Celebrating Our Centennial: Highlights of Martin County History

good evening Welcome to our February event I'm always thrilled to see such a positive turnout for our our little events here it's a great tribute to uh the community to our speakers and to you all for your supporting us speaking of supporting I want to give a couple thanks out to uh a couple organizations that have helped us this past month uh we received a nice donation from the uh graduating class of 1969 in Martin County High School uh they made a sizable donation to us we also received a nice donation from the KN Klinger family all those V agents are wonderful membership is what drives an organization it's not just your dues and your

membership it's your reaching out to the community and sharing with your friends and neighbors your the information about the museum you know this coming year that's sort of going to be my Mantra is reaching out and making people aware that we're here and that're coming in and we're able to share the knowledge that we have here um quite honestly I'm real tired of seeing people come into the museum and tell me the last time they were in here they were with their dad and they were buying baby chickens we've been here a long time uh start bringing start bringing your your neighbors in start bringing your your children in or your grandchildren in uh cuz

we plan to be here for a long time yet uh I told Barbara that she'd have a chance to tell us a little something she's got going on you didn't tell us your name Gary it's unimportant it's unimportant hi I'm Barbara Osborne and um Sandy used to give the tours at the captain su's house and she has trained my husband and me he he's Captain Su and he dresses in the Greek fishing cap and the suspender so it's historically accurate and then I portray Abby and it's first and third Wednesdays of each Wednesday of each month at the captain su's house who knows where the captain su's house is okay for those that don't do

you know where Indian Riverside Park is okay it's between the tuckaho mansion and the Sailing Center so um it's the only time the house is open and there's a it's a passion of mine there's few things in my life locally that are passions when it's the river's Coalition and the captain su's house so um we don't do it during the summer because there's no air conditioning in there but um I would uh the PowerPoint I use is by sand and it gives the history of the house and the history of the SCH family and um I just love doing it and last Wednesday we had 70 people wow the snowbirds are back let them keep

flocking in we need we need them to come in and support all our organizations uh I'd also like to acknowledge Rich Campbell for being with us commissioner thank you for being with us tonight he's the mayor May mayor mayor you got the name backward well I do a lot of things backwards ask ask ask the rest of the board they'll tell you and Vicky Davis uh with us tonight so appreciate having to support of these officials there's probably others here that I haven't acknowledged but we appreciate you all being here uh our guest speaker tonight Sandy thurlo is a no author historian and a great friend of the museum I present you Sandy to tell

us a little history on the Centennial Mark County actually planning to sit because you know it covering a hundred years and I hope you all will stay with me but this is a picture of the great celebration parade on July on January 28th 1926 they didn't quite have it done in the year that the county was created so they had it in January and it was the biggest parade that we've ever had to this day and uh we have a few things that we have many pictures of we have many pictures of the float of the parade we have many pictures of the 1934 hail storm and we have many pictures of the 1949 hurricane

that's the only thing we have a big clump of pictures uh to illustrate this particular photograph was taken in 1925 that's why it's so valuable and we were so fortunate in that Ed menar P published all these booklets and maps and Great Big they were can you remember how big the St news was at one time it wasn't just a little paper it was a big paper and he would publish these special magazine quality booklets made uh and insert them in the paper so they're wonderful time capsules and wonderful to have and this was in one of them and uh just to point out a few things because it's we do still look this is

a post office arcade here are the Coventry Apartments here it's still there I don't know how long it's going to be there now maybe our mayor has some idea but that is River Side Apartments the river uh river river viw apartments that used to be the Kimberly Apartments but it has just remained as is all these years hasn't changed much uh another thing that you will see is uh the feed store is up here and this was the city dock we now have another city dog but this I want you to notice this was the yacht club and it was the center of activity lots of things happened during this big celebration the governor was

had a big lunch in there and it was Stanley kitching who was the host and he was Commodore and even after it blew down he remained a Commodore for years and years so I think that's just go on so before we were in uh uh Martin County it was Palm Beach County and I collect all these little booklets and all this is a booklet and my friend said oh I could rearrange that so this will show but I I arranged it oh shoot I arranged it that way just so we could have the name of Henry Newton game Stewart representing Stewart but this is all about Palm Beach County so this was right before our

