Old courthouse and annex up for bids, Moose Club robbed
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 Jan. 11-17, 1960. The items were compiled from the Jacksonville Public Library’s periodical archives by Staff Writer Max Marbut.
• The Duval County Commission put the old County Courthouse property up for sale. Bids were expected by Jan. 25.
The move to sell the 58 year-old building and its 45 year-old annex was the second attempt by the commission to dispose of the property. The commission issued the new call for bids on the property which ran along Market Street between Adams and Forsyth streets because a bid call issued in December, 1958 brought only one offer which was quickly rejected. It was for $88,099.
No official appraisal figures for the property had been released by the commission, but it was estimated the price should have been between $250,000 and $300,000.
The old three-story courthouse with its dome-like cupola was built in 1902. Developments were increasing along East Bay Street spurred by the opening of the new County Courthouse and the then-under-construction new City Hall. The old courthouse was considered valuable property.
The commission was reluctant to sell it at a bargain price because the proceeds from the sale were to be applied against the bonded indebtedness the county assumed in building the new $8 million courthouse. The more that was raised from the sale the less taxes would have to be levied to retire the courthouse bonds.
• A resolution petitioning the commission to designate the site of the old City Hall for a new central library was delivered to Mayor Haydon Burns by Cecil Bailey, president of the library’s board of trustees.
At the time the central library was located on the northeast corner of Adams and Ocean streets. The site sought by the board was on the southwest corner of Ocean and Adams streets, bordering on Forsyth Street.
The resolution pointed out that in 1957, John Hall Jacobs, who was recognized as an outstanding librarian and library consultant, came to Jacksonville and surveyed the city’s needs.
“The report of Mr. Jacobs indicated that the No. 1 need for Jacksonville was a modern central library,” the resolution stated.
• Safecrackers looted two safes in the Moose Club and made off with more than $2,500 in cash.
Det. Sergeants Fred Murray and Grover C. Starratt said the burglars left checks and club records scattered about the rooms in which the safes were located. The detectives also said the burglars’ experience was indicated by the way they punched the combination and tumblers out of one of the safes. When the punch system failed on the other safe they turned it over and peeled off a section on the bottom to reach the loot.
James Sanders, manager of the club at 27 W. Ashley St., discovered the theft when he arrived for work Monday morning. The lodge was closed about 2 a.m. Sunday. He also said the money in the office safe represented dues and collections and had been scheduled for deposit in a bank on Monday. A small amount of money was also taken from a safe in the club’s taproom.
Lodge Gov. John P. King told detectives the loss was insured.
• A five-man committee representing the Duval County Port and Industrial Authority was preparing to tour successful port facilities in the Southeast.
The committee consisted of authority chair J.J. Mallard, authority members Joe Hammond and Julian Warren, County Attorney J. Henry Blount and County Engineer Joe Crosby.
The purpose of the tour was to gather information necessary for the development of Blount Island as a port and industrial site.
Mallard said he had received several letters from firms expressing interest in the site but refused to mane the firms.
The authority also discussed financing of a bridge at an estimated cost of $900,000 from the mainland to Blount Island.
• The differences in the duties of a juvenile officer and a juvenile counselor were explained to Jacksonville Beach City officials and residents when Lt. Jack Farrell, head of the Miami Beach Police Department’s Juvenile Division, spoke at a public meeting. The session was held to help resolve a controversy over who would handle juvenile problems at the beach.
Farrell said, “You need a police officer to do the job, someone who knows you, your children and your city. If you want a juvenile officer, take him from your police department. Your chief of police should be the administrator of your juvenile officer. It is not a juvenile court responsibility to enforce the law. Law enforcement should be left to the police department and the administration of the law to the juvenile court.”
Asked to remark on Farrell’s position, Duval County Juvenile Court Judge Marion W. Gooding told the large group of parents, school and youth leaders that there was a distinction between the man Farrell talked about and the one he (Gooding) was requesting to serve the beaches on a full-time basis.
“I don’t want to interfere with your police department or your city politics. I’m down here in the interest of your children. I see the need for a juvenile counselor working under the juvenile court. The principle of the juvenile court is rehabilitation while the principal of the police department is investigation. These functions are entirely different. I don’t see any conflict between the ideas,” said Gooding.
He had been conferring with Jacksonville Beach officials on the proposed hiring of a juvenile counselor for the beaches with the City to pay half the cost and the county half. The delay in naming a counselor, it was said, apparently stemmed from a desire by Jacksonville Beach officials to have the man responsible to Police Chief C. H. Franks and to Gooding, but the judge favored having the man answer only to the Juvenile Court.
Gooding pledged his cooperation regardless of the decision, but he asserted, “I am violently opposed to anyone who is going to get us into a political mess. I personally won’t have anything to do with this if that’s the case. A juvenile counselor should be free of politics.”
• Construction of the new ocean pier at Jacksonville Beach had passed the 1,000-foot mark. It would be 1,200 feet long when completed.
R.L. Williams of Virginia Beach, Va., the owner of the pier, said he expected the work to be finished by the end of the month and a March opening was planned.
• Floridians were reminded that the state’s sales tax as well as other state levies were deductible items on the 1959 income tax returns.
Laurie W. Tomlinson, director of the Florida District of the Internal Revenue Service, said that because of the recognized difficulty of keeping records of purchases made upon which the sales tax had been paid the IRS would accept without question a deduction of 1 percent of a taxpayer’s gross income up to $75 as sales tax payments. A taxpayer claiming more than 1 percent of gross income as sales tax payments might be asked to substantiate the claim, Tomlinson added.
The sales tax deduction could be taken only by a taxpayer who itemized all deductions rather than taking the usual standard deduction. Tomlinson also said other state taxes such as the 5-cent per pack levy on cigarettes and the 7-cent per gallon gasoline tax and property taxes also could be deducted on the income tax return.
• County Tax Assessor Leon E. Forbes said close to 3,000 homestead exemption renewal cards for 1960 had been returned to his office uncompleted as a result of changes in mailing addresses.
He urged homeowners seeking the $5,000 tax exemption for 1960 to make sure their renewal application cards were returned and that they received a receipt.
Because of the constant changes of addresses in some of the faster-growing sections of the county, addresses on the tax rolls did not always correspond to the current addresses of the property owner.
• The State Department of Transportation reported that new records were set in traffic and toll receipts for the Mathews and Fuller Warren bridges in 1959.
Records showed 15,685,970 vehicles paid $2,472,201 to use both bridges. In 1958, the previous high year, 15,137,004 paying vehicles crossed both spans with revenue totaling $2,384,386.
There was a slight decline in traffic crossing the Mathews Bridge in 1959 which was more than offset by gains registered by the Fuller Warren Bridge. The principal factor cited in the increase in traffic over the Fuller Warren Bridge and resulting decline in vehicular movement over the Mathews Bridge was the opening of the San Marco overpass in 1969.