Dividing Florida into two, selling northern part to Georgia for ...?

Florida map 1906 - more roads
& development
in
north 
(Dept Agriculture).
  

By Jane Feehan

As the United States was about to end World War II in June 1945, Florida was embroiled in a war of sorts between its north and south. When population growth shifted to South Florida, debate arose over senatorial reapportionment. North Florida had 23 senators at the time for every 37,000 people. South Florida had 15 for every 100,000. A quagmire developed when northern legislators repeatedly voted down or blocked bills for reapportionment.

In an effort to break the deadlock the “Two Bit Club,” a group of lawyers, doctors and other professionals from Palm Beach County, telegrammed their representatives “to introduce a memorial memorializing the Congress of the United States to provide by proper action for a dividing of the State of Florida into two states.”

Also hoping to move things along, the Belle Glade Herald offered Georgia Governor Ellis Arnall a large part of Florida:

Extend your South boundary to the Gulf of Mexico due south on the western side in a generally south-southwest direction from the present southeast corner of your State – the State of Florida to accept in token payment from Georgia two 300-pound hogs and one good hound dog.

Gov. Arnall replied: “Georgia will be delighted to have all or any part of Florida. We like the people of Florida. We like the State. Many of your citizens are Georgians anyway.”

Tongue-in-cheek proposals aside, concessions were made over the years. But shifting populations continually drive redistricting. Since the debate of the 1940s however, only Key West has proposed secession – secession from the United States as the Conch Republic in 1982.

Copyright © 2020 All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

Sources

Palm Beach Post, June 3, 1945

Fort Lauderdale Daily News, June 5, 1945

Fort Lauderdale Daily News, June 6, 1945

Tags: Florida history, Florida secession, Florida reapportionment debate, Two Bit Club, 
film researcher

Yesterday’s Restaurant looms large in memories of Fort Lauderdale dining and nightlife

Florida State Archives

 

Yesterday’s Restaurant and One Up Lounge
Oakland Park and the Intracoastal
Fort Lauderdale, Florida

 

By Jane Feehan

On Oct. 25, 1975, the sign for Yesterday’s Restaurant was installed to replace the one for the Moonraker, its predecessor. It was the last of preparations before opening Oct. 29.  The stately exterior of the large building, where some had hoped gambling to flourish once it was legalized by the state, remained the same. The interior, however, was redone featuring a first-level restaurant and bar and an upper- level nightclub, the One Up Lounge, overlooking the Intracoastal and east Fort Lauderdale. 

Plush, ornate and classy, it seemed no expense was spared in the makeover. Enclosed terrace dining, added soon after, would be the coveted place for holiday dining in the years to follow. For intimate gourmet dining, the Plum Room opened, welcoming a stream of the Hollywood famous and Washington politicos.

The entertainment media, invited for opening night, were greeted with an impressive-and thematic- collection of Model-T Fords and other vintage cars lining its sloping driveway to the entrance. 

The band Everyone (see below).
Photo courtesy of
Spencer Mallinson

Fort Lauderdale News Entertainment Editor Jack Zink was there that night and reported that the four-piece band, Everyone, and singer Trish Long, kept the room at the One Up and its dance floor "full to capacity."  They continued to fill it for a year. For me, the opening set the stage for a terrific night of food, entertainment and repeat visits over the years for fine dining, holiday celebrations and dancing.

Who could forget the oversized white, nearly sparkling wigs bartenders wore along with those disco-era body suits (pale blue as I recall) at the One Up? If out-of-town (or country) visitors forgot the name of the place, all they had to do was mention those wigs ... and Yesterday’s was their answer. 

Early evening live music during “Jam Session Mondays,” included Fort Lauderdale legend Andy Bartha and the Dixieland Jazz Band. But later, pulsating disco music prevailed along with era-requisite strobe lighting. The entire restaurant was a hit, the food ... first class. Yesterday’s was so busy at night it often took more than 30 minutes for a valet to retrieve a car. The popular spot attracted people of all ages for special occasions, including wedding receptions and Sunday brunches. Many reserved months ahead for a waterside view of the December Winterfest Boat Parade. A long list of civic groups chose Yesterday's for meetings and events that were covered by local newspapers. It was the place to be seen.

Things slowed down in the 1990s. Culture and lifestyles changed. No more disco music. Residents and travelers sought simpler, and perhaps less expensive dining and entertainment. To add to slow down woes, the landmark restaurant attracted a large, less lucrative early bird dinner crowd. 

