A Saturday Drive Through Bagdad and Milton

Once a month, the associates of Home Depot in Pace, Florida have to attend a Sunday meeting from 6-8 a.m. Most of us are far from bright-eyed and bushy tailed at this time of the morning being forced from our nice cozy beds at 4 a.m. Then we have to suffer through two hours of management enjoying the sound of their own voices, awards given to employees, and sometimes we have a vendor giving Product Knowledge (PK) courses to the store. This past Sunday was no exception, and we had to suffer through the usual claptrap from management followed by a PK course from someone who installs film on windows to protect your home from the elements. Most of us were paying attention to the guy's very short running shorts that we felt were not appropriate for giving a PK course to Home Depot and were yapping about that during the presentation and after. Giggling was also prevalent during the whole time!

After the meeting, the folks that didn't have to work that day (present company included) or weren't going in until later were looking to make the mad dash out the door and to freedom. I bumped into Debi and Mary Beth, my two co-workers after the meeting and Debi and Mary Beth were about to go to Ryan's Family Steakhouse and Buffet for breakfast and asked me to join them. I told Debi I needed to go to the bank for money for breakfast, and Debi said she would pay for all three of our breakfasts. SWEET!

We took our own cars to Ryan's, which is in the WalMart parking lot not far from the Pace Home Depot and had to wait in the parking lot with other hungry folks looking to have breakfast before church or football games on TV. Ryan's doesn't open until 8 a.m. on Sundays, and it wasn't a long wait before someone opened the doors and let us hungry honchos in. Hey! At least the food was going to be fresh being that we were the first guests in the place that morning.

After paying the hostess up front for breakfast, Debi, Mary Beth, and I were able to take a seat anywhere in the restaurant and were greeted by our waitress Cindi, who promptly got water for Mary Beth, Sweet Tea for Debi, and hot tea for yours truly. I was hoping for regular tea, but got decaf tea instead and was hoping not to fall asleep in my scrambled eggs.

Drinks waiting at our table, the girls of Home Depot were off to the huge breakfast buffet. I steered clear of the porky products and got a platter of scrambled eggs, a piece of French Toast with apple compote, a hash brown, and pineapple, canteloupe and orange slices so that I could get some fruit in my system. After having two Boston creme donuts at the meeting, I didn't want to overdo it at the buffet. Mary Beth and Debi hit the omelet bar and Debi had seconds on omelets along with bacon that she was wiping the grease off of with her napkins in order to grumble it on her second serving of eggs.

My scrambled eggs were very fresh and good and with a little ketchup ("You're a Yankee!", Debi joked), and the hash brown and french toast were very good. The apple compote was sweet but from the can. My fruit wasn't that sweet, but it was edible and all the food filled my tummy just right. Mary Beth, Debi, and I spent the whole meal talking and laughing about associates at work and our traveling experiences along with some raunchy talk. Debi is moving to the Tampa area in a couple of months with her partner, and she said her last day at work, she would like to skateboard through the entire store (remind me to not be in the middle of an aisle when she flies by, I think to myself) to poo poo management. We had a lot of fun talking and laughing and the people around us must have thought we were crazy ladies! While we were eating, one of the waiters came by with a free sample of cinnamon donut holes that were warm, fresh, and sinfully good! That sparked a lively discussion on Dunkin Donuts by us ladies!

Our waitress came by to refill our drinks a couple of times and to see how we were doing and earned a nice little tip from us at the end of the meal. For $4.99 each, the buffet at Ryan's is a great deal and a popular destination on weekends and Thanksgiving from what I heard from other co-workers. Service is great and the place is big enough to accommodate hundreds of people at once. Located near several stores in Pace including Target (Debi and Mary Beth's next destination) and right next to WalMart, where I burned off breakfast shopping, Ryan's is a good place for breakfast, lunch, or dinner and won't lighten your wallet too bad.

One thing you have to know when you travel or move to northwestern Florida is that it is a lot different than travelling or living in Southern Florida. I lived in outside of Fort Lauderdale for 14 months from 1999-2000 and can testify to this now that I am living in Northwestern Florida in a small town called Milton. After 16 years in the sticks of Idaho, I thought I had seen it all with rednecks and other rural adventures in the mountains in the McCall/Donnelly, but nothing could prepare me for life in "the wilds of Milton."

Native born Floridians and newcomers will tell you that Northwestern Florida is known as Floribama because it is closer to Alabama than other states and life is so much similar to life in Alabama and the other Gulf States. Life is pretty laid-back here in Floribama and city folk like me are shocked that people still have chicken coops and other livestock living in their backyards that are only 5 miles from the nearest grocery store.

