DOWNTOWN FORT MYERS - 1940s I had no idea that pictures of downtown FM, would be of such interest, but what do I know. Each of these photos are views of First Street and were taken in the mid-1940s. The first photo is a westerly view along first street and appears to have been taken from the second floor of the Franklin Arms hotel. The second photo is an easterly view of First Street from the intersection with Jackson Street. Worked long and hard to make the vanishing point for the first photo to complement the image and the facades of the buildings located along the north side of First Street. I remember going to the Kiddie Shows at the Arcade Theater and the line of kids wrapped around the building from the Bay Street entrance into the Arcade, then along the Jackson Street side. So that I could get the six RC cola bottle caps to get in the show, I had a magnet on a string and my buddies and I would drop the magnet down the bottle cap trap on the machines. We had bottles full of RC cola bottle caps. Before Pat McCutcheon died, I was able to visit with him and get him to tell me stories for almost four hours, all of it is on video and no one has seen it but me. Pat was Snag Thompsons deputy who was in charge of the bottoms. Pat said there was a bakery behind the Theater and they would give him and the other newspaper boys biscuits and buns as the sun came up. Pat also said he was the only black boy that was allowed to go in the Arcade Theater and that was because Mr Sidney Davis took care of things for him. I asked him if there were any members of the white community that he or other members of the black community, in times of need, could turn to and get help. Without taking a breath, he said Mr Sidney Davis, Mr Art Knudsen, and Mr George Allen. Ill start putting video clips of my visit with Pat and his wife on here for you. I promise, it will may you cry. I like the other photo because of the Walgreens store at the corner of First and Jackson. The building may be FMs only attempt at an art deco building and I have a picture of my mother in front of it with a couple of her friends. Sure seems as though First Street was the spinal chord of FM. I was born in 1954 and my memory still returns to those early days downtown; Toyland, the Arcade Theater, McCrorys, the Blue Goose restaurant, Pollys gift shop, the smell of theFederal Building and the small brass doors on the mailboxes. We were lucky or fortunate to have had all this, werent we?
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 01:25:41 +0000