In the late 1950s, the General Development Corporation bought up vast swathes of former agricultural land in southeastern Florida around the St Lucie River. The owners, the Mackle brothers – Elliott, Robert and Frank Jr – divided these vast tracts into thousands of quarter-acre lots.

The Mackles marketed the lots mostly to modest-income families in the north. The ten-dollar price tag hit the spot. The three brothers prospered and hundreds of ordinary Americans became landowners.