While waiting for my sister Susan to finish her beauty parlor appointment, I perused an old edition of the Stuart/Martin County Welcome Guide and Business Directory, issued each year by the Chamber of Commerce. I read through the short description of each city in the county, and when I came to Jensen Beach, I was surprised to learn that a popular thing to do there was visit Peacock Lane, where the descendants of movie star Frances Langford's party of peacocks still roamed. Langford owned a popular Polynesian-themed restaurant in Jensen Beach called the Outrigger, and she and her husband Ralph Evinrude (the outboard motor guy) lived on a nearby 53-acre estate on the St. Lucie River, where those peacocks roamed. After Langford died, the estate was sold to a real estate developer, who clearcut the grounds, to the dismay of many locals, and built a gated community called Langford Landing, the entrance to which can be seen in the photograph above. Evidently, many of those peacocks escaped and were said to still roam the Rio and Jensen Beach neighborhoods to this day. I looked in vain for Peacock Lane, finally going to the Chamber of Commerce offices to ask where the hell Peacock Lane was. I was told it was just the nickname given to Northeast Dixie Highway, which borders the former estate. As it turns out, I had already covered that area with a fine-tooth comb and found not a single damn peacock. I suspect that same article has been published without changes in each year's edition of the Welcome Guide since God knows when, and those peacocks are long gone by now. What a bummer.
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