I love Downtown Jacksonville. Ever since I was a kid, riding in the backseat of my parent’s car, awestruck as I watched the city skyline rise over 95. I imagined it to be like the city from Annie, or better, the one in Adventures in Babysitting. I still love that skyline.
Downtown itself is a matter of taste I suppose, but to me, it is where the zombie apocalypse has come to exist with the bright glitz of any 80’s movie. There are patches of each in every area. Although it’s a little quiet now, like it’s waiting for something, Jax has hosted many times with enthusiasm.
From the wildland pioneers of the 17th century to the psychics and spiritualists of the twenties. To political rallies dedicated to ladies of the nights and Saturday nights dedicated to the ladies of wrestling. Ostrich races, wild sailors…
An honorable African Princess is here. Entombed in the same 16-acre burial ground as Large Marge.
All of it, not necessarily in that order… and there is something else… Something old. Jacksonville breathes. It has a life of its own and you can feel this more than anywhere else, Downtown. Nope, Jax is no ordinary city. Jacksonville, once the grand town of Cowford, is a place that can actually date back approximately 4000 years.
A little bit of friendly, scary, strange, and distance all one deep breath. Exhale, and head down to five points for a drink by that very deep, dark river.
Now you know why Ash loves this place. I’ll tell you exactly where you can stand and visualize the same dreams of a vacation from zombie slaughter…
Like St. Augustine to the South, Jacksonville could easily boast the same historical significance. Even better, Laudennaire and the French were here in 1564, a year before Pedro Menendez would land in St. Augustine. Though it is unsure where the original Fort Caroline was located, it is well-known that Pedro Menendez eliminated the Huguenots pretty ferociously when he came to get them in 1565.
Fort Caroline is about 13 miles from Downtown, but I wanted to paint a picture of just how long this place has been continuously occupied by humans. Long before the arrival of Europeans, approximately 4000 years ago, the St. Johns Culture people occupied the entire eastern coastline all the way up to South Carolina. They left behind their Orange Culture St. Johns Check potshards and not much else.
The band of Native people they merged into would be a little better known to the modern world. Although beyond their infamous “black drink” for purging, regular bloodletting rituals, and their tolerance towards Europeans, the Timucua are still mostly a mystery to modern man.
The Beginning of it All
At present that orange construction fencing marks the latest catastrophe to hit this area but we will get to that, first we must go way back to the first civilizations in Florida. Everyone heard of the movie Poltergeist?
When the Spanish first toured the Florida coastline around 1565, they noted and mapped a very large Indian Nation living in Jacksonville proper. A Timucua city that would turn out to be a central location for many smaller villages that branched out from the center. Chief Saturiwa was the head here, with Seloy in St. Augustine and on down Chief Tomokie in Daytona. The Timucua nation covered the North East Florida area.
Head out to the Timucua preserve around Fort Caroline to learn more about the Timucua in the Jacksonville area.
So, Indian Villages equal Indian Burial Grounds and of the many, many approximately 21 different bands of the tribe that was here, there is not one preserved burial mound.
This very place is where the city survey in 1822 began. A large Bay tree stood here and it was the start of it all. While the Bay tree is long gone, there is a small plaque that tells the story. It’s a brass plaque on a concrete marker. Sometimes you really have to look for it. I don’t know why it seems to move around there.
Let’s jump into the present. Recently the end of Liberty Street collapsed into the river in 2014. At the time it was a parking lot for the condos still standing. It seems the same structural stability issues affected the construction of the abandoned project sitting next door only there it was costly.
On December 6, 2007, the lower level of the Berkman Plaza II parking garage being built collapsed injuring 23 workers, and killed another. It has sat there in that state since then and no one knows what will happen to it now, even though the mayor has declared it will be gone soon.
From the many fires to the defunct “Marketplace” of the late 1800s, this area has claimed many lives. Notably, the first fireman in Jax to die in the line of duty. On December 16th, 1885, Mr. Henry J Bradley was an African-American firefighter who died when a wall collapsed on him a little further up West Bay Street.
The early 1900’s, a time when merchant marines, travelers, port shipyard workers, and fish markets dominated Bay Street. Many, many bars and other places of ill repute lined the sides of the road along with warehouses and docks. A rough place with rougher people. Bucket of blood bars. Wild stuff.
Nowadays Bay Street is mainly just the best way to get to Everbank Field and the Jags games…
Awesome players, they’ve had some great coaches, billionaire owner who’s willing to try anything but still… they are currently one of the teams with the most losses in the NFL.
Yes, things are much quieter now. The old Courthouse that was on the water has even gone away.
A Courthouse with notoriety all its own. From deadly elevator problems on day one, to toxic waste spills from exploding transformers, to a divorced couple having a shootout in the building… It’s probably best it was replaced by the lovely new structure over on Duval St.
The Old Duval County Courthouse
It took forty years for the first courthouse in Jax to come to fruition. It took almost 136 years to get a decent one. From 1822 to 1902 they just kept burning down. Finally, after the 1901 fire, they established this one whose original structure was replaced in 1958 creating the courthouse you see here.
I mentioned construction issues… Before the doors to this building were ever opened for business, the lives of 7 construction workers were taken while they worked on the elevator shafts. No surprise then that this courthouse had many elevator issues including one instance where a woman almost had a heat stroke inside of one on one of the many times it was broken down. Electrical issues as a whole seemed to be a plague on the building at all times from the air conditioning to the elevators.
What begins in tragedy… In 1972 this courthouse would become the scene of a wild news story when a divorcing couple decided to have a shoot out inside the courthouse. Ms. Hickson ran around shooting her gun, taking a hostage, and ducking into offices. She was shot dead when she emerged from one of these offices.
Her new ex-husband Mr. Hickson, had been shot in the wrist. No one knew whether it was Mr. Hickson or the assisting officer who shot Mrs. Hickson and no one seemed to care…
From 1984 to 1986 the employees of this building were treated to a toxic spill situation when a transformer blew up.
Funny it took so long to try out a new location for the county courthouse…
Duval County Jail
Ah, Freedom… Liberty… what a street to put a jail on huh? There are so many ironies to this street name it isn’t even funny. It’s okay, so many people have escaped from this jail they had to build two more around town just to be able to keep people in. But who would want to stay in given the history of this place…
The first building to sit on this spot was not a jail but a house. The old Haunted Merrick House to be exact. That’s what they called it even in the 1840s shortly after it was built.
The Merrick House was built by the Merrick family who at the time, were pretty public abolitionists and humanitarians from Fernandina Beach. They were also members of the Bethel Baptist Church which was an integrated institution until the Civil War.
There was also a supposed underground creek or river that ran underneath the house which the more scientific types attributed to the strange roars, moans, and noises that occurred inside the Merrick house.
Whatever the reasons… there were documented strange noises that came from inside the home causing it to be labeled haunted.
Maybe those moans were not from the past but voices and moans blowing in on winds from the future???
Originally built in 1902, the jail at 501 East Bay Street would be the one to bring us into that future. From 1827 to 1902 there were many jails in Downtown Jacksonville, all in various, different, places at different times around the Liberty and Bay street area. Many burned down and one went down in the novels of time as a place notoriously called “the Jug”. It sat from 1835 to 1850 right at the end of Market Street where the Hyatt Hotel is now.
The crime rate in Jacksonville has always been high. Always. There are three jails within the city limits today. Overcrowding is a leading factor as well as trying to build one that people can’t escape.
Literally, over the years prisoners escaping from various institutions has been an issue, but never like between 1988 and 1989 when about 33 people escaped over the course of the two years. So, it’s better.
