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by Blake Fontenay (Author)
It was a common story in the 1980s: downtowns were dying.
Stuart was right there with the ill-fated. Businesses had largely abandoned Stuart's historic buildings, leaving the streets deserted. The St. Lucie River, which should have been an asset, was more of a liability, befouled with pollution, some of it from the city's sewer system. The southernmost leg of Interstate 95 hadn't been completed yet, meaning US 1, the town's main thoroughfare, was clogged with traffic that had no intention of stopping in this dirty backwater. Indeed, downtown was in such bad shape that Martin County government was thinking of relocating its courthouse. But the city had one thing going for it: a core group of citizens who fought back to restore downtown into an award-winning showpiece. Author Blake Fontenay shares the story of Stuart's revitalization.
Author Biography
Blake Fontenay has won numerous writing awards during his more than thirty years as a reporter, columnist and editorial writer for newspapers. He's the author of three novels: The Politics of Barbecue, Scouts' Honor and A Three Team Town. The Politics of Barbecue won the Independent Publishers Book Awards gold medal for fiction in the South region in 2013. During his tenure in state government, he researched and wrote biographies of notable Tennesseans for the Tri-Star Chronicles project at the Tennessee State Library and Archives. Saving Stuart, Florida is his first nonfiction book.
