The Summer of '46

Sunland Tribune Volume 22 Article 12 1996 The Summer of '46 Gary R. Mormino Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/sunlandtribune Recommended Citation Mormino, Gary R. (1996) "The Summer of '46," Sunland Tribune: Vol. 22 , Article 12. Available at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/sunlandtribune/vol22/iss1/12 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sunland Tribune by an authorized editor of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE SUMMER OF '46 By Gary R. Mormino Lafayette Street looking eastward in December 1946. In the foreground stands the Lafayette Hotel. Traveling eastward, the traveler encountered the Knight and Wall hardware building, the Bay View Hotel, and Tampa City Hall. — Hampton Dunn Collection, Courtesy University of South Florida Special Collections It was the summer of our discontent. In that failure to fund schools threatened the Washington, a Democratic President hurled future of the state. And in the worst cut of thunderbolts against a "do nothing" all, Tampeños complained that the classic Republican Congress, while the GOP main- Cuban sandwich had gone to white-bread tained that the liberal Democratic Party had hell. Yet many Americans contend, that like lost touch with mainstream America. In the film produced that year, it was the best Hillsborough County, residents cursed Dale year of our lives. It was the summer of 1946. Mabry Highway while abandoning mass transit. July rains swamped the Interbay and Tampa struggled to redefine itself. Everyone Sulphur Springs but the first sign of summer still recognized Tampa as "Cigar City," but practice augured promise for football fans. the fabled cigar industry never recaptured its Boosters unveiled a new bowl game, sure to lost markets. World War II had hooked a put Tampa on the map. An epidemic struck new generation on cigarettes. But Tampans young Floridians while critics prophesied wished not to dwell on the past. In the summer of '46, Americans were bent on flounder sold for 35 cents/lb. and large establishing new lives. V-J Day was a shrimp at 65 cents/lb.1 memory. New priorities demanded attention: everywhere, veterans looked for jobs, Nothing is more illustrative of 1946 Tampa enrolled in college, and built homes. A than the neighborhood grocery. Tampans heady optimism prevailed, punctuated by the purchased foodstuffs from neighborhood Baby Boom. Veterans quickly became part markets and the county supported fully 500 of Tampa's leadership. individual stores. El Recurso Co-Operative Grocery, Mench's Complete Food Store on Across America, a grateful America offered Grand Central (now Kennedy Blvd.), and laurels for Ulysses, electing war heroes to Hosegood Grocery Company at Highland public office. In 1946, Bostonians elected supplied community needs. In addition, the John E Kennedy to Congress. In Miami, "the city supported eighteen coffee roasters, Fighting Leatherneck," George Smathers when a cup of coffee (hold the mocha decaf) also went to Washington. Tampa's war sold for a nickel.2 heroes, Sam Gibbons and Julian Lane, achieved later success in the political arena. In 1946, Tampans enjoyed an Indian Summer devoid of franchised restaurants, Returning veterans, touched by the genuine interstate highways, and shopping malls. camaraderie of the foxhole and buoyed by Shops and businesses tended to be small, the optimism of victory and prosperity, family-run affairs. To see a hint of the future eagerly joined voluntary associations, rein- shopping center, one drove across the Gandy vigorating the American Legion, the Moose Bridge to St. Petersburg's Webb's City. Lodge, and Knights of Columbus. Begun by a modern Horatio Alger, "Doc" Webb brought his marketing flair to Tampa In the year following the end of WWII, Bay in the 1920s. Shoppers waited in lines consumers confronted a confusing world of for bargains and entertainment at the "The free markets and price controls. Americans World's Most Unusual Drug Store," a scrambled frantically to find suitable sprawling complex of stores. Webb's ability housing, a new car, or even a T-bone steak. to deal in huge volumes allowed him to Americans discovered in the summer of '46 secure "scarce" goods in the summer of '46. that reconverting a wartime economy from In just a few hours on July 25th, 30,000 guns to butter was excruciatingly slow. shoppers stripped the counters of 3,600 When local merchants located a horde of pounds of oleo margarine, 8,000 cans of butter—even priced at $1 a pound— peaches, and 4,800 boxes of pudding.3 shoppers snapped up supplies. In September the Tribune reported, "Tampa Is Nearly Fifty years later, American presidents and Meatless, Soapless." Housewives who candidates demand the end of big frequented Frank Pardo's Market on Eighth government, but in 1946 citizens hailed the Avenue or Snow Avenue's Woodward GI Bill of Rights as the greatest piece of Grocery recoiled in horror to discover legislation