There is always a whisper on the wind about the “Murder Capital of the South”… When you look at population “per capita” you see that Jax has a landmass size claiming to be a city that is much larger than most cities. When you go by population in one neighborhood and compare it to the crime there, you really can’t apply it to the rest of the city, but that is where those statistics come from.
It’s a title that tends to stick though… There have been many years where Jax has topped the charts for murders here in Florida in general. One has to admit, there are an inexplicable amount of shootings here regularly, along with some pretty strange murders and coincidences…
Old Sparky
In 1924 number 10 Newnan Street was the home of Cooks Cabinet Shop. This tiny unassuming storefront would come to produce one of the United States’ most active death machines. Yes ladies and gentlemen, the creature responsible for the deaths of 240 murderers by electrocution, Old Sparky himself, was built right here.
The Florida electric chair was designed by Dr. Ralph Green Sr. of Riverside Hospital and built by Mr. Samuel A. Cook. Except for the accessories, Dr. Green built all the straps and the helmet himself.
Most murders here are drug or domestic violence-related. Unfortunately, though, this place has raised and attracted at least 7 serial killers. Seven – living, working right here. These are documented cases since 1924, but I will say… Currently, on the books, there are 15 missing children and the Jacksonville Sheriffs Office’s self-proclaimed 300 plus unsolved murders since 1990. It used to be on their website…
One of the first serial killers to make Jax his home was John Mendenhall who also held a special sort of relationship to Old Sparky…
Mr. Mendenhall killed and did time for a mother-daughter murder that he committed in 1914 down in Tampa. While he was doing time at Raiford for his crime, he helped install Old Sparky into the prison. Shortly after… Old Sparky was installed in 1925, Mendenhall was pardoned by the governor and released in July of 1930.
He moved right to Jax in 1931 he met another vulnerable mother and daughter… He killed them in their Liberty Street home. Evidence was everywhere. He had left the hammer he’d used as a murder weapon – his prints were on it. His blood was mingled with theirs on the sheets of the bed they were found on and his arms and face bore scratches and bruises as if he had been in a fight.
He was arrested and a sensational trial ensued. He walked free. He was about 65 years old… Seems he was paid very well for his work on Old Sparky there…
Some other notable serial killers from and living in Jacksonville are:
Paul Dureausseau – The Cabbie Killer – 1997
Gary Ray Bowles – 1994
Henry Lee Lucas and Otis Toole – 1983
Paul Knowles – 1974
George Ronald York – 1959
Old Sparky started to malfunction in 1999 creating some pretty gnarly displays up there at Raiford Prison. Allen Lee Davis (also a gory killer from Jacksonville, who killed a Jax woman and her 2 daughters in 1982) would be the final hour for Old Sparky… Jacksonville made the chair, its first documented serial killer installed it, and one of Jacksonville’s most heinous murderers took it out of commission… strange coincidences.
The Palace Theater at 32 E. Forsyth
All legalities aside, wink-wink; Sometimes after all the trouble, you just want a good lawyer to help you out. Sometimes you are better off with the Public Defender…
Where a parking garage is now; was once the site of the Palace Theater; one of the Grande Dames of the vaudeville theaters. It was the best and grandest theater in Jacksonville when it opened in 1919 only to be struck by tragedy two years later.
On the night of September 4th, 1921, at around 10:00 pm; Manager George H. Hickson was counting money in his office. A known acquaintance of Mr. Hickson walked in and demanded the money, Mr. Hickson thought he was joking and Mr. Frank Rawlins shot him dead in the eye.
He grabbed the money and ran out to the waiting getaway car parked by the curb… the getaway car, that happened to be driven by prominent Jacksonville attorney John H. Pope. Apparently, Mr. Rawlins was his client and this was how he was going to get paid for his legal services. Both men were busted and both went to jail.
The beautiful Palace Theater would soldier on, past this murder, past the vaudeville shows turning into movie shows… It would make it through with class until the Florida Theater opened in 1927 and then it would start its way into the basement of Jacksonville memory. By 1955 the Palace was closed and in 1956 it was gone.
The Florida Theater
In my opinion … the Florida Theater seems to have at least one happy ghost. I have felt and somewhat seen the old man porter and he seems quite content. I do not like to be alone in the bathrooms though as there definitely is something there besides the porter. I saw Dwight Yokum from a seat very near the ghost one in the balcony and didn’t notice much… course, it was Dwight Yokum, I wasn’t paying much attention to the ghosts that night.
This story is not so much about the well-known spirits of The Florida Theater, or its beautiful fully restored opulence, but more or less about the building next door to it and the other one that was nearby at the corner of Ocean and Bay Streets.
As you look at the vacant retail space that is here now try and picture it gone. Picture a rickety wood-frame house here and the year is 1888. The yellow fever epidemic that year was the worst one of its time here in Jacksonville and many people did not have help.
No ambulances, no hospice. Mrs. Storck and her family lived at this location then. They died here as well. The bodies were found about 30 hours later after a small boy, the only Storck survivor, left the house to find food.
Unfortunately, the other area of mention was not open in 1888. The pharmacy that was on the corner of Bay and Ocean Streets was owned by Mr. E.P. Webster and is why Mr. Webster is on the hero list for this city. In fact, the only reason I mention it here is because the bravery and heart of this man during the crisis is so astounding.
The pharmacy was opened in 1856, the year before a nasty yellow fever epidemic would claim 127 lives within the city core. The yellow fever epidemic of 1857 would leave the city terrified and evacuated just like all the other ones would.
Except for Mr. Webster. He left his pharmacy open through the entire epidemic and furnished medications free of charge. He was also the only open business or sign of life in the entire city and if he was afraid, it didn’t change his heart.
666 Cough Medicine
Mr. Webster wouldn’t be the only pharmacist in Jacksonville to gain some notoriety. Unfortunately not for the same reasons, but not entirely bad reasons either I guess. Simply very, incredibly Odd.
Down by the river, almost under the East side of the Acosta Bridge, used to sit a large building with a very impressive mural emblazoned on its side. Impressive and surprising.
But… You know some people say the Devil lives over in New Orleans. I think he may have a condo somewhere in Jax as well…
Maybe it’s in this building. Photo courtesy of floridamemory.com
Who knows, but it was long before the equally creepy 666 shaped Interstate 295 pictured here: (photo from Google)
That Dr. J.D. Palmer came to reside in Jacksonville, Florida.
There used to be a cough syrup manufacturer here… well, they are still here, just not at this place. The company was the Monticello Drug Company and its number one seller was the 666 cough syrup. They had a very large factory with a huge billboard that you could clearly see all the way across the Acosta Bridge. 666 blazing, welcoming people to Jacksonville… It literally was the first thing you noticed.
The Monticello Drug Company was actually started in New Orleans by T.S. Roberts and his brother. They moved here in 1912. So far, nothing special except that syrup name huh? But before Mr. Roberts moved to New Orleans, he lived up by Tallahassee with a certain Dr. John Dabney Palmer.
Dr. Death and his assistant Poltergeist is what they were called around Monticello due to Dr. Palmer’s strange practices as a mortician. He did some very odd things like draining a corpse’s blood and washing the grave out with it before burial… His neighbors thought him very odd indeed. By trade though, he was a pharmacist who had developed a very interesting cough syrup with no name and no listed ingredients.
Dr. Palmer died in 1909 and T.S. Roberts moved to New Orleans where he teamed up with his brother and started their company with a cough syrup called Roberts Remedies #666 Cough Syrup patented in New Orleans in 1909. The same year Dr. Palmer died.
