Have you ever wondered what life was like in Jacksonville half a century ago? It was 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 this week in 1965. The items were compiled from the Jacksonville Public Library’s periodical archives by Staff Writer Max Marbut.
In the middle of a muddy field and under a steady drizzle, Mayor Lou Ritter presided over the groundbreaking for Jacksonville’s new $26.7 million airport. The ceremony was witnessed by about 200 soggy spectators.
After arriving by helicopter, courtesy of the Florida Army National Guard, the mayor climbed up on a bulldozer and symbolically moved a few yards of topsoil at the southeast corner of the 4,200-acre site near Pecan Park and Terrell roads.
Ritter said the airport, construction of which he urged for several years as commissioner of airports before becoming mayor, would be ready for operations in summer 1968.
The ceremony was attended by numerous federal, state, county and city officials as well as representatives of airlines, construction companies and engineering firms.
After the groundbreaking, a barbecue lunch was served under a huge tent.
• It was reported that 1965 was a very good year for Jacksonville, according to an annual update delivered by James Lumpkin, chair of the Committee of 100 of the Jacksonville Area Chamber of Commerce.
In recognition of his efforts toward making the area prosperous, he was re-elected for another term as chair.
“When I began my term as chairman of the committee a year ago, the community was called one of disaccredited schools located on the beautiful banks of the polluted St. Johns River,” Lumpkin said.
One of the most notable advances for the year was approval of a $49 million budget for public education.
“Our school board, for the first time in many years and perhaps in modern history, was given a budget that approached its needs. This was a major stride toward our goal of a quality education system,” said Lumpkin.
He then cited a list of milestones that made 1965 a much better year than 1964:
Jacksonville’s population increased by 12,200, with unemployment at a low of 2 percent in November, compared to the national rate of 4.2 percent.
The city gained 3,466 households and 4,566 workers. Personal income was up by $72.3 million and retail sales increased by $38.4 million.
Construction increased by more than $24.8 million.
“At the present time there are 30 projects in excess of $1 million each in our area, either in progress or authorized, amounting to a total of more than $300 million,” Lumpkin added.
Also cited were contributions made by voters, who approved a $25 million bond issue for the new airport and a $25 million bond issue Lumpkin described as the first step in a $100 million expansion of the Port of Jacksonville.
• An attempted burglary at the Daylight Grocery at Edgewood Avenue and Avenue B was foiled by a silent alarm and a volunteer fire department.
When they arrived at the store, Duval County Patrol officers C.L. Nickerson and D.R. Higginbotham met a man from the alarm system company and then went inside the building. As they moved through the darkened store, they heard someone cutting a hole in the roof.
The officers called for a ladder from the Riverview Volunteer Fire Department and another patrol car to cover the other side of the building.
Patrolmen J.C. Young and J.W. Ramback and the firefighters arrived and soon apprehended James Hill, 27, of Miami on the roof of the store.
Hill was booked into county jail on a charge of breaking and entering. He said two accomplices escaped before the officers caught him.
• Jacksonville Board of Library Trustees Chair Cecil Bailey said he was approached by several City Council members about building a branch library in the Murray Hill area.
Harry Brinton, library director, was asked to get a list from the city of property it owned that might be suitable as a site for a Murray Hill branch library.
“We’ve been making a survey of the area,” he said. “And we feel a branch is needed there.”
A total of $40,000 was appropriated in the city’s 1966 budget for a library in Murray Hill. Brinton said his understanding was another $20,000 would be made available for the project. He said a cost study would have to be completed and a site selected before it would be known how much a branch would cost.
• A suit asking damages exceeding $50,000 was filed in Circuit Court by the widow of an assistant fire chief who died of a heart attack Dec. 29, 1963, while fighting the disastrous Roosevelt Hotel fire.
The suit was filed by attorney Dwight Ogier on behalf of Gladys Romedy, widow of Assistant Chief James Romedy.
The suit was expected to be the last filed in connection with the tragedy, in which 21 guests also died. Of that toll, 20 were said to have died from smoke inhalation and another from a fall in an attempt to escape.
At least 35 complaints were filed by survivors or executors of estates of guests who died. The aggregate damages sought were approximately $10 million.
Attorneys involved in the cases were struggling to clear a maze of preliminary proceedings before getting to the trial stage before Judge Marion Gooding.
As in the other suits, the Romedy action was against and attributed negligence to the owners of the hotel and the fire insurer, U.S. Fidelity and Guaranty Co., for conditions that apparently led to a spread of toxic smoke and fumes after fire broke out in a ballroom ceiling. Investigators determined none of the victims died from burns.
The Romedy suit contended the fire official became exhausted due to smoke inhalation and suffered a fatal heart attack after he entered the building, now The Carling apartments along West Adams Street.
• City Council in a 9-0 vote rejected two long-pending applications for taxi franchises on the recommendation of a council committee that conducted a “public hearing” the morning of the full council meeting about which the general public was not made aware.
Notified of the hearing were “interested parties,” the existing holders of taxi franchises and the Jacksonville Coach Co., which operated the city buses. It was reported the morning hearing was “packed.”
When the full council convened, the room also was packed with more than 200 people, primarily taxi drivers, who were opposed to the new franchises.
In other business, council declared a Christmas holiday, which would end Jan. 11 with its next scheduled meeting.
• One day in jail was the sentence for two men convicted of stealing two pounds of margarine from an interstate shipment on a freight train en route from Macon, Ga., to Miami.
Lindel Messer and Charles Nicholson received the minimum sentence. U.S. District Judge Bryan Simpson said the men were drifters and had long records which included some serious offenses, but they had been in jail since being arrested for the theft on Oct. 31.
He also said a third man convicted in the case, 18-year-old Raymond Capehart of Jacksonville, had been placed on probation for two years.
“It wouldn’t be fair to give you a jail sentence when I have placed Capehart on probation, but I can’t see what we could accomplish by placing you on probation. I think the time you already have spent in jail is sufficient punishment,” Simpson said to the defendants when he handed down the sentences.
• A waitress from Pennsylvania was so determined to spend the winter in Florida that she rode her bicycle to the Sunshine State and into Jacksonville.
Caroline Pettinato, 35, left her home in Stroudsburg, Pa., two weeks earlier and was headed to Clearwater, where she would work as a waitress in a hotel.
She told workers at the Florida Welcome Station she had lost eight pounds on her journey and rolled into the state down to 125.
“I’m doing this in memory of President Kennedy, who started the physical fitness program,” said Pettinato. “I feel much better now.”
• In an 11-page opinion, Circuit Judge Roger Waybright upheld Sherriff Dale Carson’s firing of four detectives for insubordination.
Waybright ruled the Civil Service Board “misconceived the scope of its statutory authority” when it upheld a 30-day suspension of the detectives but ordered Carson to put the officers back to work.
Waybright said the sheriff had the authority to punish – not the board – and the board’s authority was limited to deciding an appeal by employees whether there was just cause for dismissal.
Those affected were Lt. Ray Headon, Sgts. C. Lee Cody, Donald Coleman and Claude West Jr.
Administrative charges against the four sprung from testimony that they had a hand in making photocopies of notes made by Sheriff’s Office employee John Keane that included remarks derogatory to certain detective sergeants.
Thomas McKee Jr., attorney for the officers, said he did not know whether the ruling would be appealed.
• The city Recreation Department hosted its annual Playground Christmas Craft Show in Hemming Park.
Displays included wreaths, candles, centerpieces, ornaments, Yule logs, door decorations and corsages made at playgrounds and community centers.