early pioneering conservation efforts to rescue the southeast section of Key Biscayne from overdevelopment by real estate developers. The Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park was named in his honor on land protected from development. In 2004 a large sign was installed at the park, recognizing the site as part of the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom: eyewitness accounts documented hundreds of slaves and Black Seminoles escaping from here to go to freedom in the Bahamas in the early 1820s; 300 were recorded in 1823. Construction of a staffed lighthouse at Cape Florida in 1825 cut off this escape route. Bill Baggs died of viral pneumonia and influenza on January 7, 1969 at the age of 45. He had often been the first employee to arrive every morning before 5:30 A.M. and the last one to leave at night after 6:00 P.M. after the paper had been published and distributed to be available for rush-hour traffic. Starting at 4:00 P.M., newsboys hawked the paper at traffic lights throughout South Florida. Bill Baggs had greatly admired President John F. Kennedy and was noticeably saddened after his assassination in 1963. The editor's close associates said that he was never the same after the death of his longtime friend and political hero. See also Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park References Bibliography Teel, Leonard Ray. 2003. "Mott winner recounts research", Kappa Tau Alpha Newsletter, Vol. 20, No. 1, Winter 2003 1958 Profile of Bill Baggs, Time magazine 1923 births 1969 deaths American newspaper editors American Presbyterians Writers from Miami United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II United States Army Air Forces officers Deaths from pneumonia in Florida