7

The Economic Aftermath

The growing financial despair in rural agricultural lands throughout the 1920s, while fueling the Smadbecks’ ability to purchase farmland, nevertheless pointed toward the devaluing of real estate in general. The 1926 banking collapse and end of the land bubble in Florida were further indications.1

Still, it took some time for the economy to decompose. Even after Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, economic contraction was not instantaneous—unemployment did not reach its high point until 1933. While the fad for newspaper resorts had been declining and the Smadbecks had already begun retreating from the scheme, there was still one very large last gasp—colonies created in partnership the New York Daily Mirror between 1928 and 1932.

Before the alliance with the Daily Mirror, the longest, and possibly the most successful, of the newspaper relationships was that with the Chicago Evening Post and its consortium of publications. The Post papers initiated seven colonies beginning with Mayo’s Lakewood resort in 1912, then Lake Michigan Beach, Knightstown Lake, Pell Lake, Lake Louisvilla, and Lake Como Beach, before ending with Interlaken in 1929. In spite of declining economic conditions, the Mirror was able to match the Post record for number of resorts by becoming a real estate developer itself.

The beginning Daily Mirror colonies were on Long Island in Suffolk County. North Shore Beach was placed on Rocky Point where Radio Corporation of America had been using land for a radio transmitting facility before selling 950 acres to Warren and Arthur Smadbeck in April of 1927.2 The following year the promotion was repeated with Sound Beach located immediately west of North Shore Beach. The association with the newspaper was a happy arrangement and additional resorts followed in short order.

In the late 1920s the Smadbeck brothers had begun buying land in Putnam County, just north of Westchester County where their father had created Sherman Park. The majority of the lakes in this area served as reservoirs to supply water for New York City and the Smadbecks remedied the shortage of lakes by creating new ones. Lake Carmel in the center of the county, was formed by building a dam in swampland along the middle branch of the Croton River. The Daily Mirror began offering lots at Lake Carmel in 1930.3

Throughout the 1920s the sponsoring newspapers had continued to assert that they were not in the real estate business. This statement was included in ads as late as 19304 and was made by the Daily Mirror in an ad for North Shore Beach.5 But that claim was negated when the newspaper formed a ­spin-off corporation and formally entered into the real estate business. The Mirror Holding Corporation was registered on May 27, 1931, for the purpose of operating a real estate brokerage, developing real estate, and generally carrying on all types of real estate activities,6 and so the Mayo/Smadbeck subscription premium scheme culminated in a complete merger of real estate and journalism.

It may be viewed as ironic that the alliance achieved its maximum potential just as the ideal conditions for the scheme were fading away. On the other hand, perhaps it was because of the worsening depression that the melding took place. With diminishing advertising earnings, the Mirror may have looked to broadening its scope of business operations to increase income.

Four more resort communities were spawned by Mirror Holding in collaboration with the Smadbecks. These included Putnam Lake, along the Connecticut border, created by damming Morlock Brook.7 The partnership turned west to New Jersey in 1932 and created two lakes and two resorts—Lake Parsippany in Morris County and Upper Greenwood Lake in Passaic County. Yet another Mirror Holding development on eastern Long Island was Montauk Beach, begun in 1931 or 1932. The Daily Mirror colonies were founded using the established newspaper resort template with one notable departure—the practice of naming the roads after plants was largely abandoned with some hints of egotism creeping in. There is a Smadbeck Avenue in Lake Carmel and Warren Drives in both Lake Parsippany and Putnam Lake.8

Like Great Lakes Beach and Woodland Beach, developed in this same time frame, the Mirror colonies backpedaled on the subscription requirement. An ad for Putnam Lake used the indefinite language that buyers must agree to subscribe to the Daily Mirror9 while a Montauk Beach mailer declared that lots could be purchased by assenting to become a reader.10

* * *

By 1932 it was apparent that the decline in the economy was forcing an end to the newspaper deal. As laborers earned less money or lost their jobs entirely, summer cottages and newspaper subscriptions were luxuries they could no longer afford. Those most affected by the depressed economy, the working classes, were the very reader base that the newspapers relied on for the real estate sales arrangement. As the papers lost both subscribers and advertisers they began to dissolve, a situation that was not helped by the increasing popularity of radio as a source of news.

