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 1961. The items were compiled from the Jacksonville Public Library’s periodical archives by Staff Writer Max Marbut.
• The ribbon was cut to open the new $3 million Roosevelt Mall, where 24 stores were located among three groups of buildings connected by a landscaped mall.
Stores open for business at the opening included Furchgott’s, Purcell’s, G.C. Murphy Co., Food Fair, Morrison’s Cafeteria, Rosenblum’s, the Vogue Shop, The Gallery, Geisenhof’s and Hoyt High Fidelity.
Scheduled to open within a few months were Underwood’s, Stein’s, Original Pancake House, a car wash and a Shell Oil Co. service station.
“We have made Roosevelt Mall more than just another shopping center,” said owner Robert H. Jacobs.
The focal point of the mall was a 45-foot, 6,000-pound abstract sculpture that “set the modern theme of the center.”
It was created by French modernist Andre Bloc. It was shipped to Jacksonville from Paris in pieces and assembled by two French assistants who flew to Jacksonville for the job. They welded the pieces together, copying a 7-foot model that Bloc prepared and shipped intact.
Jacobs said he saw one of Bloc’s sculptures in Paris and admired it. He commissioned the artist to create the piece for the mall, which was titled, “Signal.” The sculpture is now on the campus at Jacksonville University.
Another distinctive feature of the mall’s landscape was a pair of pools, one at each end of the central walkway. Each was occupied by a pair of swans, one a black pair and the other a white pair.
The birds were purchased from a wild animal farm near Gainesville and placed in the pools several days before the mall was scheduled to open. The white swans took to their new home immediately. They paddled around the pond and occasionally stepped out to preen but never wandered far.
The black pair was a different story.
Almost as soon as they arrived, the black swans went wandering. The first time they became fugitives, the birds were discovered in the parking lot and herded back to the pool. The next time they went missing, they were found in a nearby backyard and again returned to the mall.
Their next escape didn’t have a happy ending.
Search parties determined the birds had made it to a nearby drainage ditch that led to the Ortega River. A theory that the swans might have paddled their way to the St. Johns River was confirmed when a call came in that two black birds had been spotted headed for Downtown.
That’s when tragedy ended the search.
As the swans tried to come ashore at Richmond Street, two miles by water from where they started, a dog leaped into the river and killed one of the escapees. Ten-year-old Teague Skaggs rescued the remaining swan, which was returned to the mall.
The solo swan started to pine for its mate, so it was returned to the farm in Gainesville, where it was believed birds of a feather might help the survivor deal with its loss.
Another pair of black swans soon arrived and was placed in the pool, protected by a fence placed around the new home.
• Back wages due workers in the counties served by the Jacksonville field office of the U.S. Labor Department’s wage-hour division totaled $507,115 for the 1961 fiscal year that ended June 30.
Investigation Supervisor Harold Glenn said back pay represented the amount actually paid to employees engaged in commerce or in production of goods for commerce and what was due legally under provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
A breakdown of the figures showed $190,585 due 1,685 workers for minimum wage underpayment and $316,530 due 2,801 workers for their overtime hours.
During the 12-month period, Glenn said, investigators also found 58 minors were illegally employed under the child labor provisions of the act.
He said many more residents in the area would be protected by the $1 minimum wage coverage as new amendments to the act became effective Sept. 30, when workers covered by the $1-per-hour minimum would have to be paid no less than $1.15 per hour.
• A prowler chose a house where the man was away and the woman was home. It turned out to be a near-fatal mistake.
Mrs. Jacob Adams of 8866 Marlee Road in Jacksonville Heights fired a rifle four times through the back door of her home when she heard a noise at the door.
She told Duval County Patrolmen D.A. McLeod and C.D. Warden she heard a scream from the other side of the door as she fired. Adams added she was sure she “hit him once or twice.”
Then, she said, she saw a shadowy figure stumble through a field behind her home and disappear into the woods.
Adams’ husband, who was at work when the incident happened, said his wife was “a pretty good shot.” He said she hunted with him almost every year in Nassau County and “she generally brings home her share of quail.”
Adams used her own gun – a .22-caliber rifle – to repel the prowler. She also owned a .410-gauge shotgun.
• Judy Petty celebrated her 107th birthday but she didn’t spend it in her rocking chair because she didn’t own one.
“I’m too young for that sort of thing,” Petty said.
Her lone admitted vice was 100 pieces of bubble gum a month, even though chewing it took her last tooth during her 106th year, she said.
Petty had visited a doctor only once in her life, at age 99.
“I was so nearly gone that I could see those beautiful gates and I thought it was time for me to join the flocks of children passing through,” she said.
“But the Lord spared me then and I don’t have any reason to think he’ll take me away soon,” she said.
Petty said she became a Christian at age 10. “Turn off the liquor, turn off your meanness and turn to the Lord,” she said.
She lived with her youngest son, Pearlie, who was 58 and the sole survivor among three daughters and five sons.
When Petty made her remark about turning off the liquor, her son kidded her about the still she used to have in the backyard.
“God left me the meanest of my children,” said Petty.
• Ronald Lee Mason, a 20-year-old airman attached to Fighter Squadron VA-44 at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, was sentenced to two years of supervised probation after he entered a guilty plea on the charge of using aluminum slugs in vending machines at the base.
Mason admitted to U.S. District Judge Bryan Simpson that he had used tools from the squadron’s machine shop to make the slugs and to trim down pennies to the size of dimes, which he also used in the machines.
He was charged only with the offense of making the slugs, a misdemeanor. Mutilating the pennies would have been a felony.
As he suspended the sentence and ordered probation, Simpson said the defendant “had a good record in the Navy and a good reputation” in his hometown of Brooklyn. N.Y.
“But,” Simpson added, “this sentence shouldn’t encourage anyone else to do what you have done. Each case is judged individually and the next one might not deserve leniency.”
• The Women’s Guild of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra received a citation from the American Symphony Orchestra League recognizing the local group for the program it published for the 1961 symphony ball.
Mrs. Thomas B. Slade III, publicity chairwoman for the guild, said the citation singled out the content, clarity, good design and completeness of the program.
The program was designed by Mrs. J. Shepherd Bryan, Mrs. Robert Whitehead and Mrs. Raymond David.
• A 64-year-old Jacksonville Beach resident was operating a business that would be illegal today.
“Many people here apparently think that sea oats are weeds and don’t appreciate their beauty in a fall flower arrangement for the home,” said James McGahan.
He had been harvesting the sea oats for sale to wholesale florists and department stores for eight years and expected to ship 500,000 stalks in the summer of 1961.
McGahan said it was a “pleasant sideline” for him and a summer activity for the high school students who helped him.
“This isn’t the easiest way to make money, but anyone will have to admit it’s an unusual one,” McGahan said.
The plants were cut with a machete and tied in bundles of 25. Thirty bundles were packed in a box for shipment. A good cutter could harvest between 6,000 and 8,000 stalks a day. Processors put the stalks in bleach, fireproofed them and dyed them.
McGahan said sea oats should only be cut in full bloom between July 4 and Labor Day and plants cut and dried properly would last for years without shedding.
One of the largest single shipments – 17,500 stalks – was sent to a customer in California.
“They don’t seem to have any of them out there. As far as I have been able to find out, the sea oats grow only along the Atlantic coast of the United States,” said McGahan.