Floridays

Reporters from all over the country descended on the St. Lucie County courthouse in 1961, when a judge from Palm Beach County stood trial for masterminding the murder of another judge. Stuart lawyer Rick Crary wrote about the case recently for Indian River magazine.   

Snyder describes the hill as a parabolic dune that was part of the area's ancient coastline.   

Stan Harbourt, who worked as a station agent for Eastern at the Vero Beach airport, calls the midday flight from Miami the "noon balloon." Besides passengers, it carried copies of the morning Miami Herald for local delivery.

Hilda Harbourt also recalls the intricacies of transmitting telegrams in Japanese when baseball teams from Japan played at Dodgertown after the war.

New depth finders developed in the late 1940s improved  snapper fishing, says a former commercial fisherman in Fort Pierce.

That was before Northern fir trees were available locally. Indian River County native Stan Tippin remembers sand pines instead.