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, welcome to Pulp Adventures: Life in 1920s Miami and Beyond

12:18, 29th March 2024 (GMT+0)

Resources.

Posted by GMFor group 0
GM
GM, 129 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Sat 9 Dec 2006
at 13:14
  • msg #31

History of the Statuettes

The statuettes were found here:
Teotihuacán, commonly translated from the Nahuatl as "City of the Gods".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotihuacan
They were found inside the "Pyramid of the Moon"
http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/mexico/

A photograph gallery of the "Avenue of the Dead" is here:
http://studentweb.tulane.edu/~dhixson/teo/teo.html

More sites:
http://archaeology.la.asu.edu/teo/
http://www.differentworld.com/...city/teotihuacan.htm
http://www.teotihuacan.com/
http://www.mexicocity.com.mx/teoti_i.html
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CIVAMRCA/TEO.HTM
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/teot/hd_teot.htm
http://www.inaoep.mx/~sole/tur...ico/Teotihuacan.html

This was an interesting news story...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories...ech/main522626.shtml
Mysteries Of The Pyramid Of The Moon
TEOTIHUACAN, Mexico, Sept. 19, 2002
Quote: Teotihuacan was a master-planned city, spanning 12 square miles and thrived longer than imperial Rome, its contemporary. As originally built, the Pyramid of the Sun rose to a peak of 195 feet.

REUTERS) Archeologists digging at Mexico's famed Pyramid of the Moon think they could be a few feet away from a royal grave, key to unlocking the secrets of the first major metropolis built in the Americas.

The Aztecs stumbled on these awesome stone pyramids, plazas and temples in about 1500 A.D., several centuries after the city was torched and abandoned. They believed it was a divine work and so named the site Teotihuacan, "City of the Gods" in their indigenous nahuatl tongue.

After 200 years of excavations and research, archeologists are similarly in the dark about who built the city, which at its peak in 500 A.D. is believed to have housed 200,000 people, rivaling Shakespeare's London, but a millennium earlier.

It is not known who ruled in Teotihuacan -- founded around the time of Christ 30 miles northeast of Mexico City and mysteriously collapsing around 700 A.D. -- or what the original city was called, or what language its people spoke.

But Japanese archeologist Saburo Sugiyama and his Mexican colleague, Ruben Cabrera, believe some of the answers lie inside the Pyramid of the Moon and their recent find of three skeletons of high-ranking officials or priests has given them hope of unraveling Teotihuacan's mysteries.

"We don't know if they were sacrificed, but their form suggests they were of a very high social ranking, like the priests that appear on wall etchings, heavily adorned with collars, ear and nose rings, possibly with headdresses," Sugiyama said this week at the foot of the square-sided pyramid.

A pump blows air into the narrow tunnel that a team of archeologists under Sugiyama and Cabrera are excavating just below the peak of the pyramid. Musky wooden beams and planks hold up the tunnel, dimly lit by a string of bare light bulbs.

Some 20 yards inside, the excavation widens and deepens at the point where the archeologists discovered the three skeletons, all seated cross-legged with their hands clasped in front.

Aside from the bodies, the dig has also uncovered jade stones, figurines, animal remains and carved sea shells.

It is not the first time graves have been discovered in Teotihuacan, an extremely popular tourist site.

Cabrera and Sugiyama, who started their excavation of the Pyramid of the Moon in 1998, had previously uncovered 22 other piles of bones -- all sacrificial offerings -- in three separate sites in the 140-foot-high pyramid.

But Sugiyama says these latest three skeletons are of a higher social rank and higher up in the pyramid's structure -- whereas other bodies previously unearthed were sacrificed soldiers or prisoners of war and closer to the ground.

Sugiyama believes the latest skeletons are only part of a larger grave. His theory is that they are very close to a burial site of a Teotihuacan king or governor.

"We have not found any burial chamber tombs to date. But it is possible that there is something special, the grave of a governor or someone of maximum importance," Sugiyama said. "If anyone important died, it's logical they are buried here."

Sugiyama and Cabrera have focused their efforts to unlock the mysteries of the city on the Pyramid of the Moon -- rather than its bigger neighbor the Pyramid of the Sun or even the ornate Feathered Serpent Pyramid -- because it is strategically at the top end of Teotihuacan's north-south axis road, known as the Avenue of the Dead.

Teotihuacan was a master-planned city, spanning 12 square miles and thrived longer than imperial Rome, its contemporary. As originally built, the Pyramid of the Sun rose to a peak of 195 feet.

"The origins of Teotihuacan are in Teotihuacan itself, and the Pyramid of the Moon has to have a very important significance ... the place with more possibilities of obtaining information," said Cabrera.

The Pyramid of the Moon is a structure of seven pyramids built on top of each other.

Sugiyama and Cabrera, unassuming scientists dressing in blue jeans and distant from Hollywood's archetypal archeologist Indiana Jones, are the first to dig close to the top of the pyramid for clues to the city's past.