By the way… Dr. Palmer’s house in Monticello, Florida has been deemed by paranormal investigators as one of, if not the most, haunted houses in the south.
One of the reasons the 666 building was torn down was for this expansion of the Acosta Bridge or The Yellow Monster. No ordinary bridge, this one has quite a history of unusual events that have surrounded it.
The Acosta Bridge
So it’s not yellow anymore and monster status has gone to the Matthews Bridge, but this bridge still has a few interesting stories that come with it.
Like the jail, the courthouse, and the Berkman Plaza, it too was marked with problems from the very start. Built in 1921, it acquired the nickname Yellow Monster; one for being painted bright yellow and two because the drawbridge liked to stick in the up position causing traffic snarls for miles.
If you ever venture out to the Riverwalk at night, be very careful around the area under this bridge. There is a staircase under there that quite a few transients call home. You’ll realize just how strange this particular spot can get, then there’s the dead…
There are at least five documented stories that have occurred involving this bridge… the only one with a good turnout involved one truly blessed individual… I will keep with the timeline though.
In 1928 the Hysler family was one of the big-time gangster booze runners of Prohibition time Jacksonville. They actually competed at the time with some big-time Federal Narcotics Agents as well.
On the evening of September 28, 1928, Mr. John B. Hysler was on his way back from a liquor run at ol’ Mickler’s Landing in Ponte Vedra Beach. He had a full load. The Feds confronted him on the bridge and a shoot-out ensued. Hysler was shot twice in the chest, twice in the neck, and once in the shoulder. He died in his car on the bridge.
Private O’Conner is our blessed individual. On the night of December 12, 1941, he was posted atop the Educator Biscuit Company building that sat here right across from the 666 building. Apparently, Jax City Council at the time thought the World War II invasion would start here after Hawaii so that’s why he was up there to begin with. Seriously.
At a few minutes after midnight, Private O’Conner’s night was wildly disturbed when he was attacked… by a drunken salesman from Georgia. The extremely intoxicated salesman missed the turn and drove his car right off the bridge where it landed squarely on top of Private O’Conner.
O’Conner was okay, proving he was one hell of a soldier by escaping with only a broken ankle. The salesman proceeded to act like he was possessed, fighting with the police that showed up and finally being subdued enough to be brought to jail.
With that, we are on to one of my favorite Jacksonville attractions!
Take a free ride on the Jacksonville Skyway!
The Jacksonville Skyway
I love the skyway. Let me just tell you that. I don’t care what anyone says. It’s free and being on it is like stepping back in time to 1985… It kinda feels like you’re on a Subway train. Plus, though it doesn’t go to all the places it was meant to go, it does go to some pretty cool places like Hemming Plaza and San Marco.
Like other Jax projects with initial construction problems, this one was no different. By the time the track from this area to Hemming Plaza downtown was completed; the contracts had fallen through and the money had disappeared. The ultimate goal of this people mover was to get to the football stadium, something that it still does not do to this day. Funds and other problems just won’t seem to allow it.
It opened in 1989 and went to three places around Downtown. From 89 to 1996 the city fought over contracts and funding. 1996 got the ball rolling again and the expansion to San Marco was begun.
In 1998 amidst a fight between companies over the technology being used here, an accident occurred during construction on the South Line near the Y junction. You can tell, it’s just about this place that the train usually stops, and the lights flicker.
A young man was working on the line there when he was hit head-on by the Northbound train. He was killed instantly and thrown from the track.
Strangely enough, it’s hard to tell whether the inside lights flickering, the train stalling on the track or the extremely strange noises heard inside the train is Mr. Austin, or simply lack of decent maintenance… thrill-seekers, you decide.
You should take a ride on the Skyway someday if you have time. It will take you right over the river to the Southbank and San Marco. A lovely area that lacks all the close quarters of Downtown but is still close enough.
Ash v/s the Evil Dead – Southbank
If you are not familiar with Ash or the Evil Dead, let me explain. To quote Wikipedia
“Ash vs Evil Dead is an American comedy horror television series developed by Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi, and Tom Spezialy for the Starz network filmed in New Zealand. It is set in Raimi’s Evil Dead universe, with Bruce Campbell reprising his role as Ash Williams from the original trilogy.” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_vs_Evil_Dead
So there you go and if you choose to check it out, you’ll find that Ash (Bruce Campbell) is the star of the show. And, that he loves Jacksonville, Fl. Dreams of having a bar here.
In Episode 104, Brujo, Ash is seen living his dream of chilling on a dock on the Southbank of the St. Johns River in Jacksonville. He has a beer in each hand, a folding lounge chair, and a cooler with one of our customary Florida Iguanas standing guard. A huge smile covers his face as he looks across the river at the Main Street bridge, Bank of America Tower, and Wells Fargo buildings in Downtown.
The scene is best where they filmed the Creature from the Black Lagoon (Part 2). By the Friendship Fountain, down on the Riverwalk, is an old wooden restaurant with some docks to the west of it. Best spot (I’m pretty sure it’s the same spot in the picture) to try and re-create the scene. Closer to under the bridge is the best angle, and you’ll get to check out Mrs. Roux’s beautiful glass and tile murals. My step-son was part of the Riverside Elementary crew who helped on the project.
Ash v/s the Evil Dead is not the only campy horror series to have a Jacksonville influence either. The Good Place, starring Ted Danson, has a wonderful character named Jacinto. A young DJ from Jax who brings many humorous references to the show.
The Skyway is a train, and when it comes to trains, the East Coast of Florida has always had a love affair with them. From Henry Flagler to CSX Railroad, they rumble through the state showing us an art gallery of graffiti from everywhere else. It’s hard to believe by looking at it now, but the Prime Osborne Convention Center used to be the second-largest train station in the south.
The Prime Osborn Convention Center
We could choose this location to spin many tales of shiestery and political corruption… it is a grand place for it. Picture this… this historical area was once a bunch of historic dilapidated old buildings. Buildings with extreme American history, not just southern, Afro-American, or Duval county history, but American history.
In the late ’80s this historical area needed a community center. The LaVilla district leaders agreed to let the city tear down a portion of the buildings in exchange for that community center.
In the meantime… another amazingly historical grand ol’ train station of the south was also in danger from the wrecking ball. This lovely example of 1920’s architecture used to be the Union Station. A train station second in grandeur only to Atlanta, Ga.
After the trains stopped running in 1974 it wasn’t used for much. It sat abandoned, became a flea market, and was abandoned again. While it sat there in disarray, the city proceeds to destroy the historical significance of LaVilla for their community center. The buildings came down and the grass grew. No community center ever surfaced.
That big old building looks like it would have made an awesome community center. Just saying…
As the wrecking ball was swinging again, a local businessman with a special interest in the history of the trains here took notice. The old Union Station was saved by CSX chairman Prime Osborn the Third in 1982 when the city council turned it into target el numero uno for the LaVilla redevelopment project.
Honestly, it would have made a fine community center don’t you think???
Ghosts…. Ghosts of good ol’ boys and good ol’ days… but they can’t compare to the real ones… even in the middle of events this place looks deserted… maybe we should ask Mr. Baker why.
Mr. Baker was riding a train into the Union Station one day in 1910. This was before renovations and before the great building you see now was built. He rode the train in; it arrived between Noon and 3 pm; and he was dismounting from the back platform when a different, incoming train slammed right into the back of it killing Mr. Baker instantly.
It is very possible that Mr. Baker was not the only one to expire in this haunted-looking location If you’re feeling particularly adventurous, head up to Bay and Myrtle Avenue.
