Dyea, Alaska: The Town That Lost a Race and Died of It

There is a cemetery in Southeast Alaska where almost every headstone shares the same date: April 3, 1898.

In this episode of Drive-Thru Towns, host Andrew Wilcox takes us to a flat river delta near Skagway that was once home to 8,000 people. During the height of the Klondike Gold Rush, Dyea was the gateway to the brutal Chilkoot Pass—the "Golden Stairs" to wealth or ruin.

We explore the "Palm Sunday Avalanche," a disaster that buried dozens of stampeders under walls of white, and the subsequent rise of the railroad that ultimately rendered the town obsolete. It wasn't the mountain that killed Dyea; it was a surveyor’s decision ten miles away.

If you enjoyed this journey into Alaska’s "ghost" geography, please follow the show on Spotify to catch every stop on our map.

• Instagram: @50statefamily

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• Email: wilcoxlegal@gmail.com

• Host: Andrew Wilcox

• Theme Music: A special thanks to Chloe Jones for the hauntingly beautiful score. Explore more of her work at chloejonesmusic.co.uk.

Drive Thru Towns — Season 2 Trailer: Alaska

Welcome to Drive Thru Towns.

Season 2 is here — and we're heading somewhere bigger, wilder, and colder than anywhere we've been before.

Alaska.

This season, we leave the moss-draped back roads of Florida behind and drive north — all the way to the edge of the continent, and sometimes beyond it. We're talking about a town the earth swallowed whole in under five minutes. A road built in eight months by soldiers whose names were literally erased from the photographs. A village everyone abandoned — and nobody can fully explain why. A bunker city carved into a mountain by a Cold War military that needed a secret. And the very top of the world, where America simply runs out of road.

Alaska has always been the place where history went to disappear. This season, we're going to find it.

This season covers:

• The earthquake ghost town of Portage — swallowed by the tides of Turnagain Arm in 1964
• Dyea — the gold rush boomtown that lost a race to its neighbor and vanished inside a single season
• Whittier — the secret WWII bunker city where most of the town still lives under one roof
• Ninilchik — a Russian colonial settlement where an Imperial-era dialect of Russian is still spoken today
• The ALCAN — the highway that connected a continent, built on a history it spent 75 years trying to erase
• Utqiagvik (Barrow) — 1,500 years of continuous habitation at the top of the world, where America ends and the dark begins
• And much more

Season 2 of Drive Thru Towns drops soon. Follow now so you don't miss the first episode.

Connect with the ShowHost: Andrew WilcoxFollow for more episodes: [Click Follow on Spotify]Instagram: @50statefamilyLinkedIn: Andrew WilcoxEmail: wilcoxlegal@gmail.com

CreditsSpecial thanks to Chloe Jones for the music: chloejonesmusic.co.uk

Havana & Quincy: The Millionaires of Shade Tobacco

Welcome to Drive Thru Towns. In this episode, we travel the rolling hills of Gadsden County to explore Havana and Quincy, Florida—two towns built on the "green gold" of shade tobacco and a single, legendary investment that changed the face of the American South.

This isn't just a story about farming; it’s a masterclass in risk, vision, and the "fads" that end up defining centuries. We pull over to look at:

• The Shade Tobacco Empire: How a specific, fragile leaf grown under massive tapestries of cheesecloth turned Gadsden County into the cigar-wrapper capital of the world.

• The Coca-Cola Millionaires: The incredible true story of Pat Munroe, the Quincy banker who pressured his neighbors to buy shares of a "failing" soda company during the Great Depression—turning a small Florida town into the wealthiest per-capita community in the United States.

• The "Fad" That Lasted: A personal look at the skepticism of those who passed on the Coca-Cola stock, including the host's own family history at the Salem cemetery.

• The Architecture of Wealth: From the grand Victorian "Coca-Cola Mansions" of Quincy to the repurposed tobacco barns of Havana that now house the state's premier antique collections.

• A Landscape of Ghosts: Moving through the "Havana Curves" where the ghosts of the tobacco industry still whisper from the shadows of abandoned curing barns.

Havana and Quincy remind us that history is often made by the things we can’t see coming—and that sometimes, the best move you can make is betting on the thing everyone else calls a "fad."

Host: Andrew Wilcox

Follow for more episodes: [Click Follow on Spotify]

Instagram: @50statefamily

LinkedIn: Andrew Wilcox

Email: wilcoxlegal@gmail.com

Special thanks to Chloe Jones for the music: chloejonesmusic.co.uk

Micanopy: The Town That Time Forgot

Welcome to Drive Thru Towns. In this episode, we pull off US-441 and move under a canopy of ancient live oaks to visit Micanopy, Florida—a place where the humidity feels like history and the light moves as slow as the traffic.

Micanopy isn't just an antique capital; it is the oldest inland town in Florida and a landscape that has inspired Pulitzer Prize winners and Hollywood directors alike. We explore the deep layers of the "Florida Gothic" aesthetic, including:

• The Namesake Chief: The story of Micanopy, the "High Chief" of the Seminole Nation, and the fierce resistance that defined the Second Seminole War.

• A Lost Utopia: The 1820s experiment of "Alachua," one of the few Jewish communitarian agricultural colonies in the antebellum South.

• The Hollywood Transformation: How this quiet village stood in for South Carolina in the 1991 film Doc Hollywood, and why its "moss-draped perfection" made it the ultimate cinematic backdrop.

• The Literary Edge: The town’s connection to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and the rugged, beautiful "scrub" life that defined her world-famous writing.

• Bison in the Prairie: The prehistoric feel of the adjacent Paynes Prairie, where wild horses and bison still roam a landscape documented by naturalists over 250 years ago.

