A Special Moment In Time: The Real Steve Hannagan

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By Seth H. Bramson

As has been noted in several of my Miami Beach histories, particularly “Miami Beach” in Arcadia’s “Images of America” series and “Sunshine, Stone Crabs and Cheesecake: The Story of Miami Beach,” published by The History Press in October of 2009, there is good reason to believe that, while Carl Fisher and Jim Allison, along with John S. Collins, his son-in-law, Thomas Pancoast, and the brothers LUM-MUSS (there are no “o’s” in LUM-MUSS and it is not pronounced “Loomis”), J. N. and J. E. essentially founded Miami Beach it was the great public relations “whiz kid,” Steve Hannagan, who brought the city to national renown.

Hannagan, born in Lafayette, Indiana on April 4th, 1899, began his working career as a correspondent for United Press. Although a writer, he loved the public relations field and created a national name for himself in that profession.

Through his PR wizardry, Hannagan was “discovered” by John H. Levi, Carl Fisher’s “ramrod” and field boss. Levi, who was a principal with Standard Shipbuilding in New York City, had been Carl’s yacht broker and had arranged the purchase and construction of the yacht that Carl bought after he and Jim Allison sold the Indianapolis Motor Speedway along with the Prest-o-Lite Company, which was the sales arm for Fisher’s and Allison’s invention of a switch on automobile dashboards which would be used to turn on the headlights, saving drivers from having to put carbide headlamps on the front of the car.

The sale of Prest-o-Lite to Union Carbide in 1913 brought Carl and Jim $5,633,000 each, a tidy sum in those days and not too bad even today! Contrary to the nonsense (so what’s new?!!) on the HistoryMiami website regarding how Carl Fisher met Collins and Pancoast, in which Levi is mentioned not at all (not surprising when an entity allows one person to essentially exclude everybody else from participation) it was Levi who introduced Carl to John S. Collins and Thomas Pancoast, the men who were developing Ocean Beach as a plantation, growing potatoes, mangos, papaya and avocados.

In short, it was during the building of the first bridge (the approximately three mile long bridge would be, upon completion, the longest wooden bridge in the world) between the mainland and what would become Miami Beach in 1915 that Collins and Pancoast ran out of money and it was through Levi that they would be introduced to Fisher.

There are several different stories about how Hannagan came to Miami Beach to work for Fisher, but the most credible one seems to be that either Pete Chase, Fisher’s sales director and the founder of the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce or Levi introduced Hannagan to Fisher at a time when Fisher and Allison were paying millions to pump sand onto the mangrove sandbar island that had first been “discovered” by father and son Henry and Charles Lum in 1870.

At some point in time Hannagan would also handle public relations for the Indianapolis race track and for Southern Nevada, but his greatest fame came from and because of his years in Miami Beach. Hannagan had a sterling reputation and was known for never hyping the truth. According to a “Time Magazine” article published on February 16, 1953, a Manhattan magazine editor once wired Miami Beach for a colorful story on the bustling resort business. Back came a disillusioning reply from the Florida resort’s own press agent, Steve Hannagan: “Business is lousy.” The editor got no story, but he helped spread Steve Hannagan’s fame as a rare bird among the shrill jays of press agentry; he was regarded as “an honest press agent.”

As such, he became the best known press agent and p. r. person in the U.S. to both editors and newsmen, and his Manhattan firm of Steve Hannagan Associates made millions by getting the public better acquainted with such clients as Miami Beach, the Union Pacific Railroad and its Sun Valley ski resort, Coca-Cola, Owens-Illinois Glass, the Indianapolis Speedway and 30-odd others. It was Steve Hannagan—a press agent with an unabashed circus flair—who made the bathing beauty a stock shot for the American press, and who coined the term “cheesecake” to describe the beautiful young women in their then-scandalous bathing attire lolling about or running or sitting or playing on the beach of Miami Beach.

Hannagan, on a vacation overseas, exhausted and overworked, died of a heart attack on February 3, 1953, he never getting to see the “Time Magazine” article which spoke so glowingly of him. Although he had been terminated by the City of Miami Beach and replaced by Hank Meyer, Hannagan’s name and legacy in putting Miami Beach on the map must never be forgotten, and happily, it never will be.

It is with a sense of near-joy that I advise our readers that STEVE HANNAGAN, written by Dr. Michael K. Townsley, was published in 2018 by Dog Ear Press of Indianapolis. A marvelous biography of Mr. Hannagan, the 362 page opus is a wonderful look at an incredible man. Unlike certain other local so-called historians who are anything but, and who will avoid mentioning anybody else or anybody else’s work as if it was the plague, I am always happy to share this kind of information. If the good doctor is ever going to be here in the vile wild of nawth Cuber, I will do all I can to arrange speaking opportunities for him so that he can tell the great story of the man who was probably the greatest (and this with love for and all due respect to Hank Meyer and Harold Gardner) p. r. person in American history.

As always, trust you enjoyed today’s column and we will be back with you shortness with more factual and absolutely truthful and documented Greater Miami history, not some silly hooey, fairy tales, fables, myths, fol-de-rol or, as we would say in French, “bubbemissehs.” (And, NO, Al Capone did NOT have any “hideaways.” He had a house on Palm Island, Miami Beach, and that was his one and only “hideaway.”) We have some exciting talks coming up soon and I will let you know about them in the next several columns. Be—and stay—well and with warmest good wishes for a wonderful, happy and safe new year.

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