in American history. Passed at "dressed and drawn" fryers at 64 cents/lb. the end of the war, the GI Bill of Rights Turkeys at the downtown City Market rewrote the American dream, enabling a fetched a mind-boggling 95 cents/lb. Patrons generation of veterans to finance a home and of Tampa's Fulton Fish Market at Platt and receive a college education. Across Florida, Magnolia found more tempting bargains: veterans poured into near empty universities, In November 1946, the DeSoto Hotel occupied the block astride Marion Street, between Zack and Polk. Built in the 1890s, the DeSoto stood until 1955. The site is now occupied by the Robert Timberlake Federal Building. — Hampton Dunn Collection, Courtesy University of South Florida Special Collections so overwhelming the University of Florida new homes, the value of older and that surplus students enrolled at a nearby deteriorating homes in Ybor City and Tampa military field near the Florida State College Heights fell as young families fled the old for Women. In 1947 FSCW became Florida neighborhoods for the new American dream. State University. The University of Tampa, Post-war housing abandoned the bungalow threadbare from the lean years, welcomed a and up-scale Mediterranean Revival styles. record 900 students, most of them veterans. A new architecture, notably the California-- In Temple Terrace, Florida Christian style, concrete-block, one-story tract house, College opened its doors.4 predominated. These homes emphasized economy and efficiency, and proved readily The GI Bill fueled a housing boom that adaptable to the residential air-conditioning reshaped our cities and expanded the revolution of the 1950s and 1960s. In 1946 suburbs. The housing boom unwittingly Jim Walter began marketing shell homes in undermined older neighborhoods. Since the Tampa, introducing the idea of modular GI Bill only subsidized the construction of construction to the housing market. Critics lamented the absence of sidewalks and front federal bureaucracy, but routinely begged porches in many of these new developments. for more of the economic resources. Many families found it cheaper to buy a Pundits called this irresistible alliance of home rather than renting. In 1946, a universities, defense contractors, three-bedroom home in Forest Hills went for congressmen, ex-generals and lobbyists, the $5850. A home in Hyde Park, "splendidly military-industrial complex. A resurgent located...lovely condition" sold for $9,000. federal government had built the runways A beachfront lot in Pinellas County went and hangars of Drew Field, soon to become begging for $4,000. In St. Petersburg, the Tampa International Air Field. Washington city offered free lots to veterans.5 underwrote the lucrative shipbuilding con- The GI Bill helped to democratize Tampa, tracts at Hookers Point, the mega-complex but it also reinforced racial and class of MacDill Army Air Field, and the facilities barriers. For decades, Ybor City and West at Bay Pines Veterans Hospital. A Cold Tampa had housed the great majority of the War, growing hotter because of Winston city's Cubans, Spaniards, and Italians—" Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech and Latin" in the vernacular. But 1946 witnessed U.S.-Soviet skirmishes, ensured a steady the first great breakout, as young Latins, stream of defense dollars to bolster Florida's liberated by the war, moved to take citadel. advantage of new opportunities. Left behind were older and poorer residents. African New residents and newly affluent tourists Americans, who did not enjoy the liberty of raced toward Florida almost as quickly as unrestricted mobility, began moving into federal dollars. World War II had caused an Ybor City to fill the housing vacuum. The unprecedented upheaval in the Sunshine portents for the urban renewal of the 1960s State. But perhaps most dramatically, the had been foreshadowed in 1946. war lured millions of servicemen and travelers to Florida. The war meant, above Economically, Tampa struggled to find a all else, migration, movement, and mobility. new niche in the postwar world. Tampa Bay Between 1940 and 1947, 70 million and Florida braced for an economic boom Americans changed residences. The yet not experienced since the giddy 1920s. But unnamed Sun Belt had been discovered. the Tampa economy emerging from WWII differed dramatically from the city that made In 1946, Florida readied for the first wave of hand-rolled cigars famous. Changing tastes a tidal surge of retirees, tourists, and new and mechanization had greatly diminished families. In 1940, Florida's population had the importance of cigars to Tampa's not yet reached the two million mark. Yet by economic health. "The last of the 1950 demographers trumpeted Florida's Mohicans," as described by one aging spectacular growth, as the census recorded tabaquero, worked in the antiquated cigar almost three million residents, a 46% factories.

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