WWII titans meet in Pompano Beach 1941

Gen. George C. Marshall U.S. Army

By Jane Feehan

Among the famous and powerful to visit South Florida during the 1940s was General George C. Marshall (1880-1959), U.S. Army Chief of Staff, who flew in unannounced to the Fort Lauderdale Municipal Airport Nov. 16, 1941.

Marshall “blitzkrieged the entire county” while he paid a visit to Edward Stettinius, Jr. (1900 - 1949), former lend-lease administrator who was vacationing in Pompano Beach. The visit was termed social but turmoil in international affairs provided a more plausible reason for the brief overnight stay. That turmoil resulted in Pearl Harbor, only a few weeks

 away.

Pompano remained “blissfully unaware” of the confab until after Marshall’s departure at 7 a.m. the following day aboard a Great Douglas Bomber or C-41 (Eastern Airlines acquired a few C-41s and changed the designation to DC-3). The four-star general and his pilot, Major L.R. Parker, headed to North Carolina to fly over a maneuver area before landing in Washington, D.C.

Stettinius, who later served as secretary of state under President Truman, hosted Winston Churchill in Pompano (actually Hillsboro Beach) in January, 1942. It gave rise to the local myth that Churchill and President Roosevelt met at Cap’s Place for dinner when, in fact, food from the restaurant (and former gambling hub) was delivered to the Stettinius residence for the prime minister’s visit. Roosevelt had suggested Churchill visit Florida (without the president) when he needed a breather from the prime minister who had been in Washington. 

It was hoped the vacation would be secret, but the press discovered the trip and Churchill was disapointed. (In Hillsboro, Churchill totally disrobed at the ocean's edge and fell into the water, dousing his cigar, according to a Secret Service agent.)

Hillsboro Inlet, Pompano Beach
Hillsboro Mile, site of Stettinus house north of
 lighthouse
Florida State Archives/Overton

General Marshall encouraged U.S. assistance in the post-WWII economic recovery of Europe, thus the naming of the Marshall Plan, an unprecedented $17 billion program that helped restore war-ravaged countries. Marshall also served as the nation’s third secretary of defense and as secretary of state under Truman. Copyright © 2015. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

For more on Churchill in Florida, see:
https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/06/winston-churchill-and-his-miami-beach.html

For a newsreel clip of his arrival in Miami, see: http://tinyurl.com/92x5axf
For more on Churchill at Hillsboro Beach in Broward county during WWII, see:
https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2015/02/wwii-titans-meet-in-pompano-beach-1941.html
https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/06/historic-caps-place-gambling-raids.html

Sources:
Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Nov. 17, 1941.
Manchester, William and Reid, Paul. The Last Lion, Vol. 3: Defender of the Realm. 2012.

Tags: WWII, Pompano Beach history, Florida during WWII, Gen. George Marshall, Edward Stettinius, Jr., film researcher

Lustron House: Solution to post WWII housing comes to Fort Lauderdale

Lustron house in Fort Lauderdale

By Jane Feehan


A housing shortage affected the nation—and South Florida—after World War II. Among the reasons was pent up demand and a dearth of building materials.

California Lustron house

Carl G. Strandlund, then 48, set out to remedy the problem with his idea for a prefabricated house. He launched Lustron Corporation in 1947 with $1,000 jointly invested with his wife, some other private capital and a loan of about $37.5 million from the federal government. It was a controversial loan because of its risk, one that had many detractors in Washington, but the housing need, as defined by President Harry S. Truman, was critical. Strandlund, an engineer, put up his patent for his prefab house as collateral.

Strandlund’s plan was to build 150 a day or a total of 17,500 houses in a plant in Columbus, Ohio with thousands of employees. Lustron Corp. built about 2,500 units, which were delivered as kits. Walls, ceilings and roofs were made of porcelain-enameled steel. Plumbing fixtures were constructed of enamel. The automotive and aircraft industries provided the templates for wiring and lighting. The houses were low maintenance, simple structures of one or two bedrooms but they had low curb appeal.

Lustron Corporation declared bankruptcy in February 1950. There were production delays and lack of a distribution strategy. Also, little thought went into community or site planning. But a few were sent to Florida, with the largest number to Sarasota. 

Records indicate there was one located at 110 Hendricks Isle in Fort Lauderdale. One remains in this city, the Alfred and Olive Thorpe Lustron House, at 1001 NE 2nd Street (see Broward link below for photo). It was entered into the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. A Lustron house in Boca Raton is recorded as demolished. One may still exist on Biscayne Boulevard in Miami and another is listed as being on 59th Street near the Miami International Airport.