"It is a part of the building that has not been investigated ... let's say its virgin territory," said Cabrera.

© MMII Reuters Limited. All Rights Reserved.
GM
GM, 135 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Tue 12 Dec 2006
at 19:58
  • msg #32

Meteorological facts

Weather permitting, a man in his lifetime might expect to see some 50 lunar eclipses, more than half of them total, and perhaps 30 partial solar eclipses.

A total eclipse of the sun, however, is a rare event at any one location. For example, the last total solar eclipse visible in the vicinity of New York City was in January 24, 1925 at 9:00 am, and the next will not be until 2079. What makes the spectacle so rare is that the sizes of the sun and the moon in the sky are almost identical, and as a result the conical shadow cast by the moon barely reaches the surface of the earth. The path of totality may be some 15,000 kilometers long, sweeping across as much as 140 degrees of longitude, but the umbra, or region of dark shadow, is seldom more than 250 kilometers wide.

The last total Lunar (Umbral) eclipse witnessed by the people here, was on August 14, 1924.

The last Lunar (partial) eclipse was witnessed February 8, 1925 at 21:40.
The next Lunar (partial) eclipse will be on August 4, 1925 at 11:52.

Regarding lunar cycles, the First quarter takes place May 30, 1925 and the Full Moon takes place June 6, 1925. The ceremony at the museum would take place well before the Full Moon.

These are ALL well established facts! And I usually take great pains to make sure that I find accurate information that fits well for this period.


However, as games tend to rewrite history a little bit. This game is no exception. In this case...
The *next* total Lunar (Umbral) eclipse will occur on June 1, 1925 at 9:00am.
And will be in full view of those who live in Miami.

If you are reading this, you are picking up on a clue that hasn't been mentioned yet...
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:00, Tue 12 Dec 2006.
GM
GM, 136 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Wed 13 Dec 2006
at 02:54
  • msg #33

Re: Meteorological facts

GM
GM, 138 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Wed 13 Dec 2006
at 13:45
  • msg #34

Re: Meteorological facts

Lil's Pulp Adventure site that she's working on for us (it's not ready yet):

http://www.geocities.com/torra_jhed/Pulp_Adventures

It will be an additional resource for our game. She is finding more information for us. And I love the font and design. She is working on the links and gathering the details.
This message was lightly edited by the GM at 19:39, Wed 13 Dec 2006.
GM
GM, 143 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Sun 17 Dec 2006
at 02:39
  • msg #35

Spanish Influenza

The statuettes might have been responsible for this as well.
The statuette that is linked to blood could be responsible for this. And it may have been one of the stops along the way to the final destination.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200...emic_remembering1918

Survivors recall horror of flu pandemic

CHEVY CHASE, Md. - At the height of the flu pandemic in 1918, William H. Sardo Jr. remembers the pine caskets stacked in the living room of his family's house, a funeral home in Washington, D.C.

The city had slowed to a near halt. Schools were closed. Church services were banned. The federal government limited its hours of operation. People were dying — some who took ill in the morning were dead by night.

"That's how quickly it happened," said Sardo, 94, who lives in an assisted living facility just outside the nation's capital. "They disappeared from the face of the earth."

Sardo is among the last survivors of the 1918 flu pandemic. Their stories offer a glimpse at the forgotten history of one of the world's worst plagues, when the virus killed at least 50 million people and perhaps as many as 100 million.

More than 600,000 people in the United States died of what was then called "Spanish Influenza." The flu seemed to be particularly lethal for otherwise healthy young adults, many of whom suffocated from the buildup of liquids in their lungs.

In the United States, the first reported cases surfaced at an Army camp in Kansas as World War I began winding down. The virus quickly spread among soldiers at U.S. camps and in the trenches of Europe. It paralyzed many communities as it circled the world.

In the District of Columbia, the first recorded influenza death came on Sept. 21, 1918. The victim, a 24-year-old railroad worker, had been exposed in New York four days earlier. The flu swept through the nation's capital, which had attracted thousands of soldiers and war workers. By the time the pandemic had subsided, at least 30,000 people had become ill and 3,000 had died in the city.

Among the infected was Sardo, who was 6 years old at the time.

He remembers little of his illness but recalls that his mother was terrified.

"They kept me well separated from everybody," said Sardo, who lived with his parents, two brothers and three other family members. His family quarantined him in the bedroom he had shared with his brother. Everyone in the family wore masks.

The city began shutting down. The federal government staggered its hours to limit crowding on the streets and on streetcars. Commissioners overseeing the district closed schools in early October, along with playgrounds, theaters, vaudeville houses and "all places of amusement." Dances and other social gatherings were banned.

The commissioners asked clergy to cancel church services because the pandemic was threatening the "machinery of the federal government," The Washington Star newspaper reported at the time. Pastors protested.

"There was a feeling that they couldn't turn to God, other than in prayer," Sardo said. "They liked the feeling of going to church, and they were forbidden."

