Barthle Family History
"http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=barthle&id=I00896"
"The beginning of the Barthle Family in Florida"
They had moved from Minnesota where only years earlier emigrated from the Black Forest Area of Germany.
June 1883. Andrew Barthle (1802-1891) and Charles Barthle (1852-1936) built the first permanent home in what would become St. Joseph.
Begining in 1883, the Barthle family led a number of Catholic immigrants from the German Empire into the area (by way of Minnesota) and founded St. Joseph, the last and only survivor of Edmund Dunne's planned villages. It was due north of San Antonio. A little board- and-batten church was built there in 1888 and dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
San Antonio and the surrounding area maintained a distinctly Germanic character until the era of the First World War when Florida was convulsed with an unprecedented wave of AntiGerman feeling combined with a strong Anti-Catholic movement led by the state's governor, Sidney J. Catts.
Governor Catts was widely quoted (and widely believed) to the effect that the "German" monks at St. Leo had an arsenal and were planning to arm Florida Negroes for an insurrection in favor of Kaiser Wilhelm II, after which the Pope would take over Florida and move the Vatican to San Antonio (and, of course, close all protestant churches). A number of German settlers moved away to friendlier parts of the country. Others stayed and took the pressure.
In 1926, during the Florida land boom, San Antonio was reorganized as the "City of Lake Jovita and its boundaries extended a considerable distance. In an effort to "modernize," Judge Dunne's street names were changed: Sacred Heart Street becoming Rhode Island Avenue, Pius IX Avenue becoming Curley Street, etc. The land boom ended abruptly in the same year, causing bank failures throughout the state. A community with deep roots in the past and strong agricultural ties, Judge Dunne's Catholic Colony is now comprised of the Cities of San Antonio and St. Leo, the unincorporated village of St. Joseph and miles of orange trees and pasture lands. The central role played by the Catholic church in the life of the community and the deep commitment to agriculture by generations of residents are, like San Antonio's town square, reminders of what Judge Dunne envisioned in 1882.
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