Dade County FlArchives History - Books .....Startling Changes, Chapter 12 1965
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 April 5, 2009, 4:14 pm

Book Title: Memories Of Old Miami

CHAPTER TWELVE
Startling Changes

    WE became startlingly aware of Miami's growth in 1920 when the federal
census gave the city 30,000. Miami had grown from a sprawling little town on the
Miami River to a city within a decade, having increased in population almost six
times from its 5,500 in 1910.

    We moved from the Frazure House in 1920, into a new home at 221 NE 17th
Street. My parents let the Boulevard property go under a 99-year lease,

    Downtown property had increased greatly in value since my parents bought the
Frazure House before World War I. The price they received was small, though,
compared with the Boom-time deals a few years later.

    But who could have predicted anything like the Boom, which was to have its
beginning after a little depression the city had in the early 1920's?

    The activities of the three Boom years - 1924, 1925 and 1926 - still ring in
my ears.

    Looking back to 1920, I can't remember of thinking that Miami might have a
great future. I had watched it grow, having lived here since I was three.
Everything seemed perfectly normal.

    Jacksonville was Florida's big city in those days. I had never been there
but I knew it was immense compared with Miami. Dade County's entire population
of 43,000 was less than half of Jacksonville's. And Jacksonville was growing,
too. What reason was there to think that Miami one day would be among the
world's great cities - especially in one's own life time?

    But I can see now that Miami was no ordinary place in 1920.
    Today people associate such names as George Merrick, N.B.T. Roney, Carl
Fisher, F.C.B. LeGro and the Tatum Brothers with the Boom years. But they were
here before the Boom. It was people like them whose vision inspired the Boom.
    I was in my second year of high school when the war ended; but I remember
the enthusiasm people had for this area - not just for Miami, but Miami Beach,
Coconut Grove and the other Dade communities.

    I won't mention Coral Gables here because in 1920 Mr. Merrick had not put on
his promotion campaign. That is a story in itself - when the name of Coral
Gables became better known than any other city in Florida, even Miami.

    It was my good fortune to know Mr. Roney personally. Mr. and Mrs. Roney and
their little daughter, Betty, moved into the Frazure House during the war and
lived with us for several months.

    Mr. Roney had purchased Elser Pier, at the foot of Flagler Street, and he
wanted to be close to this activity. He ran a dime-and-dance on the second
floor, which attracted hundreds of service men, especially aviation cadets, and
their girls.

    Mr. Roney was typical of the men who had the combination of vision and
enthusiasm out of which the Boom grew. He had been trained as a lawyer, but
while building up a practice in his home town of Camden, N.J., he decided to go
into the construction business on the side - "to make a living."

    The result was that he never practiced law. Instead, he became wealthy in
real estate.

    Some time before the war he stopped off in Miami while on a trip to Cuba.
While staying at the Royal Palm Hotel, he said to his companion, John Kelly, a
Camden contractor :

    "Jack, I like Miami, I'm going to move here."

    "Newton," Kelly said, "you're out of your mind."

    Roney returned to Camden and went back into business as usual, but he didn't
forget the promise he had made to himself and to Kelly. He sold out his
interests and moved to Miami just about the time that this country entered World
War I.

    Being a man of means, he could have lived at the Royal Palm, except for the
fact that it was open only during the three winter months. So he moved his
family into our boarding house. Because we kept winter visitors, my parents
refused to take families with children; but they made an exception for the Roneys.

    Everybody liked Betty, who was then only three or four years of age; and I
remember how she used to scream with delight when I would bounce her on my knee.

    "Don't be so rough with Betty," Mother would caution.

    (The former Betty Roney is now Mrs. E. J. Fitzpatrick, living at Plainfield,
N.J. Mr. Roney died in 1952. Mrs. Roney lives at Miami Beach.)

    Mr. Roney, as I remember him, was a very energetic man, somewhat on the
small side. He walked with his gaze set on the ground ahead of him,, like a man
in thought. And I guess he was thinking because he might not see you unless you
spoke to him; but then he spoke very friendly.

