If I happened to be looking through the pages of a nationally circulated magazine, and came across this gorgeous advertisement shown above, it would make me want to know more.
In fact, that is exactly what happened to me.
There before me was a beautiful blue oval lagoon surrounded by buildings all in the style that I believe every building in Florida should aspire to. Stucco walls, red tile roofs, and arched porches. Ah! After seeing it, I wanted to know more. Which is the whole idea behind this and the other advertisements about this Florida community, on the Atlantic somewhere between Daytona and Palm Beach.
If it has whet your appetite, read on...!
It was early 1926. The place? The booming state of Florida. Towns and cities were springing up like a bumper crop, and the existing cities were growing enormously. Everyone seemed to be caught up in the spirit of the thing. Imagine! Creating community after community with carefully planned amenities such as golf courses, boating lakes, and easy access to the Atlantic Ocean. Not to mention, in a climate that seemed ideal in contrast to icy winters up north.
What could be more enticing than that? Not to mention that it just might prolong a person's life to be away from winter's harshness, as the following advertisement "Do People Live Longer in Florida?" asks, rhetorically!
"Seek not Florida's too-crowded cities" Sheesh, that copyrighter was earning his or her keep! What a line! But there was more in the way of advertising along these same healthful lines, as is shown in the next illustration.
How to banish rheumatism and ill-health? Moving to Indrio would be just what the doctor ordered! How could any health-conscious person resist it?
If good health wasn't a good enough reason to put down roots in Indrio, it was also, according the the publicity campaign, "Good Business":
Executive types who would avail themselves of the pleasures of Indrio could practically guarantee that they would be more alert, refreshed, and ready for the challenges of corporate leadership after a sojourn in such a "Restful" locale.
Just north of Fort Pierce, Florida, the Indrio community was brewing. Plans had been made, the word was getting out, thanks to one of the most lavish advertising campaigns ever, some examples of which you have already seen. These ran in publications including "Scribner's" and "Collier's" which could have been considered as all-reaching as "Time" and Newsweek" would become later in the twentieth century, albeit for a genteel and well-educated readership.
Soon, not only would there be a spellbinding new town in St. Lucie County, but also, it would rival the best in amenities and style, and cater to those of "moderate" means. Of course looking at some of the ads, one gets the feeling that these are people with vast sums to spend, whose lives center around glamorous recreational pursuits. The place promised plenty of snob appeal. As seen in the "An Address of Distinction" advertisement, below:
La de da.
This was no fly by night enterprise, whatsoever. Because behind this new resort idea was one of America's most notable capitalists, Edwin Binney, and his wife Alice. The Binneys already had several showplace homes up north, including an estate in Greenwich, Connecticut. But in 1911, they had fallen in love with Fort Pierce. As other plutocrats had done up and down the coast from St. Augustine (Henry Flagler, who also built a mansion in Palm Beach) to Ormond Beach (John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil and spare-a-dime fame) to Palm Beach (Marjorie Merriweather Post, of Post Toasties, Jell-O, Bakers Chocolate, Maxwell House Coffee, and Mar-a-Lago renown), the Binney's found their own little strip of sunshine and decided to make it their own.
Edwin Binney - The Crayola King
They had begun their successful lives in Easton, Pennsylvania, because there, Binney had created and perfected first, a dustless blackboard chalk which changed the way people "did" school, and then, his m miracle product: Crayola crayons. Binney's wealth did not come from steel or oil or foodstuffs or railroads, but from humble yet phenomenally profitable school and art supplies. The Binneys were also well-known for their kindness and their commitment to giving back to the places where they lived. Especially, Fort Pierce.
Alice Binney had a way with naming things (the name "Crayola" was her brainchild) and places. She coined the name for the new town: "Indrio". It was a new name for a new place, but had specific reference to its location built-in. "Ind" for "Indian", and "Rio" for "River", since it would be alongside the Indian River, a beautiful stretch of the intercostal waterway, then and now. So Indrio it would be!
Alice had already invented a special name for their own circa 1915 Florida home, combining the words "Florida" and "Indian" (again, inspired by the Indian River): "Florindia" (sometimes called "Florindia Farms"). The large two story home, made of stucco with the requisite round headed windows and tile roof, is there to this day, along Indrio Road, naturally. They had enjoyed living there for almost a decade when the idea for the new town of Indrio began to hatch.
Points of interest: The roundabout intersection at the middle right labeled 3 in red is the intersection of Indrio Road and the Dixie Highway, with the East Coast Railway line running immediately to the right side of the Dixie Highway. Notice the golf course greens, labeled 12, and the water features. The railroad station would have been built at the semicircle location along the Dixie Highway, to the lower right of the illustration, labeled 7.