The flu's spread and the ensuing restrictions "made everybody afraid to go see anybody," he said.

"It changed a lot of society," Sardo said. "We became more individualistic."

In a list of 12 rules to prevent the disease's spread, the Army's surgeon general wrote that people should "avoid needless crowding," open windows and "breathe deeply" when the air is "pure" and "wash your hands before eating."

One slogan was, "Cover up each cough and sneeze. If you don't, you'll spread the disease."

Those who were healthy wore masks when venturing outside. People who were known to be infected were threatened with a $50 fine if they were seen in public. Sardo remembers people throwing buckets of water with disinfectant on their sidewalks to wash away germs from people spitting on the street.

At the time, rumors swirled that the Germans had spread the disease — which Sardo did not believe.

A second flu survivor, 99-year-old Ruth Marshall, says she, her two sisters and a brother came down with what they thought was a cold. Then the fever struck and the illness became severe, she said.

Marshall, who lived just steps from the Capitol at the time, said the influenza deaths reported in the newspapers came as a surprise.

"We never thought we were going to die. We did pretty good — a lot of prayers," she said.

Others were not so fortunate. As the death toll started to mount, there was a shortage of coffins. Funeral homes could not keep up. Sardo's father, who owned William H. Sardo & Co., and other funeral-home directors turned to soldiers for help embalming and digging thousands of graves.

Talk of the threat of another pandemic brings back memories for Sardo, who says he has gotten a flu shot every year they are available.

"It scares the hell out of me. It does," Sardo said.

Health and Human Services Department pandemic flu preparation: http://www.pandemicflu.gov/
GM
GM, 150 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Thu 21 Dec 2006
at 14:19
  • msg #36

What Was it Like in the 1920s?

This is an interesting look into the past...

What Was it Like in the 1920s?

Salem State College
http://www.salemstate.edu/150/150-the1920s.php

Music
"Always", Irving Berlin
"Carolina In The Morning", Gus Kahn & Walter Donaldson
"5 Foot 2, Eyes of Blue", Ray Henderson
"Don't Bring Lulu", Rose, Brown & Henderson

Literature
Ulysses, James Joyce
Autobiography of Mark Twain, Mark Twain
Ulysses, James Joyce
Women in Love, D. H. Lawrence
A Passage to India, E. M. Forster
Main Street, Sinclair Lewis
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Voyages of Dr. Doolittle, Hugh Lofting
An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser
The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton

Entertainment
Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments"
First successful talkie, "The Jazz Singer" with Al Jolson
Marx Brothers take to the vaudeville stage in "The Cocoanuts"

Average Salary: $1,324.00

Cost of Living
Loaf of Bread: .09¢
Gallon of Milk: .56¢
Dozen Eggs: .44¢
Average House: $7,809.00
Average Car: $265.00
Gallon of Gas: .22¢

World Events
Civil War continues in Russia. Ottoman Empire is dissolved. Britain institutes unemployment insurance. League of Nations meets in Geneva. Southern Ireland granted dominion status and Sinn Fein founds the IRA. Fascist Benito Mussolini named dictator of Italy. Egypt has new ruler on throne, Faud I, and old ruler, King Tut, dug-up. The USSR is formed. Hitler and Nazi Party seize Munich; he goes to jail and pens Mein Kampf. Japan suffers terrible earthquakes and fires. Lenin dies and Russia is headed by Stalin-led trio, later by Stalin only. France holds the first Winter Olympics and debuts Art Deco. Chiang Kai Shek rises to power in China as does Emperor Hirohito in Japan. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes becomes Yugoslavia. A German-U.S. friendship treaty is signed. Greece's King George II is overthrown by army/republic.

U.S. History
"The Roaring Twenties". Nineteenth Amendment grants the vote to women. Warren Harding becomes 29th president. League of Women Voters and the ACLU are founded. Prohibition goes into effect. Lincoln Memorial opens on the Potomac. Pres. Harding dies in office, Coolidge finishes term and is then re-elected. Macy's launches Thanksgiving Day parade. Clarence Darrow defends John Scopes in the Scopes "Monkey" Trial. Gangster Al Capone rules in Chicago. Literary Renaissance with novels by Sinclair Lewis, Langston Hughes, Willa Cather, Ernest Hemingway, Gertude Stein, and many more. The Delta Queen steamboat begins running. In the Spirit of St. Louis Charles Lindbergh flies over the Atlantic; first telephone calls are made under. Herbert Hoover is elected. Wall Street crashes on Black Friday - 10/29/29 - ushering in the Great Depression. The World's Fair opens in Chicago. Babe Ruth becomes all-time home run champ with number 120. J. Edgar Hoover assumes leadership of the FBI. Native Americans are proclaimed US citizens.

