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 the week of Feb. 22-28, 1960. The items were compiled from the Jacksonville Public Library’s periodical archives by Staff Writer Max Marbut.
• Capt. Robert Farkas, commanding officer of Naval Station Mayport, said at a meeting of the Arlington Council that nearly $11 million would be requested from congress for additional expenditures in 1962.
“Mayport is here to stay and the station is on the build,” he said at the council’s first annual meeting.
“Right now we have nothing much for the 12,000 men who use the facilities at Mayport except plenty of trees and Spanish moss, but that will have to change,” he added.
Money would be requested for the construction of a permanent base library, post office, bank, Navy exchange, cafeteria, gymnasium and hobby shop. Funds would also be requested for the purchase of an additional 350 acres of property for the construction of 500 homes for enlisted men and their families.
The largest single item in the proposed budget was for the expansion of the escort basin for destroyers. Farkas told council members he expected two additional destroyer squadrons to be added within months to the one already stationed at Mayport.
“We are definitely a permanent part of Navy fleet support and we certainly haven’t stopped growing,” said Farkas.
• Ultimate victory over obscenity in literature and entertainment lies not with law enforcement agencies and prosecuting officials but with “aroused groups and individuals,” said Duval County Solicitor Lacy Mahon.
He made those remarks while commending the work of the recently organized six-county Council for Decency in Literature and Entertainment Media at the group’s first formal meeting at the Independent Building. Mahon assured the 40 persons attending the meeting that his office would continue to enforce the state law against obscenity. Mahon also explained that he was prevented, by an agreement with U.S. District Judge Bryan Simpson, from directing any remarks at the participants involved in a pending countersuit against him and his office and against Sheriff Dale Carson and his office.
Mahon had filed a suit in September which resulted in 20 magazines being declared obscene. In January a countersuit for $100,000 was filed by the six publishers of the magazines involved charging that the solicitor and sheriff’s office violated the constitutional rights of the publishers through censorship.
Also, Juvenile Court Judge Marion Gooding was presented a plaque for his work against obscenity. Arlington was named the community which had done the most as a whole in 1959 in cooperating with the aims of the council and the A&P Food Store and Winn-Dixie Stores were cited for their cooperation in preventing the sale of objectionable materials.
• The Gulf Oil Corporation terminal under construction on 38 acres at Drummond Point would be the company’s largest in the Southeast and would cost more than $1 million to finish, said C. Bruce Gregory, the company’s division manager of supply and operations. He revealed the cost figure following a talk to the Committee of 100 of the Jacksonville Area Chamber of Commerce.
The company would vacate its existing 21-acre terminal facility on Talleyrand Avenue in November, 1961.
“Primarily, the move will give us increased storage and dock facilities. At Talleyrand we have less that 30 feet of water for the tankers. At the new site the company will have access in the second phase of channel development to a channel that is 42 feet deep and eventually we’ll be able to use larger vessels,” said Gregory.
He also said the company started looking for property to relocate in 1956 when it was realized there was not enough room for expansion at Talleyrand Avenue.
“Your expressway system, with the plans for the interchange at Heckscher Drive, removed the only obstacle from our selected site, the distance from the majority of our Jacksonville outlets, that would produce high secondary distribution costs,” Gregory said.
• William Crews resigned as manager of the Jacksonville Humane Society’s animal shelter because, he said, he found he had a supervisor a week after he was appointed to the job Jan. 23.
Crews claimed he did not know he was to be subject to a supervisor’s orders and claimed further that some of the society’s board members did not know it either.
Ivan Smith, society president, confirmed the resignation but said Crews was told before he was appointed that he would take instructions from Miss Zoe Rentz.
Smith also said he was present when Crews was informed on the job’s procedures, including instructions from Rentz.
• It was announced a new radar system which would enable the air route traffic control center at Imeson Airport to “see” all airplanes flying within a 100-mile radius of Charleston, S.C. would be operating within 30 days.
Information received by the system would be relayed to the Jacksonville center which controlled all aircraft flying under instrument flight rules in an area including most of South Carolina, Southern Georgia, Southeast Alabama, North Florida and about 200 miles east of the U.S. Coastline over the ocean.
• The possibility of installing sanitary sewerage facilities and a water system for the Town of Orange Park through issuance of revenue certificates was under consideration by the Town Commission.
Mayor-Commissioner Walter Odom said that because of the continued fast growth of the town there was a “good possibility” the projects could be constructed entirely with revenue from the sale of water plus a monthly sewage fee.
In 1956 the commission had appointed consulting engineer Walter Parks from Jacksonville to conduct a survey to determine the requirements for the systems and what it would cost to provide the services. In his report Parks estimated the cost for the sewerage system at approximately $503,000 and $181,000 for the water system.
The systems would serve about 70 percent of the population which had increased from 800 people in 1940 to 3,500 in 1960.
• The Florida Milk Commission ordered Skaff’s Superior Dairies of Jacksonville to pay nearly $30,000 to its producers within two weeks or face a hearing for revocation of its state license on March 24.
The milk distributing firm underpaid its producers during an 11-month period ending Nov. 30, 1959, according to testimony by state-appointed auditors at a commission hearing at the Roosevelt Hotel.
Albert Skaff, president of the company, denied under oath charges that his firm shorted producers $17,086 in utilization charges and $12,703 in credit for butterfat content.
Commission chair J. Brailey Odham criticized Skaff for what Odham termed an inadequate system of keeping records.
Skaff admitted his records were inadequate but insisted he wasn’t aware of a state requirement that certain records be kept thoroughly and accurately.
In other milk news, Circuit Judge William Stanly issued an injunction against the commission barring it from holding a hearing to revoke Foremost Dairies’ license to operate in the three milk marketing areas that were under the commission’s control.
In granting the temporary injunction, Stanly pointed out that there were several questions of law involved in the administrative board’s license revocation action that should be determined by the courts and not by the milk commission.
The commission issued a show cause order against Foremost in Feb. 5 citing various alleged violations of the milk code. Foremost denied it violated the code.
• After hearing no objections from the public, the Atlantic Beach City Commission enacted an ordinance changing the names of sections of three streets.
“Seminole Road” became the new name of the street running north from Atlantic Boulevard to Seminole Beach. It had been designated “Saltair Boulevard” and “Sherry Drive” in places.
The section of Sherry Drive to the Selva Marina subdivision was renamed “Selva Marina Drive” while the section of 16th Street in the development was changed to “Country Club Lane.”
The commission also enacted an ordinance requiring all owners of property where the new municipal sewer system was available to connect within six months. Penalty for failure to do so would be discontinuance of water service.