All posts by Sandy History Lady

Going to Press

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Yesterday, July 30, 2024, the Southeastern Printing proof of A Pictorial History of Palm City. Florida was signed and submitted for print. What a feat.

We think those who open the cover will pleased with what they discover.

Unlike when our other books were printed and we saw the big presses running and watched as book designer, Heidi Rich, approved each press sheet, the new book is out of our hands.

Twenty years ago Sandra Thurlow and Heidi Rich check print sheets at Southeastern Printing in
Golden Gate.

Southeastern Printing is no longer in their plant in Golden Gate on A1A, near the Yacht and Country Club of Stuart. The 100 year old company founded by Edwin Menninger has relocated to Hialeah, Florida, adjacent to downtown Miami.

https://www.seprint.com/

This shows a press operator in the Golden Gate plant.

Printing has changed dramatically since 1992 when my first book was printed. The quality diminished so slightly when the presses changed to digital, it was hardly noticeable

A metal printing plate for one side of a sixteen page signature for Stuart on the St. Lucie.

No longer are large metal sheets required. The process was so interesting to me that I kept one of the metal printing plates and a number press sheets.

The blank side of the metal plate looks like shiny aluminum. The antique Bill Greene Chevrolet yardstick shows the plate’s size.

When I pulled the big metal sheet out of the back of a closet so I could photograph it, a sound like thunder erupted. (Something like this must have been used to produce thunder in the era of radio dramas.)

Rolls of stored press sheets from books printed long ago.

Someday, I will throw out the paper and metal trail of book production but some copies of our books will endure long after I have to say “goodbye.”

Since this ad says “85 years,” this ad must have been published 15 years ago.

Southeastern Printing Company

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My latest book, A Pictorial History of Palm City, Florida authored with my daughter, Jacqui Thurlow Lippisch, has been submitted to Southeastern Printing.

Don Mader, owner and CEO of Southeastern Printing Company,

It is such a blessing that the best printing that money can buy is available through a printing company established in Stuart by Edwin Menninger. I say “Stuart,” rather than Martin County, because I learned yesterday from Southeastern’s owner and CEO, Don Mader, that the printing company is celebrating its centennial this year.  It was established before Martin County was created. I am so happy our Palm City pictorial is being printed by the company.

The employees of the Stuart News and Southeastern Printing Company pose in downtown Stuart in December 1955. Edwin Menninger is standing second from the left.

I am so happy our Palm City pictorial is being printed by the company that printed my other pictorial history books. The books are exquisite. When my first book Sewall’s Point— The History of a Peninsular Community on Florida’s Treasure Coast was first printed in 1992, Southeastern’s printing process was quite different. The world had turn to digital by the time my other books were printed.

My customer service representative , Bill Kuhn, and my book designer, Heidi Rich, look on as my book is being printed in the Southeastern plant in Golden Gate.

As I study Edwin Menninger’s contribution to the establishment, survival, and beautification of Martin County in preparation for the county’s centennial in 2025, I am truly amazed.

This is an early ad for what became Southeastern Printing.

As soon as Edwin Menninger set up the South Florida Developer, formerly published in West Palm Beach, in Stuart, he founded the printing business that became Southeastern Printing Company, Inc.

Edwin Menninger Made Martin County

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Edwin Menninger actually DID make Martin County. Without his newspaperman’s knowhow, Martin County could not have been created. He was a very smart man from a very smart family. His physiatrists father and brothers founded the world famous Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas.

Edwin Menninger was only 18 years old in this family photograph.

Rather than psychiatry, Edwin chose journalism. After graduation from Washburn University he studied and taught journalism at Columbia, University in New York City. He came to Florida to recover from the aftereffects of flu and bought the languishing South Florida Developer in West Palm Beach and brought it to Stuart. His arrival coincided with the movement for county division.

Ed Menninger knew how to stoke the fires. He knew what was going on behind the scenes because his host when he came to Florida, Henry Newton Gaines, whose daughter was married to his brother Karl, was a Palm Beach County Commissioner who became chairman of the first Martin County Board of County Commissioners.

Fifty Beautifully Preserved Photographs More Than a Century Old

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My husband and I were thrilled when he succeeded in purchasing an album filled with Harry Hill’s photography in an eBay auction in 2006.

The album was sold by Robi & Aundra-Antique Doctors in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, I called Aundra to see where they got the album but she could not remember.

