For a large chunk of the 1900s, the phosphate mining industry was booming, with communities popping up around the mines, some of them in the greater Tampa Bay region.
One of those communities nestled just to the south of Plant City was Coronet. It doesn't exist anymore, except for in the minds of the people who lived there, a road with its namesake, and a few remnants.
Jeannie Fletcher hasn't been back to the Coronet area in more than 20 years.
“I almost cried, because I haven't been back here,” Fletcher said.
Now, memories are coming back like a flood as Fletcher walks along the property right next to the home she spent some of her childhood in.
Jeannie points to a strip of cement on the outskirts of the property.
“I think that was the driveway my granddad would take to go to our house, and we'd sit here and wait for him and get a ride in the back of the pickup truck,” Fletcher said.
She was raised by her grandparents.
Her grandfather was chief electrician for Coronet Industries, a phosphate mining company right across the street from her old home.
A last remaining landmark
Coronet Industries thrived throughout the early 1900s.
But in the 1960s, the houses that were built for employees were physically picked up and moved to other nearby communities.
Now, one of the only remaining buildings is the Coronet Bungalow, where executives and guests stayed when they were checking out the operation.
The bungalow is now owned by Billy Williams, a local retired farmer.
“When I first saw the place, I knew right away it was one of a kind,” Williams said.
Williams grew up in nearby Plant City, but says he had plenty of friends from Coronet as a kid.
And he knows the area like the back of his hand — even some places that were supposed to be exclusive to Coronet residents.
Like the car wash right outside one of the old entrances to the mines.
“When I was in high school, I was a little scared to come through here, but I did it anyway,” Williams said. “I'd come through here before I went to pick up my date so my car would be clean.”
And Williams remembers the old Coronet commissary store. He still vividly remembers the sandwiches.
“Spiced ham, and hog head cheese, sliced real thin,” Williams said. “Best sandwich ever.”
Plenty of others have fond memories of the Coronet community, too.
Coronet Industries built housing for employees in areas around the mines, and Larry Britt lived in one of those homes as a kid. His dad worked for the mines.
“I can't even remember things, I can't remember my own grandchildren's names, but I can remember back at Coronet, because it was memories,” Britt said.
The whistle heard everywhere (around Coronet)
And one thing everyone seems to remember is "the whistle." A bulky pipe would ring out three times per day at the mine, to signal the start of the work day, lunch time, and when they were closing up shop.
Lynn Prescott grew up in Coronet as well. Her dad's job was to blow that whistle.
“The first time I went down there with him, he didn't bother to tell me that he was gonna blow the whistle,” Prescott said. “When he blew the whistle I got scared. I ran all the way home to my mama. That was quite a jaunt.”
When the mines were eventually shut down, and equipment was being taken apart, Billy Williams made sure to save that piece of what he considers Coronet history.
“I don't know how many hundreds of people remember and know that whistle, and I just wanna say ‘well, I've got it,’” Williams said.
A 'gentle soul' amid discrimination
And there was someone that many Coronet residents remember fondly, too. Most people knew him as Junior.
“He was another gentle soul,” Prescott said. "Just a gentleman, if I had to pick a gentleman.”
Willie Thomas Jr. was a Black man who ran the Coronet Bungalow, and served as its head chef.
His daughter, Mary Mathis, is now a commissioner for Plant City. She remembers helping him in the bungalow's kitchen growing up.
“He enjoyed cooking for anybody,” Mathis said. “He loved to put smiles on people's faces, because that what he liked to do, and he just had an awesome gift for it.”
At the time, white residents in Coronet lived in a section known by residents as the Backsquare.
Black residents stayed in a separate area called the quarters.
Despite the clear racial tension at the time, Mathis and others who knew her father say that never slowed him down.
“Because of the respect that my father had for what he did at the mine and in that community, we didn't see [discrimination] as much, but we knew it was there, Mathis said.
Coronet Industries ended up facing a major lawsuit because of environmental impacts the mines had on the surrounding property and the people who lived there.
It officially shut down in 2004, in the middle of an investigation from the EPA.
Mathis says despite the mine's abrupt ending, it's still important to remember the community and impact Coronet had on people in the area.
“My father would think it's important to remember any history as far as Black history is concerned and especially Coronet, because that's where he received his foundation,” Mathis said.
That's why Williams is trying to preserve the bungalow in its original, historic form. So he can show future generations what once was.
“It's part of our history,” Williams said. “It was the way things were, and it's something I witnessed as a child, and I have as a childhood memory. And I don't want to lose any of that.”
And whether its the people, the whistle, or the sandwiches, Coronet is alive and well in the memories of the people who lived there.
