Economy
Historically, the economy of the Panhandle depended mainly on farming, forestry and lumbering, paper mills, import/export shipping at Pensacola and to a lesser extent at Panama City, shipbuilding, and commercial fishing. After World War II, the economy was boosted by the numerous military bases established in the region, as well as the growth of tourism and the hospitality industry.
Major employers in the second half of the twentieth century included Monsanto and Westinghouse plants at Pensacola, the St. Joe Paper Company in Port St. Joe, and Gulf Power, a major electric utility company.
Unlike central and southern Florida, the Panhandle has never been a producer of citrus crops because the area is subject to regular frosts and freezes in wintertime, which destroy citrus fruits.
Read more about this topic: Florida Panhandle
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“It enhances our sense of the grand security and serenity of nature to observe the still undisturbed economy and content of the fishes of this century, their happiness a regular fruit of the summer.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical terms.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“The counting-room maxims liberally expounded are laws of the Universe. The merchant’s economy is a coarse symbol of the soul’s economy. It is, to spend for power, and not for pleasure.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)