Perry Corell photographed Indian River Drive when it was little more than a trail.

  I was surprised that some of the photographs in the album had “Corell” imbedded in them rather than Hill.

During my Hill research I contacted the Benson Memorial Library in Titusville, Pennsylvania where the Hills had lived before they moved to Florida. I asked the librarian if she could supply information on Corell. She shared clipping from a September 1, 1904 Titusville Herald, that told of Perry Corell an experienced photographer who selling his shop and moving to Ft. Pierce Florida, to join Harry Hill.  Both were “Titusville boys.”

Example of photographs in the album purchase in an eBay action.

The photograph on the left is the Planters Security Bank founded in Jensen in 1904. Today it is the location of Lure’s Bar and Grill. Some of the bricks from the old bank were used in the construction of the building that became Lure’s.

The photograph at right is pioneer home of George A. Saeger on Indian River Drive. He was a director of the Planters Security Bank so maybe that is why the photographs are beside each others. The home still stands at 4511 S. Indian River Drive.

The photograph at left was used for on a postcard.
One of the photographs in the album showed the desk in the Hill Studio.

The Hill Studio has been reconstructed in the St. Lucie County Regional History Center.

Regional History Center

Billy Bowlegs’ Family Portrait taken in Hill Studio

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One of the most important postcards in my collection is of Billy Bowlegs with his sister, Lucy Pearce and her daughters, Ada and Annie. I knew the portrait was the work of Harry Hill because his name is on another version of the postcard. The group portrait also appears on page 100 in A Portrait of St. Lucie County, Florida by Lucille Rieley Rights.

This full color postcard was published by H. & W.B. Drew Co. of Jacksonville, Florida.

Imagine my delight when among the images in a photo album my husband, Tom Thurlow, purchase on eBay in 2006 is one showing the Indians walking down a road after their photo session.

The Indian River can be seen in the distance.

I will write more about the album that contained the photograph of the Seminole Indians in Ft. Pierce in my next blog.

Another Hill Photograph Dust Jacket

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I used this antique postcard for the dust jacket of my third pictorial history book. Just as was true of Stuart on the St. Lucie, I did not realize the image was the product of the Florida Photographic Concern.

At the time I published my books I did not understand that postcard publishers, like Hugh C. Leighton, secured their images from the Hill family’s Florida Photographic Concern in Fort Pierce.

For this blog, I found the postcard I used and was shocked to see that the postcard had been cropped for the dust jacket. Below is the complete postcard. The Alfresco Hotel that appears at right was cropped off when the dust jacket was designed.

The Alfresco Hotel that appears at right was cropped off when the dust jacket was designed.

This Hugh C. Leighton Co. postcard shows the fine quality of printing done in Germany during the “Golden Age of Postcards.”

The Al Fresco Hotel, designed by Louis F. Kwiatkowski for John Jensen in 1893, burned in 1911 after being purchased by R. R. Ricou.

Amazing Appearance of 75 Hundred-Year-Old Florida Photographic Concern Prints

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I was blown away when Tootsie Kindberg started posting very old photos on Facebook. I knew they were the product of the Florida Photographic Concern. Strangely, most of them had strips of paper with captions typed on them glued at the bottom.

Why were they suddenly appearing? Where had they been? Why were there so many of them?

As it turned out Tootsie’s being a member of the Hillier family with connections to many other Florida Photographic Concern photographs was just a coincidence.

Tootsie had been a commercial photographer with access to a dark room. The photographs were put aside after an acquaintance gave them to her. Years passed and Tootsie not only forgot the photographs she forgot who had given them to her. When Tootsie came across the photograph recently she scanned them and shared them on Facebook.

In addition to the 75 photographs Tootsie posted an almost illegible, cellophane tape patched document that included a date.

THE HARD TO READ WORDS ARE TYPED BELOW

PHOTOGRAPHS

Made and secured especially for the consideration of the

United States Government Engineers

at the

PUBLIC HEARING IN STUART, FLA. JANUARY 16th, 1923

And present to them as part of the

facts, figures, data and reports

answering the questions they asked

to arrive at an opinion regarding

the recommendations of

GOVERNMENT AID FOR A DEEP WATER HARBOR HERE

Photographs were carefully limited to views in and near Stuart, Fla, and in the territory directly

Tributaries to the prospective Harbor here the North and

South Forks of the St. Lucie River, the Indian River close

to Stuart, the St. Lucie Control Canal, Salerno, Hobe Sound, Port Sewall and the Inlet.