At Salem Normal School
The Debating Club is formed. In 1921, the men's athletics teams resume competitive play. This is the first year since the start of World War I that there has been a sufficient number of men in the school to put an athletic team on the field. During 1924, the Women's Athletic Association is formed. The first issue of "The Log," the student newspaper, is issued. The Special Education department is established.

Toys and Games
The pogo stick and Tootsie Toys are the newest toys.
GM
GM, 151 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Thu 21 Dec 2006
at 15:58
  • msg #37

Fashions of the 1920s. Links!!!

A link to fashions of the 1920's:
http://costumes.org/history/100pages/1920links.htm
Too many links to go through, actually dozens, but here are a few to tease you with!!!

A Timeline of Costume History the 1920's:
http://costumes.org/history/10...linepages/1920s1.htm

A History of Fashion and Dress from WWI to WWII:
http://costumes.org/classes/fashiondress/WW1toWW2.htm

The Illustrated Milliner June 1923
http://costumes.org/history/100pages/illusmilliner.htm

The Costume Gallery Research Library the 1920's:
http://www.costumegallery.com/1920.htm

Beauty in 1920:
http://beauty.about.com/od/beautyin1920/

Fashion in 1920's:
http://www.authentichistory.co.../1920sfashion01.html

A Year in Fashion: 1920 - Flapper Era Fashions - Evening Wear
http://www.onlinecostumeball.c...omen/EveningWear.htm

Fashion & Style » The 1920's-1930's » *20's Fashion*
http://adorevintage.proboards3...mp;thread=1122285967
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:10, Thu 11 Jan 2007.
GM
GM, 177 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Fri 12 Jan 2007
at 03:10
  • msg #38

Payphones until 1920's

Payphones were available in the 1920's:
http://www.telephonetribute.com/payphones.html

In 1889, the first public coin telephone was installed by inventor William Gray at a bank in Hartford, Conn. It was a "postpay" machine (coins were deposited after the call was placed). Gray's previous claim to fame was inventing the inflatable chest protector for baseball.

In 1898, the Western Electric No. 5 Coin Collector, the first automatic "prepay" station, went into use in Chicago. The depositing of coins before placing a call would gradually become the norm in pay phones until the introduction of "dial tone first" service in 1966.

By 1902, there were 81,000 pay telephones in the United States.

In 1905, the first outdoor Bell System coin telephone was installed on a Cincinnati street. It wasn't an instant hit; people apparently were reluctant to make private calls on a public thoroughfare.

In 1910, Western Electric and Gray Telephone Pay Station Co. signed an agreement for Gray to manufacture coin collectors for the Bell System using both Gray and Western Electric patents.

The result of that agreement, the 50A coin collector, went into production in 1911. By the end of 1912, 25,000 of these coin telephones had been ordered for New York City alone. The 50A model had three coin slots--for nickels, dimes and quarters --and was a "prepay" machine. The basic design, though often modified, was so practical and reliable it remained in production until 1964.
GM
GM, 190 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Fri 19 Jan 2007
at 14:07
  • msg #40

John Calvin Coolidge, Jr.

Our president!
John Calvin Coolidge, Jr.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Coolidge

http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/cc30.html

Moving Images of Calvin Coolidge - Internet Archive:
http://www.archive.org/details/coolidge_1924

Recorded voice of Calvin Coolidge:
http://vvl.lib.msu.edu/showfin...?findaidid=CoolidgeC

All 6 State of the Union Addresses:
http://www.usa-presidents.info/union/coolidge-1.html
http://www.usa-presidents.info/union/coolidge-2.html
http://www.usa-presidents.info/union/coolidge-3.html
http://www.usa-presidents.info/union/coolidge-4.html
http://www.usa-presidents.info/union/coolidge-5.html
http://www.usa-presidents.info/union/coolidge-6.html

Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation:
http://www.calvin-coolidge.org/

Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum
http://www.forbeslibrary.org/coolidge/coolidge.shtml

Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 1919-1921
http://www.mass.gov/statehouse/massgovs/ccoolidge.htm

The Library of Congress:
Prosperity and Thrift: The Coolidge Era and the Consumer Economy, 1921-1929
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/coolhtml/coolhome.html

Calvin Coolidge Links:
http://www.davidpietrusza.com/coolidge-links.html

Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. by Calvin Coolidge
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/13748

Extensive essay on Calvin Coolidge and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs:
http://www.millercenter.virgin...anpresident/coolidge
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:27, Fri 19 Jan 2007.
Paul Savage
player, 8 posts
Sat 20 Jan 2007
at 03:31
  • msg #41

1920's Payphones

http://www.oldphoneman.com/ForSale23D.htm

This was a common payphone in the 20's.
This message was last updated by the GM at 00:19, Mon 05 Feb 2007.
GM
GM, 214 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Sun 4 Feb 2007
at 19:00
  • msg #42

Hurricanes in Miami

Paul Savage provided these links:
This would happen in 1926, but then again... We can write our own history. *grin*

http://www.fpl.com/storm/1926_hurricane.shtml

From Paul: And this North Miami Beach website has some history, it's interesting the speedway was built, had one race, and then was destroyed by the hurricane.

http://www.citynmb.com/index.a...10-8BCC-F9503851CDF3}

Thanks, Paul!
This message was lightly edited by the GM at 00:17, Mon 05 Feb 2007.
GM
GM, 215 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Mon 5 Feb 2007
at 00:40
  • msg #43

Pulp Links

Thanks to Lil, here are a few cool Pulp links...

