The City Commission received an apparent low bid of just over $5.5 million for construction of the Northside Generating Station along Heckscher Drive.
The bid for the building and electrical work was $5,563,700 from the Auchter Co. It was $83,900 less than the next lowest of three bids submitted.
Utilities Commissioner J. Dillon Kennedy said the low bid was higher than expected, but probably would come within the amount allocated for the job.
Award of the contract for the building would be the last major one in the $25 million second phase of the city’s $63 million electric plant expansion program that began in 1963.
Sale of $16 million in bonds for the final phase would be made in June.
• Duval County Patrol Chief William Johnston issued a stern warning against teenage misconduct on county beaches after five youths were taken into custody at Seminole Beach.
“The beaches are intended for family use and we will not tolerate any action that will keep families from wanting to use them. If we catch teenagers drinking, they will go to jail,” Johnston said.
Four boys were arrested near two access ramps for disorderly conduct by affray (breaching the peace by a public fight) after a brawl broke out along the beach. A teenage girl was taken into custody and turned over to her parents by officers who said she cursed at them as they broke up the fight.
All were released under $1,000 bond.
• The Jacksonville metropolitan area showed a 20 percent increase in department store sales in the first three months of 1965 compared to the same period in 1964, according to a report by the Jacksonville branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
Jacksonville was third in sales among the nine cities in the 6th Federal Reserve District.
Leading in department store sales increase was New Orleans with a 36 percent hike. Atlanta was second with 27 percent.
Other cities in the district that recorded sales increases were Mobile, Ala., 19 percent; Birmingham, Ala., 14 percent; Augusta, Ga., 12 percent; Tampa-St. Petersburg, 9 percent; and Miami, 9 percent.
• Everyone was looking for 5-year-old Tracy Ann Ryan.
City police were searching, a fire boat was cruising along Southside waters and neighbors were beating the bushes.
They all were summoned to the search by the child’s mother, Mrs. J.T. Ryan of 1620 Mayfair Road.
It seemed the only person not searching was Ryan’s father, who was playing a round at Brentwood Golf Course, unaware his child was missing.
When police Sgt. Jerry Burke located the golfer and gave him the news, Ryan dropped his clubs and ran across the fairway to his automobile.
And there was Tracy, sitting on the car seat and calmly but sleepily surveying her surroundings.
“I got in the car and got sleepy so I went to sleep on the back seat at home. I woke up here,” she said.
Ryan forfeited his golf game.
• City Council appropriated nearly $5,000 for miscellaneous items including a pool table, air-conditioners, trips for city officials and improvements for a driveway in front of a store.
The funds came from various council ward contingency accounts and included three $500 items for travel expenses to St. Louis, Mo., for the U.S. Conference of Mayors and $445 for a pool table for Fire Station No. 17.
Also on the list was an air-conditioner for the Highway Department radio room, two air-conditioners for Fire Station No. 16 and $100 for a concrete apron for a drive-in in front of a grocery store at Kings Road and Myrtle Avenue.
• Wrestlers signed up for a special match during the weekly grappling show at the Coliseum.
A portion of the proceeds from ticket sales would help pay for new uniforms for the Terry Parker High School Band. The band performed between matches.
The Kentuckians and Haystacks Calhoun faced the Assassins and the Avenger in a six-man tag team match.
Also on the card, Eddie Graham and Sam Steamboat met Bob Orton and Bill Drome, while Danny Miller tangled with Hiro Matsuda in a singles match.
• Expanded facilities at the Duval Medical Center eye clinic were dedicated by the Presidents Council of Lion Clubs of Greater Jacksonville.
The Florida Lions Foundation for the Blind presented a check for $4,000 to be used to purchase equipment for the facility. The foundation also donated in 1964 a check for $5,000 for equipment purchase.
The clinic had a 10-bed patient ward and was staffed by a full-time resident from the University of Florida and local ophthalmologists.
• It was announced the porpoise show, a major attraction at the Florida pavilion at the New York World’s Fair, might move to Jacksonville Beach after the fair concluded.
The announcement was made at a joint meeting of the Jacksonville Beaches Area Chamber of Commerce and the Beaches Committee of 100, marking the first anniversary of the founding of the committee.
Under a plan outlined by Martin Williams Jr., chairman of the chamber’s Attractions Study Committee, the porpoise show would become part of a six-block redevelopment project.
A pool would be specially built as part of an oceanfront restaurant complex the city would lease for private operation, he said.
An artist’s rendering showed a performing pool 65 feet in diameter, the raised restaurant seating 300 people overlooking the pool and the ocean and stadium seats on the opposite side of the pool.
Martin said he hoped to present the completed plan, with cost figures, to the Jacksonville Beach City Council within 90 days.
• Officers of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Florida laid the cornerstone of the Samuel Wolfson High School at 6600 Powers Ave.
Enacting a ritual that Hobart Pelhank, grand master of the lodge, said had been used by Masonic orders “since time immemorial,” he and his officers put the white marble stone in place.
It was then measured with the implements of the mason’s trade: the square, the level and the plumb. It was found to be true and of ample form and then was consecrated with a scattering of corn and anointed with oil and wine.
The school, which was named for the late Jacksonville financier and philanthropist, was scheduled to open for the 1965-66 school year.
• The owners of the Greek ship Anastasis, docked in Jacksonville, gave assurance the vessel would no longer carry cargo to North Vietnam.
The announcement came on the third day after members of the International Longshoremen’s Association refused to unload the ship.
Landon Williams, local association president, said longshoremen had worked the ship for two days before being notified by the union’s international office in New York that the Anastasis had been to Communist-bloc countries.
“If we had known this to begin with, we never would have tied the ship up. It is foolish for us on the home front to help Communist countries,” he said.
In the ship’s hold was a shipment of iron rods from Japan.
• A 25-year-old man who bragged to some companions he could chug almost a fifth of liquor made good on his claim, but died.
Less than 12 hours after Cecil Henley consumed the almost full bottle of straight bourbon, he was found dead in his home along North Main Street.
A physician said it was not uncommon for a fifth of whiskey (about 25 ounces) to be fatal.
The doctor said it depended on the physical condition of the person and what the person had to eat.