As a member of the Confederacy, Florida saw use of all three versions of the Confederate flag. The Bonnie Blue Flag, previously the flag of the short-lived Republic of West Florida, was briefly used as an unofficial flag of the Confederacy. It features a single five-point star centered in a blue background.
Between 1868 and 1900, the flag of Florida was simply the state seal on a white background.
In a discrepancy, however, a later version of the state seal depicts a steamboat with a white flag that includes a red saltire, similar to Florida’s current flag. In the late 1890s, Governor Francis P. Fleming advocated that St. Andrew’s Cross be added so that it would not appear to be a white flag of truce hanging still on a flagpole. Floridians approved the addition of St. Andrew’s Cross by popular referendum in 1900. The red saltire of the Cross of Burgundy represents the cross on which St. Andrew was crucified, and the standard can be frequently seen in Florida’s historic settlements, such as St. Augustine, today.
Lastly, some historians see the addition of a red saltire as a commemoration of Florida’s contributions to the Confederacy by Governor Fleming, who served in the 2nd Florida Regiment of the Confederate army. The addition was made during a period of nostalgia for the “Lost Cause” around the time of the flag’s change.
State Nickname:
Florida’s official nickname is “The Sunshine State,” adopted by Florida legislature in 1970 as an advertising message for tourists seeking relief from cold Northern winters. Florida beaches draw thousands of tourists every year. Most of the state has a humid subtropical climate, except for the southern part below Lake Okeechobee which has a true tropical climate.
The Florida Keys, which are surrounded by water, have a more tropical climate, with less variability in temperatures compared to mainland Florida. In Key West, temperatures rarely exceed 90 °F in the summer or fall below 60 °F in the winter. Frost has never been reported in the Florida Keys.