The newspaper publishing business has never been reliably sustainable and several of the journals sponsoring resort developments failed even before the Depression began. These included the two earliest papers involved in the promotion: the Boston Evening Record ceased publication in 1921 and the Jewish Daily News in 1928. The Buffalo Enquirer and the Buffalo Courier dissolved in 1925 and 1926, respectively. The San Francisco Bulletin only operated for a few years, from 1926 to 1929. Not even the Bolinas Beach promotion could save it.

Other newspapers ceased publishing in the early 1930s. The Chicago Evening Post fell victim to the Depression in October 1932 and was absorbed by the Chicago Daily News. The Commercial Tribune of Cincinnati disappeared in 1930, the two El Paso papers in 1931, and the Houston Post Dispatch in 1932. The year after the formation of Lake Louisvilla, its two sponsoring papers, the Louisville Herald and the Louisville Post, were merged into the ­Herald-Post. That paper went into bankruptcy in 1930 and again in 1936 when it closed down. Some newspapers held on. The Daily Mirror rode out the Depression and lasted for several more decades causing speculation that perhaps its foray into the world of real estate helped it get through the Depression years.

* * *

Two parties to the equation, the lot customers and the sponsoring papers, were no longer economically capable of sustaining their part in the deal. In contrast, the third element, the developers, chiefly the Smadbecks, capably weathered the financial difficulties.

The brothers were circumspect in both their business dealings and their personal lives. Warren married Madeline Lachenbruch in March of 1911.11 By 1918 he sported a diamond and platinum solitaire ring12 and in 1930 the couple had a butler, cook, and houseman.13 With as many servants as children, their wealth was obvious.

During the 1920s Dr. Smadbeck was a frequent buyer at auctions, investing in sixteenth and ­seventeenth-century art and furniture. The antique purchasing continued throughout the decade; however, in 1936, Warren began disposing of the vintage Italian and French paintings, manuscripts, furniture, and carpets. The sale of these items was not spurred by the Depression or a need for money but rather by personal circumstances. Warren’s wife Madeline died on December 28, 1934.14 A year later he married Devereaux Fay15 who had a background as an interior decorator. Within weeks of the marriage the heavy carved and gilded furnishings were auctioned off.16 The marriage lasted about as long as the furniture had. Devereaux obtained a Reno divorce in July of 194317 and Warren went on to marry a third wife, one with Cuban heritage, Violeta Rodriguez.

Except for the succession of spouses, Arthur lived a parallel existence. He married Ruth Shear in 191918 and displayed his riches with a ­seven-passenger Sterns limousine19 and his boating prowess by winning yacht club regattas.20 In 1930 he and his wife maintained two children and four servants—a governess, a chambermaid, a butler, and a cook.21 A cigar smoking, yet impeccable dresser, he was portrayed as donning a fresh shirt with nearly every cigar.22

Arthur was a braggart, but not always a factual one. During a 1957 interview23 he asserted that he headed ­twenty-two corporations and was involved with a variety of businesses including citrus, cattle, oil, real estate, and hotels. The claim of citrus farming and cattle ranching was based on recent purchases of land in Florida that had been used for those purposes but was already in the process of subdivision.24

The interview also credits Arthur with this unbelievable statement about his father: “He lost everything during the depression years and my brother … and I started from scratch.” If Arthur was referring to the 1930s, he was extending Louis Smadbeck’s life by twenty years. It would also be inaccurate to assert that his father lost everything in the Panic of 1893. Records show that, throughout the 1890s, Louis continued buying land and selling lots at Sherman Park. At his death in 1911 Louis Smadbeck had a net worth of more than $48,000,25 well over a million dollars in current money. But Arthur’s version better glorified his own accomplishments.

