Have you ever wondered what life was like in Jacksonville half a century ago? It may have been 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 1960. The items were compiled from the Jacksonville Public Library’s periodical archives by staff writer Max Marbut.
• Duval County’s basic tax rate for 1960 was fixed at $45.48 per $1,000 of taxable valuation, a decrease of 12 cents from the 1959 rate. However, residents in the county but outside the city limits learned their tax bill would be $46.75 per $1,000, an increase of $1.15 over the previous year.
Formal adoption of the tax levy for 1960 was made by the County Commission upon receipt of a resolution from the Board of Public Instruction fixing the school taxes at $21.98 per $1,000 on a countywide basis. Certain school districts would pay slightly more to cover outstanding district bond indebtedness.
The tax rate certification was about one month behind schedule because of litigation over reopening the school budget to take advantage of an assessment increase not anticipated when the budget for the schools was made final by the Budget Commission. Tax Collector Clyde H. Simpson said everything possible would be done by his office to get bills out in time for taxpayers to take advantage of the 4 percent discount allowed for payments made in November.
• U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater, a Republican from Arizona, was on a seven-speech swing through Florida and made a stop in Jacksonville. He appeared at a rally in Hemming Park and then was the keynote speaker at a $25 a plate fundraising dinner at the George Washington Hotel.
Goldwater attacked Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kennedy’s charges that America was falling behind Russia militarily and economically. He also charged that Kennedy was not being objective in depicting the United States as losing ground to the Soviets in those two areas. Goldwater said the United States was “capable of destroying Russia at any time,” and that the Russians knew it.
Local bank executive Roger Main introduced Goldwater at the banquet, which was the first local fundraiser for the presidential ticket of Richard Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge. Main said Goldwater was “one of the most honest and courageous men in America.”
Several hours after the banquet, an elevator carrying some members of his party to their rooms became stuck between floors. Seventeen people were aboard the car that was disabled for about a half-hour. A telephone in the elevator was used to summon the fire department and an elevator repairman. Goldwater himself was not in the elevator.
• Postal inspectors announced the recovery of all the loot taken in a burglary of the Whitehouse Post Office on Sept. 2, with the exception of $290 in cash.
The last of the stolen goods were recovered from a hiding place in a clump of palmettos on State Road 119, six miles east of U.S. 90 and about 25 miles from the scene of the crime.
M.V. Saylor, a postal inspector, and Deputy U.S. Marshal Herbert Ellis were led to the hiding place by James Theodore Dickson, 32, one of the trio accused of the burglary. He was being held in the Duval County Jail on a $2,500 bond.
Dickson, with Floyd Charles Fallen, 36 and an invalid who used a wheelchair, and Donald J. Alford, 23, allegedly took stamps, money orders, postal savings certificates and cash with a real or potential value of $114,000 during the break-in.
Alford and Dickson were arraigned Sept. 10 after passing one of the stolen money orders in Newport, Tenn. Another had been cashed earlier in Charlotte, N.C. Fallen was taken into custody Sept. 16 near Lake City, where he lived.
• Automation and trends in traffic management led to the removal of a hut that had sheltered traffic patrolmen from the elements on the Riverside Viaduct at the foot of the Acosta Bridge.
Police Inspector R.F. Hobbs said the small structure was built about 1940 when traffic was backing up “intolerably” at the bridge-viaduct light, so a patrolman could stay there 8-10 hours each day to manually control the signal light. Opening of the Fuller Warren Bridge had relieved much of the traffic and the hut had not been used very much since, said Hobbs.
• A $76,677 budget was adopted for the Town of Orange Park, which began the fiscal year free of debt for the first time in 40 years.
The new budget was about $7,000 higher than it was in 1959-60, but the ad valorem tax levy was again set at 11 mills by the Town Commission. The tax levy was expected to bring in $33,378 in receipts and $11,659 was expected to be realized from the state cigarette tax.