{"id":38788,"date":"2023-11-13T00:26:18","date_gmt":"2023-11-13T05:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=38788"},"modified":"2023-11-13T00:26:25","modified_gmt":"2023-11-13T05:26:25","slug":"the-town-of-brewster-is-now-a-ghost-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/11\/13\/the-town-of-brewster-is-now-a-ghost-town\/","title":{"rendered":"The town of Brewster is now a ghost town"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Brewster is a ghost town in southwest Polk County, ten miles south of Mulberry<\/a>. It is at an elevation of 143 feet above sea level and has been uninhabited since the early 1960s. The population is 3, according to the 2010 Census<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Brewster Power Plant in 1920

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The village of Brewster was founded in 1910 and for decades flourished from phosphate mining. It was largely a\u00a0company town\u00a0for\u00a0American Cyanamid<\/a>. The town had its own schools,\u00a0Movie Theater, medical clinic,\u00a0post office, which was established in 1913 and discontinued in 1961,\u00a0and\u00a0swimming pool.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Aerial Shot
Courtesy Mike Woodfin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The inventor of the digital computer, John Vincent Atanasoff<\/a>, though born in Hamilton, New York<\/a>, grew up in Brewster.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Brewster Florida Smokestack in 2012 from Old Highway 37
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Brewster
<\/strong>Courtesy Mike Woodfin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The village was officially closed down by the company in 1962. Much of Brewster was demolished at the time, but some abandoned buildings remain, including a smokestack that rises prominently in the area as a landmark. The deed to Brewster was turned over to the state of Florida in partial payment of a judgment against American Cyanamid for environmental damages.<\/p>\n\n\n

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1920 Brewster Post Office Building
Florida State Archieves
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brewster is a ghost town in southwest Polk County, ten miles south of Mulberry. It is at an elevation of 143 feet above sea level and has been uninhabited since the early 1960s. The population is 3,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[6712],"class_list":["post-38788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-the-town-of-brewster-is-now-a-ghost-town"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38788"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38796,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38788\/revisions\/38796"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}