The brothers were active in civic affairs and philanthropy. Governor Alfred E. Smith appointed Warren to the state’s first child welfare committee. Arthur served as president of the New York Coliseum beginning with its opening in 1956, and he and his wife Ruth were instrumental in the operations of the Heckscher Foundation for Children.

Both men traveled, with Cuba as a favorite destination for business as well as for pleasure. In addition to the Hotel Presidente they owned additional hotel properties, an apartment, bank accounts, cash, and other funds in Cuba—all of which were seized by the Castro regime in October of 1960. The Smadbecks valued their Cuban losses at $275,000.26

In addition to their suburban resort developments, they had dealings in real estate in New York City where they resided throughout their lives, and both men also had summer homes in the Lake Carmel area. Perhaps it was their management acumen that resulted in long lives. Warren lived to age eighty27 and Arthur topped him by ten years, living to ninety.28

* * *

Like their father, Warren and Arthur Smadbeck were inventive and entrepreneurial. That they were also good money managers was evident from the manner in which the finances of the resorts were handled.

When the newspaper resort phenomenon began in earnest at the beginning of the 1920s, the lots were priced at about $50 each with some variances among colonies, probably due to location. Through the decade, prices increased an average of $4.50 per year, reaching $90 at the end of the 1920s and a high of $100 by the time Montauk Beach was developed in the early 1930s.

An easy payment plan was a feature of every promotion. Initial deposits were a modest $8.50 to $12.40 with monthly payments hovering around $3.00. As lot prices increased, the length of time to pay off the purchase price stretched out to as much as 26 months. This installment plan was a popular option as there were no interest charges.

The terms of the subscription and lot purchase were contained in a simple agreement identifying the lot numbers and spelling out the terms of payment. A deed would not be issued until the last payment was made and, if there was any default in payments, the seller could opt to cancel the contract.29

The two years or so it took buyers to pay for the plots coincided with the time it took the Smadbecks to buy the land, create the resort, sell most of the lots, help establish the POA, and then exit the scene. At most of the colonies, once the majority of the platted lots had found customers, the leftovers were sold in bulk at a discount or otherwise transferred out of the Smadbeck name, using a variety of methods.

At Bolinas Beach, less than two years after purchasing the land in February of 1927, Arthur Smadbeck sold the remaining lots to San Francisco real estate operator Joseph Jacoby who then advertised them for sale without the newspaper connection.30 King Lake was slower to wrap up. With about a third of the land still unsold four years after the project was begun, the remaining lots were purchased by Frank Norton, a local abstractor who had been serving as trustee.31

Madeline Burdett was sales and managing agent for Skyland, operating out of an adobe house at the resort in the summer and an office at the newspaper’s headquarters in El Paso during the winter. When the Skyland lot boom was over, she was asked to sell the surplus plots for whatever she could get. Burdett objected, fearing that lower prices would lessen the value of the lots already sold, to the detriment of those who had paid full price. She teamed up with Stella Campbell and together they bought the lots from Arthur Smadbeck and continued selling them on their own.32 Pell Lake demonstrates yet another approach—the 1,300 or so lots that remained unsold in 1927 were deeded to Smadbeck employee Matthew Jonap, thus keeping the land within the corporate family but removing it from direct ownership by Warren Smadbeck.

* * *

The information available for Pell Lake demonstrates that the profit realized from a resort development can only be estimated. In 1924 farmland in Walworth County, Wisconsin, was valued at about $100 per acre but a buyer would need to pay more to convince the farmers to sell. Revenue stamps establish that $86,000 was paid to farmers by Ludwig Freudenthal but it is uncertain if this represents all of the land purchased.33 Assuming that 700 acres were purchased for $86,000, the farmers were paid an average of $122 per acre.