THE PULP AVENGERS: Game Mastering Pulp Adventures in the 1930s and 1940s.
Brian Christopher Misiaszek's introduction to the Pulps:
http://www.fantasylibrary.com/lounge/pulpavengers.htm

The Fedora Chronicles!
It’s the intention of The Fedora Chronicles to provide our readers with news and updates of the latest releases of books, movies and music - from, about or reminiscent of The Golden Era and World War II.
Articles may include the subject of (but are not limited to) historical events during the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s, the events leading to and during the Second World War, and current events and how they relate or differ from those events of our favorite era.
http://thefedorachronicles.com/index.html

Pulp Project 1557:
http://project1557.wetpaint.com/page/Catalog%20Index
This is a wetpaint based on the original project of:
Whole Pulp Catalog
http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/p...pulp_project1557.cfm
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:45, Mon 05 Feb 2007.
Paul Savage
player, 13 posts
Fri 9 Feb 2007
at 05:07
  • msg #44

Re: Pulp Links

GM
GM, 225 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Wed 14 Feb 2007
at 17:28
  • msg #45

Re: Pulp Links

Molly found this one! Thanks!

http://fcit.usf.edu/florida/vr/miami/miami.htm

Virtual Reality Movies: Miami
Each panorama movie is available in two file sizes. The small movies display at the same size on your computer screen as the large movies, but the small movies do not allow you to zoom in on as much detail as the large movies do. Most of the color movies are a full circle (360 degrees). The black and white VRs are approximately 180 degree views.
GM
GM, 239 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Tue 6 Mar 2007
at 17:52
  • msg #46

The Collaborative Repository of Pulp Information

I am putting the word out for everyone to visit the site:

The owners of the site would like to have some assistance compiling Pulp Project 1557
< http://project1557.wetpaint.com/ >, which was intended to be "The Collaborative Repository of Pulp Information for Pulp RPG GMs and Players."  Ideally, they'd love to have all of the information located in one neat place where players and GM's could go to first, without having to scour all over the place.

Please check it out and see what is available. Help support their site!
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:45, Thu 08 Mar 2007.
GM
GM, 263 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Fri 6 Apr 2007
at 19:18
  • msg #47

Re: The Collaborative Repository of Pulp Information

GM
GM, 339 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Sun 3 Jun 2007
at 00:41
  • msg #49

Current local times and distance from Miami

Current local times and distance from Miami
http://www.timeanddate.com/wor...distances.html?n=156

Miami is 90 miles to Havana, Cuba.
This message was last edited by the GM at 12:47, Tue 30 Oct 2007.
GM
GM, 356 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Mon 11 Jun 2007
at 12:59
  • msg #50

Old Hialeah, Old Miami and Old South Florida

Memories of Old Hialeah, Old Miami and Old South Florida Photo by Don Boyd

http://www.pbase.com/donboyd/memories
http://www.pbase.com/donboyd/memories_1920to1929
GM
GM, 362 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Thu 14 Jun 2007
at 13:37
  • msg #51

The Miami Police Department 1925-1945

Miami-Dade Police Website:
http://www.miamidade.gov/mdpd/
http://www.miamidade.gov/info/...ami-dade_history.asp

Other Links:

City of Miami Beach Website:
http://www.miamibeachfl.gov/

University of Miami:
http://www6.miami.edu/UMH/CDA/UMH_Main/
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:19, Sun 25 Jan 2015.
GM
GM, 363 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Thu 14 Jun 2007
at 14:05
  • msg #52

Looking Back

Looking Back:
http://com.miami.edu/workshop/1999/page10.htm

1900-1924:
By Sofia Santana
Sunset High School

The first World War was fought, plastic was developed, a world-wide flu epidemic  killed millions and women had earned the right to vote. Though much was going on in the nation, the early period of South Florida reflected a beginning for the city of Miami, which incorporated in 1896.

Thousands of people moved to South Florida in the early 1900s. The need for more land became apparent. The ãLand Boomä of the 1920s drew people from all over the country, hoping to buy land and selling to get rich quick. The communities of Miami Shores, Hialeah, Miami Springs, Boca Raton and Opa-Locka were among those that developed during the 'Land Boom.'

Tourism also blossomed in the 1920s as the Miccosukee Indians began to make their presence known in the Everglades by making crafts and wrestling alligators for their share of the tourism industry. Florida also became the nationâs winter playground, with its beaches, fancy hotels and big-time entertainers.

