Police trap suspect extortionist, no new car for municipal judge
Have you ever wondered what life 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 Oct. 12-18, 1959. The items were compiled from the Jacksonville Public Library’s periodical archives by Staff Writer Max Marbut.
• A police trap, in which officers posed as convention delegates and parking attendants, was sprung on a suspected extortionist at the George Washington Hotel. George L. McInnes of Coral Gables. Fla. was arrested by deputies as he entered the hotel carrying $40,000 in marked money.
His intended victim was John. L. Blow, president of the South Oil Company of Florida, who formerly employed McInnes as a marine engineer in charge of the firm’s tanker fleet. Blow said McInnes first called him Sept. 2 and demanded $53,125 to return some papers from the company’s files that might assist Blow in pending litigation with the Internal Revenue Service. The intended victim also said McInnes and his wife offered to testify on Blow’s behalf at the hearing.
Blow told Chief Criminal Investigator J.C. Patrick that two years previous, McInnes was assigned to examine a tanker in Maryland, appraise it and recommend a purchase price for the company. While negotiations were in progress, Blow said McInnes approached the seller of the ship and asked for a commission. The man refused and advised Blow that McInnes had purposely appraised the ship at a higher price than its worth. Blow fired McInnes but purchased the tanker.
Blow said McInnes had contacted him in September and advised him he had valuable papers and documents from the company files which would aid him in the federal litigation.
Blow advised the Sheriff’s Office and the IRS and plans were mapped to catch McInnes if he accepted the money. Blow had several recorded conversations with McInnes but the suspect didn’t take the bait until just before he was apprehended at the hotel after flying to Jacksonville from Miami.
Following a 90-minute meeting at the Robert Meyer Hotel after McInnes arrived, McInnes and Blow went to McInnes’ room at the George Washington Hotel, where the exchange took place and McInnes was arrested.
• The Jacksonville Racing Pigeon Club held its first race of a series of seven to be run on consecutive Sundays. The winner over the 100-mile course from Jesup, Ga. to Jacksonville was a bird owned by A.L. Blauth, at 1,152 yards per minute. A.J. Lehe’s birds placed second and third in the field of 110. The first 10 birds finished within 60 yards of each other.
• The City Council, on a 5-3 vote, rejected a resolution appropriating $1,184 to purchase a new car for the municipal judge. City Commissioners previously approved the expenditure that would have gone with the trade-in of a 1958 Mercury sedan to obtain a 1959 Mercury for Municipal Judge John Santora.
Santora said he asked for the new car because the 1958 model he inherited from former Judge Charles Miller was “completely shot.” Council members and commissioners had appropriated City money for a new car for Miller in 1956, 1957 and 1958.
• The Duval County Commission asked for $15,000 in emergency funds for a cleanup of sanitary facilities at the County Prison Farm at Commonwealth Avenue and Superior Street. The commission also asked County Engineer John H. Crosby to ask the State Prison Board for assistance in finding a temporary warden as soon as possible until a permanent warden could be hired through regular civil service channels. The biggest single item of the estimated cost was $4,901 for installing toilets and wash basins in the solitary confinement cells. Prisoners had been receiving water in tin cans and using covered containers for commodes.
• Dr. Tehyi Hsieh of Boston, an author and lecturer who was born in China and educated in England, warned members of the Rotary Club of Jacksonville that Americans needed to learn patience, especially in international relations.
Hsieh predicted that “serious trouble” for the United States and the rest of the world would spring ultimately from South Africa, not the Far East. He said Americans underestimated the influence the United States had on the “philosophy, politics and life in the Orient.” He reminded members that many of the leaders in the Far East had been educated in America and that Japan had found “an entirely new way of life on a democratic level since World War II.”
Hseih was introduced by Dr. L. Valentine Lee.
• Arts, culture and beauty were presented in large doses and acclaimed by residents when the second annual Fall Arts Festival sponsored by the Jacksonville Council of the Arts was held at the Prudential Building (now the Aetna Building).
The Jacksonville Guild of Organists presented a half-hour program in the auditorium followed by a 15-minute skit by the Beach Little Theatre. The Friday Musicale and Jacksonville University Singers also performed as did the Guild Players who performed a scene from “Pygmalion.” The Starlight Symphonette and the Opera and Choral Society closed out the festival with a performance on the terrace. Members of the Arts Council expressed much satisfaction with the response from the community and began making plans to extend the festival into a week-long event.
• A&P Supermarkets celebrated its 100th anniversary with a city-wide sale. Featured grocery items included Porterhouse steaks for 99 cents per pound, spare ribs for 39 cents per pound, two 14-ounce ‘famile loaves” of bread for 29 cents and a five-pound bag of Florida oranges for 39 cents.