The History of Florida (63 page)

numerous subdivisions.

Chambers of Commerce advertised their cities and initiated beauti-

fication projects, as the state touted its advantages and strengthened its

transportation network. Public auctions of lots attracted large crowds and

combined economics with entertainment. Private business groups trum-

peted the message that one did not have to be rich to own a winter home in

Florida. No less an authority than the Bible was utilized to lure settlers. One

promoter quoted chapter and verse: “Arise, and go toward the south” (Acts

8:26); “I have bought a piece of ground and I must needs go and see it” (Luke

14:18); and “Search you out a place to pitch your tents in” (Deuteronomy

1:33).

Railroad construction increased, and trains traveling on the rival Sea-

board Air Line and Atlantic Coast Line roads were packed with passengers.

Thousands of Americans still had savings accumulated from wartime pros-

perity. Florida was easily accessible to most states east of the Mississippi

River, and countless northerners longed to exchange cold winters for the

semitropical paradise. So much of the state was still undeveloped that land

proof

was supposedly inexpensive. Urged on by controversial state comptrol er

Ernest Amos, state senator John P. Stokes of Pensacola, and others with

eyes toward improving the money crop, the legislature amended the state

constitution to prohibit income taxes and inheritance taxes. One newspaper

commented perceptively that the move was “a very unique way of encourag-

ing capitalists and investors to bring their money to this state.”2

Real estate promoters and developers swarmed into Florida, and an es-

timated 300,000 people settled there between 1923 and 1925. Thirteen new

counties were created, nine of them in south Florida. One result of the

boom was a permanent population increase. Florida started the 1920s with

968,470 people, and by 1930 had 1,468,211. The white population rose from

638,153 to 1,035,205, blacks from 329,487 to 431,828. The number of men

and women in both races was almost equal y divided. Jacksonvil e remained

the largest city (129,549), but Miami had moved from fourth place to second

by 1930. Florida’s urban population in 1930 was 72.3 percent white and 27.7

percent black.

An awed northern journalist asked, “Was there ever anything like the mi-

gration to Florida? From the time the Hebrews went into Egypt, or since the

hegira of Mohammed the prophet, what can compare to this evacuation?

Fortune and Misfortune: The Paradoxical 1920s · 301

Land auctions were conducted everywhere in Florida during the 1920s land boom.

Often what was offered was just-filled mangrove swamps or just-cleared pinelands,

with rough-scraped dirt roads to outline subdivisions. But in the land delirium of mid-

decade, even that sold quickly to northern “snowbirds” who wanted a piece of para-

dise. Bused to these rude sites by spellbinding promoters, their phantasmagoria was

such that, having alighted, the visitors beheld not a barren landscape but a mirage of

proof

finished pleasure domes waiting for occupancy.

The Forty-Niners did not go out in such great numbers, nor can the gold

rush to the Klondike be put in the same class with this flight to Florida. En-

tire populations are moving away bodily. The personal columns of our local

press are unable to chronicle the daily departures.”3

In 1925 alone, 2.5 mil ion tourists visited Florida. The majority arrived

by automobile on an expanding road system. Jacksonvil e and Lake City

were the main entry points. Floridians, like other Americans, loved auto-

mobiles and by 1916 owned ninety different models. Besides those familiar

today, they favored such cars as the Aurora, Metz, Kritt, Regal, Peerless,

and Empire. By the 1920s, assembly-line production and installment buying

had made Model T Fords and similar cars inexpensive and available to the

masses so that less affluent citizens could afford transportation to Florida.

Cars arrived packed with people and supplies. Their occupants camped

out, thus creating tourist camps. In 1919, at Tampa’s DeSoto Park, a num-

ber of them happily adopted an egalitarian nickname, the “Tin Can Tour-

ists of the World.” Annual meetings were held among parked vehicles and

pitched tents, as visitors engaged in socializing, dancing, eating, and sports.

302 · William W. Rogers

Privately owned tourist courts opened, and Florida was on the threshold of

achieving what became its mammoth motel industry.

The creation of a state road department in 1915 enabled Florida to take

advantage of the Federal Road Aid Act of 1916 and the Federal Highway Act

of 1921. The section of U.S. 90 between Jacksonville and Lake City opened in

1923 as the state’s first concrete highway. Later, it was extended to Pensacola.

Not far behind were north-south connectors U.S. 1, 41, and 27. Earlier plans

for the Tamiami Trail connecting Fort Myers and Miami were resurrected,

and the highway across the Everglades was official y opened on 25 April

1928. Florida entered the decade with fewer than 1,000 miles of roadway,

but by 1930 had 3,800 miles surfaced with everything from clay to grouted

brick, Macadam, concrete, and asphalt.