The population did not face the cultural diversity that South Florida is now famous for. In the 1900s, Hispanics as an ethnic group were in the minority. The black community was the leader in the labor force for building Miami, though blacks were mostly confined to a northwest section of Miami that is now Overtown.

George Merrick had come down from Pennsylvania with the dream of building a 'city beautiful' in South Florida with the 3,000 acres of swampland his father left him. The area grew to be Coral Gables.

Henry Flagler planned and built a railroad from St. Augustine to Miami. He also built an overseas railroad to Key West that was later destroyed in the 'Labor Day Hurricane' of 1935.


1925-1949:
By Laura Esguerra
Coral Gables High School

The Roaring Twenties were Miami's boom time. Midway through 1925 Miami became a great real estate market. Land sales - legal and illegal - were being conducted so briskly that lawmakers passed an ordinance forbidding the sale of property on the streets.

A gala premiere on Feb. 18, 1926, marked the opening of the Olympia Theater in  Miami's first air-conditioned structure. At the same time, crowds were drawn to Hialeah to watch the Spanish game of jai alai. The Hialeah Race Track opened in 1932. The countryâs fourth miniature golf course was built in Hollywood.

The great boom also brought a bang. A killer hurricane blew through South Florida Sept. 17-18, 1926. More than 200 people were killed by the stormâs fury. The University of Miami, however, stood strong and opened its doors two weeks later.

By 1927, the aviation industry had emerged. Pan American Airways moved to Miami in 1928, and by the 1930s its Clipper Ships dropped anchor at their new home in Dinner Key.

"Scarface" Al Capone settled in Palm Island in 1928. Police and politicians tried to run him out of Miami, but his lawyers stopped the harassment. Although the federal government convicted him of income tax evasion in 1931, organized crime already had taken over Miamiâs gambling, prostitution and alcohol during Prohibition.

The Dade County courthouse opened in 1928. Standing 360 feet, it was the tallest building in the South. The building also was home to city of Miami offices, and both the city and county jails.

Florida tried desperately to keep pouring in.  Bathing suits and liberal divorce laws attracted people to South Florida.  Today's Orange Bowl Festival football game was created in 1933 by civic leaders and dubbed it the Palm Festival.

Tourists' numbers began to dwindle and Miami became a haven for Cuban exiles in the 1930s.  Franklin Roosevelt's 'New Deal' also swept through Miami. The Civilian Conservation Corps created Greynolds and Matheson Hammock parks, and David Fairchild Tropical Garden in 1932.

After the Japanese dropped the bomb on Pearl Harbor, local leaders decided Miami was the ideal area for training military personnel. Federal dollars poured in. In 1942, after German submarines torpedoed tankers off the Florida coast, Miami was made the Navy's Gulf Sea Frontier headquarters.  Today's Metro Zoo was Richmond Field, a naval air station.  The Army Air Force took over the apartment houses on Miami Beach.  The Biltmore and Nautilus hotels were converted into military hospitals. When the war ended in August 1945, Miamians celebrated on Flagler Street.  That same year Virginia Key Beach was given to African-Americans.  Once again Miami became a national resort.
GM
GM, 364 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Thu 14 Jun 2007
at 14:27
  • msg #53

Florida land boom of the 1920s

http://www.answers.com/topic/f...nd-boom-of-the-1920s

The U.S. state of Florida's first real estate bubble burst in 1925, leaving behind entire new cities and the remains of failed development projects such as Isola di Lolando in north Biscayne Bay. The preceding land boom shaped Florida's future for decades and created entire new cities out of virgin swamp land that remain today. The story includes many parallels to the modern real estate boom, including the forces of outside speculators, hurricanes, easy credit access for buyers, and rapidly-appreciating property values.

By the 1920s, economic prosperity had set the conditions for a real estate bubble in Florida. Miami had an image as a tropical paradise and outside investors across the United States began taking an interest in Miami real estate. Due in part to the publicity talents of audacious developers like Carl G. Fisher of Miami Beach, famous for purchasing a huge lighted billboard in New York's Times Square proclaiming "It's June In Miami", property prices rose rapidly on speculation and a land and development boom ensued.


SPECIAL NOTE: Carl G. Fisher was the original owner of Fisher Island, who sold it to the Vanderbilt's in 1925!!!


By January 1925, investors were beginning to read negative press about Florida investments. Forbes magazine warned that Florida land prices were based solely upon the expectation of finding a customer, not upon any reality of land value. New York bankers and the IRS both began to scrutinize the Florida real estate boom as a giant sham operation. Speculators intent on flipping properties at huge profits began to have a difficult time finding new buyers. The inevitable bursting of the real estate bubble had begun.

On January 10, the Prinz Valdemar, a 241-foot, steel-hulled schooner, sank in the mouth of the turning basin of Miami harbor. The old Danish warship had been on its way to becoming a floating hotel.

