LIVING HISTORY
Dave Gessner, Port St. Lucie’s first elected vice mayor and General Development
GDC postcard intended to promote the relaxed lifestyle in Port St. Lucie.
“We came up from Fort Lauderdale with our children on a
Sunday afternoon and it was pouring rain,” she says. “They
said they had only one model, the Sandia; we said OK, we’d
buy it. I never actually saw the house until the day we moved
in, three months later.”
She started working for the school district as a substitute
teacher in 1962, beginning as a full-timer at White City Elementary
When Port St. Lucie Elementary, the city’s first elementary
school, opened in 1975, Blackner was named principal. Gessner
1981 she went on to Morningside Elementary.
“At Port St. Lucie Elementary we had multiple classes in
each large classroom, which we called a pod,” Gessner says.
“I was one of the teachers who loved the open pod; I thrived
on that. We had learning centers all over the place. It was a
lot of work, but the kids were involved constantly. People
came from as far away as Miami to see what we were doing
so we were really making a name for Port St. Lucie in those
first couple of years.” >>
34
Port St. Lucie 50th Anniversary
1953 – First land bought in River Park area by publisher
Gardner Cowles.
1958 – River Park development bought by General Development
1959 – Bridge over the North Fork on Prima Vista Boulevard
1960 – First (United) Methodist Church opens
April 27, 1961 – Incorporated as the city of Port St. Lucie
by GDC
1969 – Bridge over the North Fork at St. Lucie Boulevard
1969 – Interchange with turnpike constructed on Port St.
Lucie Boulevard
1978 – First city hall is constructed at the corner of Airoso
1980 – Port St. Lucie Police Department opens
1983 – Port St. Lucie Hospital (later, St. Lucie Medical
Center), opens
1886 – St. Lucie West development order approved.
1988 – Mets spring training stadium opens in St. Lucie West
1990 – General Development Corp. files for bankruptcy.
1995 – City takes ownership of a utility system taken over
by the county when GDC and General Development
Utilities went bankrupt.
1999 – Wildfires destroy 44 homes and lead to a Wildfire
Mitigation Plan
2004 and 2005 – Hurricanes Frances, Jeanne and Wilma
hit Port St. Lucie
2006 – Tradition starts development
2008 – Crosstown Parkway opens its first segment
2008 – Port St. Lucie Civic Center opens
2009 – Second segment of Crosstown Parkway, and an
interchange with I-95 open
Source: Port St. Lucie Planning and Zoning Department
SUSAN BURGESS
PORT ST. LUCIE MILESTONES
Corp.
and Port St. Lucie boulevards
PORT ST. LUCIE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Corp.’s director of recreation, posed with two people and a fish for a
in 1965 under principal Victor Blackner.
moved to the new school to teach third grade and then in
Today’s relaxed lifestyle at Tradition, a large planned community south of St. Lucie West, features a fountain for kids on the shore of a lake.