The largest assembly (60) of Lustron houses, was at the U.S. Marine military base in Quantico, VA. Information and history about the low-maintenance units is still being researched and compiled by the Lustron Preservation Organization (www.lustronpreservation.org). Some estimate that 2,000 still exist, a testimony to their structural integrity. Copyright © 2015. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.


Sources:

* Fetters, Thomas A. Lustron Home: The History of a Postwar Prefabricated Housing Experiment. McFarland and    Company. Jefferson, NC: 2002

*Lodi News-Sentinel, March 26, 1948

*Miami News, Jan. 13, 1951

* lustronpreservation.org

* www.broward.org/History/NationalRegister/Pages/AlfredandOliveThorpeLustronHouse.aspx

* Wikipedia

Tags: history of Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale history, SOFLA home construction history

Hiaasen: name among novelists, journalists and Fort Lauderdale pioneers

Fort Lauderdale

By Jane Feehan

Fans of award-winning writer Carl Hiaasen usually associate his name with one of his many novels set in Miami or with the Miami Herald, where he contributes a column. But few know that his grandfather Carl Andreas Hiaasen was a Fort Lauderdale pioneer.

The elder Hiaasen was born in North Dakota in 1894. After earning a law degree at the University of North Dakota in 1922, he was enticed to come to booming Fort Lauderdale by World War I buddy Charles McCune. Hiaasen gladly went south to seek adventure but his plan was to return home.

The native North Dakotan’s early adventures in Florida included teaching and preaching. Then McCune asked him to join a law firm—Fort Lauderdale’s first—that he established with attorney C.P. Weidling; Hiaasen took up his friend’s offer and never returned to North Dakota.

He didn’t have much time to think about home. There was enough work at the law office to keep two dozen lawyers busy 24 hours a day. Hopeful developers were flocking to the fledgling Fort Lauderdale (established in 1915) and needed legal expertise for their land deals.

The firm became known as McCune Hiaasen and later McCune, Hiaasen, Kelley (and Fleming was added). Carl Hiaasen served as Port Everglades attorney, as counsel to Hollywood founder Joseph Young, to the City of Fort Lauderdale and to a number of other high-profile clients.

Hiaasen married and had one son Kermit Odell, who also practiced law and is father of today’s novelist, Carl Hiaasen.  The senior Carl Hiaasen worked until his firm disbanded in 1990. During his career, the Fort Lauderdale pioneer was lauded in at least eight Who’s Who books and was a member of the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1926. He died at his Coral Ridge home in June, 1994, a few weeks after his 100^th birthday. Copyright © 2015.

All rights reserved. Jane Feehan. 

Sources:

Palm Beach Post, Feb. 14, 1935

Miami News, April 12, 1950

Boca Raton News, June 16, 1994
Weidling, Philip J. , Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press (1966).


Tags:Fort Lauderdale in the 1920s, Fort Lauderdale pioneers, film researcher, Carl Hiaasen

First U.S. high-speed hydrofoil sails from Port Everglades

US Navy hydrofoil PHM-1Pegasus 1970 (not HS Denison)
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

The nation’s first oceangoing hydrofoil, the H.S. Denison, sailed out of Port Everglades February 2, 1964 for a sea trial. The vessel, first of its kind designed for high speeds over rough waters, was scheduled for passenger service between Fort Lauderdale and Nassau.

Capt. P.O. Clarke ran the vessel through an impressive test. At 23 knots, the 104.6 foot Denison began to rise from the water. At 30 knots it was free from the seas and at 50 knots it was “flying” on its foils with the hull five feet above the ocean.

Though its sea trial was impressive, the Denison remained an experimental vessel, a disappointment to many. The project, initially developed by the Marine Administration (MARAD) of the U.S. Department of Commerce, Aircraft Engine Corporation and General Electric, was coordinated by enthusiastic supporter Charles R. Denison in 1958. The group’s objective was to research possibilities for express cargo shipping and passenger travel at 200 knots. Dension died early in the ship’s design, which diminished impetus for and focus on the project in the years that followed.  

It was reported that 73 companies collectively invested more than $8 million to develop the hydrofoil named posthumously for its most ardent supporter. General Electric built a 14,000 horsepower gas turbine engine for the experimental 94-ton ship. The vessel was completed and launched June 5, 1962 by Grumman Corp. in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Sea trials commenced a few days later and were conducted along the eastern seaboard from Maine to Florida in ocean waters as high as nine feet.

