For Sale —American Paradise
Page 36
Menninger died on February 17, 1995. The ailing young journalist who’d come to Florida in 1922 to shake the flu had lived to be nearly one hundred years old. He’d also helped to transform Stuart into a beautiful, prosperous little city, and shape Florida into the nation’s tropical paradise.
If you head south on Interstate 95 or Interstate 75 on the Sunday following Thanksgiving, you will become part of a migration that is as predictable as any seasonal cycle of nature.
On that day, thousands of people pile into their automobiles and head south to Florida. Whether they’ve left from upstate New York, from Kentucky, or from Ontario, by the time they reach the Georgia-Florida border, this sunshine-bound caravan has formed into phalanxes of motor vehicles, many miles long, often moving at eighty miles an hour.
They aren’t going to Florida to seek the ordinary. They’re going there in search of things that don’t exist anywhere else—a winter suntan, a respite from the discomforts of old age, a stylish escape into luxury and fantasy. And they’ll probably find what they’re seeking.
In the following weeks, thousands more will follow. Multimillion-dollar yachts escaping icy northern waters will arrive at Palm Beach, Sarasota, Jupiter Island, Ocean Reef, and other exclusive Florida harbors. Drawbridges will be going up and down and cars will be backed up, and year-round residents caught in the snarled traffic will look at each other wryly and say, “They’re back!”
But they never really left. Despite continued challenges in the decades that followed the insanity of the 1920s—more terrible hurricanes, more ups and downs in the state’s real estate and housing markets, and a steady succession of bizarre and sometimes macabre news stories coming out of Florida—the crowds kept coming. “Visit Florida,” the state’s official Department of Tourism web-site, said that almost ninety-seven million visitors came to Florida in 2014, and spent more than $82 billion. More than one million workers have jobs that are related to tourism, and the industry produces 23 percent of the state’s revenue from sales tax.
Florida, more than any other state, is associated with a healthful life in the sun and the fulfillment of dreams and fantasies. Even the vision that drove Hamilton Disston to suicide has been realized. The land where he once planned a “magic” city is now home to Walt Disney World’s “Magic Kingdom,” where fantasies are a serious and lucrative business.
The state offers something for everyone, regardless of age, income, personal interests, or sexual orientation.
Upscale families and singles are lured to places such as Sanibel and Captiva Islands, and other destinations that are well beyond the reach of all but the wealthiest. College students on spring break cram into the bars of Panama City Beach and Key West.
In the sports world, a winter trip to Florida becomes a symbol of the pinnacle of success for hundreds of thousands of fans. Backers of successful college football teams go to Jacksonville, Orlando, Miami, or Tampa to see their favorites play in a postseason bowl game. And the Super Bowl is regularly played in one of those cities as well.
In October, gays and lesbians look forward to the annual Fantasy Fest, a colorful, stylish, and always outrageous weeklong street party in Key West.
The enticement of Florida can be permanent instead of seasonal. Couples reaching retirement age leave behind the cares of a lifetime and, as Homer Simpson once phrased it, “run out the clock in Florida.” The well-heeled buy multimillion-dollar homes at Ocean Reef and Jupiter Island, or in oceanfront gated communities all along the state’s nearly 2,300-mile coastline. Others go to affordable retirement towns such as Port St. Lucie, Winter Haven, and Port Charlotte, where, after decades of planning and saving, they settle into their 2,000-square-foot houses on their 10,000-square-foot lots.
The lure is so intense that desperate Cubans have risked their lives aboard flimsy rafts, hoping that fate and the whims of the winds and tides will push them across the Straits of Florida to a land of opportunity where they can have a better life.
But Florida has not escaped the cycles of fiscal boom and bust and earthly natural disasters.
There have been other economic peaks and valleys, albeit none as colorful and outrageous as those of the 1920s. The wave of foreclosures and struggling condominium associations in Miami and other Florida cities that followed the collapse of the subprime mortgage market in 2008 are eerily similar to the collapse of the state’s real estate market nearly ninety years ago.
