THE ORTEGA BELLE OF THE BALL (Riverside Memories)

"THE ORTEGA BELLE OF THE BALL"

04/07/2010 RHK

While looking at the image I had wondered what the old girl had been like in her prime and just how long had she been the center of such ongoing attention ? Now showing the weathering of age she looked tired beyond her years, but there was character yet to be seen as captured in John Ropp's fine portrait. Yes, I am told that there was not another one like her, well not in Jacksonville, anyway. In the late 1920s some of our own parents were even coming across town on the trolleys or squeezing into Ford coupes as teens from Springfield to keep her company in style at her dances. But surely she was not always a dance hall queen in her early times. It seems as though everyone had known her over those years, but who had she been before ? Was there not , beside the Ropp drawing, at least one photograph of her to be found somewhere in all those archives ? Perhaps at some earlier time she had been catering to the elites of the early steamboat tourist trade, perhaps as a fine wayside restaurant there on the scenic Ortega river-front, perhaps.

Why would someone have built a large covered wharf at that location at that time ? Would she have been built as a shipping storage or packing house for the various products of an early plantation on the Ortega island, like the Sadler sugar mill ? Jack Gaillard relates how Florida historian Dena Snodgrass even wrote of her. Dena and our classmate historian Jimmy Ward had described the early use of the peninsula-shaped Ortega as a cotton plantation and also of the milling of local cypress logs for roof shingles. There was a clay pit and brick kiln from around the eighteenth century McQueen era which site is near to where the Bryan residence is now located. Susie tells us, " Its interesting that our house is where they used to dig clay to make bricks for the Kingsley Plantation. Sandy had found some near our bulkhead and took them out there."

Following the leads of Gaillard and Bill Ketchum who had heard of my quest, I was introduced to long time Ortega resident Mr. John Corse who steered me to the Florida Room of the Jacksonville public library and to the definitive newspaper article on the Ortega Pier dance pavilion and its creator, builder and owner, Mr. George Boutwell. The article by Staff Writer Cynthia Parks had been published in the August 8, 1990 edition of the Florida Times Union,. It was a George Boutwell biography to celebrate his 100 birthday and it was titled, "The leader of the band". And then, through the interests of another friend, Don Reedy, I was introduced to Fontaine Boutwell a granddaughter of the man himself. She has filled in many of the gaps in the story and provided some very interesting insights into the family, the Pier and the community.

George Boutwell, a native of California was an orphan who, as an industrious young man also possessed a God-given talent for music, especially when playing the clarinet given to him by a benefactor, the doctor at the orphanage in San Rafael. This was near San Francisco where he saw the 1906 San Francisco fire from across the bay. He left the orphanage at age 15 to work as a cowboy in the Colorado area and on the weekends he would play at the local dance halls. He said he made more money working one night playing music than working all week as a cowboy. When he was about 18 he met and married Lucretia there in Colorado and then they headed East, working on a circus train meandering even up into Canada and eventually arriving to pitch the big tent at the Big Apple, New York City. I would suspect that beside being in the circus band, he was also involved in the other carnival- like activities. From there he and his wife would board a Clyde Line steamer to Florida, where in 1913, they became owners of a 20 acre farm near Ocala where he grew yam potato crops. Fontaine tells us , " She was in training as an opera singer and he was that cowboy musician. They had made their way to New York City because Memaw, my grandmother got a job as an understudy at the Met. Pop played in the orchestra. The reason they moved to Florida was my Memaw's father wanted to move there and she bought the land for him." He was still living back west and was wanted, I mean he wanted a , er, a quick change in venue, if you care to read between the lines.

Soon George was again literally handed the opportunity to demonstrate his musical talent among a band of local musicians and consequently he would form his own small orchestra which played in theaters for the silent movies. When they moved to Jacksonville, he formed a band to perform at the Gibbs Co. Shipyard during WWI. Their performances then expanded into Hemming Park for the tourists, onto the City streets for parades, to playing classical music on WDAL radio, and in 1921 the smartly uniformed, marching Boutwell Band led the historic opening procession over the new Acosta Bridge as they played ,"Over There". Years later the Boutwell ensemble would be playing concerts at the Florida and other theaters and in out of town engagements. It has not been said whether Lucretia Boutwell ever sang with the band.