If all of the platted lots were sold at the advertised price of $67.50, gross receipts in excess of $660,000 would have been realized. However, many lots were sold for less. Some lots were not full size and deals were likely made on these small, triangular slices. A few lots, such as those where the clubhouse sat, were given to the POA at no cost and the leftover lots deeded to Jonap were surely disposed of at a discount.

In addition to the cost of acquiring the acreage, there was the considerable expense of improvements: dredging the lake, constructing the dam, and building the clubhouse, dance pavilion, and beach structures. At Times Beach $200,000 was claimed to be invested34 while an ad for Mastic Park states that $250,000 was being spent on improvements.35

There were also professional fees paid to surveyors, engineers, and attorneys, and of course, a hefty amount went toward advertising and sales commissions. Travel expenses, employee salaries, and overhead at the New York office might also be factored in. A return on investment in the range of $200,000 to $250,000 per resort is a reasonable guess. With five newspaper colonies developed in 1924, the Smadbecks likely had profits in excess of a million dollars for that year from newspaper resort development activity alone.

* * *

Selling off the remaining lots, even at a reduced price, proved to be a prudent move when the Depression deepened and land prices dropped precipitously. Baker’s Department Store in Buffalo, having secured all the unsold lots at Lake Erie Beach, advertised them for $14.95 in 193236 compared with their 1922 price of $57.50. Arthur Smadbeck set the price for lots at Bolinas Beach at $69.50, an amount that real estate promoter Jacoby immediately raised to $79.50 when he took over.37 By 1933 they were being sold by the insurance commissioner of California for $25 cash “at forced sale by order of the courts.”38 That same year an advertisement for Lake ­Sam-O-Set lots, originally costing $77, were offered at “A Great Sacrifice!” for $18.75.39

Initially, lots in the Pell Lake Addition were priced at $67.50, the same as the Smadbeck Pell Lake lots, and included free membership in the Pell Lake Golf Club, a promise that went unrealized. The area designated for the golf course still remains a woody gulch. Neither was the Pell Lake Hotel built. By the mid–1930s the price for lots in the Addition was halved.

A poster from the mid–1930s advertises lots in the Pell Lake Addition: three for $100—half their original cost (courtesy Art Oster).

But at one of the Smadbeck colonies the lot price increased during the Depression in an unusual offer. Lots at Mastic Beach on Long Island sold for $89 in 1926. Ten years later ads appeared offering a free bungalow to anyone who subscribed to the Brooklyn Citizen for three months and purchased four lots at a cost of $96.50 each.40 The available lots were most likely those farthest from the shore and the cottage pictured in the ads is quite modest. Still, it was a tempting offer for anyone who still had $400 to spend on a summer home.

Industrious workers who had jobs and some disposable income took advantage of these bargains. They bought lots at the discounted prices and other lots were obtained by contacting the original buyers, many of whom had never visited their still vacant property, and, in hard times, could easily be talked into selling the land for a few dollars.

Tax sales were still another source of summer resort lots at greatly reduced prices. In 1935 forty parcels at Lake ­Sam-O-Set were the subject of a tax forfeiture.41 A few months later four of these lots were sold by the local taxing authority for $8.75 each, approximately 10 percent of the original asking price.42

Although property taxes were less than a dollar a lot, owners with little income could not afford to pay the tax bill and even lots with cottages on them were abandoned. Initially counties were slow to seek recovery of back taxes at the newspaper resorts because the dollars owed on the tiny lots were insignificant compared with the work involved in pursuing collection. But counties were also in need of cash during the Depression and long lists of delinquent properties began to be published in the 1930s.

The Smadbeck name appears repeatedly in these listings.43 In some cases buyers failed to make all of the installment payments on the lots and deeds were never issued to them. Other buyers had not bothered to record their deeds, leaving the lots in the developer’s name on the tax rolls. In these situations the Smadbecks had been paid for the lots, or had been paid enough, making it more cost efficient to just ignore the tax bill and allow the county to take ownership.