And there have been other spectacular natural disasters. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew terrified South Florida and came within a few miles of inflicting a repeat of the devastating 1926 storm that wrecked Miami. In 2004 and 2005, a series of powerful hurricanes swept across Florida and drove many discouraged residents from the state.
Americans have short memories, however, and those who seek a better life will always be drawn to Florida. It’s still a land of perpetual sunshine and sea breezes, and savvy observers of Florida’s real estate market think the state will recover again. In the wake of the subprime mortgage debacle, Karen Procell, a former real estate attorney in Orlando, said she thought the real estate market would stabilize, and her reasoning had a very familiar ring to it.
“The year-round sunshine motivates tons of people, especially up North,” Procell said. “The proximity to beaches on either coast, the sand, sun, and beautiful people of Miami Beach, the theme parks in Orlando—that’s an appealing lifestyle, especially if you’re out shoveling snow and it’s ten below zero.
“These things don’t go away. The beaches aren’t going to go away; the sunshine is not going to go away. People want that. That will continue to be attractive to them.”
The next round of feverish real estate speculation could begin around the centennial of the Florida land boom of the 1920s. And when the new generation of boomers arrives, all of the earlier hopes and dreams that have been dashed to pieces amid the palm trees and wading birds and pink-and-vermilion sunsets won’t matter to these new seekers. They’ll see the gorgeous twilight reflected in the water that seems to be everywhere, and they’ll watch the breakers roll onto a beach, and feel the sun warming their bones. And like the paradise seekers who’ve been coming to Florida for centuries, they’ll have no earthly idea how powerful a hurricane can be.
Instead, they’ll see all of the promise that Florida offers, and like Theodore Dreiser—standing on the shores of Lake Okeechobee, deeply moved by the fragile beauty of it all—they’ll convince themselves that by coming to Florida they can achieve the American dream of perpetual happiness in the sun.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would not have happened without the tireless efforts of my agent, Jeanne Fredericks, of the Jeanne Fredericks Literary Agency in New Canaan, Connecticut. I owe her a tremendous debt of gratitude. Every writer should be so lucky to find an agent like her—diligent, loyal, and tenacious.
Marissa Walsh of Gotham Writers’ Workshop in New York City was invaluable as a marketing consultant and was instrumental in getting the book proposal ready to pitch to publishers.
I’m very grateful to Lyons Press for their commitment to this project, and I was so very lucky that they assigned Tom McCarthy as my editor. He was a patient, unflappable veteran with a steady hand. His support of this project and faith in me were inspiring and deeply appreciated.
I’d also like to thank senior acquisitions editor Holly Rubino and production editor Lauren Brancato at Lyons for their guidance. Copyeditor Melissa Hayes had a light but deft touch on the manuscript.
Miami historian Paul George encouraged me to take on this project and helped me with his own deep expertise on the history of the Florida land boom. Historian Robert Alicea at the University of South Florida in Tampa also provided guidance and research sources.
My old friend, novelist and screenwriter John Miglis, helped me shape the narrative and offered additional advice and commentary during discussions at various watering holes in St. Augustine. He and his lovely wife, Diane—who bakes an amazing shepherd’s pie—
gave me warm hospitality and provided a base of operations during many research trips to Florida.
Paul Dickson, author of dozens of books about everything from history to baseball, was always willing to share his wisdom.
Meteorology instructor Greg Nordstrom at Mississippi State University in Starkville and cinematographer and storm-chaser Michael Laca of Tropmet.com in Miami reviewed some of the sections about hurricanes. Meteorologist Rob Jones of Pembroke Pines provided a treasure trove of information about Florida in the 1920s.
Virginia Menninger of Jensen Beach told me about her late father-in-law and former employer, Edwin Menninger. Mabel Witham of Stuart shared useful documents and helped me find other sources of information. Stuart author Sandra Thurlow generously shared photos from her collection for the book.
Bob DeGross, chief of interpretation and public affairs at Big Cypress National Preserve in Ochopee, was kind enough to review and critique my narrative of the construction of the Tamiami Trail.
