Sheriff tied for best pistol shot, FBI arrests bank robber
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 similarities may be, so are the differences. These are some of the top stories from the week of Nov. 9-15, 1959. The items were compiled from the Jacksonville Public Library’s periodical archives by Staff Writer Max Marbut.
• In firing tests at the Jacksonville Police Pistol Range, four patrolmen and Sheriff Dale Carson made scores of not less than 94 out of a possible 100 with Carson and one of the patrolmen tying with scores of 96 each.
The test required the lawmen to get off 50 shots in five minutes at a man-size target at ranges from 7.5 to 60 yards, firing right-handed, left-handed and from the hip. Out of 50 shots, Carson missed the target once. Matching the sheriff’s score of 96 was Patrolman Richard W. Brooker.
Patrol Chief William F. Johnson said the average score was between 75 and 80 points and qualifying score for the course was 60 points.
• A 25-year-old man was arrested by the FBI and charged with burglarizing two local banks and the interstate transportation of a stolen automobile.
Horace Jackson Pendley Jr., formerly of Tifton, Ga., was held in the County jail on charges of taking approximately $1,000 from the Springfield and Lake Forest Atlantic National Banks according to D.K. Brown, special agent in charge of the Jacksonville FBI office.
Brown said Pendley used an ingenious device to catch deposits dropped in night depository chutes. The devices were apparently heavy paper bags taped inside the chutes. Pendley was wanted on similar charges in other cities.
Brown credited an alert customer who failed to hear his deposit drop with breaking the case. The customer notified the bank, which called in the agents who staked out both banks. They arrested Pendley in a bar near the Lake Forest bank. Brown said Pendley was driving “an expensive 1959 model automobile” that had been stolen in Atlanta in June. Brown also said Pendley was suspected of using the same burglary method at banks in Miami, New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La. He was also being sought in the burglary of an Oxnard, Calif. armory and the theft of 68 .30 caliber military rifles and three .50 caliber machine guns, none of which had been recovered.
Brown said Pendley claimed he was a former minor league baseball player in Montana and a home builder in Georgia.
• Sunday morning, Jim Kinard, foreman of the City Recreation Department’s Maintenance Division, led a team of 40 men who would clean up the Gator Bowl after the Florida-Georgia football game. The job was to take three days and would result in 10 to 12 truckloads of trash being hauled to the incinerator.
It was noted that usually the crew waited until Monday to begin the job but the timetable was moved up a day because the Greater Jacksonville Fair was opening in the stadium Wednesday.
• The U.S. Navy announced plans to build a test chamber at Cecil Field Naval Air Station capable of simulating space conditions and that a specially trained team would be sent to operate it.
At the same time, a spokesman for NASA’s Project Mercury said it was possible that the seven astronauts who were at the time training for space flights might be sent to Jacksonville for tests in the chamber but added, “Cecil Field is not now on our schedule as a training site.”
• A committee of the Jacksonville Offshore Sportfishing Club met to iron out final details on building artificial reefs for ocean fishing. The club project would include dumping various kinds of scrap — old automobiles, refrigerators, stoves, washing machines, bed springs and other scrap — in 70 feet of water about eight miles east of the St. Johns Sea Buoy. The dumping was expected to begin in January or February.
• The Atlantic Beach City Commission turned down a proposed ordinance changing bar closing hours and called for a referendum on the question on Dec. 15.
The action was taken according to the citizens initiative of the city charter. The section provided that when a petition was submitted for a new ordinance and was rejected by the commission, the question had to be put to the vote of the people.
A petition signed by 277 registered voters was certified by City Clerk Adele Grage and was presented to the commission for action. Submitted by Henry M. Burch, a bar owner, it asked that bar hours be amended to require a 2 a.m. daily closing instead of midnight and that bars be allowed to open on Sundays from 2 p.m.-2 a.m. Burch told the commission the bars in Atlantic Beach had agreed to pay all expenses involved with the special election.
A similar petition had been presented 18 months earlier. The commission also voted it down and the measure subsequently was defeated in a special election.
Burch pointed out to the commission that the change being requested would make bar closing hours uniform throughout the beaches. Establishments serving alcohol were open until 2 a.m. and on Sundays in Jacksonville Beach and Neptune Beach.
It was noted there were exceptions to Atlantic Beach’s law: the Atlantic Beach Hotel, the Le Chateau and Sea Turtle restaurants and Selva Marina Country Club.
The commission accepted a $1,150 bid from the Independent Tank Company of Pensacola to repaint the city’s elevated water tank. The city was to provide the paint. The commission also called for bids on a new fire truck and postponed action until Nov. 23 on an ordinance to provide a pension for police and firefighters.
• Mayor Haydon Burns cut the ribbon to open the 5th Annual Greater Jacksonville Agricultural and Industrial Fair which was held at the Gator Bowl and the Jacksonville Baseball Park.
Nathan L. Mallison, one of the fair’s vice presidents, said a new feature of the fair, the Fine Arts Exhibition, was “the forerunner of a Southeastern Fine Arts Show which will make the City Coliseum the cultural center of the South.” (The 13,000 seat Coliseum was under construction west of the Gator Bowl.)
Awards would be presented for best work of art in the show and each of three best oil paintings, water colors, charcoal and pastel and pen and ink graphics.
• The Little Theatre of Jacksonville held an open house to celebrate its 40th anniversary. The organization’s president, B. Harris Robson, said there would be guided tours including the backstage area where the crew was putting the finishing touches on the set for “The Boy Friend,” which would open Nov. 20. A dance rehearsal for the show, which was being directed by Maurice Geoffrey, was also part of the celebration.
Photographic displays of scenes from past productions decorated the lobby and an exhibit from the Jacksonville Art Museum was on display in the Gold Room on the second floor.
• According to results from a survey conducted by the Jacksonville Public Library, reading tastes of boys and girls had not changed much over the years. Staff workers said familiar classics, fairy tales and animal stories led in the count of 755 votes cast in the survey.
“Little Women” was the favorite at the Main Library and Northeast Springfield branch. A dog story, “Lad of Sunnybrook,” won at the Southside branch; “Snow White” at Wilder Park branch; and “Doctor Doolittle” was tops with mobile branch readers.
“Stuart Little,” the E.B. White classic, was the No. 1 vote-getter at the Springfield branch and “The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins” by Dr. Seuss was the winner at Willow Branch Library.
• Buckman, Ulmer & Mitchell, Inc. was advertising “prime river front office space at a prestigious address” for lease at the new Atlantic Coast Line Building (now the CSX Building). Occupancy was set to begin July 1, 1960.