The Harbor City

My great grandfather. William Russell Roesch, Mayor of Eau Gallie, Florida and founder of the Eau Gallie Record newspaper, once said, " The writer has made his home here since 1883 with varied degrees of success in a financial way, but always looking forward to the time when Eau Gallie would become one of the foremost cities of the east coast". 

He was always promoting the area that he loved.  When he arrived here in November of 1883 he said of this place, "With a lavish hand nature has bestowed upon this little city many things that have been withheld from other less favored localities.  No place has a brighter prospect for the future".

In the early 1900's William put together this booklet, "Eau Gallie, The Harbor City", to describe all that the area had to offer.  It tells the story of Eau Gallie's accomplishments, history, fishing, transportation, boating & water sports, school & church's, graves, gardens and farms, It's location, health, conditions and surroundings, and it's future. The remainder of the book are old photographs of all the historic buildings in Eau Gallie, including Roesch's Highland cottages on Highland Avenue.

This booklet belonged to his daughter-in-law, my grandmother, Florence. She signed her name along the top. This treasure has been passed down to me.