The U.S. Navy withdrew its support of the project to pursue development of its own hydrofoil, which affected commercial plans for the H.S. Dension. Today, a ferry service from Port Everglades to Bimini operates at about 32 knots for passenger and cargo transport—considerably slower than Charles R. Denison envisioned during the 1950s. Maybe speed is why a solid business model for ferry service in this market seems elusive. 

Copyright © 2015. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

Miami News, Feb. 2, 1964

www.foils.org/denison.htm

https://foils.org/

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale historian, Port Everglades history, film researcher, hydrofoils, maritime history

Kalem Company films Miami: "Paradise of the eastern south, the California that is right at home"

Kalem actors circa 1915
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

Miami attracted a series of filmmakers in its early days (see labels for additional posts on the subject), including D.W Griffith in 1919. 

One of the most prolific in the business was the Kalem Company, which filmed daily life in Miami as early as 1913. 

Kalem's filmmaker, L.A. Darling, came to Miami in March of that year and his activities made front page news of the local newspaper.

He produced 14 films in a matter of days capturing shots of tourists at the Royal Palm hotel, millionaire yachtsmen returning from a day of fishing, the Great Commoner William Jennings Bryan—a new resident of Coconut Grove—and pioneer and large land holder Mary Brickell. He also filmed six Seminoles in traditional dress. It was reported that the “film was to advertise to the continent the Paradise of the eastern south, the California that is right at home.”

Darling’s mission was to film an accurate representation of life in the sub-tropics, including its ocean waters, palm trees and coconuts. One film, aimed at the “lady suffragettes,” showed Mary Brickell “bossing the job” or directing a man as he gathered coconuts. Another shows one of Seminoles at “Indian headquarters, Girtman’s Cash grocery,” who, only after much cajoling, moved around for the camera. The Seminoles were convinced Darling didn’t know what he was doing; they assumed the only pictures were still shots.   

Political celebrity William Jennings Bryan, who served as congressman for Nebraska, ran for U.S. president three times and later argued for the state in the Scopes trial, came to Coconut Grove to build a home in 1913. Darling caught him on film with his sleeves rolled up directing construction workers on the site.The filmmaker regretted he hadn’t stopped by three weeks earlier when he could have found Bryan hoeing in his radish patch.

Darling also captured shots of a grapefruit packing house, residential neighborhoods and traffic in business areas. His work took a matter of weeks, including the making of negatives to sell to local movie houses. Theater owners needed lots of product to change up programs on a weekly or even daily basis.

Established in New York City in 1907 and operating from 131 West 24th Street, Kalem Company filmed on location throughout the U.S and Ireland. They opened studios in California and Jacksonville and in doing so, became the first company to film year-round. The company made the first Ben-Hur and the first adaptation of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. Its legacy includes more than 1,200 films including several about Florida: The Seminole’s Vengeance, A Florida Feud: or, Love in the Everglades, In Old Florida, St. Augustine, Florida, the Celery Industry in Florida, and Cypress Logging in Florida. 

Copyright © 2014. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Kalem was purchased in 1917 by Vitagraph Studios.

Sources:

Miami Metropolis, March 12, 1913

Miami Metropolis, March 13, 1913

Mast, Gerald. A Short History of the Movies. New York: Pegasus, 1971

Wikipedia

IMDB.org

Florida Memories

Tags: early filmmakers in Florida, Fort Lauderdale historian, Miami historian, Florida movie studios, Kalem Company,Jane Feehan film researcher, Miami history

Al Capone and "Capone Island" Deerfield Beach: facts and folklore

Capone in 1930 (FBI) see below*

By Jane Feehan

Al Capone folklore in Florida is nearly as ubiquitous as that of George Washington visiting towns during America's War for Independence.

The storied visits of our first president were based on fact. Not so with gangster Capone. Yes, he did live and die on Miami’s Palm Island. He did drive up the South Florida coast for recreation and to seek business opportunities during the boom times of the 1920s. But he did not buy what became known as “Capone Island” in the Intracoastal Waterway off Deerfield Beach.

During 1928 or 1929, the gangster and a few friends stopped at a speakeasy just south of Boca Raton, where Capone viewed a peninsula jutting out into the water off the north bank of the Hillsboro Canal west of the Intracoastal Waterway. The secluded, vacant property probably looked like an ideal place to conduct some bootlegging biz during Prohibition. Capone made an offer for the southeast portion of the peninsula.

A Saint Petersburg, FL, newspaper reported in 1930 that Judge Vincent C. Giblin, “chief of Al Capone’s legal staff in Miami,” was going to buy the property where Capone was to build a residence for $250,000 and a pool for $125,000. This was, no doubt, hyperbole. The Chicago gangster had paid only $40,000 for his Miami Palm Island digs in 1928. The reporter editorialized that Capone’s “presence in Miami is destructive; his presence in Broward County, close to the Boca Raton Club in Palm Beach County, will be destructive to the club and both counties.”