Even when buyers completed the payments and recorded their deeds, they did not always know about the pending tax foreclosure proceedings. The required legal notices were published in small newspapers in the county seat where the resort was located, papers that the owners living in the big city never read. Some developers overextended themselves and, when the Depression hit, were unable to sell the lots at a good price. If they could not afford to keep up with the taxes on the unsold lots, they too, lost the land to the county. At Pell Lake Highlands nearly a quarter of the lots were forfeited to Walworth County for back taxes in 1933.44

Many of the Pell Lake lots that the county obtained through tax foreclosure, as well as some of the lots transferred into Matthew Jonap’s name, eventually ended up in the hands of Charles H. Wendell, an Illinois real estate agent. Wendell set up shop in a house on Thistle Drive and began selling lots in July of 1933. A map he published in 1947 has over 1,000 lots marked with Xs, presumably representing those that could be purchased from or through him. These included lots in all of the Smadbeck sections as well as in the Addition, the Highlands, and the Sitterlee subdivisions. Charles Wendell and his wife Adele monopolized the real estate market in Pell Lake for decades.

* * *

The Smadbecks became involved with back taxes at Pell Lake in a different context. In November of 1930 a newspaper reported that thousands of lots in Walworth County were in default. It noted that the assessor particularly singled out the developments sponsored by the Chicago Evening Post and denounced the Smadbeck brothers for making enormous profits but refusing to pay state income tax.45 Walworth County District Attorney Arthur Thorson, running for reelection against an impressive opponent, boasted in a campaign ad that he was “pressing a claim against the Smadbecks and Chicago Evening Post for $50,000 delinquent income taxes” for the benefit of taxpayers.46

The action was apparently aimed at recovering Wisconsin income taxes assessed on the profits made in developing Pell Lake, but the unavailability of the court documents leaves the details and outcome unknown. What is obtainable are court records in ancillary proceedings. There Thorson obtained writs of attachment preventing the Smadbecks from disposing of any property they owned in the county to ensure that assets would be available to satisfy a potential judgment for the taxes allegedly owed.47

But the New Yorkers were cleverer than the local district attorney. The Smadbecks were adept at ­land-laundering, that is, transferring ownership of realty from one entity to another, a practice that insulated their assets from just this type of exposure. The tactic was activated in the Pell Lake tax case when Matthew Jonap intervened to assert that he was the owner of the land affected by the attachments. When he produced the deed to the lots given to him by Warren Smadbeck in 192748 the writs of attachment were promptly dismissed leaving the tax collector with no means of enforcing a judgment.49

In the paperwork Jonap filed with the court, he had no reason to provide information on his employment and he made no effort to do so. His World War II draft registration form listed his employer as Warren and Arthur Smadbeck.50 In 1937 Jonap transferred the still unsold lots to Gustave Schulze.51 A New York resident, Schulze is identified as a bookkeeper for a real estate firm in both the 1930 and 1940 censuses.52 Chances are good that he too was employed by the Smadbecks. In this way the brothers were able to keep land in the business family while still protecting it from satisfying judgments.

* * *

Lakeside resorts for the middle classes had a resurgence of popularity after World War II, again fueled by post war prosperity, but the concept of creating resorts through newspaper subscription offers had been exhausted. Knowing that their real estate endeavors would be more successful if they had a front to disguise the profit motive, the Smadbecks looked for another way to work the deal and tried a ­tie-in with magazine subscriptions. Lots at Saint Augustine South in Florida were marketed with a subscription to Florida Speaks, which billed itself as the national magazine of Florida living,53 and were later offered to the readers of Sunrise Magazine of Southern Living.54

But the Smadbecks found an even better instrument of camouflage for their developments when they began pairing with local chambers of commerce, a good choice given the ­non-profit status of most such groups and their interest in advocating community development. This approach was used in 1952 to develop South Venice on 3,000 acres of land in Sarasota County, Florida. Employing their standard Smadbeck blueprint, the South Venice promotion was aimed at a nationwide audience with ads and reinforcing articles appearing in dozens of upper Midwest city papers. As with the newspaper resorts, many of the lots were purchased sight unseen with all 19,587 lots reportedly sold in two years.55