Old Union Station Pedestrian Tunnel
Head south on Myrtle Ave. and you will see what looks like a roadblock. It’s not, go on through the traffic light and submerge yourself for a second in Jacksonville’s only leftover 1920 pedestrian tunnel from the Union Station.
It’s small and extremely dark in there and you can park and walk through it as well, there are wide sidewalks down each side and through the middle. Excellent for photo opportunities, quite a few orbs were caught in some of the last pictures I took down there.
Myrtle Avenue holds its own secrets. Songs have been rapped about it, cars have drag raced down it. It’s not the safest place in town and maybe that is why a very important Civil War location is totally hidden in the grass.
Little Brick Church and Cemetery – Myrtle and Duval Street
At Myrtle and Monroe, is the site of one of the very first churches in Jacksonville. All sources simply call it the “Little Brick Church”. It is unknown what denomination it was or who the members were, but it is known that it had a small cemetery in the back of it. It is also known that this is the place where the first blood was spilled due to the Civil War in Jacksonville, Florida.
On March 24, 1862, Confederate Lt. Strange of the 3rd Florida regiment led a group of soldiers into the area to capture a small band of Union soldiers that were camped here. Shots were fired, and Lt. Strange would die in Lake City from his wounds two days later. Here though, 4 Union soldiers and 1 Confederate would die here that day. 3 in the cemetery where the battle actually occurred and 2 died taking cover in the church…
Somewhere under those weeds lie the ancient bodies of some of the first citizens of Jacksonville, the foundation of a little brick church, and if you look closely enough… possibly some headstones with some nice bullet holes in them…
Cemeteries of Jacksonville and their Residents
Memorial Cemetery
Abraham Lincoln Lewis
Mary Frances Sammis Lewis
There are many cemeteries around Jacksonville. Many. And speaking of horror movies, some of them look like something right out of Night of the Living Dead. The graves are open, headstones thrown asunder, bones and coffins gone… The Moncrief area cemeteries have been a subject of conversation in this city for years. Here in 2022, they still look the same.
In one of the better-kept lots called Memorial Cemetery, is the tomb of Abraham Lincoln Lewis and his wife, Mary Frances Sammis Lewis. A.L. Lewis was one of the founders in 1901, of the first Afro-American Life Insurance company in the country. As well as being the main coordinator of the Memorial Cemetery, which at the time, held some very sought-after plots.
Mary Frances Sammis Lewis was a significant woman in Jacksonville history as well. The great-granddaughter of Anna and Zephaniah Kingsley. Anna Kingsley was a slave of Zephaniah Kingsley who married him. Later inheriting the plantation after her husband’s passing and becoming one of the few former African slaves, not to mention females, to own her own home and property.
Old City Cemetery
Established in 1852, on the East Side of Downtown, on a hill that may have been one of those missing Native burial mounds, in the middle of a shady-looking area, is the city’s oldest and most interesting cemetery. Old City.
This is one fabulous neighborhood of the dead, and it stopped taking in new residents around 1998. 146 years… Doesn’t look like that many folks are in there. Look closer. You’ll have to gun it up the hill and catapult yourself through the narrow, iron arch but it’s totally worth it.
Since Ms. Eartha White and her mother Clara are right in front of where I usually park, I normally visit with them first.
Eartha Mary Magdalene White 1876-1974
It’s probably best anyway. These queens of all that is good are two of the most important residents to ever come out of Jacksonville, with Eartha being the founder of the Clara White Mission in Downtown.
Words cannot describe the good things coming out of the C.W. Mission. In fact, I can imagine that building, sitting right at the corner of hell and evil streets, as one of the great things keeping Jacksonville running.
When you look for people fighting evil, look for them in the midst of it huh? Anyways… there is a small museum upstairs dedicated to Eartha White and I encourage you to set up an appointment and check it out. They give tours but you have to call and set it up. Please donate graciously as well. Thanks. Now for some history…
This mission actually started somewhere else across town and it is named for the woman who started that mission. Clara White. Daughter of former slaves, she fed, clothed, and took in the needy from the backdoor of her 1890’s home in North Jacksonville. Her young daughter helped and learned. That was before Eartha Mary Magdalene White took off to New York to become one of the world’s first and best African-American soprano opera singers.
Eartha returned to Jacksonville and bought the abandoned Afro-American Globe Theater in 1920. She turned it into what you see today. A soup kitchen, shelter, and job placement facility that helps people get back on their feet.
If the Globe Theater didn’t come with its own ghosts, Eartha took care of that as well. Her rooms are exactly the same as they were on January 18th, 1974 when she died upstairs of heart failure at age 97. She lived here her entire life and used every second of that life to help those in need. Rumor has it you can see her spirit in the windows up there, still looking out over LaVilla, still looking for those who may need her help.
Laura Adorkor Kofi 1895-1928
I love Old City, and it is because of the wise and ancient souls who reside there…
Along the farthest wall in the Northern part of the cemetery is a small, brilliantly white, little mausoleum. It is clean and well kept and will be for years to come. It is the tomb of Princess Laura Adorkor Kofi.
An African Princess, pastor, and mission leader, who came to America from Ghana to let freed slaves know that they could come home. That she would help them to get there and succeed after they arrived.
Her mission was pure, but it turned out that it was very similar to some of the ideas already in circulation here in America in the 1920s.
She created the African Universal Church in Jacksonville after a rift occurred between her and Marcus Garvey over her raising money for ships heading back to Africa.
In the beginning, she was a director for the Universal Negro Improvement Association. It was here where she began to move in the same circles as Mr. Garvey, founder of the UNIA.
Ms. Kofi was an amazing speaker with the skills of a true Royal. People followed her. She had many followers, people who loved her and believed in what she taught them. There were people within the UNIA who seemed to be jealous of this and instead of boosting her up, removed her from the association. On top of that, they began a smear campaign against her.
She went on to form the African Universal Church in 1928, and she pretty much stayed between Miami and Jacksonville but people from the UNIA wouldn’t leave her alone. They disrupted meetings and harassed her until she was finally shot twice and died on stage during a sermon in Miami.
People from the crowd beat the shooter, high-ranking UNIA member Maxwell Cook, to death right there. The two that managed to get away from the crowd, men associated with the UNIA as well, were later caught and found not guilty for the assassination of Ms. Kofi. Even though, all three men had burst through the door and shot Ms. Kofi in front of everyone in the church.
Princess Laura Adorkor Kofi’s funeral procession stretched from Miami to Jacksonville. It stretched over days then months. Then those same people who had followed her body, stayed around it for many different funerals and many months while the city of Jacksonville tried to find someone in Ghana to claim the body.
Finally, they did, and a wire was produced from Kofi’s father, the King, from back in Ghana. He claimed he was coming to “sort out everything”. The city of Jacksonville waited another month and after no one showed, finally laid Kofi to rest in Old City Cemetery.
Dr. Alexander Darnes 1846-1894
The first African-American doctor in Jacksonville and the second in the state, when Dr. Darnes arrived in this cemetery he didn’t do it alone. No sir, ninety percent of Jacksonville came to see him off.
It may surprise you to find out that technically Dr. Darnes was a Confederate. Born into slavery in St. Augustine, he was handed off to the future Confederate General Kirby as a child. A few years later Kirby was a seasoned officer in the United States Army, out west fighting Native Americans and getting wounded by the Comanche.
In 1855 Dr. Darnes is 15 years old and he is sent out west to join Kirby and continue on as his personal slave.
