Bahamian Tourism in the 1920s and 1930s

& copy; by Gail Saunders

Much of the success of the tourist industry in the 1920s and 1930s was due to the upswing in the economy during Prohibition in the United States which especially impacted Nassau.

Hotel facilities in Nassau were expanded and improved. Guests were accommodated at the major hotels - the New Colonial, the Fort Montagu, completed in 1926, and the Royal Victoria. There were also smaller hotels such as the Prince George (after the mid-1930s), Lucerne and Allen, with notorious reputations for housing rum-runners, and several boarding houses. Some private families accepted paying guests while others leased furnished houses for the winter.

The Colonial Hotel was destroyed by fire on 31 March, 1922, but was quickly rebuilt by the Munson Steamship Line which was contracted by the Government. The hotel opened for the best season ever in February 1923 and Governor Sir Bede Clifford (1923-1937) realizing that tourism could quickly bolster the flagging economy immediately after Prohibition saw it as "a choice between the tourist industry and bankruptcy."

Clifford therefore enthusiastically embarked on a policy to encourage tourists ensuring that adequate and attractive facilities were available concerning developments in the capital, mainly downtown Nassau. Sporting activities such as lawn tennis flourished by 1929. Frequent tournaments were held at the hotels or the Nassau Lawn Tennis Club. Golf links were built at Fort Charlotte and the Bahamas Country Club at Cable Beach. International golfers visited Nassau to participate in such tournaments as the British Colonial Open, which offered $5,000 in prizes in 1935. In that year Nassau established itself firmly on the southern golfing circuit. Other activities were fishing, and duck and wild pigeon shooting. Big game fishing flourished at Bimini and Cat Cay, and like the mid-1930s Lyford Cay, through the efforts of Harold G. Christie, had also become known for the sport.

Sea-bathing on the white coral sand beach at Hog Island was also a popular pastime. Funds were allocated to establish a "bathing beach" (for tourists only) on crown land opposite the New Colonial Hotel, while Fort Charlotte was restored and its grounds cleared for sightseeing. Guides outfitted in costumes of the 1790 period gave tours. A pamphlet, Historic Forts of Nassau written by Harcourt Malcolm, Speaker of the Assembly and local historian, was sold there at one shilling and this, along with an admission charge of two shillings, was to be used for further restoration of historic monuments.

Other tourist attractions included horse racing and horse riding. Early in the decade an improved track for horse racing was built at the Montagu Park Race Course, also known as Hobby Horse Hall, located behind Cable Beach. The first races were held in January 1934, initiating a sport which was to become increasingly popular among ordinary Bahamians as well as well-heeled tourists.

In 1934, promoted mainly by Roland T. Symonette, Commodore of the Nassau Yacht Club (which he had founded in 1931), the Miami-Nassau Ocean Race and the Spring Championship Races of the International Star Class Yacht Racing Association were inaugurated in Nassau.

Another attraction was the Williamson Photosphere. John E. Williamson, the pioneer of undersea photography, supported by Government, in 1939 developed the

unique Seafloor Post Office located in the Photosphere. Visitors bought specially produced stamps and observed the 'wonders of the deep' in the clear Bahamian waters.

Some of the foreign elite were lured by the exclusive Porcupine Club on Hog Island, the posh Bahamian Club on West Bay Street and others such as the Cat Cay and Bimini Rod and Gun Clubs. The Bahamian Club, which opened in 1920, was the

first gambling facility in the Bahamas; its American owner, C.F. Reed, was granted permission to operate roulette tables. However, during the season, it was generally used by American and Canadian visitors to entertain their friends at dinner.

The infrastructure was greatly improved during the 1920s and 1930s from profits of the sale of alcohol. Wealth was expended mainly in financing sorely needed public works, communications, and making Nassau more attractive to tourists and investors. Water, telephone, and electricity supplies were improved and expanded. To facilitate shipping, Nassau's harbour was dredged and deepened and a concrete wharf was constructed just north of Rawson Square. A new pier was

constructed at Clifton, southwest New Providence, where ships could unload passengers and cargo during stormy weather which occasionally made Nassau

harbour dangerously rough.

International communications were improved and by the end of the decade, the Munson Line conducted a weekly winter passenger and freight service and a fortnightly summer service to and from New York. There were other services from Halifax, Canada, Bermuda, Jamaica, British Honduras and England via Bermuda and frequent sailing from Miami to Nassau. Perhaps the most important development was the introduction of a daily air service between Miami and Nassau by Pan American Airways beginning in January, 1929. By the mid-1930s Nassau was well established as a resort, owing to its unrivaled winter climate, yachting, 'old-world atmosphere' and the government's aggressive policy towards 'selling' the Bahamas.