Sunrise Junior High now Sunrise Middle: a brief history and a chuckle

Sunrise Middle School today

By Jane Feehan

Fort Lauderdale needed schools in the 1950s. The city led the state in population growth by the middle of that decade. Plans for Sunrise Junior High School materialized after Fort Lauderdale pioneer and realtor M.A. Hortt donated his property at 1750 N.E. 14 St., not far west of Federal Highway. 

In May 1956 the Broward County School Board awarded a construction contract to Miami’s J.S. Stephens and Sons for $563,735, lower than the estimated $600,000 to $800,000 for this new facility. Population growth was expected to continue at the same rate so at that May meeting the board also approved the cost of stockpiling lumber for 30-35 portable classrooms of a 100 portable classroom county-wide project.

Plans for the new Sunrise Junior High (sixth through eighth grades) included a large patio, larger than the one at the old Fort Lauderdale High School, 24 classrooms, a physical education building, library, “cafetorium,” a home economics room and an administration/music building.  About 500 students attending the Naval Air Station Junior High were expected to move to Sunrise Junior High when it was contracted for completion by Feb. 1, 1957. The school was designed for 750 students but 1,000 were expected to enroll.

Construction was behind by early October 1956. Only 35 percent was completed with 50 percent of the contracted time behind them. Sunrise Junior High did not open on time, but a month later, on March 4, 1957 with Mr. J.A. Wilkins as principal. Bus transportation was provided for students two miles beyond the school. 

In a board meeting back in January, 1956 members had asked for a report or feasibility study on avoiding early opening of county schools to cope with peak traffic and—get this one—from opening early on “cold, damp mornings” (in Florida?). Those possibilities did not materialize because, other than being unreasonable, it became moot. By August 1957, mere months after opening, Sunrise Junior High was busting at the seams (as were others). It operated split or double sessions as they awaited completion of 16 portable classrooms. The proposed late openings for cold, damp days and traffic morphed quickly into the need to get students at school (s) earlier.

Today, about 1,350 students attend Sunrise Middle School, a Montessori Magnet School. Baseball, basketball, golf, soccer, track and field are offered. There’s a pool on the expanded campus, but it’s not operated by Sunrise Middle School. The campus has grown. Sunrise Middle School is now painted in white with blue trim. And about its newspaper, for which I once served as assistant editor … it’s long gone.

Sunrise Middle today

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 6, 1956
Fort Lauderdale News, May 26, 1956
Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 4, 1956
Fort Lauderdale News, May 1, 1957
Fort Lauderdale News, Aug. 30, 1957
Sunrise Middle School Administration – thank you.

Tags: Fort Lauderdale middle schools, Broward County schools in the 1950s, Fort Lauderdale school history, Sunrise Middle School, Jane Feehan, Fort Lauderdale in the 1950s

Trailblazing Jolly Roger Hotel, Jayne Mansfield and an adventure

Jolly Roger, now Sea Club

By Jane Feehan

Builder-turned-hotelier George “Bob” Gill developed six properties during the 1940s, 50s and 60s along Fort Lauderdale beach including the iconic Jolly Roger.

The Jolly Roger Hotel (now the Sea Club), designed by Miami architect Tony Sherman, opened in 1953. It reportedly was first in the area to “offer in-room air conditioning.”

Actress Jayne Mansfield* and husband Mickey Hargitay (mother and father of today’s Law and Order: Special Victims unit Mariska Hargitay) stayed at the Jolly Roger in February, 1962 when other hotels were booked. Mansfield, who was 28 then, obliged the press with a photo session at the hotel pool deck before their ill-fated trip to the Bahamas. 

They were briefly shipwrecked on a small island when their boat, piloted by Gill’s public relations man Jack Drury, broke down. Rescued the next morning, the trio made headlines worldwide over their lost-at-sea adventure.

The Jolly Roger drew tourists – and college students – for decades. And who among the locals could resist claiming the pirate’s skull and bones flag waving to us from the roof? Today, as the Sea Club, it remains a favorite beach hotel with European tourists. In 2009, the hotel was granted historic status by the Fort Lauderdale Historical Society.

Jolly Roger now Sea Club

* Mansfield and Hargitay divorced in 1963. She married director Matt Cimber in '64 and had another child. Mansfield was killed in an auto accident in 1967 on her way to an appearance in Biloxi. Her three children, including Mariska Hargitay, were with her and survived.

Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.
Sources:

Sun-Sentinel, Jan. 29, 2009

Sun-Sentinel, Feb. 26, 2009
Drury, Jack. Fort Lauderdale, Playground of the Stars (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2008).

Tags: Jolly Roger Hotel, Fort Lauderdale in the 1950s, Bob Gill, Gill Hotels, Fort Lauderdale history, Mariska Hargitay, Jack Drury, film industry researcher

Three BIG reasons for Florida's growth in the 1950s

By Jane Feehan

Broward County, established in 1915, underwent a dynamic expansion, as did much of South Florida, in the 1950s. Three factors contributed to that expansion:

1. Air conditioning 
2. Mosquito control and
3. Beginning of nonstop passenger airline flights from New York to Fort Lauderdale.

Broward population milestones in the 1950s:
https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/07/floridas-population-explosion-in-1950s.html

Source:  

Sun-Sentinel:  “The Fabulous '50s,” by Jane Feehan. Aug. 21, 2002.


Tags: Broward County in the 1950s, Fort Lauderdale in the 1950s, Florida in the 1950s, aerial view of Fort Lauderdale

Florida's population explosion in the 1950s; Fort Lauderdale leads

Fort Lauderdale Beach circa 1960 
Florida State Archives/Erickson

By Jane Feehan

A special census was taken* in the mid-1950s in Florida. The trend upward from the official US Census of 1950 was remarkable.

Four cities in the state joined the over-50,000 population rankings with Fort Lauderdale leading the way with the biggest increase:

• Fort Lauderdale soared from the 1950 Census of 36,328 to 62,906 persons in the mid-50s.
• Miami Beach from 46,282 persons in 1950 to a mid-decade count of 50,981.
• West Palm Beach jumped to 51,015 from 43,162 persons in 1950.
• Pensacola among the four growth cities, tallied 50,954 mid-decade; 43,479 in 1950.

And ...

• Broward County nearly doubled its population in five years – from 83,933 in 1950 to 159,052 persons by the mid-1950s.
• Dade County also climbed significantly from 495,084 to 703,777 in about five years

By 1960, the population increases in Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties accounted for approximately 50 percent of the entire state’s growth.

In 2021, Fort Lauderdale's population was reported at about 182,000 residents. No doubt, 2022 will reflect another substantial increase due to different reasons from those of the 1950s: rising crime and higher taxes in other states.

 ---------------

*Locally-financed special counts were taken to qualify for additional revenues.

For more information on population, see: index for Florida in the 1950s

Sources:

Miami News, Oct. 11, 1957

Palm Beach Post, Nov. 19, 1961

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale population in the 1950s, South Florida population growth in the 1950s, film researcher, history of Fort Lauderdale

Before Fort Lauderdale's Galleria, Sunrise Center: "One of the most magnificent in the world ..."

Sunrise Shopping Center
Florida State Archives/Erickson

By Jane Feehan

Fort Lauderdale gained national attention when Sunshine Shopping Center (try saying that three times - fast) opened in January, 1954. It was developed by Antioch College, which was bequeathed the property by Hugh Taylor Birch. Within a year, restaurateur and area businessman Charlie Creighton*began negotiations to buy the center.

By 1957 the $14 million development was Creighton’s and renamed Sunrise Center, drawing upscale retailers including Saks Fifth Avenue. The center soon became known as “Florida’s Fifth Avenue.”

According to the Miami News (Feb. 23, 1957), Creighton had bigger plans for the development. He announced the upcoming construction of the largest movie theater in Florida with 2,865 seats and a hotel overlooking the nearby Intracoastal. He also built a restaurant, Creighton’s, adjacent to the shopping center.

Jordan Marsh jumped into Fort Lauderdale in 1957 with plans for a $7 million, three-story department store at Sunrise Center.  Allied Stores had opened a Jordan Marsh in Miami the previous year. According to the Miami News, store executives had wanted to open in Fort Lauderdale first. “This is the place to be,” said Richard. V. Dagget, president and managing director of Jordan Marsh.

Two other stores announced their debut at the Sunrise Center that February, DePinna’s and Bramson’s. Saks Fifth Avenue expanded into larger quarters shortly after. Architectural firm Gamble, Pownall, and Gilroy designed the additional buildings and expansion to two stories, all air conditioned.  “… all tie together into one of the most magnificent shopping centers in the world,” said architect Clinton Gamble.

