The first hotel on Fort Lauderdale's Galt Mile?

Galt area 1950s
State Archives/ of  Florida/
Florida Memory

By Jane Feehan

The mile-long strip of land known as the Galt Mile was sold in 1953 by Arthur T. Galt for $19 million to James S. Hunt and Stephen A. Calder, heralding the first development phase of that area. The first hotel to go up on this golden mile was the Beach Club Hotel.

The Beach Club, first an exclusive private club along the beach at Oakland Park Boulevard, was purchased in July 1956 by Eugene Ballard and L. Bert Stephens, owners/managers of the Lago Mar Hotel. 

Ben Chavez Construction connected the old Beach Club building to a new, 150-room (some accounts say 200-room) wing. The Chanticleer cocktail lounge in the old building and the new, outdoor Carousel Bar, shuffleboard courts and saltwater pool were included in hotel offerings when it opened Dec. 22, 1956.

Its “tropical architecture” motif served as backdrop to an array of civic club meetings, a busy calendar of winter season parties and year-round memberships to its pool and roster of family activities. In May 1957, five months after opening, the Beach Club Hotel hosted the Mrs. America contest for 10 days.

And there was the Woody Woodbury connection. 

The popular Fort Lauderdale entertainer is often remembered for his appearances at other hotels along Fort Lauderdale beach, including the Bahama Hotel, but he appeared (and ran things) at the Lulubelle Room at the Beach Club Hotel for 10 years, his longest run anywhere. 

Woodbury’s last show at the Lulubelle was July 21, 1984 where he bid farewell to about 200 fans—the B.I.T.O.A. club or “Booze is the Only Answer” club. Many thought he would soon move to California, but he remained in the Fort Lauderdale area (Plantation).

Woody re-appeared months later at the Rum Room at the Galt Ocean Mile Hotel and elsewhere in Fort Lauderdale and other cities before he actually called it quits.

The opening of the Beach Club was soon followed by the Galt Ocean Mile Hotel in 1957. But, by the mid-1980s, both were shuttered to make way for new projects—for what I call the second development phase for the Galt, the condominium era. A 500-room Hilton Hotel was proposed for the Beach Club Hotel site but made some on the city’s zoning board nervous about potential traffic problems (they should see Fort Lauderdale now, where traffic problems no longer matter). After several years of lying vacant, the old Beach Club site was developed into two 27-story towers of L’Hermitage Condominium.

Today's beach access next to the
site of
Beach Club Hotel 
Oakland Park and A1A

For more on Galt Mile hotels, see 

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2013/05/galt-mile-jewels-in-1950s-ocean-manor.html

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 27, 1956

Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 20, 1956

Fort Lauderdale News, May 2, 1957

Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 19, 1975

Fort Lauderdale News, July 24, 1984

Fort Lauderdale News, March 29, 1985



Tags: Beach Club Hotel, Galt Ocean Mile, Woody Woodbury, B.I.T.O.A. club, Fort Lauderdale history

Fort Lauderdale boom brings first bank heist, second in Broward County

By Jane Feehan

John Ashley, far right,
entering prison 

Fort Lauderdale’s boom era of the 1950s brought development, population growth, tourism—and the city’s first bank robbery.

Police records of the day report a robbery of the People’s Industrial Bank at 7 East Broward Boulevard, Oct. 10, 1952. Two robbers tied up several bank employees and made away with $9,028. A third participant drove the stolen getaway car, which was later found abandoned in the “Gateway section.”    

The trio continued their crime spree, which included a murder and other bank heists, one in Alabama for more than $30,000. Eventually, they were picked up by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But Lurton Lewis Heflin, Jr., Albert Sidney Denton and Samuel Jay Hornbeck were not brought to trial for the Fort Lauderdale robbery. Instead, they served lengthy sentences for a murder committed before the South Florida caper, their first bank robbery, and another murder after.

The first bank robbery in Broward County occurred decades earlier, a crime committed by the notorious Ashley gang in 1923 or 1924. Leaving their base camp in the Everglades near Fort Lauderdale, they summoned a cab for the job. They robbed the Bank of Pompano of a reported $23,000. The driver of the cab was then tied to a tree and given a bullet and message for Sheriff R.B. Baker to find them. Some accounts say the sheriff found them in the Everglades, shot and killed four. With activities of the gang cloaked in myth and hyperbole, accounts differ.

What is certain: John Ashley escaped the sheriff that day. But he and several gang members were killed in a shootout Nov. 1, 1924 at the Sebastian Bridge, about 25 miles north of Fort Pierce. Law enforcement had had enough of their South Florida antics.