Airplanes, as well as automobiles, revolutionized transportation, and

by the end of the 1920s, commercial airlines were carrying passengers to

and within Florida. The first airplane flight in Florida was at Orlando in

1910, and the state’s first airport opened at Miami Beach in 1912. By 1926,

nine Florida cities had airports, and early mail flights had added passen-

gers. Eastern Air Transport (later Eastern Airlines) and Pan American were

among the burgeoning and increasingly important corporations offering

passenger service.

proof

To accommodate newcomers eager to invest in Miami real estate, a large

freelance sales force emerged. Cal ed “Binder Boys,” these fast-talking huck-

sters, in golf knickers and two-toned shoes, purchased lots for 10 percent

down (a binder that held a property for thirty days), then sold the binders

for a profit to other speculators. A binder could be sold and resold many

times before payment became due. Paper profits rose to dizzying heights.

At one time, Miami had 25,000 such street brokers, many of them men who

had quit jobs in the North as butchers, taxi drivers, or railroad conductors,

to take advantage of the Florida bonanza. Promoting real estate, not neces-

sarily selling it, became another industry, with such luminaries as William

Jennings Bryan, who informed outlanders about the attractions of Merrick’s

Coral Gables.

By 1925, the
Miami
Herald
was the world’s largest newspaper in terms of

advertising linage. One issue of the
Miami
News
set a record by publishing

twenty-two sections containing a total of 504 pages. Clearly ignored, one

critic observed, were certain biblical admonitions: “If riches increase, set

riot your heart upon them”
(
Psalms 62:10) and “Thou shal neither vex a

stranger nor oppress him” (Exodus 22:21).

Fortune and Misfortune: The Paradoxical 1920s · 303

Property prices soared with inflated land values and affected the entire

economy: transportation, construction, and banking. Some worried that

if al of Florida basked in the sunshine of prosperity, a col apse would be

equal y widespread, but it seemed fol y to engage in such gloomy musings

when there was so much profit to be made. One movie of 1923 that attracted

Floridians to theaters (also growing in number) was appropriately titled

Money, Money, Money
.

The expansion of banking was a concrete indication of economic growth.

State and national bank deposits peaked in 1925 at $900 million. The num-

ber of national banks increased but lagged behind new state banks that

benefitted from lower capital requirements and less strict regulations for

loans and investments. When 1923 ended, Florida had 194 banks. The state

comptroller and his increased staff moved into more commodious quarters.

The legislature failed to enact any major banking laws, and the comptroller

boasted that in the typical Florida bank, “deposits exceed loans by a very

material and substantial margin.”4 No national banks failed from 1920 until

1925, but, ominously, in the same period eighty state banks failed.

The years 1925 and 1926 were pivotal for Florida. Problems began in 1925

with a national backlash of hostility against the excesses of the real estate

boom. Promoters and “Binder Boys” were lacerated by the northern press.

proof

Governor Martin and a group of leading Floridians met with editors and

publishers at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. Their mollifying

efforts to “tell the truth about Florida” were not completely successful.

The problems were compounded when, in October 1925, a strike on the

Atlantic Coast Line Railroad swamped competing lines with freight. The

Interstate Commerce Commission called an embargo so that railyards and

freight houses could be cleared of the backlog. In the meantime, Florida

builders were left without materials, retailers could not obtain merchandise,

and travelers—frustrated by cancel ations and long delays—raised an angry

chorus. In January 1926, a ship sank in Miami harbor and further disrupted

the flow of supplies. The embargo was short-lived, but trains ran irregularly

as late as February and thousands of vacationers spurned Florida. Their

boycott dealt the economy a stinging jolt.

The most dramatic blow was just that: a violent hurricane that ripped

across south Florida in September 1926, killing 400 people, injuring 6,300,

and leaving 50,000 homeless. Many newcomers abruptly left the state but

not before withdrawing their money from banks. Realtors and developers

began leaving also, and, adding to the problems, the cost of living soared.

304 · William W. Rogers

A languorous day, 7 May 1926, at Boca Grande Beach near Charlotte Harbor. The Florida

real estate boom had collapsed, but the sun still shone and the water was fine.

The boom was over, and worse conditions lay ahead. Few Floridians who

proof

had basked in prosperity just one year before would have predicted such an

abrupt reversal.

The banking situation remained volatile. Sheer volume of activity forced

an increase in the number of state bank examiners to eight. A new law

required state banks to be examined annual y and “more often if neces-

sary.”5 Comptroller Amos, who had easily been reelected in 1924, was full

of confidence and exhibited impressive statistics about 1925. As il ustrated

by his example, there was an absence of prudence and cautious skepticism

in Florida. H. R. Doughy, sales manager and lecturer for Daytona Shores,

said, “The sunshine state is now entering upon the most extraordinary era

of substantial growth and business activity ever known in the history of

the world.” The January 1926 issue of a national financial journal featured

several articles on Florida’s economic stability. Governor Martin and the

mayor of Miami were among its contributors. Speculating on the future, the

publication’s editor declared, “The bubble will not burst for the very good