The Sesquicentennial Logo

A symbolic logo representing the city's history was presented to City Council Monday night by Duffy Soto, a distant relative of Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto.

The logo is less a graphic representation than it is a historical representation, Soto said.

" I started with my knowledge of Lake City. "From this I was able to draw some conclusions," he told council. Soto has interviewed many people with historical knowledge.

"Lake City has a very agricultural background, starting from the first settlement. I had the opportunity to read the actual minutes from one of the oldest Protestant churches." He read about their lives as farmers.

Pointing to his logo, he said, "This border is the famous old burlap sack. Just about everything was wrapped in burlap, whether it was tobacco or cotton or paper or peas. This gives you the idea of that burlap feel. A lot of old timers told me they went to school wearing a shirt that was made out of burlap.

"Agriculture, being the king that it was," is represented by the brown tones. "It represents the good dirt that was around Columbia County that was able to provide for the folk who were here. King among the crops was tobacco. We still have the tobacco barns to remind us of just how big tobacco was in the '20s, the '30s, the '40s, right on up to recent times."

The texture in the background comes from tobacco, he said. "It comes from the dried tobacco leaf. It is basically saying we come from a tobacco root."

Inside the 0 in the150 is an outline of Columbia County and a star marks Lake City.

"Also, you can see these little star bursts (radiating lines). They were put there as pathways. Not necessarily roadways, but pathways, because Lake City always has been the gateway to Florida. Long before there were paved roads, people came from South Carolina and Tennessee, and they came through this area here (from the north) And they came from the west, he said, pointing to the outline.

"DeSoto came up from the Tampa area and came up through here and crossed over towards Tallahassee.

"So that tells you, if you look at the little dark spot across the top and the little dark spot across the bottom, this stands for the roots, this means where we came from, this means where we're going, we are the pathways going both ways," he said.

"If you look at the star (indicating Lake City on the map), I could have used just about anything , but I decide the star as opposed to a dot, or a bullet or something. Why? Because we were the center, we were the capitol, we were the place. We had the first college here - Columbia Agricultural College - which became the University of Florida.

"People from Jacksonville would spend the night in Lake City on their way to Tallahassee. Tallahassee became the capitol of Florida because for most folks, that was the center. They just didn't know anything existed below Orlando" he joked. "And a lot of folks in this area still don't think anything exists below Orlando, but that's another story."

Returning to the star, "This became a star because we are a focal point for people coming and going. Our fine hospitality businesses, our hotels at the Interstate, can testify to that. People come in from the north. And this is the first place they stop if they're coming from Central Florida or South Florida on their way out.

"We're going to use a star because we're going to be king of this area," he said. So, if anybody asks you, this is not a graphic, this is a historical compilation of where we come from and where we hope to go, maybe in the next 150 years."

"My involvement in this has been nothing but a pure pleasure, I feel honored to be involved," he said. "This is not a job, it is a passion."

Soto thanked Nick Harwell, the city's Strategic Planning and Marketing Director, for helping with the design. "He did a lot of really hard work, acting as a liaison between me, who is trying to provide what some folks are wanting and to provide something that I hope will be representative of the 150th anniversary of Lake City."

John Robertson made a motion to accept the design as the official logo of the 150th anniversary. Each member of council thanked Soto for his work.

The 150th Anniversary is 2009 and the celebration events are scheduled to begin January 15.