The railroads, already strained by the burden of transporting both food and building supplies, had already begun raising shipping rates. When the sea route to Miami was blocked the city's image as a tropical paradise began to crumble. In his book "Miami Millions", Kenneth Ballinger wrote that the Prinz Valdemar's capsize saved a lot of people a lot of money by revealing cracks in the Miami facade. "In the enforced lull which accompanied the efforts to unstopper the Miami Harbor," he wrote, "many a shipper in the North and many a builder in the South got a better grasp of what was actually taking place here."

In October 1925, in an effort to improve Florida's clogged rail system, the railroad companies placed an embargo on all railway goods other than food, which further contributed to Florida's skyrocketing cost of living. New buyers failed to arrive, and the property price escalation that fueled the land boom stopped. The days of Miami properties being bought and sold at auction as many as ten times in one day were over. The first Florida real estate bubble had burst.

The next year brought the 1926 Miami Hurricane, which drove audacious Biscayne Bay development projects such as Isola di Lolando into bankruptcy. The 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane and the Wall Street Crash of 1929 continued the catastrophic downward economic trend, and the Florida land boom was officially over as the Great Depression began. The depression and the devastating arrival of the Mediterranean fruit fly a year later destroyed both the tourist and citrus industries upon which Florida depended. In a few short years, an idyllic tropical paradise had been transformed into a bleak, humid remote area with few economic prospects. Florida's economy would not recover until World War II.
GM
GM, 365 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Thu 14 Jun 2007
at 14:42
  • msg #54

Miami: One Hundred Years of History

Miami: One Hundred Years of History - HISTORICAL MUSEUM OF SOUTHERN FLORIDA

http://www.historical-museum.org/history/sfhm242.htm

Miami was already booming when the Roaring Twenties began. The city’s population had climbed to nearly 30,000, a 440 percent increase over the figure for 1910. It represented the largest per capita increase of any municipality in the nation. Its expanding borders now extended several miles in each direction beyond the original parameters. At the outset of the 1920s, the Miami Herald marveled at the “astounding growth of Miami as a tourist center.”

Increasing numbers of tourists remained in the area after the winter season had ended, many becoming permanent residents. But this growth would pale by comparison with what lay ahead—the onset of the great real estate boom of the mid-1920s.

The Land Boom
Speculation brought people from all parts of the nation to Florida in quest of quick wealth in the overheated Florida real estate market and Miami was its storm center. In the late summer of 1925, as the boom neared its zenith, nearly 1,000 subdivisions were under construction in Miami and its environs. Speculators were selling lots several miles from the city’s center for fantastic profits. Beautiful developments bearing a Spanish eclectic or Mediterranean Revival style of architecture arose in areas that had only recently been farms or woodland. Most prominent here were the sparkling new municipalities of Coral Gables and Miami Shores.

The annexation of Lemon City, Coconut Grove, and other historic communities and neighborhoods in 1925 led to the expansion of the city of Miami from 13 to 43 square miles. This event, together with a population that unofficially stood in excess of 100,000 by 1925, was indicative of Miami’s emerging status as a metropolitan area.

The boom was accompanied by a breakdown in law and order. Bootleggers sold liquor obtained from the nearby Bahama Islands or from local moonshine stills to thirsty “boomers” and natives oblivious to Prohibition and its enforcement. Owing in part to the wrenching changes that accompanied the boom, the rate of violent deaths (homicides, suicides, and accidents) for Miami and Dade County in the middle years of the 1920s, was greater than at anytime since the state of Florida began record keeping.

And the Bust
The boom began dissipating in 1926. Wary speculators backed off from further investment in light of inflation, and a series of setbacks brought construction to a standstill. The spring and summer of 1926 witnessed a mass exodus of speculators. The boom was over.

In September, a hurricane with winds of 125 miles per hour smashed into the Miami area, with a portion of the eye passing over downtown. More than 100 Miamians and Dade Countians lost their lives in the storm. Thousands of homes were destroyed. Unfinished subdivisions were leveled. The entire region was plunged into a severe economic depression three years before the rest of the nation.

Miami weathered the Great Depression of the 1930s better than many other communities. This was due in part to the advent of commercial aviation—Pan American Airways and Eastern Airlines established headquarters in the Magic City—and a resurgent tourism in the second half of the decade. Tourism was pegged to special events and activities such as the Orange Bowl Festival, which began in the mid-1930s, and became a popular tourist draw.

New Deal programs put more than 16,000 Miamians to work, building fire stations, schools, and post offices. The federal government was also responsible, in this era for the creation of Liberty Square, one of the nation’s first black public housing projects. It arose in Liberty City, a new African-American community in the city’s northwest sector.
GM
GM, 366 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Thu 14 Jun 2007
at 14:46
  • msg #55

Panorama photos of Miami

Miami Florida Panoramic Photo Gallery - Panoramic Images of Miami

http://www.hellomiami.com/Photos_Panoramic.Cfm
GM
GM, 367 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Thu 14 Jun 2007
at 14:48
  • msg #56

Mr. Miami Beach - Carl G. Fisher!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/m...ore/description.html

A film, The American Experience...

