by Willie Drye
By the fall of 1925, the country’s fascination with Florida was finding its way into newspaper cartoons and comedians’ punch lines. Jokes circulated about returning tourists selling the Florida sand from their tires for thousands of dollars. A service station operator in Stuart said he’d soon be selling his land for a dollar a spoonful.
Humorist Will Rogers started making Florida a regular topic in his syndicated newspaper columns. Carl Fisher, Rogers said, “took Miami away from the alligators and turned it over to the Indianans.
“He put in a jazz orchestra, and one-way excursions; advertised free heat the year around; fixed up the chug holes so the Fords could get in; rehearsed the mosquitoes till they wouldn’t bite you until after you bought; shipped in California oranges and tied ’em on the trees; whispered under his breath that you were only ninety miles away from Palm Beach, with its millionaires and its scandals.”
Florida as a source of humor hit the bright lights of Broadway in December when The Cocoanuts, starring the manic Marx Brothers, opened in New York’s Lyric Theatre.
The national obsession with Florida and instant riches had caught the eye of George S. Kaufman, who made it the topic of a two-act play set in a boom-time hotel in the fictional “ideal” development of Cocoanut Beach. Groucho Marx played Hammer, the greedy, unprincipled owner of the Hotel de Cocoanut, who also is selling lots in Cocoanut Manor. Brothers Chico and Harpo played a pair of deadbeat opportunists out to steal anything they can from Hammer and the hotel guests.
The show’s musical score was written by Irving Berlin, and Kaufman brought in writer Morrie Ryskind to help with the script.
The play was a biting satire of the amoral greed that had been unfolding in Florida for more than a year. After working through some rough spots with performances in Boston and Baltimore, the show opened in New York on December 8.
The show received good reviews, especially Groucho’s portrayal of Mr. Hammer, the hotel owner who also is auctioning lots in the ideal city of Cocoanut Manor. The New York Times review noted that some of the lots were in a residential district that was so exclusive that no one lived there.
During the auction scene, Groucho delivered a spiel that could have predicted the course that Florida real estate would take in the year to come:
“You can have any kind of home you want. You can even get stucco—oh, how you can get stuck-o.”
Groucho added his personal guarantee: “If these lots don’t double in value in a year, I don’t know what you can do about it.”
CHAPTER SIX
The Bootlegger’s Curse
THE NEW YORK GIANTS DID NOT WIN THE 1925 NATIONAL LEAGUE PENNANT, but if their second-place finish had anything to do with Florida real estate, manager John McGraw didn’t talk about it.
By the fall of 1925, however, there were some cracks appearing in the foundation of Florida’s remarkable get-rich-quick market. Ads in out-of-state newspapers cautioning readers about Florida investments were causing many potential investors to hesitate and were infuriating to the state’s chambers of commerce.
And some of the news stories coming out of Florida were adding to the state’s image problems. In November 1925, New York Times readers learned that Charles Ponzi, whose name had become synonymous with fraudulent investment schemes, was in Florida trying to regain the fortune he’d lost in the infamous pyramid scam that had sent him to prison in 1920.
The embargo of freight shipments was starting to put a serious crimp in housing, and it would not be lifted until May 1926.
Still, the nation was obsessed with Florida. The US Post Office in Atlanta reported in August that it had on file 16,000 orders for forwarding mail to Florida addresses, and that was well before the usual seasonal migration had begun.
“All our gold rushes, all our oil booms, and all our free-land stampedes dwindle by comparison with the torrent of migration pouring into Florida from all parts of the country,” Literary Digest magazine said in its edition of October 24, 1925.
Two days before Thanksgiving, US Senator T. Coleman du Pont resigned from the board of directors of Addison Mizner’s company, Mizner Development Corporation. It was a staggering blow for Mizner. Du Pont was one of the marquee names on the board that was—for publicity purposes, at least—guiding the development of Boca Raton. His name provided the gravitas behind the ambitious—and at times outrageous—promises that the Mizner brothers were making for the miraculous city they were building.
