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Everglades Biographies

James Milton Carson

James Milton Carson was born in Kissimmee, Florida on December 16, 1887. Carson attended the University of Florida in 1903-1904 and graduated with a BA from John B, Stetson University in 1909 and an LLB from Washington and Lee University in 1910. Carson opened a law practice in Miami in 1916 and from 1926 through 1929 he was a member of the law faculty of the University of Miami. An authority on Florida history, Carson formed the Historical Association of Southern Florida in his home in 1940. In 1916, after moving to Miami, Carson became interested in the Everglades area and the possible developmental uses of the land. He worked with the Back to Broward League and avidly backed Ion Farris in the 1916 Florida gubernatorial race on a platform promoting drainage and extensive reclamation of the Everglades. Farris lost the election to Sidney Johnston Catts. Carson continued in his law practice in Miami until his death on April 10, 1950.

Biography prepared by Ruthanne Vogel, University of Miami.

Excerpts of letter from James Carson to Ion Farris, December 26, 1915
University of Miami Libraries, James Carson papers

"I've been intending for a good long time to write to you about the everglades...The problem is not simply an engineering one, but one calling for the most constructive sort of executive ability - Finance, engineering, economic, agricultural, advertising, colonizing, immigration, transportation, business organization, experimental work of all kinds are some of the things that press for solution; some of the problems that must be met...

... Whoever does take up the work and carry it out will have several pages devoted to him in the 2000 A.D. edition of Florida History"

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Pamphlet for "Back to Broward League" prepared by James Carson, 1916.

Photo courtesy of University of Miami Libraries

 

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