Once touted the “World’s Greatest Salesman,” Brooklyn-born Frank Croissant bought nearly 1,200 acres for $1.25 million in 1924 south of New River to develop his Croissant Park. The following year, Croissant spent $215,000, an enormous amount of money for the time, for advertising. A few ads were for salesmen.
In a 1924 advertisement, Croissant asserts he was “sixteen years ago a teller in a small bank in Brooklyn, today one of the world’s largest real estate operators with a sales record of $20,000,000!”
Text-heavy, the ad describes working conditions at the Croissant Park sales office:
Here you will find supreme satisfaction … an atmosphere that breeds success in any man unless he’s downright worthless. There is no bickering here, no jealousy, no discord – nothing but happiness and success.
In the same advertisement, Croissant said a lesson he learned from Henry Ford was to make salesmen "co-workers of the employer."
Croissant Park remains one of Fort Lauderdale's oldest subdivisions*. Frank Croissant bought property throughout South Florida, including an area in Palm Beach County that was to be called “North Palm Beach Heights,” at the western end of what became Donald Ross Road. His widow began the project in the mid 1950s but later abandoned it.
* For more on Croissant, see:
https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2023/09/fort-lauderdales-croissant-park-and-its.html
Sources:
Gillis, Susan. Fort Lauderdale, Venice of America. Great Britain: Arcadia Publishing, 2004
Miami News Feb. 19, 1924
Miami News Feb. 24, 1925
Miami News, Jan. 19, 1926
Palm Beach Post, Oct 1, 1972
Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Florida developer, Florida history, Fort Lauderdale in the 1920s, film research
