12ingun

My grandfather, Charles Doelle ( pronounced dough-lee ), served aboard the USS Florida in WWI

Wow! The State Archives is always looking for photos of Floridians and Florida related images,documents or letters. Particularly WWI era material these days as we approach the 100th anniversary of the U.S. entry into the war on April 16th.

The strange is that the real name of the State is "Minas Gerais", with "i", but that's the name of the ship. I realy don't know if the name of the ship is realy "Minas Geraes" or "Minas Gerais". I'll try to find that.

D. Pineze: It is a little strange, but it turns out that 'Minas Geraes' was the spelling used at the time the ship was commissioned. Many references to that spelling can be found in newspapers of the time, and in other sources. The modern spelling is Gerais, as you pointed out, but Geraes is correct when referring to this ship. Here is one example article about the Minas Geraes from the New York Times in 1908. Thanks for your comment!

Yah... i can imagine the spelling and "Geraes" make sense. It was just a curiosity to find something diferent that i saw... but its perfect. A little charm in the history... rsrsrs. Thanks to this answer coment.

Another curiosity is that Minas Gerais is a state that has no connection to the sea! So it's sort of ironic to call a ship with this name!

A similar photo appeared in The Sunday Oregonian, July 13, 1913, SECTION FIVE, Image 59 with the caption: "The Minas Geraes, which brought Dr. Muller. the Premier of Brazil, to this country, is one of two Dreadnoughts owned by Brazil. Another much larger is now building. The Minas Geraes and her sister ship, the Sao Paolo, are of 19,281 tons displacement. She car ries 12 12-inch guns and 22 of 4.7 Inches. Her horsepower is 23.500, and she can make 21 knots an hour." oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn83045782/1913-07-13/ed-1/se...

the ship that started it all. this is one of the wing turrets, presumably the starboard as it would be parked facing forward.

6