John N.C. Stockton and his partners including Charles C. Bettes had begun the real estate development of the Ortega and in 1908 the Ortega Company constructed a wooden bridge carrying a streetcar line across McGirt's Creek ( Ortega River) The Bettes mansion was built in 1910 on Ortega Point. ( It was ravaged by a fire in 2009. The magnificent, sprawling ancient oak tree on the property survived and there is hope for the restoration of the mansion.) The streetcar line connected the new Ortega development to the rest of Jacksonville passing through Riverside via. Herschel St. to Aberdeen and then connected with Jacksonville Traction Co. at Five Points. That original bridge structure would be replaced with the current Ortega River Bridge in 1927. By then the trolley line had already been extend from the Ortega Village and through Yulee to the US Army and National Guard camps Johnston and Foster at Black's Point which would later become the US Naval Air Station. This extension would connect the troups with their payrolls as quickly as possible to the awaiting establishments of Jacksonville. The last Jacksonville streetcar was run in 1936. The last tracks were removed during WWII.

Band leader and businessman George Boutwell purchased the first lot subdivided on the Ortega Point because it was adjacent to that old wooden Ortega Bridge with its trolley and than moved his family there. In 1923 Boutwell built a 110 ft. long pier out into the Ortega River supporting the large dance pavilion - a place for his band to perform, especially on Saturday nights. Lucretia sold tickets and the 30 piece George Boutwell Band played for the hilarious opening night of the new Ortega Pier. That story was elaborated by the Florida Times Union in June 1999 and is to be seen archived online.

It was a "happening" - a well publicized dance marathon "exhibition". Actually, there was another dance pavilion of that earlier time, the Shad's Pier , owned and operated by Jimmy Trotter , but it was way over there at Pablo Beach. Coincidentally, Trotter was producing a dance marathon the same weekend that Boutwell was producing his, but according to another newspaper recollection, "The Ortega affair appeared the classier of the two, relatively speaking." The elites of the region apparently viewed marathon endurance dancing contests to be outlandish behavior - one step down from the Roller Derby culture, er, relatively speaking. For instance, "There are those who contend marathon dances should be outlawed altogether,'' editorialized the Jacksonville Journal. ''And yet it is not the marathon dance itself that is viscous in itself; it is the lack of proper care and supervision that is the real evil.'' However, Boutwell at the the Ortega and Trotter at the Pablo did provide the doctors and other medical attendants if needed for anything from resuscitation to foot massages.

Boutwell was offering no cash prizes to the Ortega dancers. No prizes here, it was all in the challenge - a thing of honor, er, relatively speaking. Boutwell the promoter had announced that his dancers were seeking a World Record - - right here folks, yes, see it right here at this brand new Ortega Pier - -. I suspect that his intrinsic skills as a business entrepreneur had been well sharpened by his earlier circus carnival experience. It went on for (about) four days, sixteen hours and fifteen minutes. The juke box was played while the Boutwell Band took its breaks. But soon after it had started - it had to be quickly convert to a portable endurance dance marathon exhibition. Duval County Sheriff Ham Dowling had also been announcing publically that he would , "- - shut down the dance at midnight Saturday because it wasn't right for people to behave like that on a Sunday. It is a morbid curiosity that attracts people to marathons,'' so he had said. Well, when the dancers over at Pablo quit on time, but the Ortega dancers kept on hoofing it, Sheriff Dowling, true to his word and enforcing the local Sunday Law, escorted George to the slammer where he was quickly bonded out for $100. Dowling also made the still dancing partners (and a few solos) move along to another jurisdiction which they promptly did.

