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CELEBRATING 100 YEARS OF MOSQUITO CONTROL IN FLORIDA
History has well documented the fact that mosquitoes have plagued mankind for thousands of years and they continue to be a growing threat in much of the world today. In 1821, when the United States officially took control of Florida, Virginia Congressman John Randolph declared it “a land of swamps, of quagmires, of frogs and alligators and mosquitoes. A man, sir, would not immigrate into Florida – and no, not from Hell itself.”
Development continued to be very slow in Florida for the next 100 years while mosquitoes remained a major detriment as both a nuisance pest and a major disease vector. There were many large epidemics of yellow fever, dengue fever and malaria in Florida during this period with many associated deaths. The Florida Keys were often at the center of these disease outbreaks. In the early 1920s a terrible epidemic of dengue fever began in Miami and swept through the entire state, infecting more than 200,000 people when the state’s population was just over 1 million.
After this disease outbreak, things began to change, when the Florida Legislature provided for the establishment of mosquito control districts after their approvals by local referendum. The first such district formed was in Indian River County, which was part of what had earlier been named Mosquito County. In 1922, a group of dedicated individuals assembled in Daytona Beach to form the organization that is known today as the Florida Mosquito Control Association (FMCA). In 1949 the forerunner of what is now the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District was created to control our 40+ tropical mosquito species and their diseases. Mosquitoes and the diseases they carry have slowed and continue to slow social and economic development in many tropical and subtropical climates of the world today, but no longer in Florida or the Keys.
