Have you ever wondered what it was like in Jacksonville 50 years 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 similarities may be, so are the differences. These are some of the top stories from the week of Aug. 24-30, 1959. The items were compiled from the Jacksonville Public Library’s periodical archives by Staff Writer Max Marbut.
• Mayor Haydon Burns blasted as “utterly ridiculous” a proposal to finance reconstruction of the outmoded Riverside viaduct by imposing a toll on the Acosta Bridge.
If a toll were imposed on the bridge, Burns said, the Main Street Bridge would be the only free span to Downtown and “it wouldn’t carry the traffic.”
He also said, “The worst thing that could happen to this county would be to put a picket fence of toll bridges around it.” He pointed out motorists already had to pay a toll to use the Mathews and Fuller Warren bridges and would have to pay a toll on the Expressway bridge over the Trout River when it opened.
Burns’ condemnation of the toll proposal was echoed by City Auditor John W. Hollister who said it was “utterly preposterous.”
Burns spoke out at a City Commission meeting at which a letter was received from Lucius A. Buck, chairman of the Jacksonville Expressway Authority, outlining the toll proposal. The letter was in reply to a communication from the City commissioners asking what, if any, plans the authority had to rebuild the viaduct.
• The City Council received, but did not immediately vote on, a resolution to appropriate $1,884 to purchase a new car for the municipal judge. Council rules provided that no resolution appropriating money could be approved the night it was introduced if one member objected.
The vote was blocked by an objection from Council member Lemuel Sharp. He did not explain his objection but indicated he would have something to say about it at the Council’s next meeting Sept. 8 when it would come up for a vote.
City Auditor John W. Hollister Jr. said the Council members and commissioners appropriated City money for a new car for Municipal Judge Charles Miller in each of the three previous years. Hollister also said a four-door Mercury sedan purchased in June 1958 was still at the disposal of John E. Santora Jr. who succeeded Miller in the judge’s post.
The resolution did not say whether the $1,884 was to go with a trade-in of the car purchased in 1958 or what would be the model of the car to be purchased. None of the other judges were provided with a car at public expense.
A few days later Santora said he asked the City to purchase a new car for him because the 1958 model he inherited from Miller was “completely shot.”
He said the car had about 22,000 miles on the speedometer and he couldn’t get it started when he took it over from Miller in June. Santora also reported the vehicle had been in the shop for repairs at North Florida Motors as long as four days at a time.
Aside from his trips to and from the municipal courtroom six days a week Santora said he used the car to travel to four of five different places each week on behalf of the City. Those trips included speeches before civic groups, acting as judge in a beauty contest in lake Forest and trips to the traffic school and City prison farm.
• Florida traffic laws changed and that meant the inauguration of a new points system for violations and subsequent penalties.
Lt. R.H. Tuten of the Florida Highway Patrol’s Jacksonville District said the Legislature adopted the point system to “get people to realize the seriousness” of reckless driving.
“There are some people you can talk to all day long or give them traffic tickets and it has little or no effect,” he said.
Under the new law the Department of Public Safety was authorized to suspend the license of any driver convicted of violations amounting to 12 or more points assigned to a variety of moving violations in a 12-month period. The driver could lose the driving privilege for as long as 30 days. The system is still in place today.
• Civitan Club President M.I. Clements said Russian Premier Nikita Krushchev would be unable to accept an invitation to address the club.
Clements reported he received a letter from Maurice S. Rice, chief of the public services division of the U.S. State Department, informing him it would be impossible to include Jacksonville on the itinerary for Krushchev’s visit to the United States in September.
The letter stated, “In planning the itinerary suggestions and invitations received by the State Department were brought to the attention of U.S. officials and members of the Soviet embassy who worked together in planning Mr. Krushchev’s itinerary. The agreed-upon schedule conforms to President Eisenhower’s concept and to Mr. Krushchev’s views as to the areas and types of American activities that he is most desirous of seeing during his extremely limited time available.
“It was possible to include only a few of the very many excellent suggestions received by the White House. We very much appreciated the thoughtful suggestions you made concerning Krushchev’s visit.”
The club issued its invitation to the Soviet premier on Aug. 7.
• Three container companies were raided and four persons taken into custody as federal, state and county officers launched a drive against alleged purveyors of supplies intended to be used in the manufacture of moonshine whisky.
Search and arrest warrants were served at Duval Barrel and Bottle Company on South Myrtle Avenue, A. Levin and Company on Lane Avenue and Wallace Dupree’s in Macclenny.
Four suspects were arrested and charged with possession of goods intended to be used to violate the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. They were released after posting temporary bonds of $500 each before U.S. Commissioner T.V. Cashen pending preliminary hearings.
Agents said that at the Duval company they found a large quantity of five-gallon tin containers of a type usually used by moonshiners, jugs of several types of whisky flavoring, charred oak sticks of a type used to impart an “aged” appearance and flavor to moonshine as well as sheets of copper, copper tubing and galvanized tin of the type used in the construction of stills.
• Edwin G. Fraser of Macclenny was elected president of the 14-state Southern Nurserymen’s Association at the organization’s three-day convention at the Robert Meyer Hotel.
One of the highlights of the meeting was a comprehensive discussion of the development and future of rocketry and space travel by Konrad K. Dannenberg, project director of the Jupiter missile program at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency in Huntsville, Ala.
Dannenberg, a German-born scientist who came to America in 1945 with 120 other scientists who had been working at Germany’s rocket development center, reviewed for association members the history of rocketry.
He described some current and planned projects including “Project Saturn” which was for the development of a “safe and reliable system for lifting multi-ton loads into high orbit around the earth and into deep space.”
Dannenberg also listed five reasons “impelling enough to make man journey into the universe at the earliest possible moment”: Man’s insatiable thirst for knowledge, his spirit of adventure, the possibility of related technical advances, international prestige and possible military advantages.
• The city’s “Polio Drive” was far away from its fundraising goal and the Duval County Chapter of the National Foundation was depending on a special “Mothers March” to raise $40,000 needed to cover a deficit in patient care funds.
Mrs. Viola Monroe, executive secretary of the chapter, reported that $600 was turned in from collections at supermarkets. The previous weekend “road block” collections at Jacksonville Beach netted another $3,000. Thirty youngsters from the Boy’s Home in Arlington solicited contribution one day on Downtown streets and turned in $815.
That brought total contribution to the campaign to less than $4,000–$36,000 short of the amount needed.