LIVING HISTORY
Port St. Lucie Magazine 33
Sandpiper Bay Resort. It was an eerie
site, with old foundations, ancient,
misshapen fruit trees and even a few
tarpon rolling in the water near the
river bank.
Born Julian Burt Pruitt in February
1904 in Georgia, he married Cora
Leigh Henderson, also of Georgia.
Though a record of their marriage
could not be found, they are listed
in the 1927 Tampa City Directory as
husband and wife. Cora Leigh would
have been 18 at the time, five years
younger than Burt. The 1928 directory
lists them again and a J.B. Pruitt as a
“tester for Studebaker Gulf Sales.”
Their son, Julian Burt Pruitt Jr., was
born in February 1929 after the couple
moved to West Palm Beach, which
then had a population of less than
30,000. The family was renting a home
there and Burt worked in sales and
service for an outboard motor company,
according to the 1935 Florida
Census, which also says he had some
college education. The 1940 Federal >>
This ad appeared countless times in local newspapers and tourist publications in the 1950s and 1960s
to attract sports fishermen, and the occasional sports fisherwoman, to Burt Pruitt’s fishing camp in a
jungle-like setting, complete with alligators.
>>
MARY DODGE