The Ortega contestants did the two-step all along the way atop a flatbed truck while reroute to Clay County. Accompanied by the dance judges and a portable music box the determined dancers were denied use of the Orange Park pavilion, so they just did the flat bed shuffle off to a private home. Then they fox trotted on the ten -wheeled dance floor back again to the cheering crowd of the Ortega that early Monday morning, soon after midnight. Finally at 3:30 AM on Tuesday morning , at the insistence of an attendant doctor, Miss Bobbie Grigg and her partner Ralph Moore were declared the couples marathon champions. There was no further mention of World -wide acclaim, but who cared. Everybody had fun and the Ortega Pier had made its well- publicized debut. George would later grin and chuckle that the whole flat bed truck idea had been a set-up arranged with his friend, Ham. He also mentioned that he had slipped some long green favors to a newspaper employee to keep the story in the public eye a few extra days. But the real winners would be the two generations of teens and young adults who would dance at George Boutwell's the Ortega Pier during its subsequent and varied 49 year history.

During part of the Great Depression the Pier was closed to public dancing while Boutwell took a job performing on radio in Indiana. He reopened the Ortega Pier in 1931 and the dancing continued into the 1960s when it was also rented to private parties and social clubs from all over town. Fontaine Boutwell tells us that, " the only changes he made over the years was the addition of a floating dock at the end of the pier and of course, to keep it painted. It had a rolled green roof and the shutters were painted the same shade of green, the body of the pier was weathered brown and CocaCcola painted their logo along the side of the building. He had made little square tables and bought bent wood ice cream pallor chairs, the stage had a dark red velvet curtain and the juke box was made of glass mirror tiles. It was rustic with trapping of class. There was a red ice cooler so long you could sleep in it with the same CocaCola emblem down the side. He had row boats and two person sail boats that you could rent to take your girl on a moonlit ride on the Ortega. We Boutwell children caught blue crabs off of the Pier and put them on ice in that big Coke cooler that Pop Boutwell had used for soft drinks. We helped clean -up after the dances and he would let us keep the balloons. Pop, my grandfather, use to say, 'Stay away from musicians as we are a randy bunch."

The Boutwell Pier remained a popular place especially for the students of Robert E. Lee High School. The City of Jacksonville even rented it for square dances, but never on a Sunday. John Pringle remembers the Ortega Pier , "I used to pass by it twice a day going to school. It had "Fuller Fun Club" painted in big letters on the side. I also knew Mr. Boutwell very well. He was the first Band Director at Lake Shore Junior High School and I was in his band. After practice twice a week he would give me a ride home. Our Band photograph with him is in the the 1947 Highlights yearbook.

The Ortega Pier with the Band, and teaching were not the Boutwell's only business activities. Among them were included extensive real estate enterprises, her operation of the Roadside Ritz Restaurant there in Ortega and of another popular restaurant downtown at the courthouse where several valuable friendships were formed. George Boutwell was also the long-time head of the local Musicians Union.

George Boutwell's last musical dance performance was at a New Years party in 1955 up in Savannah. But then Lucretia Boutwell was in her early eighties when she died from complicatios resulting from being struck by an automobile. George then continued to manage the Pier rental and other varied family interprises and also revived his agricultural skills by producing a notable vegetable garden along side his old friend, the Pier. The Boutwell garden was a large multi-leveled terraced arrangement contained by cedar planks and old pilings which he then filled in with river bottom silt. The Ortega / Boutwell/ Pier/ Pavillion was removed sometime in 1972 while the clarinet, saxophone, oboe player, the band leader who had provided his extended community with so much enjoyment, the 100 year-old Mr.George Boutwell continued happily tending to his prized tomatoes until the age of 105. His children and grandchildren made him a funeral wreath using the verdant produce from his beloved garden..

Jacob Ostner, the dad of our schoolmate Louise (Neese) Goodling owned a vacant lot next to the Boutwell Pier property and generously made it available to the area Boy Scouts. Jack recalls how, "The neighborhood kids also used it for swimming, fishing and boating. The ‘Scout's Dock’ there was built from wreckage we had salvaged from pieces of other docks that had been wrecked by storms and hurricanes and which had washed into the swamp on the west side of the Point. That prime real estate locale had been partially filled - in for a few more residential sites until the River People stepped in. A rite a passage for the younger boys was to swim across the Ortega River from there at the Pier ; for the older guys, it was to swim from the Ortega Bridge to the new Roosevelt Bridge." While then playing next to and around the Boutwell Pier, these youngsters would soon be dancing on it.

