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.

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.