Tallahassee history: Frank Stoutamire was a sheriff without a gun, law enforcement pioneer

Frank Stoutamire was a well-known name in Florida law enforcement for decades. His career began as a deputy sheriff for five years under Sheriff Houstoun and continued when he was appointed Leon County sheriff by the governor in 1923 and was continuously re-elected until 1953.

Upon his retirement as sheriff, Tallahassee city manager Arvah Hopkins appointed him chief-of-police where he remained from 1953 to 1968. Over his 50 year career he never carried a holstered gun.

In the 1920s, Tallahassee was little more than a small village. Florida State College for Women, the predecessor of Florida State University, had become a prominent place of higher education for women. Florida A&M University was a driving force for both the culture and economy.

State government was small with the legislature meeting only once every two years. On the north side of the county were large plantations owned mostly by northern industrialists who traveled here to hunt quail and entertain guests. Agriculture and timber dominated the local economy with townsfolk riding horses and buggies into town for supplies.

Leon County sheriff years

In 1923, Governor Cary Hardee removed Leon County Sheriff Jim Bob Jones, along with the incumbent county judge, for improperly using jail inmates to work for private business. It seems they had some sort of “Shawshank Redemption” thing going on. Frank Stoutamire, who at the time was a Tallahassee city commissioner, simply walked to the Capitol and asked the governor for the job, according to a front page article in the Tallahassee Democrat on May 14, 1923.

When he took office, Sheriff Stoutamire only had two deputies. He frequently rode horseback by himself to Miccosukee to serve civil writs, spending the night there. The next morning, he would circle back to the Chaires community and then on to Woodville. This circuit would typically take three days.

In the 1930s, gangsters such as John Dillinger and the Ma Barker gang were making headlines across the country. Sheriff Stoutamire had an encounter with another Depression-era group of bank robbers in Tallahassee. Members of the Blackie Thompson gang were committing robberies in Oklahoma, Texas, and Florida.

The sheriff received information that the gang was going to rob the Capital City Bank and staked it out along with Tallahassee police officer Barney Gatlin. On Jan. 29, 1934, two escaped Oklahoma convicts, who were members of this gang, their wives, and a third subject were taken into custody after a car chase that ended when Officer Gatlin shot out the suspect’s car tire. $10,000 in bonds and $4,200 in cash were recovered from a previous robbery. A fortune during the Great Depression.

The police chief years

After retiring as sheriff in early 1953, the Tallahassee city commission unanimously appointed him chief-of-police after being recommended by city manager Arvah Hopkins where he remained until his retirement in 1968. Those 15 years saw many historical events beginning with the “I like Ike” era of the President Dwight Eisenhower administration and cold war through the civil rights movement of the 1960s and tragic deaths of Senator Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. All of these events had an impact on Tallahassee. 

In the 1950s an effort was made to raise the standards of law enforcement and the Florida Police Academy was established. In 1954, under Chief Stoutamire’s leadership, every Tallahassee police officer attended this academy.

Of course, his 50 year career was not without some minor controversy. In 1957, a local attorney said that he observed a restaurant employee going to the back of the police station and receiving eggs that had been brought in from Chief Stoutamire’s 500 acre farm on Highway 20.

It was further reported that the same attorney had to step aside on another occasion when a prisoner was delivering eggs from a double-parked police car to a restaurant. The chief responded that on as many as a half-dozen occasions eggs had been delivered to a café or grocery by a prisoner that was doing janitor work at the police station.

Remembrances

When I was a young Tallahassee Police motorcycle officer, several years after he had retired, I remember Chief Stoutamire driving around town in his Plymouth wearing his signature beige Stetson hat.

He would frequently have breakfast at the F&T restaurant on South Monroe Street and on more than one occasion would flag me down for a quick chat about police goings on.  He was always a gentleman and an avuncular figure to me. At the time, I didn’t realize that I was talking to walking history.

Some of Beth Stoutamire Bloomquist’s fondest memories of her grandfather, or “Pop” and “Dude,” as she referred to her grandfather and grandmother, were the huge family Christmas breakfasts at his home at 402 South Bronough Street where they would have Bradley’s sausage before it was sold commercially. The R. A. Gray Building is now on that site.

She also relishes the memories of him reminiscing about life on the family farm where they smoked hams, sausages, and rode horses. And then there were the frequent visits where he would play Chinese checkers with her at her home.While Beth and I are the same age, I remember Frank as a lawman and she, of course, remembers him as a loving grandfather who never wore a gun.

Frank Stoutamire was a law enforcement pioneer who was at the top of two law enforcement agencies that would be later recognized as world class organizations. I wonder if we will ever see anything like that again. 

David Brand is a retired police officer who works for a nonprofit that represents the interests of law enforcement. He lives in St. Teresa Beach, Florida.