    Everybody noticed how Mr. Roney walked with his head bent forward. One day
somebody said:

    "Hello, Mr. Roney, what you looking for?"

    "For pennies," Mr. Roney replied.

    But you can bet that N. B. T. Roney wasn't looking for pennies. For coppers
would never have developed the empire that he built, especially at Miami Beach.

    By the time he had finished the Roney Plaza Hotel at Miami Beach in 1926 he
was worth millions. After the war he sold the Elser Pier for a big profit-or Dad
said he made a lot of money from the sale. And then he bought the old Biscayne
Hotel at the corner of Flagler Street and Miami Avenue for $210,000. Later he
sold it to the United Cigar Stores for a million dollars. Burdines Department
Store occupies that corner now.

    When I look back on those days, I can't help feeling that people had a much
greater sense of humor than they have now. They never missed a chance to give
one another nicknames.

    N. B. T. Roney became "Newton Bath Tub" Roney and F. C. B. LeGro became
"Fresh Country Butter" LeGro.

    I even gave nicknames to the girls whose books I used to carry when I
attended Miami High School, then overlooking Lummus Park from the east side of
NW Third Avenue between Second and Third streets.

    One pretty girl I called "Bones" because she was a bit gangling and another
I called "Speed" because she refused to change her gait even when she knew we
would be late for school. (I won't mention their names because they still live
in South Florida and have grown children.)

    I was much too interested in the enjoyment of life to be gazing into a
crystal ball for visions of the future. In fact, I was doing all in my power to
delay my graduation.

    One day W. R. Thomas, principal of Miami Senior High School for several
years, said to me:

    "Hoyt, if you intend to go to college you'll have to take Latin."

    Latin was my undoing. After I had been studying it for part of a term, Mr.
Thomas said to me:

    "Hoyt, I was wrong. You won't need Latin. You're not going to college."

    Mr. Thomas was right. But several classmates did go to college and they did
all right for themselves. They include Lee Worley, attorney, and Dr. Donald
Smith, physician, both of whom practice their professions in Miami.

    If there had not been so many pretty girls going to Miami High School maybe
I would have been more interested in preparing for college. Instead of studying
on weekends, I was out in my Nassau dinghy, catching lobsters and stone crabs,
as well as soldier crabs which I sold to tourists for bonefish bait.

    With the money I made I bought myself two fine tuxedos, some fancy vests,
silk shirts and several sets of studs. And to complete my outfit I bought a pair
of classy patent-leather pumps. That was the style of the time; and I wanted
something that would equal to the best.

    Like every other boy of my age, my ambition was to take the prettiest girl
in the class to the dinner dances that W. N. Urmey used to give on Friday nights
at the Urmey Hotel. Mr. Urmey was a very particular person, and the dances were
conducted so decorously that mothers were not reluctant to let their daughters
attend.

    Jerome Twitchell, whose orchestra played for the Urmey dances, is now
orchestra leader at the Surf Club in the winter time.

    Many of the girls who attended those dances - and with whom I had the
pleasure of dancing - married and remained to live in Miami.

    Among them were Dorothy Waddell, who became Mrs. R. M. Doyle; Lucille Brady,
who became Mrs. Gene Lind; Margaret Rebozo, who became Mrs. Harold Barker; Oris
Rhodes, who became Mrs. Freedland Cresap, and Lillian Corbett who became Mrs. E.
N. Claughton Sr.

    When she attended dances at the Urmey, Lillian Corbett could not have
dreamed that one day as Mrs. Lillian C. Claughton she would be the owner of the
Urmey Hotel.

    But unknown to any of us changes were about to take place which, as we now
look back, seem utterly too fantastic to believe.

    The Florida Boom was in the making.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

"Memories of Old Miami"
by Hoyt Frazure as told to Nixon Smiley
Reprinted from a series of articles first appearing in Sunday Magazine of The
Miami Herald

Undated, but circa 1965


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