County was formed and he is very instrumental in our County being formed he was trying to get things for our County and he had just gotten a little bit of attention from the big Palm Beach County and he had gotten Loop Road and what we called Indian Town Road it was also called gains Highway sometimes it is and uh so he had just gotten this attention and then his colleagues were ready to have a new County and you know politics Campbell it was really dicey there I mean what would your colleagues think you just got this money for these roads and now you want to pull away and start a new County but he so

he just kind of laid low and another reason he is very important is he was his daughter was married into the minegar family so this is the minegar family all of them were psychiatrists except for our Ed minegar and here he's just a boy in this picture here he is and they were his mother they were all she wrote Bible books of books about how to study the Bible and so he had that kind of publishing in his family and of course the doctors this is his dad and both of his brothers were in the minegar clinic in uh in uh Kansas and um so he gets sick and he comes to stay with Mr

gains cuz he's kind of a relative and he had been in New York he had been a big journalist he' gone to journalism school and then he came down here to get over the flu and you know it was about that time of the I was wondering if it might have been the big flu epidemic because he had the aftermath of the flu and he couldn't lick it and he came down here and thank goodness because he stayed down here he went got a job in West Palm and then he bought the south Florida developer and brought it over here and for a while our town had two newspapers and we weren't even the county

yet and I think uh you know how excited I am about Martin digital history I think I got this wonderful picture of Ed min this one because I because he uh I think I got it from one of the pictures that georan has posted but notice his hand in his pocket is Rick Rick CR here oh great will you tell me why his hand is in his pocket well when he W when he was in college he was uh in chemistry class and he took a a reaker and and he probably knew he shouldn't shake it cuz he was right-handed but he held it up and gave it a shake and it caused a terrible

explosion blew off his left hand and blew out one of his eyes my and we were laughing that we have the neighborhood crew here but Rick ran around St Luc States and anybody that had time in St Lucy's States saw Dr menar regularly yeah yeah so so this was a birthday issue what this is an example of one of those books that M uh he wasn't Dr Minar yet uh Ed Minar published and see those are the dates of the parade and it is a wonderful time capsule and I'm go back to Martin digital history again I have a copy of that that is all moth eaten and torn and discolored but Heidi uh McNab

who is a D from the dire family she gave Martin digital history this perfect clean copy and you can go right through the pages and it's filled with very important photographs and information so another plug for Martin digital history so we have some very important people that we you know we still this is Carol dun and he's another person that people in St Lucy States knows about and he married Janet Krueger and that house still stands that's the beautiful Krueger house that we drive by all the time and they were playing tennis and uh he happens to be the cousin of Homer hind Stewart for whom Stuart is named and those of you here we

have Hartman here Jack used to live in the dunam house that was built by Carol's mother and he and Janet lived there for a while until the depression and I think they couldn't afford to live on the river in that big house anymore and then Peter's brother no his uncle jack his uncle jack bought it his father's brother and all of these people all these harits were were Commissioners and Mayors and so you aren't the most special one in the world so now because Rick wrote that Wonder commissioner Clark yes I see youa thank goodness you are here and so I didn't realize importance of this picture until Rick wrote his article and I hope

everybody's picking up a copy of Indian magazine because Rick and Donna and I uh were asked to put it together and the only thing that we didn't do is the Ashley gang which was done by the editor and publisher Greg ins but all the rest we just did it ourselves so uh we had that opportunity and and uh we're happy that we had a way to celebrate the centenal with it but this guy up here now if you in five words can tell me about him oh you tell me what you were going to say no I'll get it wrong but his name is Major Schuman and that is a rank that wasn't his first

name until Rick wrote this I think I thought his name was Major because we did have a a a Justice of the Supreme Court whose first name was Major so anyway he came to town and he was a big deal he was a mover in Shaker and he knew how to lend money and you know so this was his bond and mortgage company and he was got the money together uh however to build a post office arcade and a few other buildings especially the pelican hotel and what is interesting is that Governor Martin was one of the owners of the Sy C well thank you the people the guys got together and built the hotel

and this the every picture and I could take forever so be careful speed me up if I digress too much but this particular photograph was came to steuart Heritage by somebody that was leaving town in an old car and she wouldn't even say her name and Courtney Byer was a volunteer at the Museum and she dropped off these old photos and some of them were very mothy but they're wonderful this is isn't it wonderful to have a picture of the pican hotel under construction and there were a you know there were at least a dozen really important photographs she dropped off but this is one reason the feed store is so great it's so obviously