Sources:

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

Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 11, 1959

Fort Lauderdale News, Aug. 27, 1978

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 22, 1984



Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale crime, Fort Lauderdale in the 1920s, Fort Lauderdale in the 1950s, 

7 Facts about the Jefferson SuperStores ... SOFLA History

Jefferson  Stores, Fort Lauderdale 1974
Florida State Archives/Erickson

1. First Jefferson Store established in Miami in 1946 by hotelier Harry Mufson (d. 1973), once part owner of the San Souci Hotel who later built the Eden Roc Hotel (1956) causing a rancorous split with Fontainebleau owner and partner, Ben Novack;

2. Jefferson SuperStores was tapped as the nation’s Outstanding Westinghouse Dealer in 1953;

3. The Fort Lauderdale store opened July 20, 1960 at 2400 N. Federal Highway with: 1,000 

parking spaces, 156,000 sq. ft., a photographic studio, shoe repair, beauty shop, pet shop, home improvement department, bake shop, restaurant, tailor, dry cleaner, jewelry department (featuring Miss Florida, Kathy Magda, for opening day), and Funland’s indoor rides for kids;

4. By 1969, other South Florida locations included prime sites in Boca Raton, Hollywood,  West Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach;

5. By the 1970s, more than 20 Jefferson SuperStores operated in Florida, with 500 employees at its Miami headquarters.

6. Montgomery Ward purchased Jefferson’s in 1973 for $37 million in stock; the stores were then known as Jefferson Wards;

7. By 1985, Jefferson Ward operated 23 stores in Florida and three in Virginia but 200 of its 500 employees were laid off at the Miami headquarters. The same year, Jefferson’s was put up for sale but merchandise was eventually liquidated by AMA Management Company.

Sources:

Miami News, Nov. 19, 1953

Fort Lauderdale News, July 20, 1960

Miami News, Oct. 13, 1961

Palm Beach Post, Nov. 21, 1969

Miami News, May 14, 1973

Miami News, May 30, 1985

Miami News, Aug. 16, 1985

Tags: Fort Lauderdale retail history, Fort Lauderdale history, Harry Mufson, Eden Roc Hotel, Miami history, Jefferson SuperStores

Yeehaw Junction, Florida: a town time continues to forget

 Desert Inn was added to the National Register of
Historic Places in 1994. Florida State Archives/McDonald

By Jane Feehan

Yeehaw Junction. The name draws a smile from those who pass its exit along Florida's Turnpike. This town of fewer than 300 serves as a stopping point for gas and at one time, tickets for Orlando tourist attractions, food and lodging.

Located in Osceola County, some 75 miles south of Orlando in Florida’s cattle belt, this tiny town of ranchers seems to be a place that time continues to forget. Even the genesis of its name is forgotten. A few thought it was an Indian name; others say it was a call used to move donkeys or oxen along in their work at logging camps. Some say it was named Crossroads in the 1940s because it sat at the junction of SR 60 and U.S. 441. For years, truckers called it Jackass Junction, and may still do. A Standard Oil gas station owner once told a tale about cleaning up the name Jackass for an oil company map maker to Yeehaw Junction. It stuck.

The site of a few gas stations, a motel and now the closed Desert Inn, the town, at this writing, has no police or fire station, bank or schools. Legend says it once served as a cattle trail stop and an Indian trading post in the 1800s. In fact, Yeehaw Junction sat along the Okeechobee branch of the Florida East Coast Railway, which had set up one of its many water depots nearby (there were many along the railway’s route). The branch closed decades ago, lowering the curtain on its development.

While South Florida growth led the nation during the 1950s, Yeehaw Junction remained static. In 1960, Miami real estate titan J.A. Cantor bought much of the town’s leased property and set out to create Central City. Billboards proposed a modern community with amenities alien to residents, but for whatever reasons, plans fell to the wayside.  

Stuckey's at Yeehaw Junction 1960
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

In 2002, the Pentagon revealed Yeehaw Junction was a secret test site (among 27) for biological warfare. In 1968, during the height of the Cold War, wheat rust, a variety of Puccinia graminis, was sprayed over fields four times in hopes of developing a fungus strong enough to kill wheat crops of an enemy during warfare.

During the 1980s, state officials proposed a 122-room Yeehaw Junction motel be converted to a 200-man prison. Though a few residents hoped a prison would boost job growth and its economy, others joked the town would be known as “Jailhouse Junction.” The proposal failed.

Since then, travelers and truckers continue to stop for gas and restrooms. Its Desert Inn, first built in 1889, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. The only place in town for nightlife and reasonable food, the inn recently closed. A voicemail message at the establishment says it’s closed indefinitely. In 2019, a truck with an orange juice cargo ran through an intersection into the building, severly damaging the structure.

