1928 Tamiami Trail Everglades Photo OJ Tanner Mishler Black Americana Miami
Condition
Original vintage photographic snapshot measuring approximately 3 × 5 inches. Period VELOX photographic paper markings are visible on the reverse. The photograph shows expected age-related handling, surface wear and toning consistent with an original period snapshot. Most importantly, the reverse retains extensive period handwritten identification naming the people and describing the circa-1928 South Florida vernacular photograph documenting members of the historically significant Tanner, Mishler and Landis families during a fishing excursion along the early Tamiami Trail / Everglades corridor.
This is considerably more than an unidentified Florida automobile snapshot. The reverse preserves extensive handwritten provenance identifying the family group and describing the location and activity.
HANDWRITTEN PROVENANCE
The primary inscription reads:
“Mishlers & Tanners with relatives fishing on road to Key West. known as The Trail to Tampa”
Additional handwritten identifications include:
Lottie Mishler Tanner
Mary J. Tanner
Emma Landis
Sarah Landis Mishler
Melvin P. Tanner, identified as the child
O. J. Tanner, specifically noted as the man with the straw hat
An additional relative identified as apparently “Uncle Al Landis”
These inscriptions transform the photograph from anonymous roadside Americana into a named and genealogically traceable document of early South Florida history.
O. J. TANNER — PIONEER MIAMI GROCER
Orry Judson Tanner (1880–1943) became a prominent early Miami businessman.
Tanner opened his first grocery store in Little River in 1912, the same year he married Lottie Ella Mishler. His business expanded to Buena Vista and then into Miami, including a West Flagler Street store opened in 1923 and another location in the Tanner Building on N.E. Second Avenue in 1924.
By the mid-1930s, the O.J. Tanner Company was operating four successful Miami-area grocery stores.
The Tanner family later purchased and occupied the substantial residence at 1017 Brickell Avenue, remaining associated with the property for decades.
This photograph therefore captures an identified member of an important early Miami commercial family not in a formal business portrait, but during a remarkably candid wilderness fishing excursion.
MISHLER FAMILY — MIAMI PIONEERS, PINEAPPLES & EARLY AVIATION
The Mishler connection adds another significant layer of South Florida history.
Historical Association of Southern Florida research documents Melvin Mishler as a pineapple grower in the Piney Woods district, now Miami Shores, as late as 1920.
Even more remarkably, in 1922 Mishler converted his pineapple field into an airfield, described in the historical literature as perhaps one of the most obscure early airfields in Miami history.
The field was located around N.W. 111th Street and 8th Avenue.
With Lottie Mishler Tanner and Sarah Landis Mishler identified directly on this photograph, the image has crossover significance for collectors of Miami pioneer families, early Florida agriculture and early South Florida aviation history.
BLACK AMERICANA & SOUTHERN LABOR HISTORY
At far left is a Black driver/helper accompanying the white Tanner-Mishler party.
He stands beside the lead automobile holding large metal cooking pans or basins, apparently preparing to cook or assist with food preparation during the family's fishing excursion.
This is an especially compelling element of the photograph.
Rather than an isolated unidentified portrait, the Black worker appears within a named, historically documented white Miami family's recreational expedition during the Jim Crow era.
The image therefore preserves a candid visual record of the intersection of race, labor, class, automobile travel, domestic/service work and wilderness tourism in 1920s South Florida.
His individual name and precise employment title are unfortunately not recorded on the reverse.
TAMIAMI TRAIL & EVERGLADES HISTORY
The handwritten reference to the “Trail to Tampa” is especially significant.
The Tamiami Trail was one of Florida's great early highway engineering projects, connecting Tampa and Miami through the previously difficult Everglades interior.
Construction required excavating and blasting limestone. Material removed alongside the roadway was used to create its elevated roadbed, leaving the characteristic canal running beside the Trail.
The completed highway officially opened in April 1928.
The photograph's combination of primitive roadway, canal, automobiles and undeveloped landscape provides an outstanding period view of automobile travel through South Florida during the era in which the Tamiami Trail was transforming the region.
PREWAR AUTOMOBILES
Three separate late-1920s passenger automobiles are visible:
Large sedan at left with prominent period wheels and spare-tire equipment
Second large touring/family sedan near center
Additional passenger automobile farther down the road
The cars provide substantial crossover appeal for collectors of prewar automobilia and early Florida motoring history.
CANAL & WOODEN FLATBOAT
Dominating the foreground is a substantial wooden flatboat/barge positioned in the canal beside the roadway.
The combination of the vessel, canal, rough roadside, automobiles and extremely open Everglades landscape gives the photograph an unusually strong sense of place.
The Tamiami Canal itself was closely connected with construction of the Trail: limestone and other material excavated alongside the roadway supplied fill used to build the elevated highway.
WHY THIS PHOTOGRAPH MATTERS
Few vernacular snapshots combine this many independently collectible subjects:
• Tamiami Trail / U.S. 41
• Everglades history
• Named Miami pioneer families
• O. J. Tanner / Tanner Grocery Company
• Tanner-Mishler family provenance
• Mishler pineapple-growing history
• Early Miami aviation connection
• Black Americana
• African American labor history
• Jim Crow-era social history
• Three prewar automobiles
• Early Florida automobile tourism
• Fishing expedition
• Roadside cooking
• Tamiami Canal
• Wooden flatboat/barge
• Florida civil-engineering history
• Genealogy
• Original handwritten provenance
The extensive reverse inscriptions are the critical feature: the people and excursion were documented rather than lost to anonymity, allowing the photograph to be connected to recognizable people and important chapters of early Miami history.
A compelling original artifact for an advanced collection of Florida history, Miami history, Black Americana, transportation, automobilia, Everglades material, early aviation, genealogy or American social history.
Catalog: 0PS0461
Size: Approx. 3 × 5 inches
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