DISPATCH: The Forgotten Gladesman

David Shealy makes a lot of his money off Florida’s version of Bigfoot. He sells T-shirts, bumper stickers and hot sauce out of the Skunk Ape Research Headquarters off the Tamiami Trail in Ochopee, Florida.

Shealy’s kitschy business should be secondary to the Trail Lakes Campgrounds that he runs in the Big Cyprus National Preserve, but he told #FLDispatches that ever since the National Parks Services started offering free camping there, his business has been slowly dying. This dispatch: Politics from the perspective of a forgotten, frustrated Gladesman.