Boom times again come to Florida—again sidestepping Yeehaw Junction. Developers and potential residents might be interested the town sits 69 feet above sea level, not prone to flooding.

Sources

Fort Lauderdale News, Sept. 25, 1960

Fort Lauderdale News, Aug. 17, 1986

Tampa Tribune, Jan. 24, 1995

Orlando Sentinel, Oct. 10, 2002

Tampa Bay Times, Dec. 22, 2019

WPTV.com 2019

Tags: Florida history, Yeehaw Junction, Florida’s Turnpike, Jane Feehan, film researcher, Florida development, Osceola County, National Register of  Historic Places, biological warfare

Fort Lauderdale traffic solution nixed: Tri-Level Interchange at Gateway Center,1963

Gateway Interchange 1963 · Mon, Jan 7, 1963 – 29 · Fort Lauderdale News (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) · Newspapers.com
By Jane Feehan

Fort Lauderdale traffic jams have long vexed residents, visitors and city officials.  During the late 1940s and 1950s, the city could boast it had the worst traffic snarl in the state until the completed Henry E. Kinney Tunnel carried U.S. Route 1 under New River in 1960. That solution fared better than the proposed Tri-Level Interchange at Gateway did in 1963.

According to news that year, accidents in the city with the highest property damage occurred at Gateway Center at Sunrise Boulevard. The State Road Department offered a solution at a city commission meeting in January, 1963—a Tri-Level Interchange at Gateway. Engineering firm Howard, Needles, Tammen & Bergendoff presented a rendering of an interchange that was to cost $1.4 million and take about a year and a half to build.

Before the month ended, city notable Jack Gore, whose father Robert H. Gore opposed the Kinney Tunnel, opined in the Fort Lauderdale News that property devaluation would occur in that area if the interchange materialized. He also said traffic was most congested along North Federal Highway between the Jefferson Store and Oakland Park Boulevard and from Sunrise Boulevard east from Gateway to Bayview Drive. (Sound familiar?) By March 1963, 82 businessmen had banned together to protest the interchange. It would, they claimed, isolate Gateway from northeast Fort Lauderdale, disrupt business for a year and a half and would cost too much. Besides, newly installed—and much cheaper—traffic lights were already driving accident stats downward.

The Tri-Level Interchange never came about; it would soon give way to concerns about other interchanges along the turnpike and I-95. But the traffic? The same snarls along Federal Highway now join a growing list of others in Fort Lauderdale.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose or … the more things change they stay the same … right?

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale in the 1960s, Fort Lauderdale traffic

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 7, 1963

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 20, 1963

Fort Lauderdale News, March 25, 1963

Largest electric road sign in U.S. - Vero Beach 1925

Early Vero Beach, Indian River
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

Seems the citizens of Vero, as it was called in its early days, had big plans for their tiny community in 1925. On January 10 of that year, town notables, residents and guests gathered to dedicate the “largest electric road sign in the United States.” It bore the slogan— still used today—Vero, where the tropics begin.

Erected at the corner of Dixie Highway and Seminole Drive (then the main street through Vero) the illuminated sign spanned 50 feet, stood 10 feet high and was suspended 40 feet above the pavement. The sign was built for $2,000, a hefty sum for that time. It was paid for by residents and property owners.

Among the guests that day was Chicago developer Frank Croissant, who had established a reputation in Fort Lauderdale as developer of several communities, including Croissant Park.  No doubt, the people of Vero had high hopes for similar development in their town. The Fort Lauderdale News touted Croissant as the “greatest city builder of the country.”

Vero Beach today, near the ocean

The unveiling of the sign, which was “illuminated more elaborately than anything of its kind in the history of Florida,” was celebrated with a three-gun salute and 25 shrieking sirens, a live band and street dance.

The town, established in 1919, remained a sleepy agricultural center for decades.

Today with subdued (compared to that of South Florida), development of elegant communities, Vero Beach is home to Piper Aircraft and a growing list of celebrities—including Gloria Estefan—seeking a quiet alternative to the traffic and congestion of Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

Sources: 

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 9, 1926

COVB.org

Wikipedia

Tags: Vero Beach history, Fort Lauderdale history, Frank Croissant, Vero Beach

More restaurants, nightspots of the 1960s - Fort Lauderdale

Fort Lauderdale,  Broward County ... South Florida ... all were booming in the 1960s. Below are ads from some of the popular dining and club spots of 1962-1965. None remain open.  For a more comprehensive list, see:
http://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2014/04/those-1960s-fort-lauderdale-night-spots.html

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale nightspots, Fort Lauderdale restaurants