The Sun Has Set

Port Jefferson is the County Seat of Grant County, Florida, located on the east coast of the state, north of Palm Beach.  Its geography includes a barrier island beach area separated from the mainland by the Intra-coastal Waterway.  Port Jefferson’s downtown and original settlement sits on the north bank of the Snapper River about two miles from the ocean.

            Carl and Maude Strickland, the first white settlers in the area, opened an Indian trading post on the north side of the river in 1890—the focal point of a new community.

            In the first decade of the twentieth century, Henry Flagler extended the Florida East Coast Railroad into South Florida.  By 1910 the railroad brought many people to and through the area with a number of hardy adventurers putting down roots—largely landless poor Georgia whites. At the time, good farm land sold for $15.00 an acre.

            Orange groves and vegetable farming dominated the area’s economy.

            Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, “negroes” as black were known at the time, knew their place—across the FEC railroad tracks before sundown. 

          The KKK enjoyed the support of the community leaders.  The Founders’ Day picnic held each October always ended with a cross burning.  Only whites of the Protestant faith attended.

            With the completion of the first road into southeastern Florida, a great land boom followed.  Subdivisions sprang up on the outskirts of town.  Virtually everyone in town caught “land fever.”  Contracts to purchase land often changed hands before closing for a 50% profit.  One contract changed hands three times before closing with a generous profit for each seller.

            The land boom ended when the area experienced a great natural disaster—the 1926 hurricane.  During the height of the storm, five feet of water poured into downtown Port Jefferson from the storm surge.  Every building in the town sustained damage.  Land prices plummeted and many speculators walked away.  Many people left the area returning to the north.  

This is the story of the old establishment-those who stayed (the leading families in the area before 1926) and the new people who came to Port Jefferson, particularly the Caldwells who took control of the failing bank in 1928, built a banking empire over the next fifty years, acquired a banking group larger than itself through a merger, followed by an attempt by a financier with a tainted reputation who tried to gain control of the Caldwell banking empire forcing the Caldwell family to seek a merger with one of Florida’s largest banking groups in order to protect its interest.  When the Caldwell banking empire was absorbed by “merged with” one of Florida’s largest banking groups, the lives of the Caldwells and their bank managers and employees were disrupted with most losing power and position.

The Caldwells and a few other families had controlled the economic and political life of the area for more than fifty years. By the last decade of the twentieth century, Port Jefferson had become the center of a large metropolitan area. One by one, all of these founding families lost their power. By the 1990s none were among the movers and shakers in the community. The town got too big for its people. “The Sun Has Set” on the first families of Port Jefferson.

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