This new version of the deal did not go unchallenged. Noting that the lots were selling like hotcakes and recalling memories of the Florida realty boom days, the Sarasota County Commission conducted a hearing to investigate the arrangement. The commissioners questioned whether the Venice Area Chamber of Commerce was illegally using advertising funds allocated to it by the county or was violating its charter by competing with private businesses. The president of the chamber denied the accusations of wrongdoing and assured the commission that no chamber money was being used in the promotion, that no profits were earned by the chamber, and that the organization only benefited by gaining new residents.56

This contractual arrangement with chambers of commerce reconstituted the newspaper alliance of thirty years earlier. A chamber would lend its name and endorsement to the project, news articles would stress that the organization made no profit from lot sales, and, for the most part, the Smadbeck name was kept out of the press. The community was improved by the enhancements that the developer provided—engineering and construction of streets, parks, ponds, and drainage systems. The Smadbecks guaranteed to spend a minimum amount in advertising the development and the community. Another significant incentive for the chambers of commerce was obtaining, free of cost, a headquarters building when the Smadbecks agreed to buy or build a sales office and deed it to the chamber at the end of the contract period.57 As with the newspaper deal everyone benefited from the scheme.

While nothing could quite match the uniqueness of the newspaper deal, the brothers had found another inventive way to market real estate. Alliances with chambers of commerce were employed in other Florida developments including Palmetto Point58 and Avon Park Lakes59 and, after some fits and starts, Chesapeake Landing60 with the Chestertown, Maryland, chamber. Other similar alignments were Waynesburg Lakes61 in Greene County, Pennsylvania, and, amazingly, Knightstown Lake in Indiana.

Begun in 1923 Knightstown Lake quickly ran into trouble. Already by 1927 many lots were on the delinquent tax list.62 By ­mid-century, Indiana’s Henry County owned more than 1,000 lots acquired through tax forfeitures. The difficult topography of the area had resulted in postage size, irregular lots, some measuring only 20' × 20',63 a situation that created a costly paperwork nightmare for the county tax collecting agency. Attempts were made to market the lots, and the county even considered replatting them, but by 1961 less than a quarter had been sold. Appraised at $9 per lot, the county decided to auction off the remaining 775 lots for not less than ­two-thirds the appraised value.

At the auction on July 12, 1961, the only bid was placed by plucky Warren Smadbeck who purchased all the available land for $4,700, the lowest acceptable amount. Without bothering to replat, he proceeded to resell the very same lots he had sold forty years earlier.64 Then the lots were priced at $58.50, and now, having repurchased them for $6 apiece, Smadbeck sold them for $150 each, marketing them in groups of five.65

Although this time around Warren Smadbeck’s name appeared in some news reports, the ads proclaimed that the Knightstown Chamber of Commerce was involved in the real estate offer to further community development and bring to the area more people, more industry, and greater prosperity. A press account noted that a new chamber of commerce building had been erected at Knightstown Lake and, while the lot offer was ongoing, the building would also be used as the sales office.66 Much of the area had reverted back to wilderness but Smadbeck installed new roads and developed a ravine into a recreational area. In less than a year, most of the lots were sold.67

Knightstown Lake thus achieved the distinction of being the only development to be profitably marketed by Warren Smadbeck both as a newspaper colony and as a chamber of commerce resort.

---

1. See Raymond B. Vickers, Panic in Paradise, Florida’s Banking Crash of 1926, Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1994, 5.

2. “Radio Corporation Sells 950 Acres in Rocky Point,” County Review, May 5, 1927, 17.