Creighton’s is gone, there is no longer a movie theater but the Sunrise Center evolved into today’s beautiful Galleria Mall.  *For more on Charlie Creighton and his civic contributions, see index.

  

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale in the 1950s, Antioch College, Hugh Taylor Birch, Sunrise Shopping Center, Galleria Mall, film researcher

Creighton, his restaurant and other contributions to Fort Lauderdale history

Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

For a span of 30 years, beginning in the early 1950s, Creighton’s Restaurant was a familiar site on Sunrise Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale, near where the Galleria Mall sits today.

The posh restaurant, loaded with antiques and objets d’art, topped lists of places to celebrate special occasions. Its large sign, with “Home of the World's Best Apple Pie,” coaxed those unfamiliar with the place inside for a meal, if not to try the pie, which was actually quite good.

Florida State Archives

The restaurant was owned by Charlie Creighton, who died in 1991 at nearly 91. It wasn't his only interest. His restaurant legacy  includes: Johnson’s in Daytona Beach, Mammy’s Shanty in Atlanta and the Wedgewood Inn in St. Petersburg.

There was much more to Creighton than his restaurants.

In 1962, upon returning from a National Day of Prayer in Washington, DC, Creighton established a local day of prayer in what became the Fort Lauderdale Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast.

                                                       
Charles Creighton had many business interests. He helped found Holy Cross Hospital, opened the Sunrise Shopping Center (now the Galleria Mall) and developed property on Miami's Brickell Avenue.

For his restaurant and what he brought to the business table and to the city, Charlie Creighton occupies a significant place in the chronicles of Fort Lauderdale's history. 

Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

Miami News, Dec. 3, 1955
Sun-Sentinel, March 27, 1991

Tags: Creighton's Restaurant, Charlie Creighton, Fort Lauderdale history

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Tags: Fort Lauderdale restaurant history, Charlie Creighton, Florida history, Fort Lauderdale history, Florida film researcher

Why Cuba celebrated Fourth of July

By Jane Feehan

Independence Day, traditionally celebrated in the United States since the early days of the republic and officially since 1870, held significance for Cubans for decades.  

Many Cubans joined in our celebration in a gesture of good will to commemorate their independence from Spain with the Spanish-American War of 1898. After the four-month conflict, Spain ceded Cuba to the U.S. along with Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines in accord with the 1898 Treaty of Paris. Cuba declared itself a sovereign nation May 20, 1902.

As early as 1901, U.S. newspapers reported Santiago Cubans were “celebrating the Fourth with a fervor and faith all their own … with an American flavor.” July 4^th was declared an official Cuban holiday July 2, 1918. This “fiesta” day declaration was followed by official celebratory events that continued until shortly after Fidel Castro took power.

On hand for Fourth of July festivities in Key West in 1938 were “military units” from Cuba marching with United States military; both groups were also there to commemorate the long-awaited completion of the Overseas Highway.

   

Cuban military parades, with thousands of onlookers lining the streets, were held on the Fourth of July in Santiago in the country’s southeastern region. The parade route took participants by a memorial to the 260 U.S citizens who died in the explosion of the USS Maine, the catalyst for the Spanish-American War.

The last official celebration of the Fourth of July in Cuba was probably in 1959, hosted by American Ambassador to Cuba, Phillip Bonsal (1903-1995) and his wife, Margaret. “Cubans took time out from the Castro Revolution, which began July 26, 1953 to help celebrate …” reported a Miami newspaper. Small Cuban flags adorned the buffet tables, while large American and Cuban flags on embassy walls greeted both U.S. and Cuban dignitaries. Bonsal was the last U.S. ambassador to that country.

A few still hold Fourth of July celebrations in Cuba in defiance of their government. But the official Cuban day of independence is October 10. This was the day wealthy sugar mill owner Carlos Manuel de Cespedes and followers declared independence from Spain in 1868.

Sources:

The Missoulian, July 6, 1901

New York Times, July 2, 1918

Tampa Tribune, July 5, 1938

Fort Lauderdale News, July 4, 1949

Miami News, July 5, 1959

https://www.officeholidays.com/holidays/cuba/cuba-independence-day

Tags: Fourth of July in Cuba, Independence Day, Ambassador Phillip Bonsal