When Mom and I moved to our new home in Milton at the end of July, we were surprised to be neighbors with a man named Wayne and his chicken coop, goat, and after looking in his yard one more time, a couple of pigs. "This will be fun!", I thought, but Mom and I have gotten spoiled by living in the quiet country solitude of Donnelly, Idaho for 10 years and in rural Meridian, Idaho for almost six more years. Mom and I thought a crowing rooster going off at the crack of dawn would be no problem. The rooster, who Mom calls Rudy, never bothered us with his crack of dawn crowing, and the bleating of the goat wasn't an issue either.

The pigs are another story altogether. Our first full night at our new humble abode, Wayne comes up to me as I am dumping moving boxes into the trash and tells me that he is about to have his pigs slaughtered. "OK" I thought, he will take him to the slaughterhouse, and that will be it. A co-worker of mine who is also named Wayne told us that he was taking his two pigs Mary Beth and Gloria to the slaughterhouse to be processed, and I thought our neighbor Wayne would be doing the same. WRONG! About 5 p.m. as Mom and I are getting ready for dinner and feeding our cats Zoe and Xena, we hear two loud pops from someone's gun. Wayne and his buddies have done the dirty deed of pig sticking all by themselves, and for the next couple of hours work on cutting Porky and Petunia into chops and other smoked goods for Wayne's birthday party the next day. Luckily we didn't see the butchering from our windows, and I was glad they did the deed behind the shed that blocks some of Wayne's property from our view. The next day at work, I tell Walter and Jim, two of our Department Heads, about the whole thing, and Jim jokes, "I guess those little piggies didn't go to the market!" HA HA!

But, dear readers, the adventures with the pigs doesn't end there. About three weeks later, Mom and I are cleaning up for dinner when Mom opens the back door and sees something one doesn't see in their backyard on a regular basis. "Look what's here!", Mom exclaims and I run to the back porch in time to see three little pigs running through our yard. "Oh boy! Wayne has gotten more pigs!", I say. During the next few hours we see the thre little piggies running around Wayne's yard loose, and Wayne and his wife are out for the evening. Being a city girl, I find this pretty entertaining, and Mom and I sit on the porch rather than watch the Red Sox getting shelacked by the Evil Empire or whoever they were playing that night, and watch the three little pigs running around in a last chance of freedom before being made into pork chops. Even Zoe and Xena are picqued by livestock in the neighborhood and sit on the porch watching the pigs and puffing their tails whenever they come near the yard.

So city girl me is really curious about these pigs and wants to get pictures of them for my friends around the world and for Igougo.com. Like Margaret Bourke White, I get out the trusty camera and get off the porch and to the fence dividing Wayne's and our property and get a shot of the pigs in their yard grazing. Then the pigs see me and come up to the fence, and I get back on the porch. YEESH! "These pigs don't look anything like "Babe" or Miss Piggy!", I think to myself. They are kind of smelly, on the small side and kind of ugly. No cute pink piggies here with eyeshadow and lipstick here! They must think I have food, and I tell them I don't and return to the porch. A couple of minutes later, I return to the fence to check them out again, and they think I have food and run to the open gate in the back yard and make their way out of the yard towards me. YIKES! I don't know if the piggies are friendly or maneaters and start running with the three little pigs behind me in hot pursuit. In my flight, I blow my right calf muscle out and hop and limp up to the safety of the porch. Xena has run into the house and Zoe has puffed her tail up in fright and runs into the house, too. Mom wishes she had the camera to get the shot of my running from the pigs who are now heading to the neighbor on the right of us land.

Three weeks of limping on a swollen calf and ankle (I might have twisted it running) and explaining to friends and family about my adventures of the three little pigs have made me the butt of many jokes and stories. The District Human Resource lady at work said there have been incidents of domestic pigs running away and becoming wild complete with tusks. I laugh with them.