there and people who have are in a situation like this thank goodness she dropped them off this is the post office arcade that's still in that picture that 1925 picture is still a very important part of our town today and it was financed by Major Schuman here is the and I do Marie Paradise is not here but she is like an archive holder of the things her family has collected and Rick and I benefit so much from it and she has these pictures and also the Hartman did too uh of this signing and just to refresh your memory this is Warner Chon and he you know he wasn't someone that was homegrown he married into

the RICO family but he uh his father-in-law had just died and he got kind of uh he had to do everything that this big Kingpin of uh land owner Mr RR Rico here you're K to him too so I better be careful but uh so he was uh at the signing and he had his wife and three sons there too his uh daughter wasn't born yet but here's Stanley kitchening here is Jackson McDonald and isn't that your grandfather great-grandfather great grandfather great-grandfather and uh uh he was our first mayor and then of course here is uh John Martin and this is Joe Marie's grandfather Joe Marie paradise's grandfather Mr Taylor who ended up being our

uh he was everything he was the bank president and the building the buildings like the El belil lore the hotel the Atlantic Court departments and he was just into everything and uh it was his wife who kept everything and wrote down everything to Marie's grandmother no one looks very happy there's not a yeah it was serious oh so this is from Joe Marie and I think it's just to have that paper and of course it's a South Florida developer and it's an extra extra so Martin County wins and so it's wonderful to have that and that's one of the things Joe Marie has at the Taylor Ashley office this is photograph is from uh the

Florida state archives and uh I used it in my book on Stuart and I'm afraid that uh it's in our Martin digital history but it really is from the Florida archives so this is the yacht club that I pointed out in the aiel and there's Stanley kitchening and Stanley was like Joe Marie's great grandparents were the kitchings and they had only one child Josephine who was Joe Marie paradise's grandmother but uh the other kitching who went to sasan he had 12 children and four po Stanley didn't want children he had so many brothers and sisters he was one of the older he was the older one and he didn't want to have any kids he

had had enough kids in his family so he was a bachelor all this time until 1950 and then he got married this picture is on the front of that magazine that I hope you're taking home and uh she actually the design ER and today we have my designer of my books who is Mrs Campbell Rich Heidi rich and she um she knows about how it is to design things and I think the cover is very nice and Michelle just went around and she left this guy whoops she left this guy out and that's Addison Meisner he's pretty important she just left him right out and and that important person came to our birthday celebration and

so they had really gone the word out people came from all over Florida for this celebration and they had just had their dinner at the yacht club with sany kitching as the host now remember I told you we had a lot of pictures of the parade so I just did a kind of a collage so you'd see that we have quite a few and that's just God they just a few yes so Todd I'm sorry you know how I love my Pioneers because I've dedicated my life to researching them I got very sad when I saw this article in newspapers.com this was the parade that they had just a month or so after the big

parade with all the pictures over aund robed clansmen went in the same route that the other parade went so this is what our heritage also is and this was a way just to keep control and have your laborers and have your maids and uh it's very unfair the flag pole at the school was dedicated by the clan and they had a announcements of their meetings just like rotary not quite as many as rotary and kuas but they were the announcement of their meetings were in the paper okay the Pelican Hotel was the center and this is an early Post Guard and we already saw that picture of it being built but this is a a

good now when Governor Martin Mr is that uh Mr Gear's office that yes it is and I did a Blog it's so wonderful that here in the clan went by it too and so it's just so perfect that and uh here we have that wonderful movie that was made with the burial and he certainly was Willie is a great success financially and uh but and he's also preserved a very important building beautifully so Governor Martin sent his two colleagues his lawyer colleagues from Jacksonville to make sure his County named after him was um you know up to Snuff and a fine thing so he sent ab caner and Jud schmith and uh Ed Smith this

is a picture that I recently got through Don Armstrong who founded steuart Heritage and uh then G caner was another person in St Lucia states that was right there with uh and they really did take care of this County but judge Smith this is uh a thing from the uh the dedic of Martin County Hospital and look we have Ed menar we have uh Joseph Reed and we have do Mr Hudson and we have this is Mr Smith judge Smith this is AB caner and here are are three doctors that we know doc Burns Dr Parker and Dr uret and uret was the one that put the flag up I'm Frid he's from West Virginia

