It’s the early 1950s and in Casselberry, Florida, a municipal tax-free town, the town is not in debt. But money’s always a problem. Hibbard Casselberry, as its founder, knew when it was incorporated, finances would be tight. The plan was for everyone to contribute as they could to its success. Owning most of the land and the biggest business he knew the lion’s share of expenses would be his.
In the early days of the town, Hibbard had installed police and fire phones in homes that he rented out. However, by 1950, it was not necessary as phone service was now more available. He wrote to Sam Gerson, that he was having the phone taken out. “They charge me $8 a piece for those phones, and I couldn’t stand it any longer. This is just a note to tell you what’s happened when you find yours gone.”
For a while, Casselberry was well known as a speed trap. It was, but with good reason. The most dangerous thing you could do in town was cross the highway. everyone coming through town seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere else, and there were no stop lights to run.
Being a small tax-free town there was no money in the budget to buy radar equipment. And the town was too small for one police officer to track a speeder with his car. Instead, the officer would write tickets for reckless driving, which had to be paid to the officer, unless the offender lived in Seminole County.
One woman wrote to the newspaper, “So, take it from me, when you are motoring along the million dollar highway, 17-92, unless you have an extra $10.00 bill with you, don’t drive through the tax-free city of Casselberry.”
After the aldermen had raised enough money from fines, they bought the first stop light.
In 1954, another problem in town was the lack of street lights. A source of income to the town was cigarette tax that was collected by the state. If a citizen of Casselberry bought a pack of cigarettes in another town, that town would benefit.
Hibbard figured that if people were more aware of this they would buy their cigarettes in town. To add a personal benefit, Hibbard had signs made up that said, “Buy Cigarettes in town and get a street light here.” Then he called his son Len and had them posted on where the lights would be installed.
As a master at marketing, follow up was always important to Hibbard. He wrote to Alderman Joe Laird and praised him for his work. “You have done an excellent job in stimulating the sales of cigarettes in Casselberry.”
He suggested Laird go to the local stores and see how many packs they had sold. “It will give us something to check back against our check from the Secretary of State. You would be an excellent person to do this because you have no axe to grind and you would not be a competitor to them.”
As the town grew, the biggest problem was keeping the roads graded. A road was a “popular subscription improvement,” meaning got paved when the majority of property owners signed up to pay for it.
Only when the road was nearly complete did Hibbard write to them and ask for money. He also offered to pay for any overage in the cost. If a property owner could not afford the terms, Hibbard would write to an out of state property owner in the same area being paved. As he explained, “By helping this owner improve their property you will being improving the value of your lot.”
Hibbard got the point across to Mr. Hegg in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1956. In a letter, he thanked him for his spirit of cooperation.
“I find it most evident in the past paragraph where you say that if we can get a spirit of cooperation in the road building business and the general town improvement business, it will be worth lots more than the money spent. If the cost runs a little more or a little less then it will not be much of a consequence.”
And that’s how things get done in the Tax Free Town of Casselberry.