January 8, 1995

FPL Generators Shook The Whole Town When Making Ice

When Mr. and Mrs. George and Grace Day -- 93 and 86 respectively -- sit on their front porch and watch traffic whiz by on Cooper Street, they marvel that the village of Punta Gorda grew into a city while they watched.

"Punta Gorda was a nice little place but had nothing going for it after the big, old hotel closed and the fish got scarce," say the vigorous couple who recently celebrated their 69th wedding anniversary.

"Then in 1958, Al Johns and Bud Cole built Punta Gorda Isles out on the sand flats where the water came in at high tide and millions of fiddler crabs swarmed at low tide."

"Everybody thought the developers were crazy to think they could build houses out there. However, it was a great undertaking. They dug canals to get fill to raise the ground level four feet -- then sold lots to boaters. Folks went around exclaiming, 'Why didn't I think of that?'"

George was born at Cottoncon, Ala., near Fort Benning, Ga.

"I worked on the family farm at first," he says, "but when the cotton played out I drove lumber trucks at night.

"It was hard, lonely work so I was glad to head for Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in 1925 when a friend wrote that work there was plentiful.

"I arrived by train on a Sunday afternoon, and my buddy put me up at his boarding house. He said the Phoenix Utility Company was building lines for the Florida Power and Light company of Miami and needed able-bodied men.

"Bright and early Monday morning I went out to the construction camp. They handed me a shovel and put me to work.

"Back then there wasn't much north of Miami, but the Great Florida Land Boom was at its peak. People were moving down from up north expecting to live in luxury while making a fortune. Fort Lauderdale then was smaller than Punta Gorda today.

"Phoenix completed its contract by Christmas. All the construction workers were laid off. The foreman said, though, that FPL wanted eight men to patrol the lines we had just built. Two others in addition to myself accepted the offer. I should have known by the few number who volunteered that there was a catch in it.

"I was assigned 15 miles of line from Fort Lauderdale to Deerfield. That area today is solid homes and businesses along two major highways. Back then it was a miserable stretch of palmettos, rattlesnakes and alligator holes.

"Every time I waded waist deep through a pond I wondered if a hungry gator might like to taste me.

"I got a room at Deerfield where I could catch a morning bus to Fort Lauderdale to walk the line back home. My job was to examine insulators through binoculars and report any that were cracked.

"After two months of this I was sick of it and wrote the FPL superintendent at Miami to consider me for other work.

"He wrote back that I could split the patrol if I could find a buddy to take the half I didn't want. I replied that no one would take even half the route because the territory was plain hell.

"A couple of days later I received a telegram from him which said: 'COME TO MIAMI FOR OTHER WORK.' I was put with three other experienced transmission workers as their 'grunt' or ground man.

"Our main responsibility was to remove Spanish moss, limbs and kite strings from the lines. When those things got wet and caught on an insulator they would short out the lines. We often worked 48 hours straight through without going to bed.

"Nevertheless, I have always been grateful for that job in Miami because that is where I met and married Grace in November of 1925."

Mrs. Day's experience in Florida were not as arduous or dangerous, but equally satisfying.

"I was born on a farm in Georgia but came to Miami with my sister who had been hired as a teacher. I got a job working in the principal's office.

"Very soon I fell in love with George and married him.

We had two children there -- George James and Billie Jean."

When the Great Depression hit, and workers were laid off, the young family went to Cottoncon where they raised chickens.

"Things picked up a little in 1932, and I was hired back by FPL to operate sub-stations," says George. "I worked at several stations -- Hialeah, West Palm Beach, and the trolley railway station at Miami to convert AC current to DC for street cars. Our son, Richard, was born at West Palm Beach.

"I was transferred to Punta Gorda in 1937 as a division load dispatcher for FPL."

Mrs. Day relates,

"We rented a little house out in Forest Park north of Cooper Street where we could have a garden. The Steele brothers, Charlie and Harry, built several houses there. We bought one, our present home, from Harry who had built it out of cypress for himself.

