Parties vying for golf course at beach, new record set for low temperature
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 March 8-14, 1960. The items were compiled from the Jacksonville Public Library’s periodical archives by Staff Writer Max Marbut.
• After a heated discussion, the Jacksonville Beach City Council voted to delay further the opening of the new municipally built golf course. Council member William R. Mabry Jr. accused Mayor I.D. Sams of contradicting a council vote recorded Feb. 15 to open the links under City operation. He asked Sams what authority he had in delaying the opening of the course.
Sams did not answer directly, but replied that what Mabry and some of the other council members wanted to do with the course would be bad for the City.
“What you think is only one vote,” Mabry shot back at Sams. “The council agreed 4-3 on opening the golf course and now I find no action has been taken since then and there has been a definite defiance of the vote taken here.”
The dispute was settled, at least temporarily, when council member Webster F. Harrington called for the entire council to study two new proposals on the operation of the course before it opened.
One offer was from a Jacksonville man, H. Gradsky, to buy the course for $150,000 and the other was from the San Pablo Country Club to lease the course.
In other business before the council, ordinances were enacted requiring garage and wrecker operators to notify police of vehicles damaged by collisions or bullets and requiring all applications for business building permits to be approved by the council.
Two days later the country club made a new offer to purchase the course for $200,000. The club’s acting treasurer, R.D. McNamara, had posted a deposit from club members of $5,000 at the meeting when Harrington said he supported studying the original lease and purchase proposals. McNamara said the club would pay $5,000 annually, plus a reasonable interest rate for the course.
Conditions in the purchase offer included the completion of the back nine holes by the City and for the City to provide the club with about five acres of land for a clubhouse.
The club planned to sell memberships for $200 with dues of $5 per month. McNamara explained that if the goal of 500 members was met, that money and the revenue from the course and clubhouse operations would be adequate for the club’s operation.
The next day, attorney Albert Crabtree Jr. told the council he represented clients “interested in a real estate development which would tie in with the links.”
While Crabtree said the principal parties involved could not be identified publicly at that time, he said they had in mind an option arrangement for the course.
When council members agreed to discuss the matter in private, Crabtree and R.C. Dix, an officer in the corporation which held the Duval County franchise for Holiday Inns of America, went into conference with the officials. It was learned after the private session that Crabtree and Dix had not revealed specific details about what they had in mind.
• Mayor Haydon Burns, on behalf of the City Commission, assured library patrons that the City was taking steps to establish a new Downtown library.
His statement at the commission meeting was in response to a resolution adopted by the Friends of the Jacksonville Public Library Inc.
Asa B. Gardner, president of the Friends group, was told by Burns that the commission “recognizes the desirability and high priority placed on the matter of procuring a new Downtown library for Jacksonville.” Burns also said it was the commission’s intent to call for a referendum on financing the proposed library.
“It can’t be done overnight,” he added. “It needs planning and design. You have to have a site before the architect can estimate the cost and you have to have a cost estimate before the referendum.”
At a meeting the next day, the commission authorized a 6,000-seat addition to the Gator Bowl to bring the stadium’s capacity to 50,000 for the next bowl game.
The action came on the recommendation of the City Recreation Board, which also suggested that the local architectural firm of Saxelbye and Powell be hired to draw the plans for a fee of 6 percent of the construction cost.
No approximate cost or method of financing the project was mentioned at the meeting. One commissioner said, on condition of anonymity, that he thought the cost of construction and fees would likely exceed $300,000 and the money would probably come from the City’s general fund, not requiring the vote of the people.
GBA General Manager George Olsen said without the expansion, the local bowl would find it difficult to attract top football teams, especially since the Bluebonnet Bowl and Liberty Bowl had been inaugurated in 1959.
• County Solicitor Lacy Mahon Jr. filed new charges against Frank T. Tracey, operator of a novelty shop on West Bay Street, who was accused of “purveying obscene books, pictures and movies.”
Tracey was arrested Sept. 9, 1959 and charged with possession of and selling an obscene book. The case was later thrown out of Criminal Court by Judge William T. Harvey, who ruled the information did not meet the test of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on obscene materials.
Harvey gave Mahon 10 days to amend the original charges and his order pointed out that the high court test required that the “dominant theme of an obscene publication had to be devoted to the presentation and exploitation of illicit sex, depravity or immorality.”
• Jacksonville Beach officials were considering using the location of the proposed municipal auditorium as a bargaining point to try to attract a large oceanfront hotel or motel development as part of the previously adopted boardwalk improvement plan.
The plan was to offer to build the auditorium adjacent to any property on which the owner would agree to erect a convention or resort hotel or motel, which would save the property owner considerable expense.
• Attorney Tyrie Boyer qualified for election as Civil Court of Record Judge, making it a two-man contest for the seat being vacated by Judge Roger Waybright, who was contesting a Circuit Court judgeship against attorney John Paul Howard.
Boyer’s entry into the race pitted him against Small Claims Court Judge W. Shannon Linning.
• Duval County Port Authority Chair Joseph B. Mallard Sr. said it would be “at least two years” before industry was located on Blount Island, which was described as “the hub of the county’s proposed port and industrial facility.”
At the authority’s monthly meeting, Mallard discussed the possibility of appropriating $645,000 in the next year’s authority budget for construction of rail and highway bridges to the island from the Dames Point area.
He said bridge costs, including land acquisition for right of way, would have to be determined before land leases on the island could be set. No action was taken to gather the data but it was noted the proposed appropriation would amount to about 1.5 mills of taxation.
• On Sunday morning the mercury fell to 28 degrees at Imeson Airport, which set a record for the low temperature on the date since records were started in 1872. The previous record of 32 degrees was set in 1901.
• Political partisans were warned against placing signs and placards on County street markers and traffic signs.
With political campaigning getting into full swing, candidates’ stickers were beginning to appear on the markers according to County Engineer John Crosby. In addition to causing confusion and creating traffic hazards, the placing of signs on County property violated the law, he said.