Dr. Darnes continued on with General Kirby to the end of those wars and on into the end of the Civil War. Good thing Kirby managed to keep them both alive! Dr. Darnes would soon leave the Smith family after the Civil War ended, gain his medical education with help from a Smith family abolitionist sister and move to Jacksonville to begin a medical practice for the African-American community.
When he passed, it’s been said that over 10,000 people both black and white filled the funeral parlor and cemetery here.
His memorial was erected by the Kirby-Smith camp Sons of the Confederacy.
Alice Nunn 1926-1988
Alice probably feels sorta out of place here sometimes. She was one big and funny lady. A comedienne in this graveyard of such serious people. Ms. Nunn was an actress from the Golden Age of Hollywood, with regular appearances in many movies throughout the ’70s and on talk shows like Tony, Orlando, and Dawn.
She was a native of Jacksonville and one of the star players of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure Movie in 1985. Large Marge, amassed a cult following for producing one of the scariest scenes in a non-horror movie known yet.
I’m sure she can get some credit for stopping at least a few of us from ever trying hitch-hiking…
Bishop John Freeman Young 1820-1885
On the left near the caretaker’s house is a large white cross that rises above the other headstones. If you are hearing a well-known Christmas classic playing in your head by now don’t worry. It’s on the breeze around here.
John Freeman Young was the Bishop of the nearby Episcopal church in 1885. A German man with a hobby of translating religious hymns and songs. In 1859, while in New York, he published a book of these translations and one of them was Silent Night.
Every time you hear Silent Night, you can thank Bishop Young that you can understand what they are singing about.
The United States Colored Troops 1861-1865
First off, these men were not Buffalo Soldiers. Though some might have been at one point before their death. Buffalo Soldiers fought out West in the war with the Native Americans.
These men, in the words of Frederick Douglas, “he who would be free must himself strike the blow” did exactly that.
They fought for less pay and less status than white soldiers. Some fought because their “owners” made them. Most were not free when it all began and their military paperwork shows where the government compensated “owners” in both North and South. They weren’t Buffalo Soldiers. No, they were Freedom Fighters.
Old City Cemetery contains the largest group of soldiers short of Bosque Bello in Fernandina Beach. There are 27 men at Bosque Bello, there are 24 here at Old City, including Capt. Simon L. Tibbitts. So far I have been able to locate the stones of 48 soldiers in 9 different cemeteries around Jacksonville.
It is important to note that these were no ordinary soldiers either. Obviously, that could be said about every individual, but some of these men were African, slaves, and had a burning need for their freedom to be returned to them.
At the beginning of the Civil War, a good number of them were well-established businessmen as well. Freedmen and those who made it through the war would go on to establish the Freedman’s Bureau. An institution to help both USCT soldiers and newly freed slaves to get back on their feet.
Called “Volunteers” in the beginning, these men would be officially brought into the war after the Emancipation Proclamation. They were some of the first African-American soldiers in the United States of America. There are three of these individuals interred at Old City.
Robert Anderson About 1835 – March 19, 1891, 3rd Regiment
Theodore Gipson About 1832 – April 6, 1886, 2nd Regiment
Tillman Valentine About 1836 – March 12, 1895, 3rd Regiment
In Memorium
to some of the finest soldiers to ever grace the planet.
Men who never really understood what it meant to be free,
until it was horrifically taken away from them.
Men who would fight for freedom like no other,
because they truly understood the cost of the battle.
These men lay here in this ground.
Some unmarked, unknown
except for the yellowed files in archives of Washington.
The others left with no memorial, no statue.
Blackening stones that will eventually blot out the names.
The winners of a long war,
still gazing upon the brazen losers of a miserable existence.
Remember them.
Men who were forced into the dark hull of a ship with hundreds.
Forced to lay there for weeks and months with no movement, no relief.
Men forced into chains and whips…
Forced to watch their women treated even worse.
These men.
Know exactly what it’s like to fight for Freedom.
When we look to the future to see who we should be like,
We should look to them.
If there is no statue for the children to gaze upon,
No bronze wall to list the names,
No stones with the carvings intact,
Then we must remember them like this. In these ways.
Never forget these great soldiers.
Resurrect their memory, their souls for today.
Bring forth the names of the past for the future.
Old City Cemetery
Anderson, Robert
Benjamin, William
Bolton, Richard
Bulmer, John
Clark, William
Dorsey, Augustus
Delancey, James
Dixon, Martin
Evans, Redick
Garvin, George
Gipson, Theodore
Herns, Edward
Hicks, Barrack
Hicks, Richard
Lewis, William
Loud, Adam
Middleton, Limas
Redding, Benjamin
Sammis, Albert
Simmons, Fortune
Thompson, Miles
Tibbitts, Simon L. Capt.
Valentine, Tilman
White, Lafayette
Mt. Zion – Lonestar Anderson, Robert
Johnson, Henry
White, Benjamin
Old Mt. Herman Cemetery
Masters, Richard
Thomas, Robert
St. Nicolas Cemetery
Bagley, James
Christopher, John
Francis, February
Hall, Jason
Haywood, Jerry
Long, Jackson
Miles, John
Robinson, Thomas
Mt. Zion AME
Anderson, Samuel
Green, Edmond
McGee, Calvin
Robinson, August
Stevens, John W.
Williams, James
Old St. Joseph’s Cemetery
Adams, James
Live Oak Cemetery
Adams, Henry
Evergreen Cemetery
Rowles, Jacob
Bosque Bello Fernandina Beach
Atkinson, Amos
Denegall, Romeo (Navy)
Edwards, James
Giger, Benjamin
Harris, Jefferson
Hunter, Joseph
Johnson, William
Jones, Hasty
King, James
King, Plato
King, Samuel
Knab, Charles
Langley, Edward F.
McCall, Aaron
Miller, Jonas
Miller, Peter
Moody, David
Oswell, Jermaine (Navy)
Platt, Isaac
Rivers, John (Navy)
Rogers, Pablo
Taylor, Glasgow
Thomas, Jerry
Washington, Little
Williams, James
Evergreen Cemetery
Evergreen is one beautiful neighborhood of the dead. A posh landing place for the finest and brightest in Jacksonville history and there’s plenty of room left. Each little borough from the Catholic Mausoleum to the Jewish Section shows that we all end up in the same place eventually.
167 Acres of beautiful memorials and both wild and planted landscaping, combined with winding roads through swaying trees filled with Spanish moss. It is all this and is a dedicated arboretum with named trees throughout. Of course, there are some very interesting individuals resting (hopefully) here.
Jacob Rowles 1846 – February 10, 1896
United States Colored Troop Soldier and Florida Voter, his headstone is located to the right just as you turn onto Mt. Olive St. into the Mt. Olive section.
The Eternal Freedom Flame 1969
Powered by the Peoples Gas Systems Company here in Jacksonville, the Freedom Flame was donated by the Duval County American Legion. It is dedicated to all Veterans from all wars.
The Carillon Bells Tower 1956-1978
Evergreen began construction on a community mausoleum and gardens in 1956. Construction was completed in 1978 but there have been a few expansions and the mausoleum now houses around 2500 urns.
The 96-foot tower houses bells and chimes that combine to play beautiful music at various times during the day. It was dedicated to Evergreen by Thelma and Fay Johnson in memory of their daughter Jill who passed at 7 years old in 1938.
There is an odd feeling in the halls of this great house. Desolation and whispers on the breeze of ever-present beauty. This apartment complex of the dead. It is shiny and clean, with benches placed within the hallways just right. It bears a whitewashed look of some far away Mediterranean place, some garden in Arabia… It is beautiful.
