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Dunedin Woman Tells Local History During Walking Tours

Cheryl Bentley/SUNCOAST NEWS

Diana Goodwin tells a legend about Spanish moss on one of her walking tours of downtown Dunedin. Goodwin began giving the one-hour walking tours in January.

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By Cheryl  Bentley | The Suncoast News

Published: February 23, 2008

DUNEDIN, Fla. - DUNEDIN, Fla. - No parks, no palm trees. Just cotton fields.

That, according to Diana Goodwin, was how the Dunedin Marina looked in its early days.

Goodwin imparts such snippets of local history during her hourlong walking tour through the marina and downtown Dunedin.

The tour starts in downtown Dunedin and ends at the municipal marina on St. Joseph Sound.

Goodwin began her tours the first of this year. She concentrates on Dunedin because of that city's compact size, varied downtown area and rich history.

"It has a nice downtown area and is very walkable," she says about the city.

Both area residents and visitors who come to catch Toronto Blue Jays spring training action might be interested in her tours, she says.

Even Dunedin residents could do with some brushing up on their heritage, she observes, noting the city's downtown area has changed considerably in the 18 years she has lived in the area.

The city has had a downtown redevelopment program in place for more than two decades.

On a recent abbreviated version of her tour, Goodwin shows off the city she loves by cramming her narrative with descriptions of local nature and history and tips on shopping and dining.

Goodwin notes Dunedin was incorporated in 1899, with a population of 133.

One of the new city's first laws was to regulate the hogs that ran freely through people's yards. "A quiet and orderly place to live" is how the Dunedin Historical Society's "Historical Highlights of the First Hundred Years of Settlement 1850-1950" described the city fathers' vision of their city, according to Goodwin.

As the walk heads to the marina, she describes some of Florida's birds and the state tree, the cabbage palm, or sabal palmetto, one of the 12 palm trees, native to Florida, Goodwin notes.

Goodwin stops at nearby Victoria Drive, with its stately homes, where Dunedin's wealthy wintered at the end of the 19th century.

J. R. Brumby, one of the drive's residents, put up a $1,000 bribe to keep the Orange Belt railroad line from being built in Dunedin in the 1880s, she relates.

Brumby feared the line would bring too many people to Dunedin.

But the bribe wasn't accepted. The railroad was built and trains stopped in Dunedin until 1987. The city's former train station is now the home of the Dunedin Historical Society and its museum.

The fun part of her preparation for the tours was exploring the city's shops and restaurants in order to give shopping and restaurant tips to her tour members, Goodwin says.

A native of England who works as a speech pathologist at Morton Plant Hospital, in Clearwater, Goodwin has lived in Palm Harbor for 18 years.

She came from Massachusetts and fell in love "with all things Floridian." Always a seeker of knowledge, she began devouring books by Florida authors.

She also attended talks on the history of the area. "If there were a workshop at the local library about Florida, I would be the one who would go," she recalls.

She thought she had enough knowledge about the Sunshine State to give tours seven years ago but waited until this year when she found the timing right.

Goodwin is already considering future tours of other cities.

"I am a helper by nature," she says. "I love the area, and I want to share my knowledge. "

For more information call 727-727-515-7551, or visit the Florida Walking Tours href=http://www.floridawalkingtours.com> Web site.

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