3. Display Ad, New York Times, June 12, 1930, 15.

4. Great Lakes Beach Display Ad, Port Huron ­Times-Herald, July 2, 1930, 22.

5. Display Ad, New York Times, June 17, 1928, RE 5.

6. Articles of Incorporation, NYDS, DOS ID 40805.

7. McGolrick Realty was another entity associated with the creation of numerous summer communities in the New York area. Using the name State Line Golf and Country Club, McGolrick and the Smadbecks cooperated in buying up farmland and developing resorts including Lake Carmel, Putnam Lake, and Lake Peekskill, all in Putnam County. Lake Peekskill, however, absent a subscription requirement, does not meet the criterion of a newspaper colony. Display Ad, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 5, 1929, 23.

8. The original plat maps need to be examined to ascertain that these were the original names of the streets and not later changes.

9. Display Ad, New York Times, June 10, 1931, 49.

10. Montauk Beach Property Owners Association, accessed February 24, 2020: http://www.mbpoa.com/­about-us.

11. Index to New York City Marriages, March 27, 1911, Certificate No. 7168.

12. Classified Ad, New York Times, August 5, 1918, 16.

13. 1930 U.S. Census, Population Schedule, New York County, New York, p. 20B, lines 51–58.

14. “Wills for Probate,” Madeline Smadbeck, New York Times, January 10, 1935, 40.

15. “Mrs. Fay Wed to Dr. Smadbeck,” New York Times, December 19, 1935, 30.

16. “­2-Day Art Auction Realizes $38,038 Here,” New York Times, February 16, 1936, N8.

17. ­Reno-Gazette Journal, July 17, 1943, 10.

18. “­Smadbeck-Shear,” New York Times, October 8, 1919, 19.

19. Classified Ad, New York Times, March 29, 1922, 39.

20. “Smadbeck’s Boat Wins Opening Regatta Heat,” Brooklyn Citizen, August 5, 1927, 3.

21. 1930 U.S. Census, Population Schedule, New York County, New York, p. 12B, lines 51–58.

22. “Coliseum Leader Sold Suburbs,” New York Times, April 29, 1956, 75.

23. Cobey Black, “A Gentleman with Vision,” Honolulu Star Bulletin, August 26, 1957, 15.

24. “Avon Park C. of C. Sponsors Low Cost Lot Sales,” Saint Petersburg Times, January 6, 1957, ­10-F.

25. “Wills for Probate,” New York Times, July 1, 1913, 17.

26. In the Matter of the Claim of Warren and Arthur Smadbeck, Inc. under the International Claims Settlement Act of 1949, Claim No. CU 2465, Decision No. CU 967, Foreign Claims Settlement Commission of the United States, April 22, 1970.

27. “Warren Smadbeck, 80, Is Dead,” New York Times, July 30, 1965.

28. Peter B. Flint, “Arthur Smadbeck, 90, Ran Coliseum,” New York Times, September 7, 1977, 55.

29. Daily Mirror Subscription Contract, June 13, 1928, North Shore Beach Property Owners Association, History, accessed February 20, 2018: http://www.northshorebeach.org/history. While the payment plan was a great aid to the buyers, it seriously impedes research of the land records. There is no public record of the date of the purchase contracts and the deeds were not issued until the final payment was made, often two years later. These circumstances prohibit an accurate determination of just how quickly the lots sold and requires reliance on information contained in the articles and ads, information that was no doubt hyped by the sellers.

30. Display Ad, Modesto ­News-Herald, February 1, 1929, 11.

31. “King Lake Lots Sold,” Omaha ­World-Herald, July 24, 1929, 3.

32. Diane Stallings, “Skyland Development Reflects Ruidoso History,” Ruidoso News, September 19, 1991, 10A.

33. Deed information is both incomplete and contradictory. Not all deeds disclose the amount of acreage transferred and revenue stamps are unreadable on others.

34. “Beach on Meramec,” Washington (Missouri) Citizen, August 14, 1925, 4.