The aim of the pictures is to back up the reports

A VERY LONG ARTICLE ABOUT A MEETING IN STUART OF DIGNITARIES AND US. ENGINEERS APPEARED INTHE STUART MESSENGER ON JANUARY 18, 1923.THIS IS WHERE THE PHOTOGRAPHS WERE SHOWN TO PROVE THE NEED FOR A PORT

The Hellier Family and the Florida Photographic Concern

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A previous blog focused on Walter Hellier’s book, Indian River Florida’s Treasure Coast filled with photographs from the Florida Photographic Concern

A series of curious coincidences brought me in contact with his granddaughters who had a fabulous collection Florida Photographic Concern photos. They allowed me to scan them. There were several dozen with a wide range of subjects but just a few could be directly .connected to today’s Martin County.

This Hill rattlesnake portrait could illustrate the many that once inhabited the St. Lucie River region.
 

 

This photograph was among the many Walter Hellier’s granddaughters let me scan. It has a local connection because the sailboat is flying the burgee of the Gilbert’s Bar Yacht Club that had a clubhouse south of the House of Refuge on Hutchinson Island. Many of our well-to-do pioneers were members.

Jim Hutchinson, Mary VanDerlofske and Susie Bryant

Walter Helier’s granddaughters, Marilyn VanDerlofske and Susan Bryant, residents of Palm Beach County, were happy to visit me because they could also visit my famous-artist neighbor , the late Jim Hutchinson. This photograph of the three of them was taken on February 8, 2018.

Hill Family of the Florida Photographic Concern

Bee Keeping, Fishing, Florida Photographic Concern, Ft. Pierce, Indian River, St. Lucie River., Titusville, PA, , , ,

Harry Hill, originally from Ontario, moved to Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1884 where he met and married Katherine Nelson.  He studied and worked as an apiarist in Canada, California and Cuba but chose to settle in Florida in 1894. Harry and Katherine’s son, Lowell, was born in Titusville, Pennsylvania, the year before, so they moved to Florida with an infant.  After setting up an apiary in New Smyrna, the Hills settled in Spruce Bluff on the North Fork of the St. Lucie River.

The Hills moved to Ft. Pierce in 1898 where Harry,  not only was managing editor of the American Bee Keeper, he launched into pineapple culture on a large scale.  Photographs were increasingly enhancing the magazine. Soon Harry’s interest and growing skills as a photographer overshadowed his other enterprises. By 1905, advertisements for the Florida Photographic Concern were appearing in the St. Lucie News Tribune.

This advertisement began appearing in the St. Lucie News Tribune in 1905.

Harry Hill was producing commercial photographs by the turn of the 20th Century.

This appeared in the July 1906. It has Florida Photographic Concern embedded in the photograph but the image was probably made before the company was founded.   James Heddon and Harry Hill were associates for many years.

These almost identical photographs were published in the June 1907 American Bee Keeper. Harry Hill was making the point that photographs on semi-matte stock reproduce better that ones on glossy paper. The article explained his engravers, “one of the best house in New York” preferred matte.

American Bee Keepers subscribers lived throughout the United States and in other countries!  HOW IN THE WORLD DID HARRY HILL MANAGE THIS?

The last American Bee Keeper was published in June 1908.

Stanley Kitching’s St. Lucie River Yacht Club

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Stanley Kitching spearheaded a movement to establish a yacht club in Stuart. In 1917 a clubhouse was built on pilings in the St. Lucie River. Stanley was made commodore.

Stanley Kitching

This postcard was published in Ashville, N. C. by the Ashville Post Card Co. I wondered why it wasn’t published by Stanley then thought about the beginning of World War I that made it impossible for him to have postcards printed in Germany as he had previously.

Sometimes historical deductions do not quite align. The image on these porcelain tourist items. Stanley Kitching must have ordered and sold, is obviously the same as on the postcard above. However, “Made in Germany” appears on the bottoms of each.

My husband and I never found any other early porcelain items with a St. Lucie Region connection.

The St. Lucie River Yacht Club was destroyed in the by the disastrous hurricane of September 17, 1928.

Mary Parsons, who lived on the St. Lucie River, typed a report on the back of the white bordered St. Lucie River Yacht Club postcard.

St. Luice River Yacht Club Card

The pilings of the St. Lucie River Yacht Club can be seen in the river west of the River Walk dock.