Mt. Olive
This is the old African-American section created before the cemetery became truly integrated. There are more burials here than you can see as it was not taken care of for a very long time. Many headstones and burial locations are lost now to time or excavation.
The Storck Family Tomb 1872 – 1943
If you look back on the story about the Florida Theater, you will find the story of this tragic family. How they all succumbed to the Yellow Fever epidemic and only young George was left, for hours with the bodies until someone heard his calls for help.
Many years after that, George Storck would leave Jacksonville for world travels, but he would return. Upon that return, he built this beautiful memorial to his family.
Richard E. Norman 1891-1960
Creator of Norman Studios, Mr. Norman was born in Middleburg in 1919. He grew up, went to business school, and then went on to become a salesman of all sorts. Eventually, he found himself in a lucrative situation as a traveling film producer and the rest was history.
Richard Norman, though white, became one of the first silent film producers of African American films. Producing movies named Green-Eyed Monster (about 1920) The Bull-Dogger (1921), The Crimson Skull (1921), Regeneration (1923), The Flying Ace (1926), and Black Gold in 1928.
He never changed over from silent films to modern movies. Some of his last films in the forties featured fighters and actors like Joe Lewis and Lena Horne.
Isaiah D. Hart 1792-1861
Now here was one wild and wooly guy. You’ll understand where Jacksonville got its attitude when you learn more about its founding father.
A strange man, with strange habits. Son of a father gifted with a Spanish land grant and a patriot who would later fight against them. It was well-known that Isaiah Hart was, to put it politely, eccentric.
In 1822 he used his ill-gotten funds from returning slaves to their “owners” to buy land which would later become Downtown Jax, Bulls Bay Preserve, and some good swaths of the West and NorthWest sides of town. After his friends and fellow entrepreneurs got on board, Jacksonville was born out of a straggly town called Cowford.
His original tomb would today be sitting somewhere around the front of the Florida State College at Jacksonville, on the sidewalk right next to Union Street. Alas, after the strange obelisk was first vandalized and then burned beyond restore in the 1901 fire, his restless bones were moved to Evergreen. The location and design of the old memorial were odd enough but the epitaph was the strangest…
When I am dead and in my grave and my bones are all rotten. When this you see, remember me, that I may not be forgotten… -Isaiah Hart
Rev. R.S. Bateman 1860-1912
A minister of First Baptist Church in 1904, he helped found the Central City Mission, one of the first, at the corner of Broad Street and West Monroe. I think today it would have been right beside the new Courthouse.
Rev. Bateman was well-known throughout Jacksonville for his charity towards the lost, needy, destitute, and hungry people around Downtown. Particularly, the ladies from the Bordello or Red-Light District in LaVilla.
It has been said that Rev. Bateman had taken his ill-fated trip on the Titanic to England, to explore ways to help “wayward” women. It was on the way back, that Rev. Bateman lost his life, and Jacksonville lost an iconic crusader for the cause of humanity.
He was credited with performing the only Sunday morning service held aboard the liner on April 14, 1912. That same day he would save the life of his relative and traveling partner Ada Ball who would bear witness to the heroism and great spirit of this man.
This letter was found, addressed to Rev. Bateman from a lady in a bordello on Davis Street.
Dear Dr. Bateman,
I hear you are going to start a home for us girls. I want to come to it… I can’t do anything that is worth anything to anybody. I have tried to leave here but nobody will give me work… This place is terrible and I know lots of girls will come. For God’s sake do something quick.
— From a Certain House on Davis Street (Cowart 2005)
Cora Crane 1868-1910
Frequently referred to as the world’s first female war correspondent due to her travels to Europe with her husband, actual war correspondent Stephen Crane. Although around Jacksonville, Ms. Crane is better known for being the Queen of the Bordellos.
Bordellos and Debauchery
At Houston and Davis Streets Downtown is a Salvation Army Food Bank. That was about where Lydia De Camp’s bordello was. The grassy lot behind the barred gate, was where the Court Bordello sat from 1903 until the Fifties when it was finally torn down.
Yes folks, the entire area there was nothing but bordellos for a long, long time. If you look East up Houston Street there you will see the street that was once Ward Street. Also known as the Tenderloin, Railroad Row, and the Line. It was the Bordello District and Cora Crane was the queen of it all.
Try and imagine… imagine tall wooden buildings with raggedy porches leering down each side of the street ahead of you. Try and picture the dirt roads and rough-looking women picking at their petticoats to avoid puddles… Trash blows and a leftover straggler from the night’s festivities slumps passed out against a building…
A bleary-eyed, curly-headed woman leans out over an upstairs porch railing to holler at a gentleman coming down the line. He hears, but he’s headed your way… he’s headed for the Court and the finest bordello in the city.
The Court was opened in 1903 while the city was still recuperating from the 1901 fire. Oddly enough, though the fire started in a mattress factory nearby, none of the bordellos in the Ward Street district burned. A sorry fact that the Jacksonville fire department was called into court to answer for later on.
The fire department wasn’t the only official institution avowed to protect the ladies either. One of Jacksonville’s beloved former mayors, J.E.T. Bowden would mount the women of the “Line” on horseback. Armed with flaming torches, they rode from LaVilla to James Weldon Johnson Park Downtown. They circled around and must have looked incredibly wild.
This was all a political stunt on the part of the now incoming mayor. Bowden won against the gentleman who was pledging to “clean up” the bordellos.
Cora Crane, the world’s first female war correspondent was its owner. The Court was unlike any of the old wooden structures that marked the bordello district. First off it was brick. Among the other attributes to the “shop” were 14 parlor rooms, running water, a ballroom, 7 extra bedrooms, and bathrooms. Bathrooms alone were a commodity. It also had an on-site doctor for convenience.
Mrs. Crane was not your ordinary Madame though. She fed transients out of the backdoor of the Court, encouraged marriages, and sent flowers to weddings. Deaths on the Line hit her hard and she took care of the burials for many women who passed on in the line of duty.
And Death was no stranger to this area… let’s take a moment to remember some of Cora’s soiled doves buried in plots around hers over at Evergreen Cemetery.
Mabel Atkins; a 20-year-old woman who committed suicide by drinking poison. She died on June 25th, 1903 at the Court shortly after it was opened.
Jeanette (Jean) Raymond; was married to a wealthy man in West Palm but could never go home for some reason. She drank poison and died in her room at 111 Davis Street on March 6, 1908.
Lottie Quesenberry was 28 and by far the most tragic of the three I think. She worked at The West End House at 915 Ward/Houston Street. She drank her poison there on the street in front of the place but then struggled up the road looking for water after the deed was done. She died in a pharmacy that used to be on the corner.
If you’re looking for ghosts around here you are in the right spot. If Miss Mabel’s spirit is still around where the Court used to be maybe Cora’s beloved dog Spongie is still with her… he died and Cora had him buried in a stainless steel coffin under the courtyard of the Court… He is probably still there under that field near the Salvation Army.
Cora died in 1910 at 40 years old from a stroke. Her bordello lasted much longer. It finally closed down in the Fifties when the Feds raided this area for human trafficking. Everything was shut down. The building itself was torn down during the razing of LaVilla in the late ’80s.
At 615 Houston Street, where condos are now; there used to be one of the last remaining buildings to contain a house of ill repute. It was the House of Spanish Marie and it was owned by Carmen De. Rivas.
Not a competitor at all to Mrs. Crane, but it was the last standing bordello building in the city up until about 2017 or so. Before it was a bordello though, it was a church of a different sort.
