September 5, 1993

Byron Rhode Recalls His Early Years In Punta Gorda

You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take Byron Rhode out of Punta Gorda.

This 90-year-old historian now lives in retirement at Jacksonville. His powers of memory are phenomenal. Through his active correspondence with U.S. Cleveland and Esther McCullough, he still contributes fascinating anecdotes of his childhood and early adult life at Punta Gorda over a span of 35 years.

Rhode (no "s," please) was born in 1904 on a homestead farm near Williston, Fla. His parents, George D. and Docia (nee Cason) Rhode, moved to Punta Gorda with Byron when he was just two years old.

Byron five years ago set down his vivid recollections in a book Punta Gorda Remembered. It is on sale at the Promenades Book Center and the Charlotte Harbor Area Historical Society, but only a few copies are left. The additional memories herein, give us insight to life in a time and place that is no more.

GUM BALL MACHINE ATE PENNIES

When my oldest sister and I were very small we used to walk to the Methodist Church and Sunday school. Old Grampa Griggs was the teacher. On the way we passed a sort of gum ball machine fastened outside to the front of Farmer King's store.

Inside the machine was a toy, mechanical man. You put your penny in a slot. The little man would turn around and drop a piece of gum in a chute. This machine got all my Sunday school pennies until someone told my Dad. He tore my butt, and I stopped giving my pennies to the little man.

Later on we lived out on Taylor Road. Every Sunday us kids --- by then Irma, Pauline and Lucile --- used to hitch our old, black horse named Dock to the buggy and drive him to Sunday school. We always brought several other kids home with us to eat dinner.

On the way home we would go by the ice plant and buy a piece of ice for 10 cents so we could have iced tea for dinner.

We always had plenty to eat. We raised all kinds of vegetables and fruits. Mama canned a lot of stuff --- guavas, jelly, marmalade. We raised pineapples, mangoes and avocados. We had a cane patch, and made our own syrup. We had chickens, ducks, turkeys, and guineas. Best all, she made deep-dish guava pie --- in my book the best ever.

My Dad was in the grocery business at first and then was postmaster. However, he felt we should be self sufficient. He built our house at night after work while I held the lantern.

NOBODY LOCKED DOORS

Charlie Simmons was the local ice man. He delivered ice in a covered wagon pulled by a mule. Mr. Simmons sawed off what ever you needed from 300-pound blocks, carried the ice to your back door and put it in the kitchen ice-box.

He hollered and came on in. Nobody ever locked their doors in those days. He tore off a pre-paid coupon from an ice-book hanging on the wall. In the meantime, the mule moved on down to the next house and would be waiting. He knew the route as well as Mr. Simmons.

There was an old negro man named Sam Kennedy who used to push a wheelbarrow with dirt in it and a bucket of splinters. He had a small fire on the dirt. He would go from house to house at daybreak --- or before --- come in, and build a fire in your stove or fireplace for a small fee while you got a few extra minutes to snooze.

ROAD SHOW PARADES

About the most exciting things were the minstrel shows that came to town for one-night stands --- F.S. Wolcott's Rabbit Foot, Silas Green from New Orleans, etc. They used to set up their big tents on a vacant lot by Nettie John's Travelers' Hotel. Those negro minstrels came in on the noon train, always had a parade. Then there were the road shows such as Jack King's Comedians, Williams Stock Company, Great American Combined Railroad Show, and Kritchfield's Ten Nights In A Bar Room. Carnivals had ferris wheels and merry-go-rounds powered by their own steam engines.

The Chautauquas came and stayed a week, giving lectures on a variety of interesting subjects.

JUDGE COOPER LIKED CITY BAND

I think those road show parades induced Eddie Smith to organize a band. I used to beat the big, bass drum. We had a band stand down by the city dock at the foot of Sullivan St. The stand was a gift to us and the city by Judge William Fenimore Cooper from Chicago who had a beautiful winter home on Marion Avenue (the house burned last month.) He liked to hear us play, and gave us money from time to time for things the band needed.

The judge was asked to go somewhere one night, but he declined, saying, "Oh, no, I can't go, it's band practice night; and that's better than a three-ring circus."

We practiced in the little old concrete City Hall. At that time, the fire department was a shed on the side. The fire pump was sort of a two-wheel cart with a hose on it. It had a T-shaped tongue. Men would take hold of it and run to the fire. Later on they pulled it behind a car. The fire alarm was a series of blasts from the steam whistle at the ice plant --- whoo, whoo, whoo.

Water from the pump was drawn at first from eight shallow wells dug for the purpose around town. When the water system was installed, water was drawn from the pipes.

A HIGH DIVING TOWER

Before the Gilchrist Park seawall was built, the McAdow property (now Holiday Inn) extended into the bay with its own seawall. Later on the bay was dredged, the park filled in, and the seawall tied to what was McAdow's.

Us boys used to go over there, walk the seawall and go into McAdow's boat house. We changed into our bathing suits then walked the seawall to the Woman's Club bath house to swim. This way we saved 10 cents that it cost to use the Woman's Club facility. On the edge of the channel was a tall diving tower that seemed 100 feet high (actually 25 feet.) About every eight feet was a diving platform. You had it made when you could dive from the top.

There was a guy wire running from each corner and fastened to a piling. We used to take a piece of wire and bend it to fit over the guy wire with handles to hold onto. We would put it over the guy wire, hold onto the handle, an slide down to the water. Of course, you had to turn loose before you hit the post. One time Dick Cooper did not turn loose in time and liked to have killed himself.

