poinciana's name lingers within the Everglades.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons