Real photo postcard of the Turner-Sullivan Garden at 78 14th Avenue in St. Petersburg, Florida — a remarkable papaya plantation in full production, the trees laden with enormous clusters of fruit hanging in cascading tiers from trunk to crown, the lush subtropical density of it almost implausible for a private city garden. Handwritten on the image in white ink: "TURNER / SULLIVAN GARDEN / 78 14 Ave. N. ST. PETERSBURG FLA / PAPAYA PLANTATION." St. Petersburg in the 1930s was a booming winter resort city, drawing tourists from the cold northern states to its sunshine and tropical novelties; a private garden that had turned a city lot into a papaya grove was exactly the kind of wonder visitors sent home as proof of what Florida could do. Someone sent this in March 1936 to a friend in Brandon, Vermont — the long handwritten message filling every inch of the back, deep winter at home, papayas in the yard here.

• Caption: Turner / Sullivan Garden, 78 14 Ave. N., St. Petersburg, Fla. — Papaya Plantation.
• Postmark: Saint Petersburg, Fla., March 3, 1936
• Status: Posted