In August 1999, the owners, who included celebrated Judge Arnie Grevior* (with wife Barbara) and at one time, Peter Goldhahn (Aruba Beach Cafe), announced Yesterday’s would close Aug. 31 that year. The once- popular nightspot would revert to a more casual atmosphere in October under the revived name, Moonraker, but closed not long after. It was sad to see lights out and a fence go up around this once-popular queen of Fort Lauderdale nightlife. The building was demolished in the early 2000s to make way for an expensive retirement home…with a great view.    

The building may have been demolished but not all the memories of an era and all its fun.  

NOTES

PHOTO: The band, Everyone - featured left to right as Spencer Mallinson recalled: "Richie the drummer (last name forgotten); Bill Davis, keyboard; Bob Bobbin, bass and Spencer, guitarist." Not featured here was Trish Long, vocalist. This group also played at Big Daddy's on Conmmercial, Art Stock's Playpen, the Flying Machine and the 4 O'Clock Club. "Those were great years for music," reminisced Mallinson. Indeed they were.

 Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

*Arnold Grevior died at age 92 March 3, 2020. He was a “lawyer, judge, a philanthropist, patron of the arts and a respected member of the community for over 50 years.” See more at: https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/sunsentinel/obituary.aspx?n=arnold-grevior&pid=195608585&fhid=8774

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 25, 1975
Fort Lauderdale News, Aug. 10, 1999
Fort Lauderdale News, March 4, 2020

Tags: Fort Lauderdale restaurants, Fort Lauderdale in the 1970s, Fort Lauderdale in the 1980s, Fort Lauderdale in the 1990s, One Up Lounge, Fort Lauderdale history, History Fort Lauderdale 

Perrine: A doctor, exotic plants and a link to the Smithsonian

Perrine home, 1840

By Jane Feehan

Henry Edward Perrine (1797-1840) received the first U.S grant for plant introduction and testing in 1838. It was for 24,000 acres in South Florida and made not long after Spain gave up control of the area.

Perrine, a physician born in New Jersey, served as U.S. Consul at Campeche, Yucatan in Mexico for 10 years. While there, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Richard Rush sent letters to all consuls encouraging them to collect plants to send back home for cultivation. The only consul official to take up the proposed project was Perrine. 

His interest in tropical botany motivated his request for a grant in Florida where he thought the climate most suitable for seeds and plants he was to bring back from Mexico. After receiving the grant, he and his family settled on Indian Key, between Cape Florida and Cape Sable. There, he planted Mexican limes, Aguave Sislana (sisal hemp), oranges, limes, avocados and a host of tropical seedlings.

His botanical career was short lived.

Perrine was killed in an Indian attack in 1840. His family escaped and later requested that the Perrine land grant rights be transferred to an area just south of present-day Miami. The doctor’s legacy includes the City of Perrine, sisal hemp growing wild on Indian Key, the possibility that today’s key lime evolved from the Mexican varieties he brought back from the Yucatan … and a Smithsonian connection.

Some say Perrine may have been the one to discover that an Englishman named Smithson had died leaving money to establish a scientific institute in America. He and Richard Rush traveled to England, collected the money and the rest, it could be said, is the Smithsonian Institute.

Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

Sources:

 Douglas, Marjory Stoneman. The Everglades, River of Grass. Miami: Banyan Books, 1978.

 http://digitalcollections.fiu.edu

 www.keyshistory.com

Tags: Perrine history, Miami history, Seminoles, Smithsonian

"Silver-tongued orator" William Jennings Bryan promotes early Coral Gables ... for a BIG fee

 

Villa Serena, Bryan home 1920
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

By Jane Feehan

The Great Commoner, William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), three-time Democrat candidate for U.S. President,  played a part in Florida’s land boom of the 1920s.

The political celebrity from Nebraska (born in Illinois) and his family moved to Coconut Grove, Florida in 1913 where he eventually became a full-time citizen of the state. 

Watching attempts to drain the Florida Everglades for agriculture, Bryan, who once served as secretary of state under President Woodrow Wilson,  announced the project as “one of the greatest enterprises on record.”  Bryan was so certain about Everglades’ real estate prospects that he purchased marshland south of Lake Okeechobee.