PUNTA GORDA DOWNTOWN

I remember the merchants downtown. Earnest had a dry goods store. He moved to Wauchula and Kirby Seward took over. Chadwick also had a dry goods store, Hewitt Brothers Hardware, Strong and J.S. Goff livery stables, Joe Myerick's feed store, Benny's pool room, Henry Walker's pressing club, A.J. Kinsel's first little shoe shop and later his tannery. H.W. Smith had a bakery where I worked for $60 a month, including room and board.

The town's little calaboose (jail) of two cages was located on Herald Court, as was the pound for stray cattle. You might look up Taylor Road and see Old Man (William) Duval coming to town from Acline with several yokes of oxen pulling a big wagon load of lumber.

A man named Wade had a drug store on the corner of Marion and Cross St. Out in the middle of the intersection was a big, round artesian fountain where horses and people could drink. A fish swam around in it.

The streets were just dirt. Wooden sidewalks. Stores had gas lights. The streets were first kerosene, mounted on wooden posts at the corners. A lamp-lighter went around every evening to fill the lanterns and light them. Downtown people had outdoor privies. An old negro named Alex Stephens went up and down the alleys --- with a two-wheel cart and a white mule --- cleaning out the privies for 50 cents a month.

FOUR-LEGGED GOLD

Cattlemen used to drive their herds down Marion Avenue to the cattle dock out near what is today's Fishermen's Village. The cattlemen would throw their saddle bags across the rail of the chutes. As a cow or steer went onto the boat, the Cuban or Spanish buyers would throw a gold piece into the open saddle bags.

I have been told that when the old Punta Gorda Bank went broke, Mr. W. L. (Luther) Koon had enough gold coins stored in saddle bags at his home to reopen the bank. I knew him very well. He was a very wealthy man and president of this bank.

Although he was wealthy, he was happiest when out in the woods with his cowboys --- sleeping under the stars with his saddle for a pillow and the saddle blanket to cover him and keep off the dew.

I have hunted cattle for him and camped out on his roundups. We had a little covered chuck wagon pulled by two little oxen. Food cooked out in the woods was really good. Biscuits baked in a Dutch oven over coals were out of this world.

During this time they often killed a yearling and sometimes a hog, ate some of it fresh and salted some of it down. What was left was made into beef jerky. They cut the beef into strips, then hung them on green oak limbs over a slow, smoke fire. The jerky would dry out and curl up like leather. To cook it we would cut it into chunks and boil it.

Most every cowboy had a small tin can with a wire bail tied to his saddle. When he was away from the chuck wagon, he used the can to make coffee or cook up some jerky, salt pork, or whatever he might have. Sweet potatoes were a favorite. They cooked these in the ground under the fire, cooked salt bacon on a stick over the coals, and made coffee in their little tin can.

For years, Mr. Koon kept what we called a Butcher Pen out south of town. He had a man there to butcher beef and haul it in a wagon to different markets around town. Near the pen was a pile of cow heads as big as a house --- all rotting away and smelling terrible. I used to go out there to get horns and make rings to hold a Boy Scout neckerchief.

Mr. W.R. DeLoach (bank cashier) guarded Mr. Koon's money pretty well. If you needed to borrow a hundred dollars, he made you go and get two or three co-signers on your note. However, he was a friend, and I liked him.

MAMA'S BOARDING HOUSE

When Dad died in 1927, Mama bought the old Charles Denham-Frank Blount house at the corner of Retta Esplanade and Cross Street (scheduled for demolition this week) from Cattle Baron A.C. Frizzell.

The house was painted yellow and had a porch all around the front. It had been built in 1902 by Charles Denham who was a real estate man who owned a pineapple farm and laid out a development at Charlotte Harbor Town. Frank Blount owned a grocery, and was brother to Dr. B.B. Blount and Chester who had a men's clothing store.

For years my mother lived there and operated what in those days was called a boarding house. She rented rooms and served meals for $10 a week. A few years ago I noticed the side porch had been taken off ---to widen Cross Street for Tamiami Trail --- and the house painted white.

Many times I have sat on the front porch there and watched the sun sink slowly down into the bay.

BASEBALL FIGHTS

Punta Gorda had an amateur baseball team that played such places as Fort Ogden, Charlotte Harbor, Arcadia and Fort Myers. Lots of times these ended up in fights.

One Sunday afternoon Blanche (Byron's wife) and I went up to Fort Ogden with Harold and Olive Alexander to see a game. Mr. Rountree, his son Elvin our catcher, Johnnie Olsen, Elmer Barnhill and some others got into it. Pretty rough for awhile. Mr. Rountree's bald head got skinned up and bleeding.

As we were leaving, we passed a Fort Ogden girl. Harold, the politician, leaned out the car window and said, "How come when we come up here to play ball, you all jump on us and beat us up?"

"Beat you up?" she replied, "I wish you could see my poor old Daddy, he's all bunged up." And then she added, "But I enjoyed every minute of it!"

NEXT WEEK: MORE ABOUT BYRON

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Photo courtesy of Mrs. Esther Jordan McCullough

Byron Rhode at age 14 as a Boy Scout. Note leggings and broghans

By Lindsey Williams, columnist for Sun Coast Media Group newspapers