The roads of #southflorida are like a magnified version of Manhattan’s grid. After a while travelling north/south one becomes acquainted with the major east/west thoroughfares. One of the names of these roads caught my attention because its name seemed incongruent with the rest. Specifically, #Yamato Road in #bocaraton #fl. Of course anybody familiar with the history of #WWII will recall the IJN’s massive battleship, the #Yamato. While I didn’t think a road in #florida would be named for a Japanese battleship, I still wanted to investigate further into why this street had that name. Well, the short answer is that Japanese emigres in the early 1900s set up the Yamato colony (The word Yamato is an old word for Japan, the current name romanized is Nihon). One of the early colonists of the now non-existent colony was George Morikami who arrived in Florida in 1906 from Miyazu, Japan as part of 30-40 individuals from Japan to farm Boca Raton. While the Yamato colony would ultimately fail, George Morikami himself slowly began to acquire more and more land. He spent his entire life as a farmer and in particular he grew pineapples and eventually would acquire hundreds of acres of land just west of #delraybeach even after the the US government seized his land during World War II. He would ultimately donate 140 acres of the land he acquired after #WW2 to be used as a park to #palmbeachcounty . That park is now the Morikami Museum and Japanese Garden. Thanks, George, you helped make another #beautifulfla day.
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Bonsai Tree |
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Great Blue Heron |
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Florida Red-Bellied Cooter |