I found this interesting. Truly Stafford Sands is the father of tourism.

"If the Paradise Island caper was a bravura performance by Sir Stafford, the Grand Bahama deal was his masterwork. Grand Bahama was the ugliest, least promising of all the habitable islands in the Bahamas. But thanks to the legal legerdemain of Sir Stafford in his capacity as Wallace Groves's attorney, a big chunk of the unsightly place was converted into the swinging community of Freeport, with its big, garish hotels, a casino that looks like an Arabian harem, an olde Englishe pub with deep-chested wenches for waitresses, and International Shopping Bazaar, girlie shows "direct from Las Vegas," gangsters, discothèques, a scuba club, the works—and an atmosphere that melds Miami Beach with Monte Carlo."

"Of course, none of this would have gone beyond the dreams of Wallace Groves if it had not been for his friend Sir Stafford Sands. By 1936, when Sir Stafford was a still-unknighted youngster reading the law in Nassau, Wall Streeter Groves had already set up two of the colony's earliest suitcase security firms, whose operations were eventually to send him to the penitentiary. Groves went to Sir Stafford some 20 years later with his visionary plan to turn Grand Bahama into an island industrial park *** resort. Sir Stafford obligingly popped on his parliamentary wig and drew up the Hawksbill Creek Act (so-called from a cove on Grand Bahama where the big, lazy hawksbill turtles are wont to gather). It was comparatively easy to ram the bill through the Assembly and get the governor to sign it. The Hawksbill Creek Act presented Wallace Groves with something not unlike the blank-check Hudson's Bay or East India Company charters: he was allowed to buy 211 square miles of Grand Bahama land, a principality 400 times the size of Monaco, most of it at the giveaway price of $2.80 an acre. (Nowadays Groves is reselling some of the choicer plots for $50,000 an acre.) And he was given special privileges, including exemption from virtually all taxes for up/ to 99 years. For his services to Groves, Sir Stafford, of course, received his usual fat fee.

"To organize this empire, pay his bills and fulfill the development requirements of the Act, Groves set up over a period of years a series of interlocking private concerns: first, a parent firm, the Grand Bahama Port Authority Ltd., which Groves owns with a handful of rich New York and British investors; then a real estate organization, the Grand Bahama Development Company Ltd.; and later a number of other companies, including one to govern his gambling interests, Bahamas Amusements Ltd."

Do you have a link for this?

Do you have a link for this?

gal you know I was vaiting for you though...
lucky thing I still on the site...
So I still can provide a link.
But I see you'll freeport people scandalous...
hmmm
http://www.jabezcorner.com/Grand_Bahama/oulaha1.htm
All a dis just to find out when the first "market" on Bay Street was burned down. And I aint find that out yet.

Man this site deep...
Even the Tribune was "corrupt?"

"Some early dissidents—like Publisher Sir Etienne Dupuch, who had editorially campaigned with some eloquence against gambling-changed their minds after the vote and accepted "consultant's fees" from casino funds funneled through Groves's development company. Sir Etienne was appointed a "consultant" at $15,000 a year, but begged off, as a matter of conscience, after several months. Earlier Sir Stafford and Groves had tried to win Sir Etienne's favor by commanding every concessionaire in Grand Bahama to buy ads in the publisher's annual Bahamas Handbook. When the ads still did not produce the $50,000 they felt Sir Etienne deserved, Groves's Grand Bahama Development Company was required to buy enough copies to make up the difference. After a few months, all of the 10,000 undistributed copies were burned."

you betcha ... sir stafford had his own 'commission of enquiry' back in the day, with the same media set in his back pocket :footmouth. once for pirates, always for pirates .... three cheers for pirates!!

Man this site deep...
Even the Tribune was "corrupt?"
"Some early dissidents—like Publisher Sir Etienne Dupuch, who had editorially campaigned with some eloquence against gambling-changed their minds after the vote and accepted "consultant's fees" from casino funds funneled through Groves's development company. Sir Etienne was appointed a "consultant" at $15,000 a year, but begged off, as a matter of conscience, after several months. Earlier Sir Stafford and Groves had tried to win Sir Etienne's favor by commanding every concessionaire in Grand Bahama to buy ads in the publisher's annual Bahamas Handbook. When the ads still did not produce the $50,000 they felt Sir Etienne deserved, Groves's Grand Bahama Development Company was required to buy enough copies to make up the difference. After a few months, all of the 10,000 undistributed copies were burned."

corrupt is not the right word in this case. It simply showed how manipulative and wickedly cunning Sir Stafford was. I hope you would publish the fact that Sir Lynden rode on Lansky( Gangster) plane during the 1967 election. The mafia and gangster all ways hedge their bets...

corrupt is not the right word in this case. It simply showed how manipulative and wickedly cunning Sir Stafford was. I hope you would publish the fact that Sir Lynden rode on Lansky( Gangster) plane during the 1967 election. The mafia and gangster all ways hedge their bets...


true dat. sir lynden and crew learned at sir stafford's knee :footmouth.

true dat. sir lynden and crew learned at sir stafford's knee :footmouth.

You ain lie...:shhh: :)

I didn't know Wallace Groves had spent time in jail...

Wall Streeter Groves had already set up two of the colony's earliest suitcase security firms, whose operations were eventually to send him to the penitentiary.

I didn't know Wallace Groves had spent time in jail...

interesting isn't it.

How can we find the fingers to type that Sands was a great motivator for our tourism product....but....we would never remember him as a racist bastard, who deserved to die of a brain anuerism

But, when we mention Ping, and the things he did for your family through opening up a few more doors for a few more folks, we allways have to bring up some dope dealers who we still have runnin around in our town....

FNM/PLP/BDM....Sands was a racist pig, who deserved to be shot, IF, we were not so much of a peaceful people.

I read the information from this site a few months back http://www.jabezcorner.com/Grand_Bahama/oulaha1.htm and it was very enlightning.

I sent the link to alot of friends so they could learn about the city of Freeports early history.

I read the information from this site a few months back http://www.jabezcorner.com/Grand_Bahama/oulaha1.htm and it was very enlightning.
I sent the link to alot of friends so they could learn about the city of Freeports early history.

cool link...but isn't this the same link as was mentioned some posts up?