Of more certainty after the drainage project waned was the $100,000 fee the silver orator was paid in the mid-1920s by developer George Merrick* to promote Coral Gables, the first planned community in the U.S. (That fee was nearly double the salary paid Babe Ruth at the time.)

Bryan in 1913

By 1925, the South Florida land rush slowed to a crawl but Bryan’s fame kept him busy and in the national spotlight.  Dubbed the "silver-tongued orator" because of his excellent speaking skills and known as an anti-evolutionist, Bryan represented the World Christian Fundamentals Society for the prosecution in the Scopes Monkey Trial in July 1925.  Bryan won the case against teaching evolution but died five days later.

On a personal note, I had the pleasure of working for an acquaintance of William Jennings Bryan, Ira D. Beynon of Lincoln, Nebraska during the 1980s. He too, was a Florida commercial property owner. A young lawyer in Lincoln, Beynon knew Bryan in the 1920s. Mr. Beynon was well into his 90s when I knew him. Six degrees of separation … over six decades.

Villa Serena 1940
Florida State Archives/
Florida Memory

Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

-------------

 Sources:

Miami Metropolis, June 15, 1915

Miami News, June 4, 1921, p.13.

Miami News, Apr 18, 1925, p. 10. 

Grunwald, Michael. The Swamp.New York: Simon and Schuster (2006), pp. 141, 145, 167

Tags: Florida in the 1920s, Miami in 1920s, Coral Gables history, William Jennings Bryan

Fort Lauderdale's early architect, Francis Abreu, leaves some familiar landmarks

 

A 1920s-era Abreu-designed home,
now Casablanca Cafe
on A1A, near Las Olas

By Jane Feehan

While Palm Beach and Boca Raton bear the imprint of Addison Mizner’s distinctive style, Fort Lauderdale can also claim the influence of an architect during the 1920s land boom.

Francis Luis Abreu (1896-1969), son of Cuban sugar plantation owners Diego and Marie Abreu, moved to Fort Lauderdale (where they resided) after graduating from Cornell University. 

Early in his career, Abreu designed a winter home for his grandfather, Juan Jacinto Jova (today the Casablanca Cafe), and moved on to other buildings. His work featured barrel tile roofs, twisted columns, arched walk-ways, antique lanterns, iron gates and heavy dark wooden doors.

His Fort Lauderdale architecture includes (all projects not listed):

The Moroccan-style Casablanca Café at 3049 Alhambra St., Fort Lauderdale beach, a 1920s era home converted to a restaurant

Casino Swimming Pool, 1928

Las Olas Sailboat Bend Fire Station

Dania Beach Hotel, 1925

Needham House, 1925

The Saint Anthony School at 820 NE. 3rd St.,Ft. Lauderdale, 1926, which is on the National Register of Historic Places

The Fort Lauderdale County Club, 1926

Old Post Office at 330 SW 2nd Street, 1927

Riverside Hotel, 720 E. Las Olas Blvd., 1936 (today, the city's oldest hotel, it opened as the Champ Carr Hotel )

Towers Apartments, 824 SE 2nd St. (once largest apartment building, now a retirement home and awarded Broward County historic designation in 2015)

Abreu moved to Georgia where he formed a partnership with James Robeson (Abreu and Robeson) and gained recognition for designing the Cloister Hotel on Sea Island, a home for playwright Eugene O’Neal, also on Sea Island, and a number of public buildings.

Note: Architect John Peterman of Miami also designed a number of public Fort Lauderdale buildings before, during and after Abreu's time in the city until the late 1950s or early 60s.

He moved from Miami to Fort Lauderdale and remained in town long after Abreu left. The Southside School, recognized as his first project, stands as a historical landmark today.

According to the Fort Lauderdale News, Peterman was suspended for one year from the Florida State Board of Architects in 1959 because of work on the Wolcott Building in Pompano. He died in 1969.

Copyright © 2020, 2024 All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

________

Sources:
  McIver, Stuart. Glimpses of South Florida History. Miami: Florida Flair Books, 1988. 

  Abreu Foundation

Ancestry

Fort Lauderdale News, Sept. 15, 1925

Fort Laauderdale News, Jan. 7, 1927

Fort Lauderdale News, May 7, 1959

HistoricStructures.com

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale architecture, Florida history, Francis L Abreu, John M. Peterman

Oldest operating swing bridge in Florida: Fort Lauderdale's Snow-Reed Bridge

By Jane Feehan

A Broward Cultural Heritage Landmark, the Snow-Reed Bridge (11th Avenue bridge) over the north fork of New River in Fort Lauderdale is the oldest operating metal truss swing bridge in the state of Florida.