but this is such a wonderful piece of art don't you think yes our mayor lives in judge Ker's house in St Luc stage yes he does he does live in judge Ker's house and uh a little story is that you know uh Heidi is my designer and I used to spend a lot of time the house and you should have a better light over your table and she said that's because you have the chandelier that she bought that judge that Governor Martin had given to Mrs caner and I have it over my dining room table so yes we're all so mixed together she has no idea how it got and I don't I there just

if we just went around the room we would be also connected but this I was very happy that I got this piece of uh Heidi what do you call a designed paper with the color and it's wonderful from the first brochure because it's very rare and if I didn't nag somebody that had a position of importance at the hospital I don't think we would have it to copy and use but what was sad is that judge Smith and and and M Dr Burns both died in 1939 so uh that was a long time ago because that was the year I was born that was 86 years ago so but all this time in another section

of St Lucia States uh this house that was the Smith's house house they bought in 1927 was their family home and it just stayed so perfect just like that and their children uh judge Smith's son who was also named um Ed uh he had died and his widow the children didn't want it so she was going to sell it and it's on with two lots and oh it just and the reason also another connection is that Don Armstrong's mother was um orphaned and was a relative of Judge Smith and so the reason she came they had a three of their own children and two orphan uh niece and nephew to raise and if she hadn't

come to judge Smith we wouldn't have Don Armstrong we wouldn't have those two early archit then we wouldn't have a story Heritage I don't so uh I was in contact with Mrs Smith and she I said you know there's somebody in town that would buy that and not car it down and it was Steve Vitali who has just preserved so many buildings and he did he bought it and this is what it looks like it's pink but uh it's still looks like it you know and it's so beautiful inside it hasn't been changed except air conditioning and a modern bathroom but Don Armstrong did it so you know it's done in a very uh um

sensitive way and another house so here is Rick's beloved grandparents and their house and you know it sits right over here right right over here and it was moved and I felt like this was going to be the end of Stuart Heritage because the the Chris a wikii at the time said oh we'll pay for it you know and then they didn't get the inheritance that they thought they were going to get in time and the city so it all worked out so instead of restoring the House steuart Heritage restored on the feet store and so that money went toward the restoration the feed store and to preserve this house and the way I get

a lot of things done is to do things poorly and then the person that knows it better than I know it will do a better job and so that is a story of Rick Prairie becoming a real historian writer not just writing the Great American novel he has also written local history that's been compiled into a book and he has also gotten his wife to be an excellent writer of articles for uh Indian River magazine but of course cair came as soon as he graduated from college Ed bron bron BR Robson uh was our City attorney and everything was going on crazy you know the bo was on and he needed help and so he

hired Evans CR right out of a law school and he came in the early years and then Robson left and Cur was here to do so many things well and uh po tally Rick says she never really adjusted she she you know was from Tampa and it was a big city and she wasn't sure she really liked it here but she represented and loved her husband and did did just fine so as you have newspapers.com and you have all these oral histories and sometimes they just don't match but uh because after we became a county everybody wanted it to like Indi Town wanted to be the county seed and and Golden Gate wanted to have

the the uh Courthouse there but evidently because this newspaper was dated on the 29th of May the day after the the uh Bill established in County was signed so somebody had already decided that the old school was going to be the courthouse and then that school they changed the name it didn't say school anymore it says courthouse and it was our courthouse until 1988 it was still inside there serving us inside the uh very uh added onto Courthouse if you go into the art center today I if you go in the voice bathroom you can still see kind of the face of those uh blocks you know you can see the impression that the blocks

because the addition was put right on it okay uh I'm a poor reader but I'm going to just read these the points I would like to share about the 1920s we're always complaining about development we have wanted to develop from the get-go that's the reason we formed the county we want it to be a big Port uh it was Jim Crow and the black citizens were segregated and kept in your place un the okay I already said that I don't need to harp on it Tom Todd says I shouldn't even do that but OB padet like before I even started compiling my book on Stewart I kept coming across all these article about Obie padet

he was running into people and killing them and he was like shooting people and he was just a terrible person and he was our Marshall and uh so he ended up uh he did you know he killed somebody and went to Rayford and then Jesse Quinn a another person that was my very good uh resource person and we have a lot of pictures from her Alice um I mean um May Axel she said her father got killed you know in the pool room he'd gotten shot twice by desie Quinn and she said you know it was just like the old west it was kind of Lawless so I don't know she was just a little

