City of Crestview, precinct 15 was 938. On July 23, 1920, Crestview hosted the first public hanging for Okaloosa County. Robert Blackwell was convicted of killing Nancy and Bud Davis in 1917, and received the death penalty. One week prior to the date of his hanging, Blackwell confessed, and his confession was printed in area newspapers on his hanging day. The second and last Okaloosa County hangings took place in Crestview, Florida on September 23, 1921. Thousands of curious onlookers came from surrounding states. Putnam Ponsell and Jacob Benjamin Marin were publicly hanged for killing John F. Tuggle. This double hanging in 1921 was the last public hanging in Florida. Smith-Johnson Company, Inc. opened a garment factory in Crestview in 1937 that utilized 250 machines and employed "around 300 persons". A modern bus terminal served by the Greyhound Lines' Jacksonville-Los Angeles route, as well as connections north to Atlanta, Memphis and New York, featuring waiting rooms, lounge, smoking rooms, restaurant, and loading concourse, opened on the corner of Ferdon and Pearl Streets on Friday 9 May 1941. As per the standards of the era, it was segregated. As nearby Eglin Field was expanded into a major testing base, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad laid a long sidetrack in Crestview in the spring of 1941 to handle the number of oil tankcars required to supply the Asphault Products Company with material for the vast paving job of the ten new airfields. A fleet of trucks were operated round the clock to offload an estimated 180 car loads of petroleum product for the task. A recreation center for enlisted men at the expanding Eglin Field was opened in Crestview on Saturday, June 21, 1941, through the efforts of the Community Recreation Council, the Works Progress Administration, and the Okaloosa Progressive Association. In late January 1943, a "misunderstanding" by the constabulary of Crestview put the community off limits to military personnel from Eglin Field. The Pensacola News Journal reported on 31 January that the town was off the "black list." According to the front-page report, "The out-of-town bounds restrictions that had been imposed on Crestview by Eglin field authorities were lifted at noon today [30 January], after a conference of town officials and Eglin authorities, and it was stated that soldiers from the field may visit the town. Billy Powell, town marshal, whose arrest of a soldier for reckless driving and an Eglin