Earl Gresh may have been the most interesting and multi-talented person to ever call St. Petersburg home.
Diverse careers each brought him national acclaim as a band leader, fishing expert, woodcarver, magazine editor and speedboat racer. In 1924, he became bandleader of the Gangplank Orchestra, the house band for the Gangplank speakeasy in the Jungle. The band also played gigs at venues around St. Pete and in other cities and states.
Earl Gresh:
1896 - birth in Norristown PA, learned violin while a student at Bordentown Military Academy
1911 - moved with his widowed mother to St. Petersburg
WWI - served in the Navy aboard a destroyer on convoy duty
1923 - joined the Kentucky Kernels band as a violin player
1924-1928 - Earl Gresh and the Gangplank Orchestra, Columbia recording artists
1926-1927 - designed and built racing boats
1927 - first announcer for radio station WSUN
1929 - Outboard Motor Speedboat Champion
1940-1958 - Operated the Wood Parade, a popular tourist attraction. He manufactured and sold handmade wood merchandise including fishing lures and wooden purses for women.
1947 - published pictures in Collier's Magazine article "How To and How Not To Fish"
1977 - death at the age of 81 in St. Petersburg
For more information about the many careers of Earl Gresh, visit:
VINTAGE ST. PETE: Earl Gresh and the Wood Parade
Florida's Lost Tourist Attractions
Earl Gresh and the Gangplank Orchestra were nationally famous ‒ they produced some excellent vinyl recordings for Columbia Records. I've written about some of his recorded music on this blog, but I found more recordings on YouTube and archive.org.
Discography - (Click on the Song Title to Open Music in a New Window)
Columbia 5/14/1926 Tenderly (see below)
Columbia 5/15/1926 Scatter Your Smiles (see below)
Columbia 5/15/1926 Way Down South in Chicago, by the Old Pacific Shore (no link found)
Columbia 4/30/1927 When It's Moonlight in Brooklyn (no link found)
Tenderly (at archive.org)
Scatter Your Smiles (at archive.org)
