Villages by an Emerald Sea: America's New Riviera. . . Northwest Florida's Magnificent Emerald Coast, True Tales of the Early Years

Villages By An Emerald Sea by James Keir Baughman is a history of Northwest Forida's magnificent Emerald Coast, especially the towns of Fort Walton Beach, Destin, Sandestin, Seaside, and Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. Rather than comprehensive, the history is written in focused, engaging, short story form, crafted to be highly entertaining for the person who loves to read. In other words, Villages By An Emerald Sea is meant to make history fun as well as memorable. In Villages By An Emerald Sea the reader will find nearly 300 historic people, families, businesses, streets, highways, old bridges, sea sides, and public facilities memorialized, as well as vibrant descriptions of the Emerald Coast in its earliest and most recent years. Among the people, families, businesses, places, old streets, bridges, and events of the 1950's and 1960's recorded in the history are...Wayne Bell, Claude Jenkins, The Playground News/Northwest Florida Daily News, Mayor O.M. "Pete" Earley, Theo "Docie" Bass, Cecil Bass, Jim Miller, Leon Bishop, Joe Palazzo, Bruce & Joyce Ranew, Paul Roberts, Bill Williams, Dorothy Maslow, Jimmy Pulliam, Arturo Mennillo, Captain Johnny O’Neal, Holton & Henrietta Hudson, Clifford Meigs, Sara Meigs Tras, Bill Harris, Liz Jackson, Alma Culp, Bill & Grace Butler, Jimmie & Pearl Cox, Dr.Aubrey & Ann Robinson, Aubrey Metcalf, Judge Joseph "Andy" Anderson, Denny Partin, Mayor Tom Brooks, Mrs. J.G. Scherf, Buddy O’Neal, Agnes Shahid, Louis Woodham, the famous mystery writer Erle Stanley Gardner, Leon Bishop, Dr. Roger D. Riggenbach, Julius Miller, Luther Clary, Chuck Clary, Mayor Sam Lindsey, Pastor Johnson Pace of St. Simon’s on the Sound Episcopal Church, Gulfarium, Bob McCreary, George Alford, Knute McCulley, Lee Martin, Lee Martin Pier, Theo Staff of the famous Staff’s Restaurant family, Roger & Ella Clary, The Shalimar Club, Shalimar, J.V. Calvin, Fort Walton Women’s Club, famous actor Andy Griffith, Nathan Fleet, Judge Erwin Fleet, Mr. & Mrs. H.J. Benkirt, Mary Cox, world famous singer and actor Frank Sinatra... and many more. One historical short story, "The Last Casualty Of World War II," centers around the United States Air Force, so much a part of Emerald Coast history. It tells the story of the author and Airman 2/C Phillip T. Mancos, Jr., growing up together during the uneasy years of World War II in Varina, Virginia, the peaceful farm community on the outskirts of Richmond. In Varina, the two boys attended Varina Elementary School, Varina High School, and Laurel Hill Methodist Church of Varina. On March 18, 1953, Phil, just 21 years old, died in the crash of the RB-36H "Peacemaker" Bomber #51- 13721 at Burgoyne Cove near Random Island, 60 miles from Gander, Newfoundland, Canada. The accident occurred after a long flight from Lajes Field Air Force Base in the Azores Islands. "The Last Casualty" details the events leading to the accident, life afterward for Phil's mother Lydia Ellen Kovacs Mancos, and memorializes the full names and rank of all 23 members of the lost crew. As a result of the crash and Phil's death, Rapid City Air Force Base at Rapid City, South Dakota, was renamed Ellsworth Air Force Base for Brigadier General Richard Elmer Ellsworth who also lost his life in the accident. The base was renamed in a formal ceremony in June of 1953 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and South Dakota Governor Sigurd Anderson. The short story "In The Tears Of An Old Man" memorializes working history of Orr's Department Store of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, notably Roscoe Sloyer and ten other ancestral employees of the nearly 140 year old store building, now a fashionable, fully revamped, office and retail complex as well as an historic landmark in downtown Bethlehem. "A Glance Toward Hail" describes the most frightening of family tragedies. It is a happening of much more recent years. However, the telling of it opens discussion of how total governmental control, in Florida’s case via a Republican Governor combined with the absolute power of a Republican Legislature, is having disastrous effect on the lives and economic future of working men and women and their families...workers injured and disabled by their boss’s machines or management failure. "They Called 'Em Retired Colonels" might seem a military story. It is not. It is an economic tale discussing a different kind of war, one that wields enormous impact on the economic future of our Emerald Coast... and other American cities You see, in the Emerald Coast's developmental years a half century ago, local businessmen and women had just one intense fear...of the day when rapidly growing numbers of retired military officers and their families could seize power to out-vote working business folk in the sensible management of local civic affairs. Why? Even in far past years, a reputation followed large gatherings of retired military officers. Far too many, it seemed, hated the American business community ...the American capitalist system... almost as much as do communists, terrorists, and dictators. In spite of that great fear, no American community has ever been more continuously devoted, more unwaveringly supportive, of America's active and retired Armed Forces than the cities of Northwest Florida’s Emerald Coast. The story brings us into latter day years, finding fearful evidence that the concerns of early Emerald Coast businessmen and women were all too real, evinced in recent time by events and hundreds of "Letters to the Editor" spewing hatred and hostility toward "those greedy businessmen," towards the heart of America, the capitalist system which has made us the most prosperous, most efficient, most successful, most powerful Nation in the world. The tale points out that Our American capitalist system is also the same assembly of working citizens who provide all the tax base to support immense costs of America’s best-in-the-world military force, huge life-long government employee fringe benefits, and enormous, far-early, military retirement privileges. "A Night In The Cage" is a story of one naive young man’s tragi-comic night spent in Fort Walton Beach’s jail in 1954. It is a stunning story, revealing horrid conditions found in many small city jails a half century ago... though it also bears fascinating description of life in this tiny sea side village in those delightful years. "The Best Damn Writer On The Emerald Coast" is of the life of a locally famed Emerald Coast writer... a man of immense talent and cultural finesse, far ahead of his years... one whose writing made major contributions to making Northwest Florida’s Emerald Coast... America’s new Riviera. "Dawn At The Indian Mound Saloon," vibrates with the feel of fast moving military-tourist influence on the quiet, peaceful lifestyle of tiny Emerald Coast sea side villages a half century ago.