| Dade City Municipal Building, 612 E. Meridian Ave., Dade City. Initially intended as a hotel, the building was begun about 1925 in masonry and natural rock. The collapse of the Florida Boom ended the project. Transformed into a municipal building, it was completed in the 1930s, with funding from Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, and has been Dade City's city hall since that time. Former Dade City Mayor Lawrence Puckett recorded these memories of the building: "The present city hall was to be a six-story community hotel. Due to the approaching end of the boom, it failed at the fourth-floor slab. The city reclaimed it for nonpayment of taxes. Due to assistance of Mr. A. F. Price and P. W. A. [the Public Works Administration], certain work was done to convert it into a city hall. ... This building was tested by Pittsburgh Laboratories and found to be one of the strongest buildings in the county and a good place to go in case of a disaster." In 1987, it was named for George C. Dayton, who retired after three decades as city attorney. [Caption from The Historic Places of Pasco County] This postcard was postmarked in 1950. |