Du Pont quit the board because he’d had it with the antics of Wilson Mizner and publicist Harry Reichenbach, who were making outrageous claims in newspaper advertisements for Boca Raton. Some of the ads claimed that Boca Raton could not possibly fail because the men backing it controlled more than one-third of the wealth in the United States.
Du Pont told the New York Times that he’d quit because of “differences of opinion” about “proper methods of business management and organization.” The newspaper said the differences were so radical that the senator could not continue on the board.
Mizner tried to downplay du Pont’s resignation, saying that he’d quit because of internal politics and a failed bid to add his cronies to the board of directors.
It was a foolish comment for Mizner to make. Five days later, more board members resigned in support of du Pont, including another blue-chip name in American finances, Jesse Livermore. In a statement to the New York Times, the former board members said their efforts “to regularize the affairs and the management of the corporation and to eliminate exaggerated publicity have been met with criticism rather than cooperation.”
The gushing promises for Boca Raton and other developments would continue, but du Pont’s widely publicized resignation widened the cracks in the real estate market’s foundation.
Still, John McGraw moved ahead with plans to spend $3.75 million—almost $50 million in twenty-first-century dollars—to build Pennant Park, a baseball-themed subdivision in Sarasota. McGraw was urged to build the development by his friend John Ringling, the circus magnate who spent winters in Sarasota.
Full-page ads for Pennant Park were placed in Florida newspapers in December 1925 urging Florida residents to buy now rather than wait until a national advertising campaign started, when lot prices would be considerably higher. In the ads, McGraw admitted that he didn’t have “maps nor plats, nor anything save Pennant Park and unbounded faith in the future.
“You, too, must have faith—faith in me—and vision,” McGraw’s ad said.
While McGraw was asking potential investors take his word for it that Pennant Park would be a viable moneymaking venture, the city of St. Petersburg was determined to show clear proof that Florida was a solid investment. For months, the city had been planning its reception for the fourteenth annual convention of the Investment Bankers Association of America. Hundreds of bankers who controlled immense wealth across the country would be coming to St. Petersburg—which billed itself as the “Sunshine City”—in early December 1925.
The bankers were encouraged to bring their families, and the St. Petersburg Times promised that the convention would be “particularly attractive to the ladies,” offering dances every evening and golf and day trips to nearby attractions during the day.
The Times noted that the convention meant much to the city and to Florida because it would bring hundreds of bankers, who would give their presumably favorable opinions to the world. Those favorable opinions could, and likely would, mean investments.
And unlike the greedy throngs flocking to Florida looking for fast fortunes, the bankers would be men of “great vision and rare judgment in investment matters,” the Times said.
“On their return home they will spread the news that Florida is enjoying extraordinary development and is a haven for those seeking safe investments and homes in a state whose climate is excelled by none,” the Times predicted.
Unfortunately, just about everything that possibly could go wrong did go wrong during the bankers’ visit.
S
t. Petersburg’s claim that they were the Sunshine City was not an idle boast. The city averages about 360 days of sunshine per year, and when the Guinness Book of World Records started keeping track of such things, the city logged 768 consecutive sunny days.
Sunshine was so predictable and so much a part of St. Petersburg’s public image that the city’s afternoon newspaper, the Evening Independent, gave away copies on days when the sun didn’t shine.
The Independent gave away a lot of newspapers between December 7 and December 11, 1925. Northeast winds brought a gloomy drizzle that parked itself over Tampa Bay and refused to budge. Golf tournaments and picnics were canceled. Sightseeing tours didn’t get off the bus.
The city’s business boosters might have salvaged some good-time jocularity if they’d been able to keep the bankers lubricated with booze. But local cops picked that time to get serious about cracking down on bootlegging. Around nine p.m. on December 10, three Pinellas County sheriff’s deputies raided a room in the Soreno Hotel that had been rented by James E. Coad, the executive vice president of the St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce.