Librarians and archivists—those diligent and unsung caretakers of our accumulated knowledge—made huge contributions to this book. I’m grateful to the staffs at the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida in Gainesville, the Richter Library at the University of Miami, and the Collier County Public Library in Naples, and to the archivists at the National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, Maryland, and the State Archives of Florida in Tallahassee.
Jim Misenheimer, my friend since childhood, and his wife, Cindy, allowed me unrestricted use of their cabin in the Uwharrie Mountains back home in Stanly County, North Carolina, where I could work in undisturbed privacy anytime I wanted. My brother-in-law, Bob Morrow, and his wife, Ann Marie, let me set up shop in their home in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, when I needed to attend meetings in New York City. I’m also grateful to Pat Huber of Roseville, Minnesota, for the use of her house at Fort Myers Beach during a lengthy research trip to Florida.
And of course, there’s my wife, Dr. Jane Morrow, who served as a story consultant and first-draft editor and allowed me to get away with the quirks and annoying habits for which writers are notorious.
Willie Drye
Plymouth, North Carolina
May 7, 2015
A NOTE ABOUT SOURCES
This book describes events that took place almost a century ago.
In some cases, the documentation for these events is plentiful and specific. In other cases, however, the documentation is scarce, and sometimes the documentation that does exist is conflicting or fragmentary or the events described do not align with other well-documented events that were taking place at the same time.
This is especially true about the career of the Ashley Gang, where I found differing accounts of several events.
For example, newspaper stories written while John Ashley was on trial for the murder of Desoto Tiger repeatedly wrote that he’d been paid $584 for the otter hides he stole from the Seminole Indian. Later accounts, however, said he’d received $1,200 for the hides. Because $584 was, without exception, consistently reported by all of the journalists covering the trial as it unfolded, I used that amount.
Tiger’s first name also was spelled Desoto, DeSoto, and De Soto. I used the spelling I found most often in news stories.
The New Smyrna News, citing the Miami Daily News, reported that after Ashley escaped from prison in July 1918, he served several months in the US Navy aboard the battleship USS Maryland and then deserted. But the battleship was being built when Ashley escaped. The Maryland was launched in March 1920, but it was not completed and commissioned for service by the navy until July 1921—more than a month after Ashley was recaptured and returned to prison.
I was not able to determine whether Ashley might have been aboard the battleship briefly before it was commissioned. So I did not mention Ashley’s possible military service.
There were similar uncertainties about John Ashley’s nephew, Handford—or Hanford—Mobley, starting with the spelling of his first name. Newspaper stories of the day consistently spelled his name Hanford. Author Hix Stuart, who claimed to have the only interview ever granted by John Ashley, also used this spelling.
But Mobley’s tombstone spells his first name Handford, and this is the spelling I’ve used.
There also are uncertainties about some of Mobley’s crimes and adventures. The Miami Herald reported on November 9, 1924, that it was Mobley who had served in the navy. I also found frequent mention in books and magazine stories about Mobley and other gang members robbing liquor distributors in the Bahamas sometime before his death in late 1924. But the only account of this robbery that was written fairly soon after Mobley’s death was by Stuart, whose book about the gang was published in 1928. Stuart mentions the robbery but does not give a date.
The New Smyrna News of November 21, 1924, mentions that Mobley was wanted for piracy for stealing $15,000, but this story says he stole the money on the high seas between Florida and the Bahamas and does not mention a robbery of liquor distributors. Other accounts of Mobley’s crimes were written many years after his death, and these stories gave conflicting information about the robbery.
Stories about the gang’s bank robberies also were inconsistent, especially about the amount of money they stole in each robbery.
There were similar discrepancies in the newspaper stories about the gangland murder of Al Capone’s enemy, Frank Uale.
In writing about these and other events, I pieced together the stories as best I could from the documentation that was available. Where there were inconsistencies, I used the version that seemed to me to be the most plausible or matched with other events that happened simultaneously.
