Charlie Trasker Returns from Florida, Says He Doesn't Recommend It, Oct. 30, 1925

Says Stay with Wife and Kids. . . Charlie Tasker, Back from Florida, Doesn’t Advise Any Man to Leave a Sure Thing

“Depend on it you’re better off at home with the wife and kids, sticking to a steady job, even tho you don’t get so much money,” says Charles A. Trasker, well known Elizabeth City plumber, back home from a stay of several weeks in St. Petersburg, Florida, the boggy land of booms, where real estate values soar overnight, and liquor flows freely.

Mr. Tasker wasn’t very busy in August, and he decided to pay Florida a visit. Having gotten there amid all the bustle of that booming country, he stopped over for a spell, working at his trade on the new Vinroy Hotel, now being constructed at a cost $3 ½ million. The hotel has 350 rooms and bath in every room. A pier to cost $1 million is to be constructed in connection with this hotel. Everything is high in price in Florida, says Mr. Tasker. Room and board for the ordinary working man costs from $4 to $5 a day, and while wages for a good workman run up to $12 to $15 a day, everything is proportionately high, and jobs are not permanent. A fellow has to keep moving from job to job. Homes are rising up overnight. Rents are terrific during the tourist season, and ordinary homes that rent for $25 to $30 a month during the summer bring a price of $3,500 to $4,500 for the tourist season from November to June.

Hotels will not rent rooms for a period of time more than a week, because rates continue to rise, as the cooler weather approaches with increasing numbers of tourists. Rooms that rent in the summer for $3 a night rise to $25 a night, depending on the demand. The ordinary house worth ?? to $5,000 in Elizabeth City will bring $25,000 in Florida.

There are 50,000 workmen in St. Petersburg, says Mr. Trasker, and 350 real estate men. The town ordinarily has a population of 15,000 but will be visited by upwards of 400,000 tourists this winter.

Remarkable instances of rises in real estate and property are values recorded. A hotel that originally cost $35,000 recently sold for $83,000. In a short time it was re-sold for (can’t read figure) and is now being held for ???. . . . . [type is faint and difficult to read so I’m stopping here.]

From the front page of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Friday, Oct. 30, 1925

newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn83025812/1925-10-30/ed-1/seq-1/