General Development Corporation, also known as GDC, was a land development company in Florida. General Development Corporation would be created in 1958 after a merger between Florida Canada Corporation and the Mackle Bros. Origins and history Origins Florida Canada Corporation would be incorporated in 1928 in Canada originally under the name of Chemical Research Corporation. Chemical Research devoted its activities towards developing "technical process," along with equipment for the mining and petroleum industry. Both the Mackle Company and Chemical Research would create 4 subsidiaries for developing property on both coasts of Florida during October 1954. Over time, the company became more diversified and by 1956, most of the company's operations had been concentrated in Floridian real estate and ended up changing their name to Florida Canada Corporation. Also that year, the 4 subsidiaries, which were jointly owned by each other, would be merged into one subsidiary: General Development Corporation. The Mackle Co. would be founded by Frank E. Mackle, Sr. in 1908 in Jacksonville and was the largest homebuilding company in Florida at one point. It would end up moving its operations to Miami in 1937. When Frank died, his three sons, Elliott, Robert and Frank Jr., would end up taking over the company. Both Florida Canada and the Mackle firm would be merged into one entity in 1958. The Mackle brothers would end up leaving GDC after getting into a dispute with the company's chairman, Gardner Cowles and ended up forming the Deltona Corporation in 1962, which would be a competitor to GDC. Further history Charles H. Kellstadt, the former chairman and CEO of Sears would become both the CEO and chairman of GDC after he left Sears in 1962. He would serve in both roles until stepping down in 1973 and then served as the company's president from 1965 to 1970. Starting in the late 1970s, liabilities grew for promised construction for thousands of lots, but when construction started, money became low. To solve this problem, the company decided to buy, plan and sell more lots to get more money flowing and develop the lots sold a decade earlier. Legal troubles and dissolution In the late 1980's, GDC's management team was accused of fraudulent home sales, which led to criminal indictments of the company leadership and the company itself. The company itself would plead guilty to federal mail fraud charges on March 16, 1990. Prior to this, it