Before the bordello district became what it was, there wasn’t much here at all. In fact, looks a lot now like it did in the 1800s. A small brick two-story building was here, and it was Shiloh Baptist Church.
As fires, plagues, and other disasters occurred within the city proper; more individuals began to move to its outskirts. The Baptists didn’t care for the particularly rough nature of the area as it grew; due first to the train station, then the bordellos. They deserted the building and moved, leaving it to be inhabited by an element more compatible with the area.
The Old Federal Courthouse
It’s a short tale of mayhem to be told here but it’s worth it. Involving infidelity of a different sort. Seems some agents didn’t have to go over to Ward Street for favors.
Not far up the road from Davis Street was the old Federal Courthouse. It’s a long white building on the left and was used throughout the 1930s. On the afternoon of December 17th, 1932, a 41-year-old wife of federal narcotics agent C.R. Frazier, shot his 27-year-old secretary dead on the lawn in front of hundreds of people.
Mrs. Frazier put 5 bullets into the body of Miss. Manona Murell killing her on the spot. The woman wasn’t the least bit sorry either, she stated to police that if she had not done this, her sons were going to do it that evening.
The Ritz Theater
Ward Street was a very small area occupying a few blocks of blight in the neighborhood of LaVilla.
The rest of LaVilla was home to one of the largest collections of Jazz and Blues musicians in the South.
There’s a movie out now about Ma Rainey, but I didn’t see much mention about Jax. Ma Rainey, the lady we call Mother of the Blues, spent quite a lot of time on Ashley Street. She and her husband eventually joined the Rabbit’s Foot Traveling Company. A traveling show featuring the best African-American musicians in Jacksonville, founded by Jax native Patrick Chappelle in 1905.
The Globe Theater building is still here in Jax. Now home to the Clara White Mission, it used to hold standing room only shows. At least two or three nights a week, Ma Rainey would grace its stage, singing to a packed out house demanding encore after encore.
She wasn’t the only one either. With the sheer amount of theaters and music halls lining Ashley Street, everyone who was going to be anyone was there.
From the early 1900s well into the 1950s, a stream of legends passed through the bars and homes of Ashley Street. Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, R.C. Robinson, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, and Billie Holliday all played somewhere around Ashley Street at some point in time.
The Ritz Theater is the last one standing from the Ashley Street lineup. It was one of the last ones to go up and little remains of the original building except for the foundation, Northwest corner wall, and the sign. The rest was burnt down on two different occasions.
Today it is an awesome museum of Afro-American culture in the Jacksonville area and exhibits both local and world-renowned artists in its gallery. You have to check out the museum here as it is the best way to learn about and experience the LaVilla district during its best times. They also do a great amateur comedy night and it is not expensive. On top of it all, the people who run the place are extremely nice and informative.
In researching this building, I discovered some lesser-known history about the Jewish factor in LaVilla. Something you rarely, if ever hear about. Apparently, from the late 1800s to the 1920’s LaVilla was also home to one of the largest Jewish immigrant communities in Florida. The Ritz Theater was started by a group of these individuals.
Lionel D. Joel and a mysterious “Mr. Glickstein” had already built and owned the Afro-American Airdome Theater in 1909. Twenty years later they would team up with two more gentlemen; Neil Henry Witschen and Joseph Hackel to start the Ritz.
Joseph Hackel would eventually run the entire operation from 1930 until 1970 when the theater fell into disrepair along with its sister Ritz in Folkston, Georgia. Both theaters would close down in the ’70s. In the mid-’90s the city of Jacksonville took over the property, renovated it, and now runs and operates it.
The Tunnels of the Atlantic National Bank
The Depression is really what put an end to most prosperity across the United States, not just here in Jacksonville. People and places that had been hanging on to begin with kind of just fell away. Banks went under, and it wiped out the foundations for a lot of different kinds of businesses.
While the outer edges of Jacksonville, areas like LaVilla and Riverside took a severe hit, the downtown banks were floated through the crisis by the very well men who had founded them. Alfred Dupont and Bion Barnett both played roles in the bailout of a city whose two tallest buildings, have been banks.
Banks are all over Downtown and they had a unique way (for Florida anyway) of transporting their money to and from. Tunnels. At the Atlantic National Bank is an opportunity to experience this, and see one of Downtown’s most beautifully intact historical buildings.
Go right on in the front door and prepare for one of the most opulent bank lobbies ever. It’s gorgeous! You will want to stop and talk to the Security Officer there and just let them know what you are doing. Looking just past the security desk you will see a stairwell on the left with some brass railings. It’s sitting in between two very pretty murals. Take that stairwell.
It’s not really scary unless you consider the tons upon tons of building and concrete above you as you descend…or you have some aversion to swanky 70’s décor. Though it does have an air about it and you will be amazed where you end up!
Just for history’s sake, there actually were more tunnels under these major banks. All but this one is closed up. Pretty much the only reason they were there was so the bank deposits could be made; without the cashiers getting killed or robbed trying to cross the streets with all that money.
In other bank news, this was the banking capital of the south and might still be…
At the corner of Laura Street is a group of buildings fondly called the “Laura Street Trio.” They have all been vacant since the early 1990s. The prettiest one used to bear the sign of the National Bank. It was a biggie that lasted until 1990 when it sold out to First Union leaving the building deserted until now.
The National Bank had one individual who did not recover nor was floated during the Depression. Mr. Hendricks was the bank teller who shot himself in the lobby on April 10, 1929. He was 65 years old and apparently doesn’t care for any plans for the building other than a bank.
The Roosevelt Hotel
One of the things I have noticed about Jacksonville is its lack of superstition. Some would say that is an intelligent good thing… at any rate, it is interesting to see buildings called 666 and thirteenth floors in old hotels… interesting because it just didn’t happen back in the day. Except here.
This hotel in particular began as the Carling Hotel and was built in 1925. It had an advertised 13th floor… advertised as the elevator buttons did not skip from the 12th floor to 14 but went on to 13. Very unusual for the times. It also sits at 31 West Adams Street.
Maybe it’s just a morbid curiosity…
There are so many… Like how it sits in what used to be section 13 of the Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of 1890, and especially when you take into consideration what sat there first. It wasn’t a hotel.
Checking out the old city directories for the years 1888-1893, there were also 13 Undertakers in town. One of the most popular, and a mayor of Jacksonville from 1880-1881, was J. Ramsey Day. He operated his coffin shop and mortuary office over a pretty large swath of Adams Street. Numbers 25-35 W. Adams Street to be exact.
The fire of 1901 wiped out 90% of Downtown Jacksonville, and all of Adams Street with it. 1903 Sanborn maps show a new hotel on the corner of Main and Adams. Hotel Victoria. By 1913 there are two very large hotels occupying the same swath of street that the Carling would occupy 12 years later.
Once again though, we see the land change hands. About 7 years later or so, the hotel is sold and the new owner renames it The Roosevelt Hotel.
It’s a fine hotel with huge, glorious ballrooms. This time, the hotel would stay in business for around 30 years. Then tragedy struck on the night of December 29th, 1963.
The fire was one of the most devastating fires since the 1901 fire with way more lives lost. 22 people died that night and most of them were between the 7th and 13th floors. For 5 years the hotel tried to recover without success and finally closed in 1969.
In 1971 in reopened as a retirement nursing home.
