Mitchell Wolfson Sr. (1900 – January 28, 1983) was an American businessman, theatre owner, politician, and founder of

Wometco Enterprises Wometco Enterprises (also known simply as Wometco) is an American company headquartered in Coral Gables, Florida; a suburb of Miami. It was once a large media company with diversified holdings, but slowly sold off its assets during the early 1980s ...

Biography

Wolfson was born in 1900 in

Key West Key West ( es, Cayo Hueso) is an island in the Straits of Florida, within the U.S. state of Florida. Together with all or parts of the separate islands of Dredgers Key, Fleming Key, Sunset Key, and the northern part of Stock Island, it cons ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. He went to school in Key West and at

Erasmus Hall High School Erasmus Hall High School was a four-year public high school located at 899–925 Flatbush Avenue between Church and Snyder Avenues in the Flatbush neighborhood of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It was founded in 1786 as Erasmus Hall Ac ...

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

and then graduated from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. After school, he went to work for the East Coast Wholesale Corp in Miami, founded by his father in 1884. In 1925, he partnered with his brother-in-law, Sidney Meyer, forming the Wolfson-Meyer Theater Company and began construction on a state of the art theater in downtown Miami. The Capital Theatre was completed in 1926 at the cost of $300,000 and featured an early form of air conditioning. They built the company into a business conglomerate using the

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsWometco Enterprises Wometco Enterprises (also known simply as Wometco) is an American company headquartered in Coral Gables, Florida; a suburb of Miami. It was once a large media company with diversified holdings, but slowly sold off its assets during the early 1980s ...

. In 1949, Wometco founded the first television station in Miami,

WTVJ WTVJ (channel 6) is a television station in Miami, Florida, United States, airing programming from the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Fort Lauderdale–licensed WSCV (ch ...

. Wometco went on to own and operate the largest chain of movie theaters in South Florida, six television stations, a cable television company, a soft drink bottling franchise, and tourist attractions including the

Miami Seaquarium The Miami Seaquarium is a oceanarium located on the island of Virginia Key in Biscayne Bay, Miami-Dade County, Florida located near downtown Miami. Founded in 1955, it is one of the oldest oceanariums in the United States. In addition to marin ...

. At the time of his death, Wometco had over $500 million in sales. Wolfson served two terms as city councilman in

Miami Beach, Florida Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. It was incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on natural and artificial island, man-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the ...

before being elected its first Jewish

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...

in 1943. He resigned after one term to fight

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Personal life

He was married to Frances Meyer (December 16, 1906 – May 9, 1980); they had two sons,

Mitchell Wolfson Jr. Mitchell "Micky" Wolfson Jr. (born September 30, 1939) is an American businessman, collector, and the founder of the Wolfsonian Museum in Miami Beach, Florida, and Genoa–Nervi, Italy. Early life and education He was born in Miami Beach, ...

and Louis Wolfson II. Wolfson died on January 28, 1983 at

Mount Sinai Medical Center Mount Sinai Hospital, formerly at times known as Mount Sinai Medical Center, is a 319-bed major urban hospital in Chicago, Illinois, with its main campus located adjacent to Douglass Park at 15th Street and California Avenue on the city's West Si ...

in Miami.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolfson, Mitchell 1983 deaths 1900 births Wolfson family American theatre managers and producers People from Key West, Florida Columbia University alumni Erasmus Hall High School alumni Mayors of Miami Beach, Florida Jewish mayors of places in the United States 20th-century American Jews