girl when she lost her dad but that's what she told me and uh so my friend uh uh doc Pitchford from Jensen he went to the University of Florida and I think he was into a few Shady things too but he uh would visit his friends in Rayford cuz you know star is real close by and uh so so en R I mentioned before you know we have the here we have a map coming up so this was in the ad of Harry lions and you know Ernie Lions is our big environmentalist and our sage and we just he was our a wonderful uh editor of the Stewart news but Harris was big on development

and he was very instrumental I think you say it was Carol dunam but he was happy to have that major Schuman here uh so things could be uh there could be wheeling and dealing and this was one of the inserts of uh the St Lucia States ad and the the little communities all wanted to get on too not only a county we wanted to incorporate our town so solo Incorporated 21 I have them in order that they uh Incorporated and pal City and Jensen and Port Su and Indian town and by Port Su and Indi town you know the boom was already kind of fizzling so this just Beach Bridge was completed before we our

County was created and that was the only way to get to Hudson Allen but they had a bridge district and of course that was St Lucy County so when we got a new County that would took a little rearranging and um so and and so my point is that the reason I think that we have the little BL blurp up there from St Lucy County and maybe you have an idea about this too Vicki about but was because of Rico and his power and we were in competition it's kind of like the Gators and seals with with uh Fort Pierce and we had the Bank St Lucy County bank and then they got the big

rail head for the uh Florida e Coast Railroad and the they took the bank in a boat the the money and stuff the the uh the the safe and took it to port to St loucy County and Fort Pierce and so we were we we wanted to be as good as Fort Pierce so we wanted to have that in the Martin County so we could be in charge of it see that little blurp up there that's that's all that was out of St Lucy County that is riol land right so and uh the rest came from Palm Beach County that was our first map and that was also taken from that big birthday uh piece

that menar did it was in that nice clean map in that so this is from the magazine that I hope you all will get they're quite a few and Rick CR went all the way to Fort Pierce to pick up a new Supply so you could have them because they're free and they cover quite a bit of history and this is one of the pages that uh I could construct and uh at Greg en's request he wanted to have the uh the boom buildings and they're in the magazine and then the later the uh depression buildings but one of the depression projects in 1930s was the Rosevelt bridge and this is a great picture because

see that's the new bridge and we're on the old bridge and you know the old bridge the name of the old bridge concrete bridge it didn't even have a name so but but because of all the work uh projects that Rosevelt concocted uh for the depression uh it was named for him and then this came from Buu's mother uh Peggy Clark Lowry who grew up in the uh uh Stuart hotel and this they were right there when the freight Depot caught on fire so you know how every morning we get up and we think what's happening wrong in the world today these poor people the bridge you know they have the fire and then they

have a hurricane in 193 free knock down everything and then that hail storm I mean what's going on wow I mean it seemed like it looks like snow but it was hail and it hasn't hail like that since then I and I don't think we can blame global warming but there are many pictures of that phenomenon some of them uh show the quaries playing in it and this is another lovely piece of uh uh you know journalism uh magazine kind of thing in the newspapers and uh by that time uh menar had bought the other newspapers and the steuart Daily News was his and they didn't print the developer anymore and that Pro that program

people would give me things and now it's on Martin digital history but this guy named Mr Miller in Rio he had that and he gave it to me hoping that I would use it well and protect it and that he wanted it dedicated to his father because it had belonged to his father so I put that in there I hope here are the uh depression things the steart training school the environmental study Center which was the Jensen School uh the gym and you know uh the white kids had a gym but it was really kind of rough right you guys that played in it it was pretty pretty basic and then of course our Courthouse

1937 they just stuck it onto that see you can see that old schoolhouse right in behind it and then uh the the hurricane came I showed you the pictures and those pictures came from feggy Lowry too they uh it just went right on top of the library in the Woman's Club and uh so it was completely ruined so the Government Federal Government built this building for the Woman's Club and the the library that they had in it and this was 1939 that's what that nice uh brochure came for for with the building it and then we have the War I have to move along how yep I better move so uh we call it the

