Have you ever wondered what stories made headlines 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 news then and today. As interesting as the similarities may be, so are the differences. These are some of the top stories published in the Florida Times-Union the week of March 23-29, 1959. The items were compiled from the Jacksonville Public Library’s periodical archives by Staff Writer Max Marbut.
• Candidates for nomination in the April 21 Democratic primary election squared off at a speaking rally at the baseball park. A crowd estimated at no more than 300 people – most of them relatives or close friends of candidates or campaign workers – turned out for the event in what was described as “pleasant weather.”
In the race for mayor, restaurant owner M. Larry Lewis lashed out with a bitter attack on the incumbent, Mayor-Commissioner Haydon Burns. Lewis accused Burns of playing a “big part” in the 1958 bus drivers strike that lasted 83 days. He said, “Burns was fighting for the bus company and against organized labor.”
Lewis also charged that local citizens were “sold down the river” by the incumbent via the 10 percent utility tax that was levied to finance a $30 million bond issue that would cost the City an additional $30 million in interest.
Lewis said the interest “would build three Prudential buildings and a City Hall. Can you afford this kind of progress?”
Lewis promised that if elected, he would strive for better streets and sewers, “dignity and efficiency” in the police department, a 10 percent reduction in electric rates and no bond issues or extension of the city limits without a vote of the people.
Another mayoral candidate, Emory H. Price, said he knew he was the underdog and added, “The mayor has one of the smoothest and best-oiled political machines you ever saw. The only thing I’ll ever promise is that I’ll try to restore the confidence of the people in the office of the City’s chief executive.”
For his part, Burns credited Jacksonville’s progress during the 10 years he had held office to “teamwork on the City Commission and cooperation with other segments of the community including the citizens in general.”
Burns also pledged, “I shall not on one occasion say one word about either of my opponents or whether they are qualified to run or not. Neither shall I challenge them in the courts, but let the people decide.”
• The State Road Department announced Jacksonville’s John E. Mathews and Fuller Warren bridges together carried three times as much traffic in 1958 as all the state’s five other toll spans combined.
The Mathews Bridge recorded 9,911,381 vehicles, while 5,225,733 vehicles passed through the Warren Bridge’s toll booths. It was also noted the Mathews Bridge was the most heavily traveled toll bridge in Florida.
• With more than a week until the deadline, County Assessor Leon Forbes reported homestead exemption filings for 1959 had already exceeded those filed in 1958. He said approximately 75,200 applications had been filed compared to the 74,234 granted the previous year. Note: in 1959, the tax exemption for homestead property was $5,000.
• Kenneth A. Brown, director of Goodwill Industries of Jacksonville, said long-standing records were being broken in the number of telephone requests for pickups of materials to be used in employment of handicapped persons at the agency’s stores.
Goodwill Industries reconditioned those materials at its plant at 6 N. Newnan St. and then sold them in the agency’s five stores. Funds from sales paid the wages of the workers at the plant.
Brown said most of the calls came from new contributors who said they had seen a recently published news story on the shortage of materials at the plant.
• County Commission Chairman C. Ray Green said a proposal by the State Road Department to revise the way gasoline tax road funds were distributed “would be ruinous to Duval County and would cripple its future road building programs.” The state wanted to assume exclusive responsibility for securing rights of way for all primary roads, which was at the time a function of the counties.
To finance the change, the State Road department would augment its own budget with 80 percent of the surplus of the fifth and sixth cent of gasoline taxes otherwise due the county.
County Attorney J. Henry Blount pointed out that in his opinion the proposed gas tax laws would be unconstitutional, at least for the interim between their passage and the time they were approved in a statewide referendum.
• The board of directors of the Jacksonville Symphony Association signed a two-year contract with conductor Dr. James Christian Pfohl, the first time the association extended a conductor’s contract for mare than one year.
The symphony’s seven-concert season was also announced, including the annual Pops Concert at the Prudential Building.
• Revivals, which were held the week before at 56 Baptist churches, resulted in 611 additions to membership and 656 rededications. Of the total, 439 of the additions were by baptism and the remainder by transfer of letters.
• A 70-year-old woman was drugged and robbed of more than $2,300 in her hotel room by a man posing as a doctor.
The case came to light when Maude Crews of the Aragon Hotel regained consciousness in the hospital after being in a deep sleep for 36 hours. She was found wandering in a semiconscious condition in a hallway at the hotel.
Crews told Detective Sgt. John Heard that a man she met several months prior to the robbery took her out to dinner. She said he gave her two large pills when they returned to the hotel after dinner and that’s all she remembered until she woke up in the hospital. The investigation determined the man was also registered at the hotel but had checked out the same night he and Crews went to dinner.
• Objection to plans to build a junior-senior high school directly across the street from the Parental Home for White Girls was registered by Madeline Knight, a Parental Home board member. She appealed to the County Commission for help in prevailing upon the Board of Public Instruction to relocate the proposed school.
Knight said the home at 2981 Parental Home Road housed 45 girls ages 6–18 and the school site was used for growing vegetables and raising cattle for food for the school. She also said it would be unsatisfactory to use county land farther away from the home for those purposes and that building the school directly across the street would “have a bad psychological effect” on the girls in the home.
• Dr. Wilson T. Sowder, state health officer, announced plans for a survey to determine the normal nuclear radiation in various areas in Florida so that deviation from the normal could be quickly determined.
Health Physic Technician Ulray Clark had been taking readings in the area with a Geiger counter to establish natural radiation levels. After making 143 spot checks, he said his study showed a minimum reading in an office in Duval County was 50 to 75 and outside readings never exceeded 250 except at the Beaches.
• C. W. Hendley, who had been Jacksonville’s City treasurer since June 20, 1933, formally advised the County Commission and the City Council he would retire June 22 when his current term expired.
Characterized as “the dean of Jacksonville’s officialdom,” Hendley issued a brief statement that said, in part, “I cannot retire from the office of City treasurer without expressing to all our citizens the grateful appreciation I feel for the opportunity given me to be of some service to our great city. The trust and confidence shown in me these last 26 years will be a bright and treasured memory in my retirement.”