Showing posts with label Miami Beach in the 1920s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miami Beach in the 1920s. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 5, 2022

Barons of early Miami Beach: oil, tires, baked beans and beachside manses (or before the Fontainebleau Hotel)

 

Snowden Place 1923
Florida State Archives/
Florida Memory - Hoi
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By Jane Feehan

It’s hard to imagine Miami Beach in the days before it was established as a town in 1915. Yet the mangrove-dense barrier island east of the city of Miami was beginning to capture the attention of those with big imaginations and plenty of money.

One of the island’s pioneers, James H. Snowden, understood beach-side opportunities. Perhaps his associate, the better-known beach developer Carl Fisher, influenced him. Or maybe not. Snowden, born in Oil City, Pennsylvania was a sharp businessman. He made his fortune in the oil industry in Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana. His obituary claimed he had been a Standard Oil executive.

The Collins Bridge* (now the Venetian Causeway) connected the mainland to the barrier island in 1913. It spurred  development. Snowden began clearing property about a mile and a half north of the wooden span for his new winter home, Snowden Place, in 1916.  

Snowden Place circa 1920
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

Snowden Place sat between Indian Creek and the ocean. It was known as one of the “handsomest” houses in early Miami Beach. Snowden spent about $250,000 to landscape and build his palatial home with its 1,400 feet of oceanfront. His staff moved “carloads” of palm trees from parts of the property to replant along a quarter-mile drive to the residence. 

Palm trees were planted in an intermittent arrangement with “extra-large” 10-foot high oleander plants. It was, no doubt, an impressive sight to his neighbors, which included R.P. Van Camp of pork and beans fame and fortune. He built a house on the smaller property adjacent to Snowden Place with a 700-foot span of oceanfront (near today’s 41st Street).  

Though Snowden was a Miami Beach resident and a registered voter there, he spent months away from Florida.  He rented the mansion during winter months to auto tire millionaire and Akron, Ohio resident, Harry S. Firestone several times. One news account reported Firestone and wife, with a retinue of 80 staff (many housed elsewhere) and as many as 10 children spent the winters of 1921 and 1923 at the estate. The tire magnate usually brought a fleet of cars but rented a boat for cruising and fishing. At Firestone’s invitation, his long-time friend and one-time president, Warren G. Harding, also spent time at the estate before his death in 1923.

Firestone Estate circa 1920
Florida State Archives/
Florida Memory/Romer

In 1923, Firestone bought Snowden Place for a reported $250,000–the same for what the estate was built—if the reporting is accurate. Many today refer to the transactional history of that part of Miami Beach as pertaining to the Firestone Estate not Snowden Place. Snowden died in 1930 in New York at age 57. By that time, he had divested most of his holdings in Miami Beach. Firestone died in 1938.

Firestone heirs, who had re-zoned what remained of the property for commercial use, sold the estate to Ben Novak, operator of the Sans Souci Hotel, in 1952 for $2.3 million. Novak then built the world-famous Fontainebleau Hotel (designed by Morris Lapidus) on the site.

Fontainebleau Hotel under
construction 1954 
Florida State Archives/
Florida Memory

And it so it went – from mangrove to a sophisticated world-class urban setting of shoulder-to-shoulder hotels.

 






* For more on Collins see:

 https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2013/02/miami-beach-farmer-collins-his-avocados.html

Sources:

Miami News, June 14, 1916

Miami News, Feb. 13, 1919

Miami News, Dec. 15, 1922

Miami News, Aug. 3, 1923

Miami Herald, Oct. 26, 1930

Miami News, July 21, 1952


Tags: Miami Beach in the 1900s, Miami Beach in the 1920s, Miami Beach in the 1950s, Firestone Estate, Fontainebleau Hotel, Miami Beach history, history of Miami Beach

Monday, July 15, 2013

Miami's radio 610, WIOD: Wonderful Isle of Dreams once home to Larry King and ...


WIOD towers 1926 Bicayne Bay
Florida State Archives/Fishbaugh

By Jane Feehan

WIOD launched its first radio broadcast Jan. 19, 1926. The station, tagged with call letters WIOD for “Wonderful Isle of Dreams” by Miami Beach developer Carl Fisher, was built atop one of his man-made islands near the Nautilus Hotel (4300 Alton Road). It operated in one of the first buildings in the U.S. designed primarily for radio broadcast use.

According to author Ann Armbruster (The Life and Times of Miami Beach, Alfred A. Knopf: 1995), Jesse Jay, son of Webb Jay, inventor of the auto vacuum tank, founded WIOD. It was the first 1,000-watt station in Florida.   During its early days WIOD offered about two hours of programming and most of it was orchestra music or church services. By 1928 the station was an NBC affiliate.

WIOD studios moved to downtown Miami in the early 1930s to the News Tower. It was purchased by Metropolis Publishing Company, owner of the Miami News in 1936 and advertised with the slogan, “Your free ticket to the finest radio is at 610 on your radio dial.”

By 1941*, WIOD was operating 18 ½ hours daily from the 79th Street Causeway.  Programming included entertainers Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Fibber McGee and Molly, Eddie Cantor, other big names of the era and featured soap opera A Guiding Light five days a week. The station increased to 5,000 watts of power in February that year with great fanfare throughout South Florida; that ramp up in wattage made WIOD the most powerful radio station in the state. The station, deemed by management a “symbol of progress,”  broadcasted with the assistance of two 320-foot steel towers over the waters of Biscayne Bay (salt water is said to improve signal strength).

From 1959 to 1962, the call letters of 610 were changed to WCKR by then-owner Cox-Knight Broadcasting. TV station WSVN also owned 610 later during the 1960s and played rock music, an unsuccessful format in a fiercely competitive market. It transitioned back to call letters WIOD during the 70s and was the venue that helped launch TV personality Larry King’s national career. Other broadcast notables of the 70s and 80s included Big Wilson and Neil Rogers.

In 1981, WIOD’s power was increased with special temporary authority to 10,000 watts to overcome interference by a station in Cuba. Permission to broadcast at that power is renewed each year.
Today, iHeartMedia, Inc. owns WIOD. Its studio operates in Miramar and its transmitter tower lies near Biscayne Bay at North Bay Village. News Talk 610 operates 24/7, a big leap in scheduling from those short days of 1926. Copyright © 2013. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

*Some facts about radio in the 1940s: More than half the radios in the world were owned by Americans; 85 percent of Americans owned a radio; a nationally syndicated radio show would have as many as 10 million listeners.
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Other Sources:
Kleinberg, Howard. Miami Beach, a History. Miami: Centennial Press, 1995.
Miami News, Feb. 22, 1941.
Wikipedia

Tags: Miami Beach in the 1920s, WIOD, WCKR, Miami radio, historical researcher, film researcher