House of Refuge but it became a coast guard station in 1915 and of course it was a coast guard station during World War II and here they had a full uh group of coast guardmen and then there's a little confusion because the Coast Guard functions under the Navy during wartime and so they look like Sailors and people that don't knew better like me until I studied up would think that they were Sailors or or navy men but they are coast guardman and this you know pictures come in the weirdest things John Foster who also lived in St Luccia States and grew up there right uh next to to Mrs Ker's house um he had a

girlfriend whose father had served in World War II in with the horses and at our Coast Guard Station Our House of Refuge and uh he John Was An Architect and he had the job of tying the upper story of the House of Refuge together all those years it had never blown apart but it had never been properly strapped together and so he was doing that and his girlfriend at the time who had a was a PhD type doctor lady but she got me these pictures from her dad and uh we had them in our book that uh that I did with my daughter-in-law uh Deanna and uh it is uh we use those pictures in

it but it's just so wonderful where pictures come from and of course here I'm the smoke illustrates that the suarin were being torpedoed right off of our coast and we have uh V Chambers was like an extra mother to the to the Hartman boys and they were at uh uh if you know it was I forget the name of it's a building that had a dance hall in Denon when uh it wasn't seor uh when uh it was hit and this is V Chambers right here she gave me this picture but so many people work J Camp Murphy and of course we had to have a place to entertain them and where are we tonight

Isn't that cool there it is right over there I see it through that door and this is Ben Krueger and this is Naomi kitching Stanley finally got married he looped when he was 50 and uh and so she was very much a part of the community and if you go to the Woman's Club building and there's that beautiful murro done by Joy pastle on the wall she had that painted in memory of her husband Stanley and so that remains but you see all these uh people using the uh service Club when it was a federal building another nice postard look how much used it got really the high schoolers used it a lot and this

just recently um Rick kind of cleared up uh what was going on I think I put the wrong information in my steart book with a companion photograph to this but it's when they were giving the airport back to the county and that is Rick's grandfather right there Senator C and uh Marvin R to his left yes I think so and it was um let's see where was oh the the picture the clear picture this is one of those pictures uh georgean that came from clear the one I used in my St book that was a companion was came from Buck Henry and it was terrible and fuzzy and these were nice and clear so we

have that this is one of my favorite pictures and this is when and and he was driven by Senator CR to this uh event to get to put this plaque on the front of our Courthouse when we were 25 years old in 1950 and uh so I wanted to reenact it I thought that would be a perfect thing to do for the Seno but when I was talking during ours uh it's there's so many trees you can't make a picture like that again but maybe we could get a big flag I wish we could and then tuo this is like uh Barbara was saying that K su's house is in between takaho and the Sailing

Center when the leeches came and built this house it provided work for a lot of people that needed work I think they got a dollar a day but noce she said she's in Souls Point Souls Point she when we kind of it's kind of a little bit out of the town of souls went now and then the uh Outrigger in Francis Langford and they have given so much and then that's the only picture I have to show of for this particular occasion of Ralph Evan rude and all the tesing of the boats and the Evan Roode connection is just so important to us and they were so philanthropic but you know this is what irked

Mr Lee he didn't like all this like mobile home parks and campgrounds and look look what even uh Francis Langford had all these houses of course they were pretty substantial and today these still are there at uh at the Dolphin Restaurant they're still there but these have have been demolished and that's part of Castle Hill and then Grumman oh we have Nancy here and uh that made it was so important when they came in 1950 and art Melrose Nancy's father was the first one and he stayed in one of those houses at the out rer before he stayed in the the palm um The Lodge over sailfish Lodge in Palm City but uh it certainly

has made a difference and then of course uh dubber Island and all that wealth and the rich people got together and they bought out the pineapple people that were uh trying to develop it they even had uh when it became Olympia and a beach and picture City all that stuff during the Boom and then that fizzled they bought them out and created their lifestyle that they like of old money and Mr Baro these were the same people that started and gave them money for our hospital so they have been so generous through the years and I think Jackie Williams is just getting ready to give a talk about the barow philanthropy at the uh the

little they call it the the Apollo school but it's really the Olympia school and they Incorporated in 1953 and then lo and behold Ocean Breeze Park incorporated too and and today you know it is changed everything changes and uh it's still there and it's still called Ocean Breeze by Sun Communities now and it's people are loving it and then all of the this is one of the things I have a box of things from the college and this is what Heidi Heidi was the designer here who's our mayor's wife uh she did the signage for Indian Riverside Park and it took all all the things that was you know we take the things that people

had had shared and then you she put them together and the text gets written and it was supposed to be done in 4 months and I think it took us four years but right before uh Doug Smith retired they were getting a little shoty and I complained and they have been restored and they're all new looking again so so this is Dean te with a fit the nuns and Jackie Williams when she worked for the county did an hourlong audio video film and it tells the history from the beginning to the end so that's on YouTube I think so that's been preserved and then here are the queries again this is your cousin right this