Of course, the curious reader would have wanted to learn more about this delightful new town (and how to get in on the ground level). These ads invited them to write to the planners, or even better, to "See For Yourself":
Not incidentally, the "See for Yourself" ad appeared alongside the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, "The Rich Boy" (its first time in print), in The Red Book magazine, in February 1926.
The Gatsby-esque community that would have been Indrio was only a pipe-dream. Indeed, the launch date for the purchase of property in Indrio was set, as shown in the ad below, which chiefly features a beautifully rendered birds-eye view of the railroad station and surrounding envisioned homes. (Remember, all of was very much in the "proposed" stage, none of it was built):
Mark the opening date. September 12, 1926. The timing couldn't have been worse.
Here's why... On September 11th, tropical winds were kicking up in the warm waters of the Atlantic off the Florida coast, and came ashore at Miami on September 18th, as a Category 4 hurricane (with 130-156 mph sustained winds). Hurricane force winds were reported from the upper Keys in the south to St. Lucie County in the north (which included Fort Pierce and the site of Indrio). The hurricane caused havoc up and down the Atlantic coastline. With one mighty swoop, the wind and rain and devastation wiped away the semitropical paradise hopes and dreams of a nation. The hurricane raged until September 22, 1926, and to this day, is the costliest US Hurricane on record. The Great Miami Hurricane of 1926, as it has come to be known, caused terrible death and destruction, and historians say the financial depression that resulted was a leading factor in the worldwide stock market crash three autumns later.
By the time the storm dissipated on September 23, 1926, no one wanted a place in Florida, anywhere; or to invest in Florida, anymore. Indrio was among the hurricane's casualties.
Old timers in Fort Pierce say that some roads were laid out but not much was ever built. The double whammy of the September 1926 hurricane and the 1929 stock market crash brought the Indrio (and so many other Florida development projects) to a screeching halt.
In some of the other Florida new town locations, there was enough of a start made, so that desultory development would continue throughout the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. But Indrio was too little too late, a place where there wasn't any there there, that would never become the dreamland that its Florida land developers had promised. Too many factors conspired to turn the Florida Land Boom into the Florida Land Bust. And Indrio was abandoned and forgotten.
So what IS left of Indrio today? Not much. Indrio has its own zip code, 34952; which is one of the smallest geographic zip codes in the U.S.A. The street name "Indrio Road" lives on as a Fort Pierce east-west artery. There is also a "Binney Road" to keep the Binney influence in the public's historic memory. As for any remains of what may or may not have been constructed for Indrio, what little of it there once was, has more or less been overtaken by the encroaching underbrush.
There are stories of sidewalks and streetlights being reclaimed by the Florida wilderness. Whether any signs of these remain, is unclear. As best can be told, the location of Indrio is mostly undeveloped, with a scattering of more recent commercial buildings here and there along the old Dixie Highway. Indrio Road's extension to the Indian River: Michigan Avenue, is just a one lane dirt track made impassible by a metal gate. Mostly, it is just Florida scrub and swamp, a happy home to shore birds, poisonous snakes, leering alligators, and relentless mosquitoes. No persons of "moderate means" are to be found.
D. J. (Dewey Jacob) Wilcox was a foreman for the East Coast Development Company. Once work was halted on the Indrio development, Wilcox bought much of the land from the company. He built a home for this in-laws, the Aubrechts in the late 1920s, and remnants of the Aubrecht homestead remain. Wilcox would become a County Commission, and live until 1982.
In his memory, the D. J. Wilcox Preserve has been permanently established to assure that the Oval Basin, and Indian River Waterfront that would have been among Indrio's biggest draws will forever remain unrealized. It is lovely, but very much as it would have been before anyone conceived the concept of Indrio.
And what of the colorful Binney family? They continued to return to Florida most winters, and were in fact on the way there when Edwin fell ill in Gainesville, and died, on December 17, 1934. Their daughter Dorothy continued to enjoy the beauty and serenity of Fort Pierce, where Indrio might have been. In 1930, Dorothy (the first wife of George Palmer Putnam, whose second wife was, famously, aviatrix Amelia Earhart) built her own home which she named "Immokolee". It is said that the house plans were provided to the contractor by Dorothy, but as yet we do not know who the architect may have been. A masterpiece of Mediterranean Revival architecture, "Immokolee" remains a Fort Pierce landmark, and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Photos of "Immokolee" appear below, and give more than an impression of what Indrio might have been, had it come to fruition.
By the way, if the Oval Basin at Indrio reminds you of Harbour Town at Hilton Head Island, well, me too.
I would enjoy learning more about Indrio. If you have information to share, please get in touch!
