FLORIDA BUSINESS INSIGHT by  Jacquelyn Horkan, editor
They came with one suit of underwear and a twenty dollar bill and never changed either. Fuller Warren, Governor of Florida , 1949-1953
They were the tin-can tourists, the vanguard of a new breed of tourists who would democratize leisure and transform Florida . With a tent strapped to the top of the car and food, spare tires, and supplies of gasoline lashed to the fenders they flocked to a frontier state, sparsely populated and barely settled, exotically different from the Northeastern cities and Midwestern towns they called home. By 1919, the number of tin-can tourists had grown to the point that they formed their own association, complete with a secret sign (the letter “C” formed with a thumb and forefinger). The Tin Can Tourists of the World would hold an annual convention in Florida every year until 1977.
Although they travel no more, the indelible mark of the tin-can tourists remains. Large numbers of them bought property in the state. In making a new home here, the tin-can tourists helped fuel Florida ’s 20th century boom.	And the postcards they sent to their friends, such as the one received by Edd M. Cutling of Lyme Center , New Hampshire , created the myth of the Sunshine State : “We read of snow, cold and deaths in the north. Nothing like that here. Am in my shirt sleeves every day.”

 

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