Eventually, I see Wayne in the yard last week, and he tells me that the three little pigs are going to the market (they are really going to the market this time) at the end of the month, and I tell him about my adventure with them a couple of weeks before. Wayne also wishes that there was a picture of my running from his pigs. He tells me the pigs were probably hungry and had let themselves back into their pen before Wayne and his wife got home that night. Who knows what sparked the three little pigs taste for freedom, but I wonder if this is going to be one of many experiences for me in the country. Mom suggested when we were getting ready to move into the house that we get some chickens for our own eggs since a lot of our neighbors have their own coops. I told her "no way." First, I am afraid of birds and their wings flapping and claws, and I am afraid of getting clawed by a chicken when I would go and get eggs. Second, Zoe and Xena would most likely be sitting outside the coop licking their chops and watching these birds in anticipation for their own personal chicken dinner. The birds might not lay eggs being scared out of their wits at the sight of the little killers stalking them. Third, I am not one to want to clean chicken coops. When it gets wet, chicken and turkey coops tend to get pretty ripe, and I know that from staying in Slovakia during the Summer of 2002. Biking past a turkey farm that was pretty smelly on daily bike rides gave my gag reflexes a test. We'll just stick with dogs and cats for now.

This past weekend, our new neighbor to our right moved in with two horses and two dogs. The horses are magnificent creatures and I woke up this morning to their whinnying while their owners groomed and exercised them. Who said life in the country is lame. I am looking forward to more experiences of living in the country. Stay tuned!

Before moving to Pensacola last year and enjoying two visits to the area in 2005 and 2007, I had never heard about the little town of Milton, Florida. Well that changed when I was offered a position at the Home Depot in nearby Pace, Florida and made friend with several co-workers who lived in the area. When Dad decided to buy a house in Pensacola for Mom and I to rent, we were at first adamant to stay in Pensacola to be near my sister Erika. But after not seeing much in houses in Pensacola that were in a good neighborhood and within "His Lordship's" budget, Mom and I decided to expand our house search into the Milton area. My friend Eddy was stoked that we could be neighbors, and several other friends from work were happy that Mom and I were moving into the area which would garner us several invitations to friends' houses and other events.

Mom and I found a lovely little house in East Milton, about 12 miles from Pace and work, that was in the country on an acre of land, and Dad's lowball offer was accepted. Eddy was really happy since we really would be neighbors being only 4 miles from each other, and I was excited because Milton had an interesting history dating from its heyday as a railroad hub for the lumber industry in Bagdad that shipped yellow pine across the country. Milton's history had me picqued from day one, and I was determined to visit it many times. The first day I got to see Milton was last Saturday on the way to Eddy's house for a haircut, and I realized there is more things that will be discovered on future visits.

Milton is a city in Northwest Florida that is the Santa Rosa County seat and was incorporated in 1844. The population of Milton is about 7,100 people and it has gone through many name changes in its 165-year history including "Scratch Ankle," and "Scottsman Anchorage". The name "Scratch Ankle" came from the large amount of prickly briars that grew around the lumber mills. The "Scottsman Anchorage" name came from the many lumber barges that travelled along the Blackwater River that goes through Milton and shipped Florida lumber to several places in the USA.

Milton is home to several old buildings including the Exchange Hotel and the Imogene Theater (1912) which was home to several plays and eventually a movie theater before it burned down in an unfortunate fire last year. Plans are being made to restore the Imogene Theater to its former glory. For now, we can only see the shell of what is left of the theater as we pass through town.

Milton is also home to a nice little Veterans Memorial Park and Whiting Field, the Naval Air Station on Milton's outskirts. I had time for a trip through the Veterans Park last Saturday, and it is lovingly cared for by the city of Milton and is one of the most beautiful Veterans Memorials I have seen in the USA. There are two statues of an American soldier and an American Bald Eagle in the center of the memorial that is surrounded by several huge granite slabs stating the wars that the USA have been involved in since the Revolutionary War to the current activity in Iraq. The foundation is red brick with the names of the fallen local military members and their dates of service and deaths. The slabs of each war depict several important battles of each war, and I was disappointed to see on the WWII slab that they had spelled Auschwitz. It said, "January 27, 1945: Aushwitz is liberated. . ." I hope they will fix that sometime soon.

Milton, Florida can be reached via Pensacola from I-10 east. You can enter Milton via Exit 26 and SR191 or via Route 90 from Pace and other routes that I haven't discovered. It's well worth a few hours of your time when you visit the Florida Panhandle.

When one talks about the Civil War, they only mention the big battles at Gettysburg, Bull Run, and other battles that were important to turning the tide of the war and ending slavery. Not many people are aware that the Gulf Coast of Florida and Alabama were sites of battles between the Union and Confederate Armies, and on my Saturday ride through Milton and Bagdad, Florida, I found out that there was a two-hour battle in Bagdad that was instrumental in the battle for Pensacola and its important Naval base.

