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Rubbing hard against Alabama in the west and Georgia in the north, the long, narrow Panhandle has much more in common with the states of the Deep South than with the rest of Florida, and city sophisticates have countless jokes lampooning the folksy lifestyles of the people here. Hard to credit, then, that just a century ago, the Panhandle was Florida. At the western edge, Pensacola was a busy port when Miami was still a swamp. Fertile soils lured wealthy plantation owners south and helped establish Tallahassee as a high-society gathering place and administrative center - a role which, as the state capital, it retains. But the decline of cotton, the chopping down of too many trees, and the coming of the East Coast railroad eventually left the Panhandle high and dry. Much of the inland region still seems neglected, and the Apalachicola Forest is perhaps the best place in Florida to disappear into the wilderness. The coastal Panhandle , on the other hand, is enjoying better times and, despite rows of hotels, much is still untainted, with miles of blindingly white sands.
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