"The Steele brothers were go-getters. They operated a downtown 'beer garden' with a pool table during Prohibition -- selling soft drinks and non-alcoholic 'near beer.' They sold that business when they started making cigars on the second floor of a tin building on the corner of Marion and King streets.

"We loved our house except for the well which furnished our water. The water had so much sulphur, soap suds curdled in it. We got our drinking water from the ice plant, carrying it home in a 5-gallon can.

"When we came to Punta Gorda, FPL was still making ice at its King Street location -- now on the National Register of Historic Places.

"I could tell when they were making ice. That took a lot of electricity; and George would start the second of two, huge diesel engines to run the generators. The engines were said to be the largest in the world. I could feel the ground shake way out at our place when both engines were going full speed.

"Every house had an ice-box. An ice man in a horse drawn wagon came around every day to deliver. You indicated how much you wanted by posting a card in your front window. You put the payment on the ice-box where it was handy for the delivery man.

"No one locked their doors in those days. The ice man just walked into your back door, took his money -- leaving change if necessary -- and put ice in the box. Melted ice drained into a pan underneath the box and had to be emptied every day without fail lest the pan run over.

"Marshal Robinson was the ice-man. When refrigerators came in he switched to real estate and did very well at it.

" Down Cooper Street a block or so was a large field where the county fair was held for many years. In between, Charlie Steele's daughter grazed her horse there.

"One year our daughter Billie Jean -- then a young teacher at what was known as the 'little school' on Taylor Street -- was chosen Tarpon Queen for the fair.

"The annual fair was a big event. Prize citrus, vegetables, cattle, hogs, and horses were displayed. Ladies showed quilts, preserves and cakes. A midway of amusement rides was a popular diversion, but not as much as today. Country produce was the main attraction.

"Saturday night was the big shopping and social event. Downtown stores were crowded. Vic Desquin's mother and dad had a movie theater where kids could get in for 9 cents -- plus a one-cent tax in effect at that time. Adults were admitted for 25 cents plus one cent.

"Haircuts for men were 35 cents, and for boys 25 cents.

Bread was 10 cents a loaf. Fred Quednau, our sheriff, also had a restaurant where you could get a plate of food for 35 cents.

"I was a 'home-room mother' for the high school -- which mostly meant I went along on picnics and trips to chaperone and furnish refreshments. The favorite picnic spots were Warm Mineral Springs and Prairie Creek.

"The old hotel was run-down and catered mostly to old folks down here for the winter. It had a huge swimming pool where our kids got swimming lessons for 25 cents. The junior- senior banquets were held there. The hotel burned in a spectacular fire in 1959. Folks said it probably was arson."

George fondly remembers hunting in A.C. Frizzell's woods across the bay -- now Port Charlotte.

"There were plenty of turkeys there," he recalls.

"A.C. also operated a saw mill there. Rough lumber was only $l per hundred board feet, planed boards were $2 per hundred board feet.

"I bought some lumber from him to build a garage and a louvered, ventilation window for our attic. The hurricane of 1949 blew rain though the louvers, filling our attic with water which, of course, dripped through our ceiling. All the wall paper came loose. What a mess!"

Today, the Day home is attractive and comfortable – a proper background for photographs of the Day's eight grand children and 20 great-grandchildren.

cutline l -- man and woman on couch.

Photo by Lindsey Williams

Mr. and Mrs. George Day examine an antique power line insulator.

cutline 2 -- aerial

Photo courtesy of Charlotte Harbor Area Historical Society

Aerial view of the Florida Power and Light plant shows new diesel engine building and fuel tank at right shortly after construction in 1929. Original Punta Gorda Ice and Power Company factory of 1895, left, was predecessor of FPL. Note that King St. (Tamiami Trail), left of buildings, had not yet been extended there although a sidewalk was in place. Steel grid, center, is the transmission-line distribution center. Church at upper right is the St. Mark Missionary Baptist.

By Lindsey Williams, columnist for Sun Coast Media Group newspapers