The bridge, built in 1924-1925 by Ohio-based Champion Bridge Co., replaced the single lane, hand-cranked version constructed in 1916 and in use until 1924. The span connected what was then considered the “western” Fort Lauderdale neighborhoods of Sailboat Bend and Riverside Park and was named for Mayors R.G. Snow (1924) and Will J. Reed (1925).  Both presided over some of the city’s growth of the booming 1920s.

The Snow-Reed Bridge, with a span of nearly 150 feet, was rehabbed in 1980. Frank White, a south Florida resident with deep roots in the area, served as project engineer. 

White said the superstructure of the bridge was disconnected, set afloat on barges and secured one block east. The center pier was totally replaced as was machinery and electrical components. There wasn’t enough money in the budget to replace the ring and pinion gears - part of the main drive mechanisms.

“These components were in very poor condition,” recalled White.  “To have them manufactured would have cost $65,000 plus labor to install.” 

He discussed the issue with his father, O.E. White, Jr., a retired Florida Department Of Transportation project engineer and Ft. Lauderdale native who had an idea. He suggested his son speak to Chief Langford who worked for Powell Brothers, a local bridge contractor that had replaced many of the old swing bridges in Ft. Lauderdale.  

“The old chief took me out into his bone yard,” said White. “He located an old ring and pinion gear in perfect condition and gave it to Ft. Lauderdale.  For some reason and to my knowledge the city did not use those parts at that time.”

White has fond memories of the Snow-Reed bridge rehab project.  

“I had some wonderful conversations with the old bridge tender and heard some great stories. My favorite was the time a sail boat got hung up on a sand bar west of the bridge. The old tender and the captain secured a line to the end of the bridge and the tender hand cranked the bridge and pulled the boat to deeper water.”

Snow-Reed is a piece of Fort Lauderdale history that revives memories of early Florida living and presents a majestic sight as it gently swings open and closes for boat traffic. This picturesque bridge lies three or four blocks south of Broward Boulevard off Palm or 11th Avenue. 

Another swing bridge operates in South Florida - the Point Chosen Turnstile Bridge in Belle Glade. 

Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Tags: South Florida swing bridges, South Florida bridges, swing bridge in Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale history, Sailboat Bend, Riverside Park, Broward Cultural Heritage landmark,film industry researcher 

Lauderdale-by-the-Sea: incorporated twice and elects Florida's first female mayor

Anglin's Pier, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea

By Jane Feehan

Billed as a seaside sub-division, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea was originally platted by William F. Morang in 1924. He bought the property with $10 down, $250 in revenue stamps and a $50,000 mortgage from Henry S. Moody and John C. Gregory.

By 1925, zenith of Florida boom times, Morang’s advertisements for Lauderdale-by-the-Sea were promising increased lot prices. In 1927, the town elected its first mayor, Melvin Anglin. The boom soon went bust, Morang defaulted on mortgage payments, and the town’s charter was revoked by the state in 1933. It wasn’t until Nov. 30, 1947 that Lauderdale-by-the-Sea was again incorporated. Margaret Linardy was elected mayor of the new town, making her the first woman mayor in the state.

A few words about Morang:  A better self promoter than developer, he announced the building of two hotels in Fort Lauderdale in 1925. Headlines claimed the hotels, one dubbed as “The Morang,” would cost about $1.5 million each. Construction was to start within 60 days; it didn’t. Morang also began developing Nurmi Isles off Las Olas; he didn’t complete that project either. He had more success developing the land for Fort Lauderdale's Rio Vista. Morang left South Florida at the end of the boom, but returned in 1936 to sell 200 Rio Vista lots in a less-than-enthusiastic market. He made a final Fort Lauderdale exit soon after.

Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

_____

Sources:

Miami News, Nov. 28, 1924, p. 31

Miami News, Nov. 7, 1925, p. 38.

Miami News, March 2, 1926 p. 53

Weidling, Philip and Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainnesville: University of Florida Press: 1966

Richard. Candice. Seventy-Three Years By The Sea. Lauderdale-by-the-Sea: Community Church of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea: 2000.

Tags: Florida history, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea history, WF Morang and Son, Florida in the 1920s.