In the early 1920s, tens of thousands of people across the United States, many of whom had never set foot in Florida, made down payments on unbuilt lots in the Sunshine State, lured in by fanciful ...

At the entrance to the St. Augustine Pirate & Treasure Museum, guests are greeted by a two-page broadsheet published in London in 1605, now locked behind a panel of protective glass.

By 1932, with stocks down 89 percent from their precrash peak, even Florida swamp land might have seemed like a bargain, pirate treasure or not. Streets under construction in Tampa in 1925 State ...