The Soreno was the headquarters for the convention. The room had become what the bankers were calling a “reception room.”
The officers seized thirty-nine quarts of various types of whiskey and three gallons of rum. Coad wasn’t arrested during the raid, but police said they were going to Clearwater, the county seat, to get a warrant.
A group of bankers angrily told reporters that they’d guarantee a bond of up to $1 million if Coad was arrested. But the cops couldn’t find clear evidence of who actually owned the liquor, so no one was arrested.
Pinellas County Sheriff Roy Booth later said he’d received “certain information” about the booze at the hotel and had obtained a search warrant. That “certain information” may well have come from someone still angry at Coad for derogatory public remarks he’d made about Jews in St. Petersburg a year earlier.
The bankers left the city on December 11, but instead of departing with sunny enthusiasm for the Sunshine City, they left with memories of a gloomy week and an unpleasant spat with local cops. It was a setback for the city’s hopes for attracting new business and investors, and a serious blow to Florida’s image. The crack in the boom’s foundation opened a little wider.
Shortly after the bankers departed St. Petersburg, an eyebrow-raising warning was issued by J. H. Tregoe, an investment banker and executive manager of the National Association of Credit Men. Tregoe, who said he’d just returned from Florida, said lenders should be careful about extending credit in Florida. The state will never prosper if its only objective is to become a playground for the wealthy, he told the New York Times.
“Persons without means will find it difficult under these conditions to live in Florida,” Tregoe said. “Only the rich can find a real welcome.”
Tregoe’s colleagues in Florida’s banking industry were livid. The Jacksonville Association of Credit Men said Tregoe’s comments were “absolutely unwarranted and unfair,” and wanted him removed as the association’s executive manager.
“We do not consider the man responsible or to be suitable as an executive manager of the National Association,” the Jacksonville group told the New York Times.
Other members, however, said they supported Tregoe and would not remove him.
Edwin Menninger was continuing his staunch defense of all things Florida in the South Florida Developer. And he was clearly enjoying the chance to occasionally rub shoulders with some of the most famous names in American capitalism.
In October, Cornelius Vanderbilt IV, sunburned and windblown from riding in an open convertible, dropped in on Menninger at the Developer’s office.
Vanderbilt, who had written for the New York Herald and other publications under the byline of “Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr.,” had unexpectedly spent some time in Stuart about a year earlier when his train was delayed by flooding. He’d chatted with Menninger then. Now, he wanted to quiz the young editor about how things were going in Stuart.
“It looks like a live place to me,” Vanderbilt told Menninger.
And the town was “live,” in Menninger’s opinion. Soon, he told the Developer’s readers, Stuart’s harbor would be deepened to allow oceangoing ships, and the harbor would become “the finest in the South.”
“It will mark the beginning of the development on the [Florida] East Coast of a port that will rank with Tampa on the West,” he wrote.
Within ten years, Menninger predicted, Martin County would have a population of 200,000, and business lots in Stuart would be selling for $10,000 a square foot. The county’s interior between the Atlantic and Lake Okeechobee would be “one great fruit and vegetable farm,” shipping “thousands” of train-car loads of winter produce to northern markets.
And two more great cities would be rising on the lake shores, Menninger predicted.
That same issue of the Developer included an advertisement offering twenty-five acres of land for sale at $1,000 an acre, and readers were advised to contact Edwin A. Menninger for more information.
As the usual post-Thanksgiving migration to Florida started, The New York Times Magazine reported that highways into the state were “thronged with cars, from limousines with liveried chauffeurs to flivvers with shirt-sleeved drivers, all headed for the land of De Leon and De Soto.”
But the New York Times also reported that new residents who’d come to Florida seeking a better life were having financial problems because everything was so expensive. A head waiter at a restaurant told the paper that while he was making more money than he’d ever made, he still couldn’t make ends meet because everything was so costly.
