Clearwater’s Postwar Building Boom in 45 Real Estate Photographs and Negatives by by City Photographer George Fulmer, 1950 to 1955

George Fulmer Clearwater Florida

Photograph

Clearwater, Florida real estate photo archive documenting the early postwar building boom on the Gulf Coast, when brokers, insurers, apartment operators, and developers sold a rapidly changing city through new office fronts, freshly finished rental courts, and sharply modern commercial facades. George Fulmer worked in the middle of that expansion, producing assignment photographs for the businesses and properties that turned population growth into visible street level change. The strongest material here fixes Clearwater at the point where land promotion, rental housing, and mid century design converged: curved corner offices lettered for real estate and insurance, palm lined apartment blocks arranged around trimmed courtyards, and low modern buildings meant to signal newness, efficiency, and Florida ease. Rather than treating real estate as an abstraction, the archive shows exactly how property was marketed in these years, through named firms, finished exteriors, and staged views ready for display, advertising, or client use.
Photo archive of 45 items including 24 large format negatives, many unique, and others duplicate of 11 silver gelatin photos, measuring 4" x 5", archive contained in 11 photo studio & some annotated envelopes, Clearwater, Florida, c. 1950 to 1955. Named commissions anchor the file throughout, including Al Hungerford Realty, Alexander & Gauslin Real Estate Sales Rentals Insurance at 511 Park St., Bob Morrison Realtor, and Southwind Apartments. Bob Morrison’s office appears as a clean low commercial building with bold lettering across the facade; Alexander & Gauslin occupies a streamlined corner block beside The Owl Diner, its window and signs announcing sales, rentals, and insurance; Al Hungerford Realty stands in a compact modern office with a tiled vertical sign tower and a curved entrance bay marked “Insurance.” Southwind appears in repeated exterior views as a two story apartment court with flat rooflines, metal balcony rails, landscaped beds, and residents seated outdoors beneath palms and a striped umbrella, while another low residential property sits under large shade trees and Spanish moss, suggesting the quieter rental and lodging side of the same market. The sleeves preserve the working identity of the commissions in Fulmer’s filing system, with handwritten entries including “Hungerford,” “Bob Morrison Real Estate Office,” “Southwind Apt,” and “Alexander & Gauslin Realtor.” Supporting material from a local Home Show remains tied to the same sales environment, with merchants’ booths, crowds, and display spaces for household goods and services aimed at the buyers, renters, and homeowners moving into the expanding city. Other home show images depict the culture of events- mixing consumer cuture and rapid expansion with public displays of a theatrical nature including live music and performance, and auction styled sales.

Across Florida’s west coast, the years after World War II brought surging in migration, rising land values, and an aggressive local market in homes, apartments, offices, and investment property, especially in towns that could sell both sunshine and modern convenience. Clearwater’s brokers and builders were part of that larger remaking of the state, and this archive holds onto the ordinary but highly perishable evidence of the boom: the offices where property changed hands, the apartment courts offered to newcomers, and the polished exteriors used to advertise stability and growth. Light wear, minor surface handling, and expected age toning to prints and negatives, with some sleeves creased, rubbed, or soiled from studio use; overall in very good condition. A focused documentary record of how Clearwater’s real estate economy looked, branded itself, and entered the local visual record during the first great postwar surge.

Item #23365

Price: $550.00