Jan Baumgartner Strickland , now of Orlando, tells us, " I grew up in Ortega and my mother was secretary at the Ortegal Elementary school. My father H. L. (Sonny) Baumgartner owned United Amusement Co, that owned the "juke box" that was located on the Ortega Pier. He furnished the current popular records and also rented and serviced the pinball machine. He and Mr. Boutwell were friends and I remember several parties on that pier when I was in high school in 1956-1959. A big old fashioned Coke cooler that sat near the big door close to the river. Seems like there was also a NeHi cooler by the bar in the back where you came in. My father had permission to shrimp off the Pier and began taking me with him when I was in elementary school. There was more dock out on the front, beyond the enclosed part, but it was too rickety for more than one or two people. My dad used to ease out there to throw his shrimp net and when he threw it the whole dock part wobbled. One of my fondest memories was him teaching me how to throw a shrimp net and then tying me with a bit of rope to one of those dock pilings and letting me throw the net and pull it in to find the shrimp in it. That shrimp bait was the most awful smelling stuff. Most of us who lived close to Ortega Bridge would go up to the grocery and get meat bones that they would throw away and catch blue crabs off the Pier on the north side and under the bridge or at the boat yard on the south side of the bridge. Those were thrilling times for me both inside and outside the Pier."

Gaillard further recalls that, "It's likely that the Boutwell Pier rested on cypress pilings just as did the wharf of old Gress family saw mill just up and across the Ortega River. It had been operating at the creek where the Roosevelt Mall is now located. The last vestige of that saw mill was removed to make way for the condo construction. Still later the cypress pilings on which the mill's loading wharf had sat were extracted to make room for the marina. When the tide was high, those pilings had not been visible as a number of errant boat captains discovered to their dismay. I had been told by Sandy that those 52 pilings were as pristine as the day they were driven." The Ortega Pier framing itself may well have been cypress construction, which explains why those two generations of us 'dancing fools' couldn't shake it down." The sturdy old girl was put to various other uses than dancing in her later years - one was as a temporary storage shed. As Peter McCranie relates, "In our day the structure always looked like it was going to fall apart, but the Pier survived the 1964 Hurricane Dora and was still strong enough to support the Gaillard station wagon. It is remembered that it finally fell into disrepair and was dismantled."

And along the way the members of the George Boutwell family had also removed themselves from residing in the Ortega so the Boutwell families currently residing there are of no relation. They had always stayed pretty much to themselves socially because of the elder residents of Ortega who had never had much good to say about them - most of them disapproved of the Pier, and the dancing and the music. But those residents were not like we are, they were those "old people".

Peter also recalls how, "The Ortega Pier was a very important part of the fraternity and sorority life. Every Saturday afternoon, on a rotational basis, one of the Panhellenic group would sponsor the dance, provide the chaperones and refreshments, and collect the small fee. The freshmen members of the "Greeks" were required to be present and had to dance. It was a great debut for most of us, who were still very awkward socially."

Sarah Towers Van Cleve recalls that some of her both happiest and most dreadful experiences occured at the Ortega Pier Sorority Tea Dances." Boys and girls both asked the other to dance or to "break". Like all of the other Freshmen who stood around with their eyes glued to the dance floor, I was too timid to ask a boy to dance. But if a Senior member of the sorority motioned with their little finger to come and break, you had to watch carefully and comply or you would get "rat court" at the next meeting. (You would be called in alone to face the wrath of a room full of older girls who would have you sing or some other humiliating task.) Once I had to break in on a boy to whom I had given a wide berth ever since I had seen him kiss every girl he could grab on New Year's Eve. Don Davidson, a senior and captain of the football team who lived next door and was my idol broke in on me and saved the day. The pier is gone leaving behind those memories for many people."

