South Florida

How spring break has changed in Florida. And how it hasn’t

By Miami Herald Archives

Updated February 28, 2024 8:51 AM

Thousands of college students are heading to South Florida for spring break.

Most of them are hitting the beach.

What are they looking for?

Some sun. Some surf. Some ... well, you can fill in the blank.

The fashions and the skylines may have changed, but the quest for a good time hasn’t.

Here’s a look through the Miami Herald archives at what spring break has looked like through the years.

Where the Boys Are. This is a photo from the late-’60s capturing spring break on Fort Lauderdale beach. Miami Herald File

CLIMBING A POLE

This 1961 spring break photo shows a student who climbed the light pole in front of the Elbo Room on Fort Lauderdale beach. Miami Herald File

A student rises high above a crowd of fellow spring breakers in 1961 on Fort Lauderdale Beach. How? He climbed a light pole in front of the famous Elbo Room bar.

As reporter Luisa Yanez told in it a 2008 story that looked back on the incident:

George “Buddy” Dalluge, a 22-year-old college kid from Minnesota, is about to become very famous — and he doesn’t even realize it. More importantly, Dalluge’s acrobatic antics and rebel-like attitude 47 years ago this week would only heighten the fascination of Fort Lauderdale as a spring break destination for generations to come of young people from around the country.

But for Dalluge, pronounced day-luge, his 15 minutes of fame would cost him a 70-day jail sentence for inciting a riot. Getting out and getting on with his life would require no less than the influence of a very powerful politician in Minnesota named Hubert H. Humphrey.

Dalluge’s story begins in the winter of 1961. As a senior at Mankato State College (now known as Minnesota State University), he goes to the local movie house to see Where the Boys Are, the fictional account of four Midwest coeds who drive down to Fort Lauderdale during spring break in search of love and fun. The hit song from the movie, sung by Connie Francis, was playing on every radio like a siren’s call to all college students across America. Dalluge and three buddies quickly decide they, too, wanted an adventure — “just like everyone else that year.”

They pooled their money and jumped into Dalluge’s blue 1953 Plymouth. Their next stop: Fort Lauderdale.

“It took us about 30 hours to get there. We didn’t stop at a hotel or anything,” he recalls.

The four arrived on Sunday, March 26, 1961. The strip was already under siege by more than 10,000 spring breakers and scores of police trying to control them. Newspaper accounts at the time convey city officials’ growing uneasiness with the huge crowds and with kids drinking too much on the street and blocking traffic -- even jumping from balcony to balcony, a popular ritual. The city mayor threatened to impose a curfew. If that didn’t work, he would call in the Florida National Guard, he told the media.

That weekend, one frustrated spring breaker complained to the media about the heavy police presence. “Some kids are calling Fort Lauderdale Where the Cops Are,” the girl said. In this atmosphere, Dalluge and his buddies gathered on their second night of vacation in front of the Elbo Room, a landmark on Las Olas and the main meeting place for spring breakers back then and now.

His life was about to be turned upside down — literally.

“Maybe I had a couple of beers, but I was not drunk when I did this,” Dalluge said.

He says about 9 p.m., there was a commotion up the strip. Wanting a better look, he shimmied a bit up the aluminum streetlight pole in front of the two-story bar, which extended across Las Olas.

“I was just trying to see over people’s heads,” said Dalluge, a college gymnast who had unsuccessfully tried out for the Olympics. An officer armed with a nightstick stood under him and whacked him hard on the foot.

“Get down from there!” he barked at Dalluge. Partly out of embarrassment, surprise and anger, Dalluge impulsively continued up the pole. The higher he went, the more the boozed-up crowd of spring breakers below egged him on.

Before he knew it, Dalluge was the night’s main attraction — and he was enjoying it. He wouldn’t come down for nearly two hours.

IN 1979

This is evidence of the 1979 spring break college invasion in Fort Lauderdale. Towels hang at the Sunrise Inn. The desk clerk said the hotel had a towel list and a noise list.