The state was willing to make a deal but the transaction never materialized for two reasons: Boca Raton residents did not want Capone in the neighborhood and the state wanted a road to be built on the property. The road was the deal breaker; Capone walked away. Anyway, he would not have had much time to enjoy it.  In 1932, at 33 years old, he was convicted of tax evasion and sent to Alcatraz for seven years.

Today the 53-acre property is Deerfield Island, operating as a Broward County park since 1981 after it was leased from the state for 99 years. Waterway dredging during the 1960s created a canal, which turned the peninsula into an island (Capone's vision?) The park serves as a popular Boy Scout camp, wildlife refuge and recreational area for boaters and hikers. Copyright © 2015. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

See more on Capone on this blog.

-----------

Sources:

Evening Independent, Saint Petersburg, FL. July 19, 1930

The Day, New London, CT, Jan. 25, 1985

https://www.broward.org/Parks/Pages/park.aspx?park=10

https://www.broward.org/Parks/Pages/OpenParksFacilities.aspx

"Al Capone in 1930" by Wide World Photos, Chicago Bureau (Federal Bureau of Investigation) - http://gottahaveit.com/Al_Capone_Original_1930_s_Wire_Photograph-ITEM14763.aspx. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Al_Capone_in_1930.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Al_Capone_in_1930.jpg

Tags: Al Capone, Capone in Florida, Deerfield Island, Broward County history, Fort Lauderdale historian, Miami historian

Rex Ingram on Miami film studio: We got no cooperation on Passion Vine

By Jane Feehan

“Next movie will tax all Miami facilities for scenes and props,” the Aug, 22, 1922 Miami Daily Metropolis headline claimed.

The picture, Passion Vine, set in the South Pacific and directed by Rex Ingram (1892-1950), would include a live shark attack, a palm-tree-lined beach, and jungle waterfalls for the climatic final scene. Props would also include musical instruments, an assortment of odd articles and a collection of “natives.”

The natives were provided by Seminole Willie Willie. The Indians, said Miami Studios, Inc. principle John Brunton, held a highly developed dramatic instinct, weeping realistically and enacting mob scenes with a singular expertise.

The story rang enthusiastic for the budding movie industry in Hialeah, a Miami suburb. Dublin-born Ingram was considered “one of the world’s best, if not the best, directors in the world.” To have him make a picture with wife and popular leading lady Alice Terry (1899-1987) at the Hialeah studio was a promising sign of things to come.

A news story nearly four months later did not wax as enthusiastic. On Dec. 1, Ingram, as he was to leave with his crew to film the valley scene in Cuba instead of Puerto Rico, complained that he should have visited Miami first himself, instead of sending a representative.  

Ingram told the reporter that the picture cost $125,000 over budget and that they should have wrapped it up three weeks earlier. Rains dogged the production. “I didn’t know I was coming to Miami in the middle of the hurricane season.”  He also groused about the lack of studio equipment, poor laboratory work and incompetent assistants.  

“We got no cooperation at Hialeah,” said Ingram. “Workers did not take to pictures seriously.” Some were told to stay late to finish painting the set one night and instead left at 5 to see a picture show; he and his crew had to find brushes and complete the work themselves.

Ingram did not leave without thanking Brunton, whose hands, the director said, were tied because of the lack of capital. He heaped praise on those who provided their beach-side houses and pools for some of the scenes and thanked Captain Thompson for rounding up a few sharks for the drama.

The movie, based on John Russell’s novel, Passion Vine, is also known as Where the Pavement Ends. The film is lost. The picture, with its “cast of 1000s” opened in Miami at the Fairfax in March, 1923. Before making the Passion Vine, Director Ingram considered Black Orchids, and Trifling Women to be his best works.

Ingram opened a studio in France in 1923 where, perhaps, he found more cooperation, dryer weather and better equipment. He left the movie industry a year or two later after a failed picture he made in Morocco and returned to Los Angeles where he sculpted and wrote.  Hialeah dropped out of the picture making scene not long afterward.

Sources: 

Palm Beach Post, April 10, 1922

Miami Daily Metropolis, Aug. 22, 1922

Miami Daily Metropolis, Dec. 1, 1922

Miami Daily Metrolpolis March 22, 1923

Wikipedia

 Tags: Miami history, Hialeah history, Miami film industry, film researcher, Jane Feehan, history of Miami