Biography of John T. Barton, Lake Worth, Palm Beach County, FL

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Transcribed from:  The History of Florida:  Past & Present, The Lewis Publishing Co., Vol. 
II, page 225, 1923.

BARTON, JOHN T. had an early business training that well qualified him for dealing with large 
scale operations, and since coming to Lake Worth he has found the opportunity to employ this 
experience both for himself and in cooperation with others, particularly in the real estate 
field.  Mr. BARTON was the leading spirit and is the president of the Lake Worth Casino 
Company, lessees and operators of one of the finest places of amusement along the East Coast.

JOHN T. or JACK BARTON, as his friends know him, was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1890,
 but was reared and educated in Massachusetts.  While attending school there he gained his 
first training in the newspaper business by covering military and naval news and athletic 
sports for the Boston papers.

A more important part of his early experience was his service with the New England Telegraph 
and Telephone Company, the Bell system, as auditor of disbursements, with headquarters at 
Portland, Maine.  He was next selected to go to Montreal and install the American Telephone 
Accounting system in the offices of the Bell Telephone system of Canada.  When the Alberta 
government purchased the provincial system from the Bell interests Mr. BARTON was called to 
Edmonton to introduce the American accounting system for the province.

It was in 1915 when Mr. Barton came to Lake Worth, Florida.  For five years he was editor of 
the Lake Worth Herald.  When he retired from the newspaper business he took up real estate, 
and has since handled a large volume of important transactions centering in the region around 
Lake Worth.

The Lake Worth Casino Company, of which Mr. BARTON is president and the active head together 
with J.H. ELLIOTT, secretary and treasurer, controls and operates the famous Lake Worth Casino.  
This Casino was completed and placed in operation in the summer of 1922.  It is a municipal 
enterprise, built by the city at a cost of about $150,000.  Competent critics have pronounced 
it the finest Casino on the Florida East Coast if not in the entire Atlantic.  It is of 
permanent fireproof construction, reinforced concrete throughout, and is a beautiful example 
of the Spanish style of architecture.  The bath house section contains 300 dressing rooms, 
with provisional space for 150 more when needed.  The Casino section of the building is 125 
by 175 feet.  All columns and beams are of reinforced concrete.  On the ground floor are a 
group of shops, while the ball room of 50 by 100 feet is on the second floor.  There is a 
bathing pool ten feet deep and built according to the standard sanitary specifications of 
the Florida State Board of Health.  Ocean bathers go from dressing rooms through a large 
tunnel direct to the beach, one of the finest on the Florida Coast.

Mr. BARTON is a York and Scottish Rite Mason and Shiner.  He married Miss MAEBELLE E. SANDALLS, 
of California.  They have three interesting boys, of whom they are very proud, named BRUCE 
BAXTER, ROGER HAYES and JACK STANLEY.