little Larry and look how rainy it is and how old and big and unhappy the governor looks and uh here uh you know I've identified the people there even Merl um Barber from buau Beach who has a so these two guys have really nice Bridges named after him and then this little guy is ready to cut and he's now like uh he's a Preacher Man for the Catholic Church he's a deacon for the St Joe's and uh Governor Martin didn't live much longer after that and uh Rick and I have there is a difference in the day that the legislature named the bridges after the Ernie Alliance and Rick's grandfather and then they had a

celebration on a different day and I may get that mixed up but the sign says 65 and uh they couldn't name them they couldn't name them after him right after they built because you know we fight about everything we fought about those bridges and then of course Jensen wanted their bridge to be redone too and there were tolls and so anyway after a few years years they were completed in 1958 and in 1965 they could be named for Ernie lions and and then uh Frank waaka got the Jensen brid name for him and we kind of copied s Point kind of copied uh uh the uh Jupiter Island because Ted erson did the legal work

for both of them and uh we incorporated to to maintain our little uh lovely community and keep things the way we want to be Sovereign or something and here uh the library that was built for uh during downtown it's where the aurus right over there right over there and uh this is Mrs Mary caner and Mrs Stokes and Mary K caner was in charge of the library being built and see this is is now a Martin County Library it's not the wom's club Library anymore so they had to have you know a a a friend of the library a library Association and she did not want it in that wet Memorial Park where Dr menar

suggested she wanted it on a place that didn't uh get so wet so uh it was built on land that the Kiplinger family gave and then uh we were actually the turnpike was started right there in palp city that was where the Florida Turnpike the first um dirt was moved and then in 1961 we dedicated the uh Elliot Museum and we had the bridges to the sea I think I better get going and uh in 1964 before we were the last ones to uh double lane US1 all the way up to Maine uh and so we were the last link in that and Governor Hayden Burns CA I mean Governor Bryant came for that and

uh so I'm looking to Nancy and you did come very good so I'm just I'm just seeing uh when I said uh Hayden Burns it was like I think he came to the the holiday end that was the got mixed up so that was uh Governor Bryant for this and here we decided we need a new high school so we built it on a city dump and there it is when they just were moving and there's uh the principal directing somebody so this is the school the old school Stewart High School here's that gym that was built by uh WPA there's long Field named after PA some long and then right over here is he

Stewart so they did not have everything that we had they didn't have a gym but uh they did pretty well and I I uh and it was time to U build them a new school we couldn't build one for the white kids and not the black kids so we Murray at that time it was still carpa Gardens and they named it Murray later but here is their wonderful faculty and you can see I was so happy that uh the designer put uh the the uh Felix and Frederic Williams on the front and that is Maddie I think her name is Maddie uh Allen she was a very important figure and the reason that picture is

there is because the black children gave money for abundance just like everybody else they collected money from the black children to build a the statue that was in Memorial Park before he got put in a Haney Circle so and then Flower Farms were everywhere and Chuck Shad our friend Chuck Shad somehow he had a whole bunch of slides of what our town looked in like in 1970s my goodness it looks terrible and so when we complain about everything changing a lot has changed for the better and then the went what started the change and here we have Nancy sailor and all these newspaper clippings of how they participated we had dancing in the street and

uh the the McMillan and uh the uh Jeffersons moved into the post office arcade and uh just recently a book has come out that really tells all about that era by Blake font and it tells about how that happened and all that The Jeffersons and the McMillan and people like the sailors did so dancing in the streets and I think I see somebody there who is that and there she is right there and who is that there she is right there there she is so isn't it wonderful that we have these people that are still with us and working still and these pictures like the first artfest artfest was last week and it was great

and uh so this is these pictures the first exhibit in the courthouse Cultural Center was sponsored by steuart Heritage and what it was was the lion photograph and at that time Mr buy hadn't close the windows and fix the Galleries and all the windows were still open and you were not supposed to put a nail in the wall or anything so we did it with foam poure and we hung up these enlarged pictures by Bruce Cathcart here where all these old names and uh at that time I put this picture and a few others on the landing and they were in foam core and it there's a little plaque that says this was done by