It was a retirement home until 1989. After that, it sat vacant for around 16 long years before the newest owners turned it back into a hotel and condominiums, which opened in 2006. Renamed its original moniker, The Carling. Now you can lease or buy anywhere from a penthouse or a studio apartment there and stay in luxury…
Possibly forever…
Many paranormal investigators will say hotels can be portals to other realms. Their hallways and rooms are plagued with the constant flow of humans. Humans lodge their energies and emotions into the walls. Living, dying and attracting a constant flow of spirits…
The Palms Motel
If motels are portals to other places this one right here will definitely take you somewhere… where that may be I don’t know…
Ever heard of the Freemasons? How about their poorer relation the Oddfellows? That’s who built this place. The Oddfellows were a branch of the Freemasons directed towards the more blue-collar of the Freemasons. They helped out orphans, provided free lodging and cheap board to those in need, and their main duty… drumroll please… was to take care of and bury the dead that no one wanted. In fact, the Oddfellows own most public cemeteries in most cities, including a large portion of Evergreen Cemetery.
The dead seems to be their thing. Skulls and bones were featured in many of their religious ceremonies that were of unknown denomination. One account from a woman who bought a house once owned by the Oddfellows states that every one of their houses or halls came with an old skeleton. A real one. She found out that apparently, they leave them behind as well because she had found one in her home.
They built this building in 1841, rebuilt it after the 1901 fire in 1902, were there until 1923. Mainly it was used as a boarding house and meeting hall. People in need stayed here, sought refuge here, and “Odd” rituals were conducted amidst it all.
After 1923 they began to lease it out to the local Spiritualist organizations. According to the city directories, their hall here at 125 Market Street was also occupied by the Spiritual Church of Truth. Their main hall and location at 2208 Monroe held the Spiritual and Psychological Church. Both of these institutions were Spiritualist churches. This went on until around 1925 when it became the Carlis Hotel.
Basically, it has always been a boarding house or hotel right up until today. Full of Oddfellows, ancient rites of Freemasonry, and Spiritualists with their seances and Ouija boards… Now that’s a door that won’t close!
Jumping ahead to more modern times… the 80’s in Jax was a scary time. Lots and lots of the white stuff rolling around if you know what I mean. All around Florida in general. Many hotels already in the shadows now turned straight underground. This was one of our seedier varieties.
Enter Mr. L.J.B. An individual that would carry on his record of assaults and evictions long after he created 7 new spirits to wander the halls of the Palms Motel. It was 1983… Mr. Bana got into it with the landlord there over how much rent he owed and then he left.
He returned in the middle of the night and set the place on fire killing 7 people in the process. Arrested and convicted for manslaughter, he served just 7 years in jail when he was released in 1990.
Almost as soon as he was a free man he was arrested again in 1995 – guess what? Assault and eviction. Released from Duval County again in 2000 only to return in 2008… his last bout in jail was approximately 19 days… Mr. L.J.B. is a free man today, as far as I know. He’s disappeared from the Duval County jail logs.
Park View Inn
Confederate Park
Hogan’s Creek
Skimp’s Bar
Have you really checked out your hotel? Motel? What do those reviews say? It’s a nice perk available today that many wish they’d had in the past. Right up and around the corner from the Palms, this place always has an open room. The area is rather haunted though… Don’t forget the EMF!
Park View Inn
Back on Orange Street by Main, there is an abandoned parking garage on the left and an abandoned boarded-up building on the right. It used to be the Park View Inn and it sat here on the polluted ground for a long time.
From the 1800s to 1903 a coal tar processing plant occupied the area around where McDonald’s and the Family Dollar now sit. The entire area is still feeling the brunt of it too. They processed without fear of retribution, without the EPA or government standards and they sunk their gaseous pollutants right into this ground.
In 1964 the beautiful Heart of Jacksonville Motor Hotel was built on Orange and Main Streets. It fell into decline in the ’70s and ’80s and began a series of different owners and strange fires. The building was condemned in 1999 after a little girl set her mother on fire in her bed with her sister watching; then a man set himself on fire the same year.
The coal tar pollution was not discovered until 2000 when new owners were planning to tear down the entire structure and replace it with a nice development. Obviously, they are still working on it.
Springfield Park
The park, with its controversial statues, is not only picturesque but dangerous and it hasn’t always looked this way.
In 1898 there were 32,000 plus officers in Jacksonville training for the Spanish-American War. They literally just ran out of places to train so Jacksonville offered up this place. Starting from here and stretching all the way North to 8th Street, this was Camp Cubre Libre and by the time the camp was cleared out in January of 1899, 362 soldiers had died in this place of Typhoid fever. In fact, more soldiers died here of Typhoid than they did fighting in the actual war.
Maybe they should’ve named it Spanish-American Park?
Hogan’s Creek
Hogan’s Creek… Are you on the bridge? If you are I hope you are wearing some bug spray and a lot of it. This is one deadly creek. First, the Typhoid attacked, with dampness and bogginess of the area around the creek here being blamed. That’s 362 people.
This creek was also attributed to the deadly Yellow fever outbreaks that killed 427 people in 1888 with the total number eventually adding up to 938 documented Yellow fever cases until the city figured out the creek needed to be cleaned up. That’s 789 people. Dead. Because of that old dirty water.
Are you looking down into that dirty water? See anything funny or strange?
With all the major issues this creek has it’s easy for the few singular cases to be overlooked… such as the poor man who was murdered in 1987 and lay dead here for 5 days before anyone noticed him.
In 1998 a homeless man trying to find shelter under the Liberty Street Bridge up the way, drowned and was washed down Hogan’s Creek to right about this area.
In 2002 various body parts started washing up along its polluted banks, and no… not from any hospitals.
Skimp’s Bar
Once located on the corner where the Florida State College building sits now, on the right of Main Street and facing State Street.
One of the most infamous bars in Jacksonville history used to call that address home. It was called Skimps and it was home to some of the gnarliest Prohibition-era gangsters that you could find anywhere. One of the baddest was the owner himself, Ol Skimp Henry Tillman.
Numerous murders occurred in that place and at his other bar at Bar and Lee Streets. In 1940 Mr. Tillman was sent to the chair at Raiford for the murder of one Leslie Oldham. Another native son was brought home by a homemade creation.
A man was upset with Tillman over a court trial. One night he burst into the bar and shouted “I’ll get you” at Tillman who responded with “No, I’ll get You!” Then he shot him right between the eyes from behind the bar. Frank Wood was also murdered in this location. Mr. Tillman died in Ol’Sparky, the Florida electric chair in 1949.
No, Jacksonville, Florida is no ordinary location. Constantly trying to mask its history, its age, under a persona of boldness, of modern life; the city is never what it seems. Under all of the technology, banks, and storage shed like housing for humans, it is old. Very old.
But there is always something going on. The late 1800s brought Ostrich Racing. The finest birds raced around tracks down by what is now Tallyrand Avenue. In the 20’s it was all the rage to get all dressed up and go to one of the plethoras of theaters. Jax in the ’30s showed the world money could be found if you knew the right people.
In the ’40s, ladies wrestling on Tuesday nights at the downtown Main Street Arena was the place to be. The ’50s were dominated by Ashley Street and the hypnotic Jazz flowing out of it. Elvis visiting and race-riots in the ’60s revealed that the city still wasn’t sure what face to put on for the decade or the future.
The ’70s and ’80s left behind much of what we see today but if you look closely. Through the alleyway to the street beyond. Past the murals glistening with artistic intellect in the sun. Jax breathes. Slow and deep.
It’s a good place to creep around and hide in the shadows. It’s also a good place to walk meditatively through the dusty, early morning sunbeams. Shining through the buildings and lighting up the city from above and within.