35. Display Ad, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 29, 1922, 22.

36. Display Ad, Buffalo ­Courier-Express, June 23, 1932, 7.

37. Display Ad, Modesto (California) ­News-Herald, February 1, 1929, 11.

38. Display Ad, San Anselmo Herald, November 16, 1933, 3.

39. Display Ad, Fitchburg Sentinel, June 9, 1933, 15.

40. Display Ad, Long Island Daily Press, May 18, 1936, 3.

41. “Real Estate on Which 1934 Taxes Have Not Been Paid to Be Sold by Collector Harnden July 23,” Fitchburg Sentinel, July 1, 1935, 12.

42. “Committee to Study Welfare Plan Elsewhere,” Fitchburg Sentinel, November 13, 1935, 12.

43. See, e.g., Lake Louisvilla (Louisville) ­Courier-Journal, April 15, 1935, 23; Fairfield Beach, Lancaster (Ohio) ­Eagle-Gazette, March 24, 1938, 15–21; Loveland Park, Cincinnati Enquirer, April 10, 1944, 30–31.

44. General Index Book 25 C, 1930–1933, WCRD.

45. “County Worries Over Lake Taxes,” Janesville (Wisconsin) Daily Gazette, November 22, 1930, 17.

46. Lake Geneva News Tribune, September 11, 1930, 4.

47. Pell Lake Property Owners Association v. Chicago Evening Post, File No. 10547, and Roy Thompson v. Chicago Evening Post, File No. 10584, Walworth County Wisconsin, Clerk of Circuit Court Archives, Elkhorn (1930).

48. Smadbeck to Jonap, WCRD, Deeds, February 23, 1927, v. 193, 345.

49. Pell Lake POA v. Chicago Evening Post and Roy Thompson v. Chicago Evening Post (1934).

50. “U.S. World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942,” Serial No. 1520, Local Draft Board 7, April 27, 1942, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

51. Jonap to Schulze, WCRD, Deeds, June 7, 1937, 249; 278.

52. 1930 U.S. Census, Population Schedule, Queens County, New York, 15A, line 14; 1940 U.S. Census, Population Schedule, Queens County, New York, p. 5B, line 53.

53. Display Ad, Orlando Sentinel, July 25, 1954, ­18-D.

54. Display Ad, (Hagerstown, Maryland) Morning Herald, January 24, 1956, 7.

55. Arthur Juntunen, “$200 Lots Start Town,” Detroit Free Press, March 14, 1954, 29. See South Venice Civic Association, “A History of South Venice Beach,” accessed February 25, 2020: http://southvenicebeach.org/­a-history-of-south-venice-beach/.

56. Walter Powers, “Sarasota Board Seeks Ervin Ruling on Venice Chamber’s Part in Realty Promotion,” Tampa Morning Tribune, February 3, 1953, 11.

57. “Centreville C. of C. Wary of Real Estate Proposal,” (Wilmington, Delaware) News Journal, April 29, 1959, 29.

58. Steve Raymond, “Giant Ad Drive to Launch New Palmetto Development,” Tampa Daily Times, January 31, 1955, 5.

59. “Avon Park Chamber Sponsors Realty Project to Encourage New Residents,” Tampa Sunday Tribune, January 6, 1957, ­9-B.

60. “Centreville C. of C. Wary of Real Estate Proposal,” News Journal; “Shore Lots on Sale,” The (Baltimore) Sun, August 26, 1962, Sec. c, 4.

61. “Housing Set for Greene,” (Uniontown, Pennsylvania) Evening Standard, October 27, 1962, 4.

62. (Greenfield, Indiana) Daily Reporter, February 18, 1927, 4.

63. “New Castle News,” (Richmond, Indiana) ­Palladium-Item, November 18, 1959, 10.

64. “New Castle News,” July 12, 1961, 12.

65. Display Ad, (Muncie, Indiana) Star Press, August 31, 1961, 34.

66. “Knightstown Will Develop Lake Site Just East of Town,” Rushville (Indiana) Republican, September 1, 1961, 2.

67. Frank Salzarulo, “Old Subdivision and New Vision,” Indianapolis News, June 25, 1962, 3.