Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1925 - Feb 1926)

22 This picture, taken after Thomas Meighan's real estate transaction, suggests that his successful financial operation has not turned him into a "hard business man." A FEW weeks ago the papers throughout the country carried a brief story to the effect that Thomas Meighan, while making location scenes in Florida for "Old Home Week," had taken a flier in Florida real estate, from which he had emerged with a profit reckoned at between three hundred thousand and five hundred thousand dollars. By an odd coincidence, the picture on which he was working at the time told the story of how a young real-estate operator amassed a fortune in a similar way. Picture fans all know that there are a few players who have made fortunes by shrewd or fortunate investments of their large earnings, but I know of no single transaction as sensational as this one. For this was no cautiously planned operation in a section where real He Made a Fortune While on Location This is the story of how Thomas Meighan put a town on the map and reaped about a quarter of a million dollars doing so, while making exterior scenes in Florida a few months ago. By Blake McVeigh estate buying and selling is everybody's side line, as it is around Los Angeles. It was a sudden bold financial adventure on a big scale, by a man heretofore unknown as a real-estate investor, in a region previously unknown and undeveloped. And this is how it happened, as I learned it from Tommy himself, while he was working on'his current picture, "The Man Who Found Himself," at the Famous Players Long Island studio. "I have been in Florida for locations in winter several times during the last six or eight years," Mr. Meighan explained. "I've also spent several winter vacations there. I know the State and like it. I appreciate its wonderful climate and other advantages. "Last February, after completing my picture, 'Coming Through,' which we made around Birmingham, Alabama, I stopped off at Miami for a month's vacation. Miami was then in the middle of a furious land boom. Of course, the town has been booming for some years, but just at that time the agitation to buy and sell seemed to have reached its peak. The leading hotel was charging one hundred dollars a day for a suite of rooms. Everybody in the town was talking real estate. And the talk was in hundreds of thousands and millions. "Scores of people approached me with the offer to sell some choice land, but I declined, for I couldn't see the wisdom of investing at what looked like the peak of a boom. It did set me to thinking, however." Just after this big boom in Miami, Meighan made a trip for several days through Florida in search of a typical American small town for "Old Home Week?' What he wanted was a quiet little place, such as you might find in Ohio, Indiana, Texas — in almost any State — where all the residents called each other by their first names, and took a personal interest in each other. Ocala is a town of about five thousand — or, rather, it was at the time Meighan discovered it; there is no means of calculating the size it has grown to since Meighan's investments galvanized it into frenzied activity. Meighan noticed that the town was at the intersection of two important highways, that it was the gateway of all motor traffic to the west coast, and that it had'been totally passed by during Florida's speculative boom. Ocala, an inland town, is in the northcentral part of the State. This quiet, unobtrusive little town, where nobody tried to sell or give him real estate, began to interest Meighan. Presently, production of "Old Home Week" began. As may be imagined, the arrival of Tom Meighan, Lila Lee, and other members of the company electrified the small community as had no other local happening in its history. Immense crowds collected not only from Ocala, Continued on page 108