Jerry Knight remembers that , " Uncle Jack was my Mom's main baby sitter. He would wait until she was out of sight and toss me in the rumble seat of his supped- up, thirty nine Ford and away we would go to the most fascinating night spot in town , the Ortega Pier parking lot on a Saturday night. I would sit in that rumble seat , the ideal spot to see the better show, which was everything else that was happening off of the dance floor. I would sit there being happy with the cold drinks Jack would keep me supplied with and knowing that no one knew I was there in that rumble seat. I learned the facts of life by watching that older group who would become some of our city's finest citizens - our leaders and professionals doing their young thing. It was a great place to see and hear the many propositions- some which worked and the more that didn't by the best schemers of the day as they plied their persuasive ploys to win over the fine young women of that time. The music coming from the pier was great and from hearing it over and over I still remember most of the words of those great songs that filled the neighborhood until the wee hours. The girls ( woman) of that time and the guys were special and I must admit that I fell in love with those older girls for they were special in their own way. "

Tyler Potterfield, ever the romantic, muses, "My memories are getting dimmer and you guys are relighting the torch for me. My strongest memory is dancing with some exquisite young gal to "Dance Ballerina Dance" Vaughn Monroe [vocalist] coming from the juke box. By the way, every gal was exquisite and "good , better and best" was how they were valued. No question, my romantic hormones were fully in charge. What a great time of our lives !"

However, Tom Ingram has other hormonal recollections of , " - - the Ortega Pier as the site of the epic battle between me and George Gibbs, III, fighting for the favors of a young lass while the strains of "The Tennessee Waltz" and "Racing with the Moon" wafted out as we did battle in the dirt parking lot. We both lost as we never really resumed our teenage friendship." Hey, Tom, while you guys were out there fighting , she was in there dancing with Tyler.

Whenever there is a discussion of anything Ortega, the spectre the infamous "Gangster House" house on Grand Avenue arises. (See, it just did.) It was not far from the Pier and so that leads to an amusing musing of whether some wise guys might have shown up at the Ortega Pier from time to time " to do da tango". If they did, it is pretty certain they did not take "da trolley". But now we have the rest of the story as recently related to Fontaine Boutwell from her dad Ted Boutwell who currently resides across the Ortega. Ted had been one of the all-time great football players at R.E. Lee as an All South Quarterback in the 1930s. He also was a highly decorated Marine pilot seeing duty in WWII, Korea and Viet Nam before retiring as a Colonel. At 90 years Mr. Ted Boutwell is among the few remaining of that Greatest Generation of American heroes.

" It was not Machinegun Kelly, or Ma Barker, but Al Capone that moved to the Point. The house he bought with cash was the vanilla stucco with the blue tile roof (somewhat) across the street from the pier. Pop said he met him when Al came over and asked if he knew of a place where he could drive up and get food. Back then there was no such thing as a drive in restaurant or fast food. Pop told him he would make a call as his wife, Lucretia, owned a restaurant called the Roadside Ritz. Pop arranged for Al's men to go by the Ritz at a specific time and the food would be brought out to the car. Al only wanted only my grandmother to bring the food out to the car. When she gave the food to the man in the backseat of the car she saw a machine gun on the floor. Pop said they were a secretive, quirky group and he suspected they were going to be up to no good sooner or later. Being as he and the Sheriff ( Remember Ham Dowling ?) were pals, Pop gave him a call and shared his observations with him. The Sheriff did some research, then went by the house and told the men they had one week to get out of town. They quietly left."

The Pier was demolished in 1972 after the Ropp drawing was made in 1971. A much earlier photograph had indeed been made and a large framed copy was recently located in the lobby of the First Guaranty Bank in Ortega. It had been there all along. In June 2009, it was then shared with us all by Hickory Fant and that is the one shown here. That elusive photo had also been included in that archived 1990 Times Union article indicating a 1960s photo date. Tyler has commented about those two Pier images which both show it all closed up. " At dance time she came alive and all those closed shutters on the sides were propped open. It somehow created a wonderful effect- adding to the romance of the place and making it breezy enough on the sultry Saturday afternoons of Summer for us to put our hearts into the dancing."

If that old photo image of the cypress dance hall queen not been so elusive, there would not have been such a protracted and obviously well- supported quest for it. And we would not have been reward with the renewal of these cherished and obvious well - shared memories.

Raymond H King, Jr. Ocala, Fl, 04/07/2010

The author herein claims no copyright and assigns no copyright to the text.