The fish house and restaurant closed when the Navy and Army started training for invasions on local beaches. Its owner re-located to the west side of the Indian River, where she ran the Causeway Grill until the war was over.
Edward Blanton, age 90, remembers the roundhouse where Florida East Coast Railway locomotives were re-positioned. He also has vivid memories of the town's horse and buggy era.
Tom Baumker, a professional photographer and former superintendent at Harbor Branch, says he used to eat 12 sandwiches at noontime to fortify himself when he was picking and loading citrus.
Leona Luckhardt, 93, has lived in the same Stuart neighborhood since 1929. She likes to stop in at the Stuart Heritage Museum, and remembers when her father bought chicken feed there.
Indian River County native Edna MacPherson and her late husband shipped otter skins to Northern markets, where they were made into coats and hats. They made enough money that way to buy a couple of appliances for their home and pay for a power hook-up from Vero Beach.
Local interest in the 1948 gubernatorial race was intense, because both major candidates had strong local ties. Two Vero Beach men who supported opposing candidates bet a wheelbarrow ride and ice-cream cone on the outcome.
Jim Wilson often had several dollars to spend in downtown Vero Beach after selling the tasty tropical fruit and dividing the proceeds with his mother. The family's mango tree died after the area received a dusting of snow in 1977.
Wilson Horne says there were only a few structures of any significance in Jupiter when he was growing up. Of course, the Jupiter Lighthouse was one of them.
It was one man's yard, filled with tropical plants and trees. Wilson Horne grew up in Jupiter when the closest air-conditioning was 16 miles south, in West Palm Beach.