Micanopy is a town that doesn't just preserve the past; it lives in it. It’s a place where you don't go to see sights—you go to remember a version of Florida that existed long before the first theme park was even a dream.

Host: Andrew Wilcox

Follow for more episodes: [Click Follow on Spotify]

Instagram: @50statefamily

LinkedIn: Andrew Wilcox

Email: wilcoxlegal@gmail.com

Special thanks to Chloe Jones for the music: chloejonesmusic.co.uk

Connect with the ShowCredits

Cedar Key & Rosewood: Pencils, Clams, and a Buried Town

Welcome to Drive Thru Towns. In this episode, we travel to the end of State Road 24 to visit two towns forever linked by a railroad, a swamp, and a silence that took decades to break: Cedar Key and Rosewood, Florida.

This isn't just a trip to a quiet fishing village; it’s a journey through the tools that wrote American history and the stories that were nearly erased from it. We explore:

• The Pencil Capital of the World: How the towering cedar forests of these islands provided the wood for billions of pencils, fueling American education and bureaucracy until the trees simply ran out.

• Atsena Otie: The "original" Cedar Key, now a ghost island of ruins and cisterns, abandoned after the devastating hurricane of 1896 proved that nature always has the final say.

• The Tragedy of Rosewood: A somber look at the self-sufficient, prosperous African American community that was destroyed in a week of violence in 1923—and the brave railroad conductor who risked everything to spirit women and children to safety.

• Breaking the Silence: How a town "erased" from the map for sixty years finally had its story told, leading to a historic act of state restitution.

• The Clam Resurrection: How a community that lost its timber and its nets reinvented itself as a world-class aquaculture hub, proving that resilience is the true local industry.

The road into Cedar Key is the same road out, but after hearing these stories, you’ll never look at the Florida hammock—or a Number Two pencil—the same way again.

Host: Andrew Wilcox

Follow for more episodes: [Click Follow on Spotify]

Instagram: @50statefamily

LinkedIn: Andrew Wilcox

Email: wilcoxlegal@gmail.com

Special thanks to Chloe Jones for the music: chloejonesmusic.co.uk

Fernandina Beach: The Isle of Eight Flags

Welcome to Drive Thru Towns. In this episode, we steer toward the northeastern tip of Florida to Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island—a place that has seen more flags, more pirates, and more reinventions than perhaps any other spot in America.

Fernandina Beach isn't just a charming Victorian escape; it is a survivor of centuries of global tug-of-war. We explore the high-stakes history of this deep-water harbor, including:

• The Pirate Republic: The wild story of Luis Aury, a French privateer who claimed the island for a Mexican Republic that didn't even know he existed, just to provide cover for his smuggling operations.

• The Eight Flags: Why this small island holds the unique distinction of having been under eight different national flags—from France and Spain to the short-lived "Republic of the Floridas."

• The Manhattan of the South: How Senator David Levy Yulee built the state's first cross-peninsula railroad and envisioned a metropolis that would rival New York, only to have his dreams derailed by the Civil War.

• The Palace Saloon: A look inside the oldest continuously operated bar in Florida, which survived Prohibition by selling "medicinal" ice cream and gasoline, and where a ghost bartender reportedly still keeps watch.

• Victorian Resilience: How a town that once thrived on shrimping and shipping preserved its stunning "gingerbread" architecture to become a masterclass in historic preservation.

Fernandina Beach is a town that empires wanted, pirates stole, and locals saved. It’s a reminder that even the most beautiful places are often forged in the fires of conflict and ambition.

Host: Andrew Wilcox

Follow for more episodes: [Click Follow on Spotify]

Instagram: @50statefamily

LinkedIn: Andrew Wilcox

Email: wilcoxlegal@gmail.com

Special thanks to Chloe Jones for the music: chloejonesmusic.co.uk

Mount Dora: Where the Map Lies

Welcome to Drive Thru Towns. In this episode, we climb to one of the highest points in Florida to discover Mount Dora—a town that defies every geological and cultural expectation of the Sunshine State.

Mount Dora isn't just a quaint village of antique shops and bed-and-breakfasts; it is a place of inland lighthouses, cinematic history, and Cold War secrets. We explore the fascinating contradictions of this lakeside "mountain" town, including:

• The Mountain and the Light: How a town at 184 feet above sea level became a Florida "peak" and why it maintains a proud, freshwater lighthouse miles from any coastline.

• The Catacombs of Mount Dora: The incredible story of the "Catacombs," a 5,000-square-foot private bomb shelter built during the height of nuclear anxiety—complete with a 2,000-pound steel door hidden beneath a croquet court.

• The Pinkest Disaster in Hollywood: A look back at the time Hollywood painted the entire town Pepto-Bismol pink for the film Honky Tonk Freeway, and how the town survived the movie’s spectacular box-office failure.

• Pat Alasnas’s Ghost: The literary legacy of the novel Alas, Babylon, which used Mount Dora as the inspiration for a town surviving nuclear annihilation.

• A Legacy of Stubbornness: How Mount Dora has maintained its identity—and its afternoon tea—against the relentless pull of nearby Orlando’s theme park gravity.

  Mount Dora is a masterclass in being exactly yourself, regardless of what the map or the neighbors say. It is a town built on a ridge that looks out over a landscape it refuses to conform to.

Host: Andrew Wilcox

Follow for more episodes: [Click Follow on Spotify]

Instagram: @50statefamily

LinkedIn: Andrew Wilcox

Email: wilcoxlegal@gmail.com

Special thanks to Chloe Jones for the music: chloejonesmusic.co.uk