The Great Fumar
05-20-2008, 03:27 AM
Buffalo (tatunka) (hugeacus smellacus carroteatingacus)
I have been asked what I know about the derivation of the buffalo to the villages...
This is a story we were told several years ago, and I believe it to be true...
Harold Swartz owned a restaurant near my home in Northern Michigan on TORCH LAKE named BROWNWOOD ...(sound familiar?? ) We knew back in the 60's that he was in Florida building a retirement comunity.....( I was very young at the time.) When he brought his son in to build THE VILLAGES on the west side of hwy 441 , someone came up with the idea of putting animals in the large fields of undeveloped property so they would be taxed as farmland and not commercial land saving thousands of dollars ..( wish I had thought of it.)
Now in Traverse City , Michigan (my other home ) is the OLSEN FOOD MARKET chain that raises hundreds of buffalo and sells the meat in their stores, Now Harold Olsen and Harold Swartz were good friends and so Swartz bought twelve bison and moved them to Florida where they have grown into a small herd.........
buffalo meat is very good especially if made up in barbecue burgers....the local college does it every summer as a fund raiser and the whole town turns out.......
Ok , thats it , I believe this story to be true as I have heard it confirmed over the years ...You may or may not know that Traverse City has an asylum there and thats where most of the confirmations came from.......
Fumar the Magnificent , Worlds foremost authority on nearly everything..... :read:
I have been asked what I know about the derivation of the buffalo to the villages...
This is a story we were told several years ago, and I believe it to be true...
Harold Swartz owned a restaurant near my home in Northern Michigan on TORCH LAKE named BROWNWOOD ...(sound familiar?? ) We knew back in the 60's that he was in Florida building a retirement comunity.....( I was very young at the time.) When he brought his son in to build THE VILLAGES on the west side of hwy 441 , someone came up with the idea of putting animals in the large fields of undeveloped property so they would be taxed as farmland and not commercial land saving thousands of dollars ..( wish I had thought of it.)
Now in Traverse City , Michigan (my other home ) is the OLSEN FOOD MARKET chain that raises hundreds of buffalo and sells the meat in their stores, Now Harold Olsen and Harold Swartz were good friends and so Swartz bought twelve bison and moved them to Florida where they have grown into a small herd.........
buffalo meat is very good especially if made up in barbecue burgers....the local college does it every summer as a fund raiser and the whole town turns out.......
Ok , thats it , I believe this story to be true as I have heard it confirmed over the years ...You may or may not know that Traverse City has an asylum there and thats where most of the confirmations came from.......
Fumar the Magnificent , Worlds foremost authority on nearly everything..... :read: