06/01/2026
Ever wonder what downtown Flagler Beach, Florida, looked like 100 years ago? Here is a colorized photo showing just that, for that part of downtown south of Moody Boulevard and east of Central Avenue. The photo was taken from the top floor of the 1925 Flagler Beach Hotel, looking southeast. The unretouched original photo follows. This was the year before the construction of Ocean Shore Boulevard (today’s SR-A1A) in 1927. It was two years before our municipal Pier and Pier House opened in 1928. Not shown is the block between Moody Boulevard and Eighth Street (today’s South 2nd Street), east of Central Avenue. That entire block was the Flagler Beach Hotel oceanfront park. In 1940, the Fuquay family, owners of the Flagler Beach Hotel, gave it to the Town of Flagler Beach, provided the town maintained it as a recreational park. It is today’s Veterans Park.
Many of the buildings in the colorized photo are identified with red text and arrows. At the southmost end along the ocean dune line is the Frank Owen Bungalow. It was constructed in 1922 by Frank Owen Sr (1871-1955), who was the superintendent of logging for the Wilson Cyprus Company of Palatka, Florida. He immigrated to the United States in 1889 from Glasgow, Scotland, where he was born. After 35 years at Wilson Cyprus Company, he retired and moved permanently to his beach bungalow at Flagler Beach in 1926, the same year that he was hired by the town commission to be the town clerk. Frank served as the Flagler Beach town clerk from 1926 to 1943. A portrait photo of Frank is posted here, courtesy of Ancestry.com. His beach bungalow stands today at 404 South Ocean Shore Boulevard, where, until recently, it hosted the Z-Wave Surf Shop. It is now undergoing a remodel to become the new home of the Craeft Surf Studio by Will and Clarissa Tant.
North of the Frank Owen Bungalow along the dune line is the Moody Hotel, undergoing construction at the time of this photo by Flagler Beach Mayor George Moody (1879-1967). It was at the south corner of Ninth Street (today’s South 3rd Street) and the future Ocean Shore Boulevard. As recently posted, the hotel opened in 1927 as the Luna Vista Hotel, though it was generally known as the Moody Hotel. It was sold to Walter Richard Landers (1908-1978) and his wife, the former Mildred Marie Steele (1905-1996), in 1946. They extensively remodeled the Moody Hotel and renamed it the Milland Hotel, presumably from a contraction of Mildred Landers’ name. The former Milland Hotel was put up for sale around 1975. After standing nearly 31 years, it was demolished on December 12, 1977, to make way for a bank. The defunct Bank of America building stands today where it once was.
Across Ninth Street (today’s South 3rd Street) from the Moody Hotel is the Samuel S. Browning Beach Cottage. Formerly, on the lot where this sits was the First House to be occupied in what would become Flagler Beach. That First House is also shown, but in the location where it was moved to the rear of the lot to serve as servants’ quarters and a garage for the beach cottage. The First House was one of three adjacent houses constructed along the dune line by George Moody on his 1913 homestead grant. William Harrison “Uncle Bill” Lewis (1862-1940) and his wife, Mary Ann Miller Lewis (1860-1946), occupied the house in December 1913, making them the very first beachside residents of the future Flagler Beach. Uncle Bill, with John McLeod, constructed those first three houses for George Moody. Moody’s homestead house was completed and ready for occupancy in February 1914. It is off-camera to the left of the Isaac I. Moody Beach Home, the center home of those first three houses. More on the Isaac I. Moody Beach Home follows later.
Samuel Stanton “S. S.” Browning (1861-1953) bought the lot with the First House from architect and builder Dana Fellows Fuquay (1881-1970) in 1923. Dana Fuquay was a pioneering developer of Flagler Beach. Browning then contracted with Fuquay to build his beach cottage. After moving the First House to the rear of the lot in 1924, Fuquay subcontracted with Luther Orlando “L. O.” Upson (1872-1941) for the foundation and concrete work. Upson, another pioneering developer of Flagler Beach, served on the first town commission after incorporation. He followed George Moody as mayor in 1931. Fuquay subcontracted the framing and carpentry work on Browning’s beach cottage with Daniel Edward Lowe (1869-1973). In addition to being a skilled carpenter, Lowe served as one of the first marshals in the Seabreeze area and, as marshal, had the second telephone, after John D. Rockefeller. He worked with Fuquay on many of the large, older buildings and hotels in the Daytona Beach area. Mr. Browning’s beach cottage was completed in 1924. He owned the Browning Lumber Company in East Palatka, Florida, and had a beautiful primary home on the St. Johns River there. Today, the Atlantic Ocean Realty building at 212 South Ocean Shore Boulevard stands where Browning’s beach cottage once was.
Adjacent and just north along the dune line from the Samuel S. Browning Beach Cottage is the Isaac I. Moody Beach Home, built in 1914 as one of the first three homes in the future Flagler Beach by George Moody for his older brother, Isaac Isham “I. I.” Moody Jr (1874-1918). A circa 1912 family photo is posted as the fourth image. On the porch of his Bunnell home are Isaac, seated in a rocking chair, his wife Dora Lee Moody (1881-1959) standing on the right, and their three daughters (left to right), Leona (1908-1999), Dorothy Marguret (1910-1980), and Gladys (1906-1973). I. I. Moody was most notably the driving force behind the creation of Flagler County in 1917, from what then was mostly St. Johns County and a small portion of Volusia County. He was president of the Bunnell Development Company, the developer of Ocean City, the small community west of the Florida East Coast Canal (today’s Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway) along Lambert Avenue that later became a part of the growing Flagler Beach. Moody Boulevard, the portion of today’s State Road 100 between Bunnell and Flagler Beach, is named after him. Not long after Flagler County's creation, I. I. Moody passed away from the Spanish Flu on December 17, 1918, at the age of 44. His beach home survived into recent times as the oldest structure in Flagler Beach, long after the other two original homes were no more. A fifth photo from the late 1930s shows the home as the Pilot Wheel Inn, a bed-and-breakfast inn owned by Alla James Perry (1874-1955). That is George Moody’s homestead home, partially appearing on the right of the photo. I. I. Moody’s beach home was most recently King’s Oceanshore Café. Hurricane Charley on August 13-14, 2004, tore the roof off, and later that same month, it was condemned. Demolition followed in March 2005. The site it once occupied is the vacant parking lot just north of the Atlantic Ocean Realty building, across A1A from the Funky Pelican Restaurant.
At the southeast corner of Eighth Street (today’s South 2nd Street) and Central Avenue is the Southland Hotel, a large, once open building constructed in the early days of Ocean City Beach by George Moody as a convenience for beachgoers. According to Catherine Wilson, it was later acquired by the Sorgs, who converted it to a rooming house. Robert Stuart “R. S.” Tolan (1870-1944), a local real estate broker, then purchased it and further remodeled it into seven small apartments marketed as the Southland Hotel. Tolan was a town commissioner at the time of the 1926 photo. Catherine Wilson states in her 1998 book, A New Beginning – A Picturesque History of Flagler Beach, Florida, that “During the early 1960s, the city acquired the property and opened it up for a large recreation room. The Methodist Church and the Woman’s Club staffed the center with volunteers to operate a summer program for the young people. There were games and record players and every Saturday night there was a dance.” It was demolished by 1964 to make way for the current City Hall building at 105 South Second Street, completed in 1965.
Next door to the Southland Hotel is the Robert S. Tolan Store Building. In 1928, the town commission moved its regular meeting place from the Atlantic Shores Company Building on the northeast corner of Moody Boulevard and Central Avenue to this building. The town commission moved again in 1929, this time from this building to the Moody Hotel. The Flagler Beach City Hall stands today where both it and the Southland Hotel once were.
Across the street from the Southland Hotel on the southwest corner of Eighth Street (today’s South 2nd Street) and Central Avenue is the unfinished realty office building of Ida Arcadia Fuquay Upson (1879-1961). It was constructed by her husband, L. O. Upson. When finished later in 1926, it would carry a sign on the side reading “Flagler Beach Realty Co. – Ida A. Upson – Real Estate + Insurance”. Ida is the older sister of Dana F. Fuquay, who built the Flagler Beach Hotel across the street. An adept organizer and businesswoman, Ida operated a merchandise store in the early years of Flagler Beach, then known as Ocean City Beach. With the Florida land boom, she expanded her repertoire to include real estate and insurance. Ida would go on to handle many of the early real estate transactions in Flagler Beach. In 1926, her brother Dana Fuquay persuaded her to take on the management of the Flagler Beach Hotel as well. Ida was in charge of the hotel when Col. Charles A. Lindbergh stayed there over the weekend after landing at the Flagler Beach Airport in November 1931. A later photo of Ida standing outside the hotel is the final image posted here. You can visit Ida’s former 1926 real estate office today. All you need to do is order a smoothie in the Raw Juice Café at 200 South Central Avenue across from City Hall Commission Chambers.
Next door to Ida Upson’s real estate office is the home that L. O. Upson built for them in the early 1920s. That home still stands, though you would never recognize it, for Marge and Ted Barnhill extensively remodeled it and wrapped it in lovely wood decks and dining areas to create Barnhill’s Café, Bar & Grill at 202 South Central Avenue. Lurking beneath it all is an early 1920’s historic building.
Moving south along Central Avenue, the Holden Pharmacy building is at the southeast corner with Ninth Street (today’s South 3rd Street). George Moody and Oscar Jay Gude Jr (1890-1944) built the two-story pharmacy building in 1925 for Tom Edward Holden (1892-1974). It was Flagler Beach’s first pharmacy and Tom Holden’s second, as he already operated one in Bunnell. After the Moody Hotel opened in 1927, Holden moved his pharmacy to the northeast corner on the ground floor of the hotel. From 1939 to 1957, Mariel Marie Ranger Mosby (1907-1994) and her husband Richard Randall “Dick” Mosby (1898-1980) operated a grocery store in the former 1925 Holden’s Pharmacy building. They lived in the apartment above. For many years, it was the only grocery store in Flagler Beach. The building still stands today as the law offices of Flagler Beach City Commissioner Scott W. Spradley at 301 South Central Avenue.
On the next block south along Central Avenue at the southeast corner of Tenth Street (today’s South 4th Street) is the Wickline Store & U.S. Post Office. Austin VanBuren Wickline (1859-1942) purchased the land from George Moody in July 1921. Then he bought a cement block-making machine from Montgomery Ward & Company that he and his son, George Edwin Wickline (1903-1987), used to make the concrete blocks for the building. They finished constructing it in late 1924. Then Austin and his wife, Esther Adda “Etta” Chaffee Wickline (1868-1952), moved their home in Ocean City to the upstairs apartment and their mercantile store to downstairs at the south end of the building. Etta Wickline retired as the Flagler Beach postmaster in 1926. The Wickline family lived upstairs here until the late 1940s. Catherine Wilson noted that after the Wicklines closed their store on the south end of the building, that space was used for city business until the current city hall building was completed in 1965. The old Wickline store building, extensively remodeled, still stands at 411 South Central Avenue, where you can find Southeast Jewelry today.
Downtown photo credit: Flagler Beach Historical Museum
Frank Owen photo credit: Ancestry.com
Isaac Moody Family photo credit: Find a Grave, www.findagrave.com
Pilot Wheel Inn photo credit: Shill Family (Eleanor Shill and Carol Shill Pike)
Ida Upson photo credit: Ancestry.com
