A Light in the Wilderness: The Story of Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse and the Southeast Florida Frontier

About the Author\nJames D. Snyder, author of A Light in the Wilderness, has won several awards for both histories and historical novels. "The common thread among them," he says, "is an effort to help the reader grasp the essence of a dramatic historical period through the lives of individuals who lived through it."
Snyder also writes and speaks about the colorful history surrounding his home on the Loxahatchee River in South Florida. Five Thousand Years on the Loxahatchee is a pictorial history of Jupiter-Tequesta, FL while Black Gold and Silver Sands describes the hard-scrabble beginnings of Palm Beach County. A Trip Down the Loxahatchee shows the river's beauty through the eyes of 52 painters and photographers. Life and Death on the Loxahatchee tells the story of a larger-than-life "Tarzan" who fascinated locals until his mysterious death.
Jim Snyder has been a writer and editor since graduating from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and The George Washington University graduate school of political science. Beginning in the 1970s he founded what would become the largest independent Washington news bureau for business and medical magazines. In 1984 it became Enterprise Communications Inc., with its own magazines and trade shows.
In 1997, when the company was sold to Thomson-Reuters Corp., Snyder was able to pursue a second career as author-historian. Today he is also active in several organizations to protect the Loxahatchee River and its rich history.\nYou can't miss the red tower when at Jupiter Inlet in Florida. But many passers-by are unaware that it sits atop a hill that marked the confluence of two waterways that was the center of 5,000 years of Indian civilization. It would later draw a succession of Spanish, English, Seminole Indians, and American soldiers. When the lighthouse was built in 1860, it became a hub for builders, surveyors, Civil War blockade runners, pioneer farmers and paddlewheel steamboats. A Light in the Wilderness tells how today's coastal strip of over seven million residents began just a few generations ago when bears, panthers and alligators roamed and ruled.