Ever since Lincoln declared an annual day of Thanksgiving in 1863, it became customary for presidents to issue a Proclamation of Thanksgiving each year. And in 1925, Calvin Coolidge did so on October 26th. His proclamation spoke to a year of national prosperity, noting that the nation was blessed with “resources whose potentiality in wealth is almost incalculable” and that the nation’s people “should set ourselves against evil and strive for righteousness in living, and observing the Golden Rule we should from our abundance help and serve those less fortunately placed.” (Coolidge incidentally made a visit to St. Pete with his wife Grace after he left office and stayed at the Vinoy Hotel. According to hotel lore he did not like the rich food served in the hotel dining room and ate simpler fare with the staff in the cafeteria.)
The year 1925 was a time of unparalleled prosperity for St. Petersburg. The city by then had fully recovered from the Great Hurricane of 1921. Babe Ruth arrived in March with the Yankees for spring training. The Vinoy and Jungle Country Club hotels and Flor de Leon cooperative apartment building opened. Derby Lane, located at the Gateway (and now again being mentioned as a possible site for a new Rays stadium), ran its first greyhound races; prominent Black builder, developer, and entrepreneur Elder Jordan began construction of the Manhattan Casino on the Deuces; C. Perry Snell launched Snell Isle; Bayboro Harbor opened to shipping with its dredging providing landfill to create Albert Whitted Airport; the St. Petersburg Times ran 25 million lines of advertising, mostly involving real estate; and overall, the city increased its size north and south by almost 40 square miles and issued a record number of building permits valued at some $24 million (unadjusted for inflation). This prosperity was not to last. The bottom would fall out of the city real estate market two years later, and that would be followed by the Great Depression. But in 1925, many in the city had much to be thankful for as they approached the Thanksgiving Holiday.
Surprisingly William Straub, editor of the St. Petersburg Times, predecessor of the Tampa Bay Times, did not offer a Thanksgiving editorial, but instead published a McClure Syndicate column by a Dr. Frank Crane. Dr. Crane reflected on how those living in 1925 had much to be thankful for as they were living in a better time than those who lived 100 years before. He noted that the country was now free of slavery and that dueling had been ended. He lauded the enactment of Prohibition, although allowed that liquor could still be obtained. He wrote that overall people were drinking less as “the average person cannot afford to pay 50 cents or a dollar for a drink of liquor that formerly cost 10 cents.” He noted that the world was warmer, not because of climate change, but because of the invention of the radiator. He wrote that formerly wars were undertaken as “predatory excursions,” but while “we are far from having attained the goal of universal peace…at least war has become more and more a remote possibility.” Crane concluded that, “A man has to be thankful that he lives in 1925 and not in 1825, and he can look forward to a better world for his children.”
To kick off the Thanksgiving season the Times held an essay contest for school children. The paper enthusiastically reported that “Boys and Girls Did Exceedingly Well with Stories on the National Holiday” and that nearly every school won an honor. Ten-year-old Alice Porter of Roser Park won first place. She declared, “Next to Christmas I like Thanksgiving Day best of all holidays.”…