by Sean McManus
Staff Writer
How does Jacksonville’s past impact its future?
That was the question on the minds of JCCI Forward members when the organization of future leaders within Jacksonville Community Council, Inc. (JCCI), organized a trolley tour of historic downtown buildings last week. The idea was to introduce the future to the past and encourage planners to look to history for lessons when they write the city’s next chapter.
If you’ve been working in downtown Jacksonville for 30 years, you might know a lot of this information. But in an effort to solidify the history of the oldest big city in Florida and paint small pictures inside a rich mosaic for those who don’t, history guru Joel McEachin of the City’s Planning Commission led two trolleys on a tour of 48 downtown buildings. The trip ended with lunch and a panel discussion atop the JEA building, which has a 360-degree view of Jacksonville — a perch that one panelist, Emily Lisska, executive director of the Jacksonville Historical Society, said “everyone should see our city from.”
Here are the cool things I learned from the tour:
The St. James Building was built in 1912 and designed by the most prolific architect of downtown Jacksonville, Henry John Klutho, who was working in New York when he read that a city in Florida was continuing to rebuild 10 years after a great fire and looking for good architects. St. James was built as a Cohen’s and was the largest building in the city at the time of construction and the ninth largest department store in the country. The Cohen brothers (not the filmmakers) were pioneers in the downtown-as-commerce center concept. It is listed on the national register of historic places.
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Hemming Plaza, formerly Hemming Park was sold to the City by Isaiah D. Hart’s estate in 1866. Thirty-two years later, Civil War veteran Charles Hemming donated a Confederate monument to the park. Although some argue that the statue was molded in the likeness of Hemming, most say it is a generic Confederate monument that, as a rule, faces south. Hemming Park was the site of Axe Handle Saturday, a major civil rights demonstration in the early 1960s, where youth from the NAACP came to protest segregation at lunch counters and in department stores and were met with opposition.
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The old YMCA building on Laura Street, which was designed by Klutho and built in 1909, was the first building in the city to show the influence of the design principles of Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. And it was Florida’s first reinforced building, originally with a cantilevered track over the gym floor. The Southern Ferro Concrete Company, which constructed the building, is still in operation under the auspices of Beers, the construction company building the new U.S. Courthouse directly across from the park.
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The Seminole Club on Hogan Street was built in 1887 and is one of the oldest gentlemen’s clubs in Florida and the oldest in Jacksonville. Teddy Roosevelt once gave a campaign speech on the front porch.
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The Federal Reserve Bank building on Hogan Street was built in the mid-1920s and was designed by Henrietta Dozier, one of the first female architects in the South. She went by H.C. Dozier so no one would know she was a woman.
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The old First Baptist Church building was built in 1838 and rebuilt in 1903 in the Romanesque style. It was actually called Bethel Baptist until a division within the church caused Bethel to split and the First Tabernacle Church (now First Baptist) was formed.
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There’s really no good reason why the northern half of the Greenleaf & Crosby building on North Laura Street was never completed, which is why its arch entryway is off-center. It was the hallmark of a general shift in the mid-1920s when the financial center of Jacksonville was moved from West Forsyth Street to North Laura.
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The Greenleaf & Crosby clock on the northwest corner of Laura and Adams streets was originally placed in front of the store on West Bay Street in 1901. It survived the Great Fire but was moved in 1927 to its current location. It was first purchased for $1,200. It was hit by a bus in 1974 and later restored by Jacobs Jewelers.
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The Florida Life Building on North Laura Street is known as “Jacksonville’s purest statement of a skyscraper.”
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The 10-story Bisbee Building on West Forsyth Street is Jacksonville and Florida’s first skyscraper. It was the first example of the Chicago–style of high-rise architecture in Florida.
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The Carling Hotel on West Adams Street opened in 1926 and was named after the youngest hotel executive of the Dinkler Hotel Company of Atlanta. It was renamed the Roosevelt Hotel in 1936 and suffered a severe fire in December 1963, which killed 22 people — more than the Great Fire. The Gator Bowl game was the next day and the hotel was full. It is an urban legend that the Gator Bowl queen jumped from the roof.
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Main Street used to be called Pine Street. Before it was a street it was a creek created from a pond near Monroe Street, which explains why the elevation is higher west of Main.
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The Old Florida National Bank building on West Forsyth Street, commonly referred to as the Marble Bank building, was constructed in 1902 in the neoclassical style. It was the seat of the Alfred DuPont banking empire.
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The Atlantic National Bank building on West Forsyth Street, built in 1909, was considered Jacksonville’s second true skyscraper.
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The second floor of the Florida Ballet building, built in 1903 on East Forsyth Street, is exactly the same size as the stage of the Florida Theatre, for rehearsal purposes.
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The Florida Theatre is haunted by a ghost who goes by the initial “J.” Opened in 1927, it is one of the few remaining large atmospheric theaters in Florida. It’s ornate “fantasy-inspired” interior reflects the theme of a Moorish courtyard at night. It once had a roof garden on the seventh floor. It featured an infamous concert by Elvis Presley in 1956 where a local judge warned Elvis not do anything indecent on stage. It was going to be torn down in the 1970s, but the City bought and refurbished it.
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James Spratt, the owner of the Title & Trust company on East Forsyth Street saved copies of the City’s property records by loading them onto an old boat and rowing to the Southside during the Great Fire. The county records were all destroyed so it was the copies that reestablished property records.
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The McMurray Livery Sale & Transfer Company building on East Forsyth Street reminds us that horses and carriages used to be the primary mode of transportation in Jacksonville. It was constructed in 1906.
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That pointy thing on top of the old Plaza Hotel on the corner of Forsyth and Liberty streets is called a witch’s hat. It was built in 1904.
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The Jacksonville Free Public Library on East Adams Street was built in 1905 and financed as one of the 2,800 public libraries Andrew Carnegie built. The faces of Shakespeare, Plato, Aristotle and Sir Isaac Newton are highlighted above the Corinthian columns. It was the main library until 1965.