St Heritage I think it cost $400 the whole thing to do the enlargements and um so those things are framed and they're still on the landing so go into the Arts Council and look at the landing and there those pictures are that you guys paid for long ago in 19 like 89 or so and the wonderful Feed Store it used to have baby chicks just like Gary said people can remember and the the uh House of Refuge was the same way everybody wanted the turtle they come in to say well where are the turtles so where are the so and this is such a picture even though it's from the newspaper look at this all

the things that are in it we were so happy we were going to get a new courthouse and it was built on schedule the price stuck to the price and here see what had happened here we have this is the the courthouse that stands today here's the old school here's one edition here's the old uh addition that the wing that goes to this was the car dealership that became the A&P and then it was courthouse anex so what a mismatch that was and uh I'm afraid I just checked I guess this stuff is still back there uh the Water Treatment but uh this turned out it was a sick building and The Architects had rallied

they said uh uh uh DW said that is a wonderful piece of architecture you should save it so they saved it and so then they had to move out of all the new building because it was sick and there uh we started to to move out of town I thought Dale Hudson was going to come and I wanted to say like he is there dale Hudson he's here here oh good so when I came to town in 1961 the bank and at one time there was only the bank that's all there was we just the bank you didn't say the name was just the bank so but here is the bank where is it where

is oh here's the shopping center so here's a bank it's hard to tell cuz that filling station's there so here's a bank okay here's Johnson Avenue I don't think the post office is built yet in this picture but this is a shopping center and that's what was happening to our little town everybody like went to the shopping center but at least the the road is uh uh to Lan and look this is all mobile homes here where those big where those big buildings are so pretty fancy now compared so I guess it's all right if they build a hotel there and this is a picture of the bridges to the Sea and you know that

was Fourth Street that wasn't Ocean Boulevard they named it Ocean Boulevard later I think in 1961 but see this is what uh all of this land most of it was owned by besser and so they gave the right away to go over there and so Flower Farms here this is our this is where TG and Y was and all the the East Ocean mall but look behind it what is that what is all that stuff that's Krueger's flower farm and this is Bell Plaza done by uh Brady Bel Krueger she built her own little shopping center there and had her flower shop there so it was time for I 95 we're almost finished I'm sorry

so I mean I'm glad for you that I I'm sorry I'm so winded so cat so much but I 95 finally The Missing Link I don't really know why it goes so far west and then we've had this live librarian came we just had one library and it was kind of dull and then we just we built to Blake and now we have all of the other Ranch libraries we got a new Rosevelt bridge and uh that was big controversy we thought about a tunnel we thought about anything we could do and then we dedicated the U Memorial Bridge it seemed like yesterday but look how long ago it was it's already been it was

13 12 years ago seems and look at this the man that created Martin County with his power of His pin and his newspaper uh and I'm going to stop right now because I forgot to say what happened in 1966 we got the holiday in yes Jack sailor came was it Arkansas you guys came from and that put us on the map it was John jok was the first person to stay there and he was buying Bill Green chevret and uh then it became John jok but and they had a big Marquee like a a movie theater and what anything that happened that was important got mentioned there whether it was newspaper week There's a picture

of Ernie lions and Jack standing out there with the that on the Marquee but it was The Happening place around Stewart it put us on the map so now I'm going to go back to Mrs sailor who has been working with the Chamber of Commerce and so has Jack all these years and they're still working with them that's why they get so much press and the leadership but she was sure that Dr Miner needed to be recognized because he was a very important person and now I think with our studies we realized just how important he was and this County could never have been um come to uh a reality if he hadn't pushed it

with his newspapers and uh kept us together during the Depression but here's Nancy uh with Dr minegar and uh I looked on the back of this and it said compliments of Southeastern Printing and I took picture of it with my phone and sent it to Donnie Mater and said thank you and I thank Nancy for all she's done and dad and I thank Julie priest my goodness how could anybody restore this this knockdown damaged uh Arch that was on uh on the county road on the on the state road so they changed it to count County Road I mean you can't imagine what they went through and I said there's no way but I wasn't

right and it's so amazing that it still stands it looks just the way it did in that old postcard and uh so there's not a better symbol of celebrating our County than that and it's on the front of our magazine you guys better get it and read it and that's it oh so thank you for coming thank you you especially people that don't usually come come next time Laura and the sailors and you know Tish the sailor's daughter does our newsletter free of charge and it's just just perfect thank you thank you so much uh when we're when we're reflecting back on everything we need to understand that we are that we are the products

of the history and if we don't preserve our history both the good and the bad yeah we're going to be lost