Jimmy Smith, The Times-Picayune

PAHOKEE, FLA. – A generation ago, perhaps two, this city that borders Florida’s Everglades for all of its 5.4 miles was known as “the winter vegetable capital of the world.” Crops such as sugar cane, various citrus fruits, corn and soybeans thrive in the black, rich soil locals refer to as “the muck.”

Yet prosperity has long since disappeared from this quaint burg, the Native American translation of its name meaning “grassy waters.”

The Thriftway supermarket is boarded up. There are no fast-food establishments. There’s a bank and a drug store, and a small police force, and Poppa Jimmy’s Catfish & More restaurant among the city’s 6,000 residents. And Club 57, next to Sparkles Marketplace on Muck City Road, once a stylish club owned by one of this city’s most noteworthy natives, named after the number he made famous in the NFL, sits empty.

Read the rest of the story here.

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