Talk:Lake Wales, Florida

Untitled

Removed reference to "resort city" - sounds like typical Chamber of Commerce POV. I've been through Lake Wales many times. It's a nice enough town, but I never saw or heard of any resorts there. If I am wrong please provide examples. (Retirement mobile home parks don't qualify!) H2O 21:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

The Grand Hotel

My family is from there and their favorite building is the old grand hotel the tallest building in the district. I've been looking for information on the grand hotel and can't find much of any info. There needs to be more information. People need to save the grand hotel and put money into it. My grandma worked in the hotel before i was even born. She also loved the hotel. If anyone can provide me with any kind of information or photos please contact me @ elicaseypressley@yahoo.com

17 June, 2006:

The Walesbilt Hotel (renamed the Grand by a New York owner during the 1980's)was built during 1926 after a stock-sale campaign in the local business community. It opened in January 1927, two years before Edward Bok's famous Singing Tower was completed nearby. In 1995(?) it was sold at auction and closed, then the interior was partially dismantled for reconstruction, which was never completed. It is under contract to be sold (June 2006) but negotiations are ongoing for government subsidies to provide parking or other incentives to make the project feasible. Rapid appreciation of real estate in the area is helping, rising construction costs hurting the project.

The interior of the building is even more ornate than the exterior, featuring shjopping arcades, Italian-made ceilings and column capitals, marble and wroght iron, a central atrium, etc. Construction is of steel-reinforced poured concrete in post-and-beam method, without bearing walls. It suffered only superficial damage during the hurricanes of 2004. -Robert Connors

Grand Apts?

My brother lives in LW and as I hear it the Grand has been bought and is to be turned into apartments. I don't have a guaranteed source on this yet but will look into it further...

I think the "... is boarded up and at risk of demolition." bit should be removed for now.

• jk 12:52, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

You can visit a website with pictures and information about the Dixie Walesbilt/Grand Hotel at http://www.SpiritofLakeWales.com

Rumor has it, that they want to make it into condo's —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.103.171.84 (talk) 05:28, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

KKK member on city commission

I added the information about John Paul Rogers to the gov't and politics section because I think it is noteworthy that a town would elect a Grand Dragon of the KKK to its city commission. I tried to be as NPOV as possible (the articles suggested he was unrepentant about his past, but I left that out because I think it's not needed and it's a stretch to reach that conclusion. VictorianMutant (talk) 00:09, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, given that no non-local news sources seem to have picked up on it, it doesn't seem very notable to me. Probably every small town has its small-town political scandals, but I doubt any non-locals would be interested. So my opinion would be to leave it off, or at least reduced it to a one-line triva note. LewisWasGenius (talk) 00:49, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Are you kidding? Perhaps electing a one-time member of the KKK in the 1950s to a city council would not be notable. In the 21st century it is very notable. And it was picked up by non-local news sources- tampabay.com for one. And comparing it to just any "small town" scandal? For better or (most definitely) worse it is something which non-locals reading the article would find interesting and noteworthy- it says a lot about Lake Wales voters. VictorianMutant (talk) 05:09, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

You should probably cite that tampabay.com article. I still think it's not very notable. I lived just south of Tampa in '08, and had a lot of friends in Lake Wales, but I never heard anything about it. That doesn't prove it wasn't notable of course, but it wasn't the talk of the state either. As I read the article, I'm more inclined to laugh than otherwise. "Manager fired was blindsided", "used city asphalt without permission"... Sounds like typical small-town politics to me. He won the election with a grand total of 461 votes, if that says anything about insignificant this is. You say it "says a lot about Lake Wales voters", but only a small number of those voters actually voted for him, and supposedly many of those were Black. So if it says anything about Lake Wales voters, I don't think it's what you're implying. LewisWasGenius (talk) 21:55, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Notable does not mean "all over the news". And I don't think the Tampa Bay cite is needed- being on the front page of the dominant paper in a county with more than half a million people, which happens to be owned by the NY Times satisfies the criteria nicely. The manager being fired for using asphalt to pave a school parking lot is not notable... that a former (and somewhat unrepentant) KKK Grand Dragon could be elected to a city council in 2008 is very notable. VictorianMutant (talk) 04:12, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, alright then. Unless anyone else has a problem with it there's no need to change it. LewisWasGenius (talk) 15:20, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I as well don't think it is neccesary in the article. Not only because it is not really notable as far as general information about the city goes but it seems out of place where it is. If you or someone would like to add an entire section dedicated to political history and/or KKK history, or related topic it would be appropriate but as it stands now it seems like a bias on the part of the original author. As such I am editting it out accordingly. Turbocon (talk) 14:43, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

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