Author Theodore Dreiser was among the thousands who came to Florida in late December 1925. Dreiser and his wife made the trip to avoid reading reviews of his just-published novel, An American Tragedy. Dreiser wrote his off-the-cuff impressions of Florida in letters to his friend and fellow writer, H. L. Mencken, in Baltimore, and made notes in his diary. The letters and the diary notes would form the basis for articles about Florida in Vanity Fair magazine in the summer of 1926.
The Dreisers arrived in St. Augustine on Christmas Day, and the writer was immediately struck by “real estate schemes everywhere.” As they traveled down the peninsula, Dreiser learned that booze was plentiful in Daytona at $12 a quart—before Prohibition you could buy a case of twelve quarts for that price—and he found a DeLand hotel “vile”; although it had no heat and no private bath, he still had to pay $5 a night.
As the season shifted into high gear after Christmas, famous athletes and celebrities started showing up. Babe Ruth was seen among other celebrities at a hotel opening in St. Petersburg, and newspaper sports pages announced that Stanford University football star Ernie Nevers would play in an all-star football game in Florida. Nevers would be paid $50,000—more than $657,000 in twenty-first-century dollars.
Helen Wainwright, a champion amateur swimmer, was training in Florida for her attempt to swim the English Channel later in the year. Golfer Bobby Jones—still an amateur at the time—was playing in St. Augustine, and a real estate company was offering $15,000 to tennis stars Bill Tilden and Vincent Richards if they’d play tennis at their development for a few months.
Boxers Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey were training in Florida, and Dempsey told sportswriter Ring Lardner that he might “dabble” in real estate.
As the federal officer in charge of enforcing the Volstead Act, General Lincoln C. Andrews certainly qualified as a celebrity when he came to Miami in January 1926, but he was not there to relax and rub elbows with winter vacationers. He was there to see how well the Coast Guard was doing in its effort to keep booze out of Miami.
Notorious bootlegger Duncan “Red” Shannon picked that day to make a run from the Bahamas. As his speedy little rumrunner, the Goose, entered Miami Harbor, Shannon spied a small launch conveying Andrews to a Coast Guard cutter anchored at the harbor entrance.
Shannon recognize
d Andrews, but instead of turning away from his sworn enemies, Shannon turned toward the boat carrying the general. As he raced past Andrews’s launch he thumbed his nose at the nation’s top Prohibition officer before racing away in his boat, which could easily outrun the Coast Guard vessel.
Andrews was infuriated, and the Coast Guard crewmen were mortified by Shannon’s ridicule. They would not forget that embarrassment.
Movie star Gloria Swanson arrived in Miami Beach around the same time of Shannon’s display of contempt for Andrews. Wearing silk and mink, she appeared with an entourage at a jai alai match in Hialeah. It was, she told the Miami Daily News, the only place other than Havana where she could watch one of her favorite sports.
Swanson was staying at the Flamingo Hotel, as was movie star Bebe Daniels.
United News sportswriter Frank Getty reported that Major League baseball managers were concerned about how the real estate mania might affect their players during spring training.
“They have visions of a heavy hitter rounding the bases on the heels of a three-base hit suddenly shooting off at a tangent into deep left field to sell a possible prospect a choice lot or two,” Getty wrote.
And there would be other “dazzling distractions,” such as casinos, attractive young women in skimpy bathing suits, blue lagoons, and iced drinks, Getty wrote.
Will Rogers was back in Florida and dispatching his quips to newspapers across the country. He talked to John McGraw, noting that Sarasota was where “McGraw [had trained] his Giants every year till last year, when they sold real estate instead of training.”
Rogers also reported that McGraw’s good friend John Ringling was building “a little bungalow” in Sarasota that was “patterned after the Vatican in Rome, only improved on.”
The managers’ fears about the distractions of real estate investments were justified. As the teams finished up their preparations for the 1926 season and got ready to move north, there were news reports that several members of the Brooklyn Dodgers had lost heavily from faulty real estate investments.