As the Confederate Army was evacuating the Pensacola area in 1862, they burned down many buildings in Pensacola, Bagdad, and Milton including Bagdad's lumber mills in order to prevent them from falling into the Union Army's hands and be used to defeat the Confederacy. After the Confederates left the area, they remained nearby in Santa Rosa County along with the Union Army. Both sided conducted raids and captured many strategic buildings along the way. Other raids were conducted for reconnaisance and to get supplies for both sides. The Confederate posted troops along the railways in Bagdad and Milton in order to try to prevent the Union from raiding the area and occupying Pensacola.

The skirmishes were only little ones with little loss of life, but all that came to a head on October 18, 1864 when the Union 19th Iowa Infantry Regiment consisting of 200 men and a local Florida battalion under the command of General A.B. Spurlilng who sided with the Union Army landed about 3.5 miles from Bagdad by ship in order to steal lumber that was being shipped to the Bagdad lumber mills. A 300-man Confederate battallion intercepted Spurling's forces and a two-hour fight began that ended with the Confederate forces withdrew, and the 19th Iowa Regiment left the area with about 140 logs.

A week later, Spurling's forces returned to Bagdad and after another skirmish with little casulties forced the Confederate forces out of the village leading to the Union Army to occupy Bagdad and set up headquarters at the 1847 Antebellum Thompson House, which was built by one of the prominent members of the lumber industry, Benjamin Woodson Thompson. During the Union occupation, the Thompson House and other buildings in Bagdad were used by Union troops as quarters inside and outside, and even an African-American unit, the 25th, lived in the Thompson House. The Union troops were not the best of guests and destroyed or damaged many buildings including the Thompson House, which was covered in grafitti inside and out. Thompson House recovered from the trials of the Civil War and was expanded afterwards to remain a dominant part of Bagdad Society.

There are annual reenactments of the Skirmish on the Blackwater, and other information can be gotten from www.bagdadvillage.org.

This name may bring to your mind the city of that name in old Arabia.--Southern Lumber Journal (1930).

Since Dad bought a house in East Milton, and Mom and I will be moving to the area in the next month, I wanted to see what the area was all about. I read that the Milton and Bagdad areas of Santa Rosa Counties are full of history dating from the early 1830's and into the Civil War.

My friend Eddy was going to give me a haircut on Saturday, which was a rare weekend day off from work for me, and I decided to take the scenic route to Eddy's home in Milton via SR 191 through historic Bagdad and Milton before getting to his house. Along the way, I stopped at several historical sites and took pictures and soaked in the history of the area.

Bagdad, Florida is a tiny village about 20 miles northeast of Pensacola and about a mile from Milton, the Santa Rosa County seat. The town has a population of about 1,500 people and mostly lays along SR 191 in Santa Rosa County and the Blackwater River.

Several stories are about in regards to the naming of Bagdad. Of course, one thinks about the city of Baghdad, Iraq, and it must have been named for that city, but it doesn't have an "h" in its name. In 1896 there was an article in The Milton Journal about the naming of Bagdad stating: "Down the River, two miles from Milton, is situated that unique little city, whose name was made famous in Arabian Knights. Here if by magic, sprung up one of the liveliest little villages in the land."

This Bagdad doesn't have desert sands and you can ride around this town without the fear of being hit by a bullet or being blown to bits by a roadside bomb. Bagdad, Florida is a cute little village that I only scratched the surface checking out this past Saturday, and I am hoping to see more of it in the future.

As early as 1840, Bagdad was a hotspot for logging and shipping. Yellow pine harvested from the forests near Bagdad and Milton was shipped by train throughout the USA and was the world's biggest producer of yellow pine lumber. By 1900, Bagdad was one of the most industrialized towns in Florida and continued to be a logging mecca until the Great Depression and depletion of the yellow pine in the area forced the closure of the last logging mills in 1939.

Besides logging and railroads, Bagdad was also the site of an important Civil War Battle in 1864 between the Confederate and Union Armies over materials needed for the Pensacola Navy Yard which was occupied by both sides during the four-year war (more on that in another journal entry).

Bagdad also is home to several mid-19th Century homes along SR191 and other little roads going through the village including the Thompson House (1847), a house built during the antebellum period and several small houses that are being restored or have been restored in the last decade.

To get to Bagdad from Pensacola, take I-10 East towards Tallahassee and take Exit 26 for Milton and Bagdad Historic Centers. Take a left off the exit ramp and go about 2 miles into Bagdad on SR191. It's well-worth a few hours of your time whenever you are in the Pensacola area.