Wellington’s early history is filled with fascinating characters, and none more so than A.W. “Bink” Glisson. This self-proclaimed “Florida Cracker” assembled a huge tract of land for purchase by New York City accountant Charles Oliver Wellington, and then ran day-to-day operations on the land for 40 years.
One of the key members of Wellington’s pioneering generation was a self-proclaimed “Florida Cracker,” pilot, boater, veteran, artist, collector, real estate expert and land agent who oversaw a decades-long process that turned a huge parcel of land from a swamp to thriving agricultural land to the community now known as Wellington.
Arthur William “Bink” Glisson was born Aug. 2, 1914, in Welaka, Florida, just south of Palatka on the shore of the St. Johns River. However, when he was a child, his family made the move by boat to South Florida. His father gave nicknames to each of his five children, and young Arthur was called “Binky” — later shortened to “Bink.”
Glisson came of age in the wild frontier days of Florida, where he befriended bootleggers during Prohibition, pirates and the occasional crime boss. He loved to tell the story of how gangster Al Capone once picked him up while he was hitchhiking.
Glisson grew up with a love of water, fishing and exploring the mostly uncharted and unexplored waters of the Florida peninsula. This love of water and expertise in boating led him to join the U.S. Navy during World War II, rather than waiting to be drafted. He saw a great deal of action in the Pacific during the war, serving on a landing ship tank or LST.
While on leave during the tail end of the war, Glisson met someone who indirectly became integral to the story of the community now called Wellington. Glisson’s uncle, Eugene Theodore “Cap” Knight, owned Cap’s Place. Knight opened the restaurant in the 1920s, and it is still in operation today in Broward County’s Lighthouse Point. Knight introduced Glisson to U.S. Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, and they struck up a friendship. After the war, Stettinius hired Glisson to take care of his family’s property in Hillsboro Beach.
Unfortunately, Stettinius only lived a few more years, passing away in 1949. After his death, Glisson was tasked with finding a buyer for the Florida property. The buyer? Charles Oliver Wellington, the head of a successful accounting firm in New York City. With the sale, Mr. Wellington inherited Glisson, and they too became fast friends.
In 1951, Mr. Wellington decided that he was interested in investing in Florida land, tasking Glisson with the job of seeking out possible investment properties that he could purchase. Glisson assembled a number of parcels in central Palm Beach County and was authorized to buy the entire tract of 18,200 acres. Together, they created the Acme Drainage District in 1953, now the Acme Improvement District, to oversee drainage on the vast parcel of land so it could be used for agriculture.
Glisson would spend the next 40 years as an Acme supervisor and its executive director, overseeing the land, first for the Wellington family, then the developers interested in building on part of the site, and finally the residents of the community that took the Wellington family’s name.
Throughout the 1950s, Mr. Wellington and his family made many visits to what became known as the Flying C.O.W. Ranch (C.O.W. being Charles Oliver Wellington’s initials). Most of the land was leased to farmers for agriculture, with Glisson in charge of day-to-day operations. At one point, the Wellington family’s land could boast that it was home to the world’s largest strawberry patch, as well as acres upon acres of flowers and other valuable crops.
In 1959, Mr. Wellington died, and ownership of the land fell to his son, Roger Wellington. However, as Florida’s population exploded and land values increased, along with a big bill for estate taxes, the decision was eventually made to sell part of the family’s large land holdings for development. Again, Glisson was crucial to the process.
Realtor Ralph McCormack, an Acme board member, put Glisson in touch with James Nall, president of the Investment Corporation of Florida (ICOF), which agreed to purchase 7,400 acres of the land for $6 million. Working with Alcoa, the Aluminum Corporation of America, a huge planned community was proposed. It was given the name Wellington, and it was approved by the Palm Beach County Commission in March 1972. To this day, it remains the largest single planned development ever approved in Palm Beach County.
Aside from his work with Wellington, Glisson was an avid collector of Old Florida relics and a folk artist whose prolific paintings depicted Florida landscapes, flora and fauna, as well as scenes from Old Florida history. He was a proponent of preserving agricultural lands in Palm Beach County and served on several county advisory boards. When he decided to retire, there was a community celebration called “Bink Glisson Day” on Feb. 28, 1993. He is forever memorialized in the western Wellington neighborhood known as Binks Forest, along with an elementary school by the same name.
Former Wellington Mayor Darell Bowen was a personal friend of Glisson’s. They first became close working with others on a bank startup project circa 1990. While the bank was not a success, the relationship they built continued.
“We remained friends after that and had lunch frequently together,” Bowen recalled. “He was a good advisor to me, kind of like a fatherly figure. He taught me a lot about Wellington. He was more of a nuts-and-bolts guy. He taught me the whole canal system. We would tour around, and he showed me pump stations.”
Through their conversations, Bowen learned the history of Wellington. He also heard all of Glisson’s fascinating stories from his early years. “I always loved hearing the stories, even those I had heard several times,” Bowen said. “He was just a really good guy. He was humble. He didn’t grow up with anything, and he was thankful for what he had. He was always a very giving person who supported many charities.”
Bowen assisted Glisson in a key legacy project — finding a permanent place to house his immense collection of Florida antiques and memorabilia. “He was determined to figure out someplace to put that stuff,” Bowen recalled.
After exploring options all over the county, they settled on working with the South Florida Fairgrounds.
“They were really interested in making him part of Yesteryear Village,” Bowen said. “They wanted a multi-purpose building. Ultimately, he decided that was the way he wanted to go.”
That is why, nearly 25 years after Glisson’s death, his collection of Old Florida relics remains on public view at the Bink Glisson Historical Museum at Yesteryear Village.
Bowen’s work with Glisson on the project led him to support the fairgrounds. “I became involved with the fair as a result of that,” he said. “I ultimately went on that board and got involved in all kinds of different things.”
While Glisson passed away on March 14, 2000, his legacy lives on, not just in his namesake museum, but in the entire community he was instrumental in building.
“Without Bink, I don’t think there would be a Wellington,” Bowen said. “Mr. Wellington chose to buy that land, but he chose to buy it because Bink flew him over it to show it to him. They formed the Acme Improvement District, which provided the drainage to make that land usable. He also supervised the farming operations in the early years before it was developed.”
While the Wellington family were the investors, Glisson was the one with the vision.
“If he hadn’t been part of it, I don’t know if it ever would have been developed,” Bowen explained. “It might have remained farmland. It could have been chopped up into many different developments. Bink had the vision, and Mr. Wellington was willing to invest in it.”