In 1925, Miami Beach was the hottest spot in America. Thousands flocked to this narrow spit of land between Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean to be part of the trendy vacation scene -- grand hotels, bathing beauties, speedboat races, polo matches. Yet just fifteen years earlier, this magical playground by the sea did not exist -- not the hotels, not the mansions, not even the ground it was built on. Everything -- even the brand new paved road to Florida -- was the inspiration of one extraordinary man.

"Mr. Miami Beach" is the story of Carl Graham Fisher, a millionaire promoter and entrepreneur from Indiana who risked everything he owned to turn a thousand acres of Florida swampland into an American Riviera. Fisher's Miami Beach was just one of many fantastic obsessions in a life lived close to the edge. A fast-living, speed-craving dreamer who raced to realize his many improbable ideas, Fisher lived life at full tilt until it was cut short by drink, bad luck, and natural disaster.

"This is a classic American story," says producer Mark Davis. "Fisher was a true character of his time -- a self-made man who embodied the early twentieth-century notion that anything is possible. He was obsessed with speed and fast living. For him, life was just one hell of an exciting proposition."

Fisher was a born promoter. After his alcoholic father disappeared, Carl left school at age 12 to help support the family as a railway newsboy. Sales shot up when he began flashing a photo of a naked woman under his apron.

Over time, Fisher's salesmanship grew more revved-up and fine-tuned. By age 20 his daredevil stunts as a bicycle racer had made him the most successful bicycle dealer in town. Later, he promoted his automobile dealership by floating over Indianapolis in a car suspended from a helium balloon.

Stunts like these caught the eye of a local girl, Jane Watts. It was love at first sight. He courted her in his flashy roadster, and they married in 1909. She was 15; he was 35.

"He was all speed," Jane Fisher wrote later. "I don't believe he ever thought in terms of money. He made millions, but they were incidental. He often said, 'I just like to see the dirt fly.'"

Fisher loved the automobile and believed it would become an American institution. He made a fortune manufacturing the first bright headlights for cars, then put his tremendous energy into the construction of an automobile race track -- a concept few thought had any merit -- and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was born. Later Fisher helped launch the Lincoln Highway, the first coast-to-coast paved road from New York to San Francisco, and the Dixie Highway, which led conveniently from the upper Midwest to Miami.

At the age of 40 he discovered Florida, and poured his considerable fortune into the creation of Miami Beach. To the astonishment of the locals, he dredged up sand from Biscayne Bay to fill in the swampland, shipped in hundreds of tons of topsoil from the Everglades, and then began to build fantastic hotels with polo grounds, yacht clubs, and golf courses on his new waterfront property.

"It was a world to suit himself," says Helen Muir, a friend of the Fishers, "with more imagination than I can even think of anybody else having at the time. He thought so big you wonder where it sprang from."

To attract attention to his development, Fisher brought in a circus elephant, imported a polo team from England, dressed young women in risque bathing suits, and started taking pictures.

"The national press just ate that stuff up," says Howard Kleinberg, a columnist for the Miami Herald. "You couldn't pick up a paper in the United States without seeing a picture of either the elephant or some group of bathing beauties standing by the beach.... Miami Beach all of a sudden became the place to go."

The promotion of Fisher's tropical paradise helped spark the national hysteria of the Florida land boom. Six million people poured into Florida in three years. By the end of 1925, Fisher was worth more than fifty million dollars, but his personal life was in a shambles. Devastated by the death of his only child in 1921, Carl became a heavy drinker and womanizer. In 1926 his marriage to Jane ended in divorce.

Desperate for a new venture, Fisher borrowed heavily against his Florida assets and set about building the "Miami Beach of the North" at Montauk Point on the tip of Long Island. But then a devastating hurricane struck Miami Beach in 1926, and Fisher's financial house of cards began to collapse.

"His marriage is broken, the boom is busted, the hurricane has caused him tremendous damage, he's got cash flow problems. And as a result, at the end of 1926, this man was not on good footing, emotionally or financially," says Kleinberg.

The stock market crash in 1929 sealed Fisher's fate. By 1933 he was wiped out. Living alone in a small Miami Beach house, Fisher faded into obscurity and died in 1939. A simple statue in a Miami Beach park is the only reminder of his legacy.
GM
GM, 375 posts
Welcome to Adventure!
Mon 18 Jun 2007
at 19:34
  • msg #57

Trulia Hindsight

An interesting tool! Trulia Hindsight Maps of Properties Through Time
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Trulia Hindsight is an animated map of homes in the United States from Trulia. The animations use the year the properties were built to show the growth of streets, neighborhoods and cities over time.

http://hindsight.trulia.com/

Focus on Miami! 1920 to present!!!

http://hindsight.trulia.com/ma...=built&mix=0.500

It starts out at South Beach.
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