Have you ever wondered what life was like in Jacksonville half a century ago? It was a different era of history, culture and politics but there are often parallels between the kind of stories that made headlines then and today. As interesting as the differences may be, so are the similarities. These are some of the top stories from this week in 1961. The items were compiled from the Jacksonville Public Library’s periodical archives by Staff Writer Max Marbut.
• The federal government was proposing to store 4.5 million bushels of wheat in and around eight Florida cities for emergency food supplies in the event of a nuclear attack. Jacksonville was due to receive 628,000 bushels.
There were no mills in Florida equipped to turn wheat into flour, so officials supposed that if nuclear war did become reality, residents would boil the wheat to make a gummy cereal out of the grain.
Jacksonville-Duval County Civil Defense Director W.A. Weatherford said when he first heard of the government’s plan to stockpile surplus grain for emergency food supplies, he put in a claim for 1 million bushels for North Florida.
The actual allocation of 628,000 bushels was based on a formula of 12 ounces per person per day for a four-month period.
Weatherford said he requested the wheat without worrying about what he’d do with it because the offer was the first national program for stockpiling food for emergency use.
He said he put in the bid because other stockpiling programs were sure to follow.
Also, Jacksonville became one of the first cities in the nation to recommend tax exemption for nuclear fallout shelters.
A resolution introduced by City Council member Ralph Walter urging the tax assessor to exempt fallout shelters from ad valorem taxation was adopted unanimously.
“Fallout shelters are a form of life insurance and we shouldn’t be taxed on insurance,” said Weatherford.
The resolution recommended that the shelter value not be considered in determining the value of the entire property unless the shelter was used for purposes other than that for which it was primarily intended.
• Local bootleggers joined in the economic raids on Cuban Premier Fidel Castro’s resources.
U.S. Customs Agent William Lankford said Cuban sugar, in temporary storage in Jacksonville, was the objective of the bootleggers. They were using crime instead of legal means to obtain it.
The raw sugar – 900,000 pounds of it stored in a warehouse at Commodores Point – was the target of the thefts.
Cuban sugar had been banned for importation shortly after diplomatic relations were severed over the island nation’s involvement with the Soviet Union.
The sugar was brought to Jacksonville aboard the Danish motor vessel Rikke Skou about Jan. 1, said Lankford.
The ship had carried a load of soybeans from China to Cuba and had taken on a load of sugar bound back to China. The vessel ran aground in the Bahamas and sustained serious damage to the hull.
About half the sugar was dumped at sea after it was determined it had been damaged by saltwater and oil. The ship was brought to a shipyard here for emergency repairs, where about half the remaining sugar was dumped after it was discovered it, too, had been spoiled. The balance of the sugar was barged to the Strachen Shipping Co. warehouse.
Lankford said Strachen officials had notified his office that some of the sugar had been stolen and an investigation was launched.
The bootlegger connection emerged when several empty bags which had contained the Cuban sugar were seized as evidence during raids at two stills on the Duval-St. Johns county line.
• Probation for youngsters who got in trouble with the Duval County Juvenile Court was “a farce,” said Juvenile Court Judge Lamar Winegeart Jr.
Addressing the Kiwanis Club at the Roosevelt Hotel, Winegeart said he did not use the probation service in the way it should be used due to lack of court counselors.
He said he could not see what useful purpose probation meetings with delinquents served if the youngsters came to court to “wait around in corridors and be seen by counselors for five minutes or less.”
Winegeart said such a practice would lead to disrespect for the court’s efforts and could lead to more trouble for the young offenders.
He said the staff of nine counselors handled about 750 cases each year when the recommended maximum was 250 a year.
Winegeart said he believed probation could be more effective if the counselors met the youngsters at their homes with a talk with their parents, a practice which was not allowed.
• After deferring action on an application previously filed, the City Pardon Board ruled the application be denied.
A female friend of prisoner Johnny B. Owens applied for the pardon Aug. 15. Owens had been sentenced July 22 to a 90-day term for discharging firearms.
The reason for the denial: Owens had escaped from the prison farm three days before the hearing.
The board also denied an application for a man who was sentenced to the farm Aug. 11 for a total of 328 days for a variety of offenses, including hit and run, driving while intoxicated, driving without a license, carrying a concealed weapon and a previous escape from the farm.
• The Duval County Port Authority voted to spend $11,851 on an advertising campaign in several national business publications to sell the industry on locating facilities at Blount Island.
Authority Chairman Bob Harris, who made the motion for the expenditure, said the advertising campaign might pay off if it motivated companies to lease tracts on the property.
The authority had discussed the possibility of borrowing money to build a bridge to the island and had been advised a loan might be available if leases were taken.
The County owned the island, which had been described in an engineering survey report as “a good location for development of a port and industrial complex.”
The County Commission, whose five members comprised the port authority, had asked for a $500,000 appropriation in the 1960-61 budget to build the bridge, but the request was rejected by the Budget Commission in favor of a figure of $1.
The token amount was included in the budget so the account could remain alive and receive any surplus funds that might be found in other accounts during the year.
Action on the advertising funds came at a brief port authority meeting after the regular session of the commission
At the regular session, commissioners voted to transfer $1,302.48 from their contingency account to install a traffic signal at Merrill Road and Cesery Boulevard. The transfer would be subject to approval by the Budget Commission.
• Frank M. Scruby was appointed assistant state attorney for the 4th Judicial Circuit by Gov. Farris Bryant.
Scruby, whose law office was in Orange Park, would fill a newly created post, making him the fourth assistant prosecutor for the circuit. Scruby would be paid $6,500 annually by the state.
He was past president of the Orange Park Civitan Club and a member of the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church.
Scruby lived with his wife and three children at 7359 Pineville Drive in Ortega Hills.