NOTES
Chapter One: An Old Man’s Memories
1. “I tried to talk them out of it”: Miami Herald, March 16, 1986; Daily Capital of Topeka, Kansas, March 2, 1915
2. The look was becoming so popular that Macy’s: Time magazine, September 16, 1985
2. The wind off the ocean made the early summer heat bearable: Vero Beach Press, July 2, 1925
2. As the acerbic journalist H.L. Mencken had noted: Andrist, Ralph K., chief editor, The American Heritage History of the 1920s & 1930s (New York, American Heritage/Bonanza Books, 1970) p. 33
3. Their spree had ended only six months earlier: Nevada State Journal, February 22, 1924
3. Rumor had it that John Ashley had hidden more than $110,000: Sarasota Herald-Tribune, August 5, 1926
3. Every day trains were bringing as many as seventy-five Pullman cars: George, Paul, “Brokers, Binders, And Builders,” Florida Historical Quarterly, vol. 65, no. 1, July 1986, p. 35
4. “It was easy to lie to a prospect in those days”: Fuller, Walter P., This Was Florida’s Boom (St. Petersburg, Florida, Times Publishing Co., 1954) p. 39
4. Jesse Livermore, the legendary stock market manipulator: Paige, Emeline K., editor, Untitled promotional booklet about the history of Martin County (Stuart, Florida, Southeastern Printing Co. and First National Bank and Trust Co. of Stuart, Florida, 1973) from the P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History, University of Florida
4. In neighboring Palm Beach County, architect Addison Mizner: Promotional brochure, Boca Raton Mizner Development Corporation, from the collections of the Boca Raton Historical Society and Museums, Boca Raton, Florida (Philadelphia, J.H. Cross Company, 1925) p. 21
4. He’d moved from Nebraska to Miami in 1912: US Department of the Interior, National Parks Service, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, William Jennings Bryan House, Miami, Florida, December 9, 2011
4. Miami developer George Merrick was paying Bryan $100,000 a year: Nolan, David, Fifty Feet in Paradise: The Booming of Florida (New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, 1984) p. 177
5. In the summer of 1925, sales of property in Coral Gables: George, Paul, “Brokers, Binders, And Builders,” Florida Historical Quarterly, vol. 65, no. 1, July 1986, p. 38
5. . . . when Merrick started selling lots in the new
Sylvania Heights section of Coral Gables: George, Paul, “Brokers, Binders, And Builders,” Florida Historical Quarterly, vol. 65, no. 1, July 1986, p. 42
5. “I never see a crowd of people”: The New York Times, September 27, 1896
5. When he finished, the twenty thousand delegates didn’t simply applaud: The Newark (Ohio) Daily Advocate, July 11, 1896
6. But the canny old political warhorse also had seriously contemplated: Flynt, Wayne, “Florida’s 1926 Senatorial Primary,” The Florida Historical Quarterly, vol. 42, no. 2, October 1963, pp. 142–143
6. “He can smell the battle afar off”: Nevada State Journal of Reno, February 22, 1924
6. The dresses they wore—thin, revealing, with hemlines at the knee: Allen, Frederick Lewis, Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s (New York, Perennial Classics, an imprint of Harper Collins, 2000) pp. 79–80; Palm Beach Post, May 25, 1925
7. In the mid-1920s, however, the fashion dictated a stark contrast: “Historically Accurate 1920s Makeup Tutorial,” produced by Zabrena, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_iMr-yOUbo
7. Some of the women even dared to light up cigarettes: Allen, Frederick Lewis, Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s (New York, Perennial Classics, an imprint of Harper Collins, 2000) p. 78
7. He had recently introduced a bill in Tallahassee: Palm Beach Post, May 25, 1925
7. The proposal was defeated: Palm Beach Post, June 7, 1925
8. He started with a self-deprecating quip: Vero Beach Press, July 2, 1925
9. “I would feel lost if I were not there on that occasion”: South Florida Developer, August 4, 1925
Chapter Two: Railroad to Dreamland
10. The immortal Greek warrior Alexander the Great: Delumeau, Jean, History of Paradise: The Garden of Eden in Myth and Tradition (Urbana and Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 2000) p. 46