It is home to a paper mill, which employs most of the men of the area. Inland, there is a little farming, and a few people still make their living fishing for mullet or taking oysters from the shallow bay. It is the county seat of Ware county. With a population of under twenty thousand, it is the smallest county in Florida. It is the kind of place that the northerners never see in the brochures put out by the tourist industry. It is also the kind of place where the sheriff knows everybody and everything that is going on.I drove up from Longboat Key through St. Petersburg and Clearwater, and on up Highway 27. I had decided to see what I could find out about John James. If he were in fact involved in shady or illegal dealings, it was likely that a number of his fellow citizens would be aware of it. These people are very protective of their own.As in many southern towns the courthouse sat on a square, with most of the stores and shops on the streets surrounding it. On the front lawn there was the usual statute of a Confederate soldier, facing his enemy to the north.
