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| Jacksonville Apartment Locator Services : Jacksonville |  | Contents | |
| History |
| Pre Colonial |
| Archaeological evidence indicates 6,000 years
of human habitation in the area. The Timucua Indians were the
predominate local tribe when European explorers arrived. The
largest Timucua town in the region was Ossachite, which stood
approximately where the courthouse stands today. Its name is
the earliest recorded name for the area. |
| Colonial and territorial history |
| In 1513, Spanish explorers landed in Florida and
claimed their discovery for Spain. In 1562, the French Huguenot
explorer Jean Ribault explored the St. Johns River area and
in 1564 the French established Fort Caroline. Spanish troops,
led by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, from nearby St.
Augustine attacked the fort and drove off the French in 1565.
Spain ceded Florida to the British in 1763, who then gave control
back to Spain in 1783. The first permanent settlement was founded
at Cow Ford in 1791 and Florida became a United States territory
in 1821. On June 15th, 1822 settlers sent a petition to the
U.S. Secretary of State asking that Jacksonville be named a
port of entry; this is the first recorded use of the name. The
charter for a town government was approved by the Florida Legislative
Council on February 9, 1832. |
| Civil War |
| During the Civil War, Jacksonville was a key supply
point for hogs and cattle leaving Florida and aiding the Confederate
cause. Throughout most of the war, the US Navy maintained a
blockade around Florida's ports, including Jacksonville. In
October 1862 Union forces captured a Confederate battery at
St. Johns Bluff and occupied Jacksonville. Throughout the war
Jacksonville would change hands several times, though never
with a battle. On February 20, 1864 Union soldiers from Jacksonville
marched inland and confronted the Confederate Army at the Battle
of Olustee which resulted in a Confederate victory. By the end
of the war in 1865, a Union commander commented that Jacksonville
had become "pathetically dilapidated, a mere skeleton of
its former self, a victim of war." |
| Winter Resort Era |
| Following the Civil War, during Reconstruction
and afterward, Jacksonville and nearby St. Augustine became
popular winter resorts for the rich and famous of the Gilded
Age. Visitors arrived by steamboat and (beginning in the 1880s)
by railroad, and wintered at dozens of hotels and boarding houses.
The area declined in importance as a resort destination when
Henry Flagler extended the Florida East Coast Railroad to the
south, arriving in Palm Beach in 1894 and in the Miami area
in 1896. Not even hosting the Subtropical Exposition, a Florida-style
world's fair attended by President Grover Cleveland in 1888,
served to provide a lasting boost for tourism in Jacksonville. |
| Yellow Fever Epidemics |
| Jacksonville's prominence as a winter resort was
dealt another blow by major yellow fever outbreaks in 1886 and
1888, during the latter of which nearly ten percent of the more
than 4,000 victims, including the city's mayor, died. In the
absence of scientific knowledge concerning the cause of yellow
fever, nearly half of the city's panicked residents fled, despite
the imposition of quarantines and the (ineffectual) fumigation
of inbound and outbound mail. Not surprisingly, Jacksonville's
reputation as a healthful tourist destination suffered. |
| Spanish American War |
| During the Spanish American War, gunrunners helping
the Cuban rebels used Jacksonville as the center for smuggling
illegal arms and supplies to Cuba. Duval county sheriff, and
future state governor, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward was one of
many gunrunners operating out of the city. Author Stephen Crane
travelled to Jacksonville to cover the war. |
| Great Fire of 1901 |
| On May 3, 1901 hot ash from a shantyhouse's chimney
landed on the drying moss at Cleaveland's Fiber Factory. At
half past noon most of the Cleaveland workers were at lunch,
but by the time they returned the entire city block was engulfed
in flames. The fire destroyed the business district and rendered
10,000 residents homeless in the course of eight hours. Florida
Governor William S. Jennings declared a state of martial law
in Jacksonville and dispatched several state militia units to
Jacksonville. Reconstruction started immediately, and the city
was returned to civil authority on May 17. Famed New York architect
Henry Klutho helped rebuild the city. Klutho and other architects,
enamored of the "Prairie Style" of architecture then
being popularized by architect Frank Lloyd Wright in Chicago
and other Midwestern cities, designed exuberant local buildings
with a Florida flair. While many of Klutho's buildings were
demolished by the 1980s, a number of his creations remain, including
the St. James Building from 1911 (a former department store
that is now Jacksonville's City Hall) and the Morocco Temple
from 1910. The Klutho Apartments, in Springfield, were recently
restored and converted into office space by local charity Fresh
Ministries. Despite the losses of the last several decades,
Jacksonville still has one of the largest collections of Prairie
Style buildings (particularly residences) outside the Midwest. |
| Motion Picture Industry |
| In the early 1900s, Jacksonville was a center
of the fledgling motion picture industry. The city's warm climate,
excellent rail access, and low costs all helped to make Jacksonville
the "Winter Film Capital of the World". By the early
1910s, Jacksonville hosted over 30 studios employing over 1000
actors. However, some residents objected to the hallmarks of
the early movie industry, such as car chases in the streets,
simulated bank robberies and fire alarms in public places, and
even the occasional riot scene. In 1917, a conservative mayor
was elected on the platform of taming the city's movie industry.
Subsequently the film studios opted to move to a more hospitable
political climate in California. |
| "Gateway to Florida" |
| The 1920s brought significant real estate development
and speculation to the city during the great Florida land boom
(and bust). Hordes of train passengers passed through Jacksonville
on their way south to the new tourist destinations of South
Florida, as most of the passenger trains arriving from the population
centers of the North were routed through Jacksonville. Completion
of the Dixie Highway (portions of which became U.S. Highway
1) in the 1920s began to draw significant automobile traffic
as well. An important entry point to the state since the 1870s,
Jacksonville now justifiably billed itself as the "Gateway
to Florida." |
| US Navy |
| A significant part of Jacksonville's growth in
the 20th century came from the presence of navy bases in the
region. October 15, 1940, Naval Air Station Jacksonville ("NAS
Jax") on the westside became the first navy installation
in the city. This base was a major training center during World
War II, with over 20,000 pilots and aircrewmen being trained
there. After the war, the Navy's elite Blue Angels were established
at NAS Jax. Today NAS Jax is the third largest navy installation
in the country and employs over 23,000 civilian and active-duty
personnel. |
| In June 1941, land in the westernmost side of
Duval County was earmarked for a second naval air facility.
This became NAS Cecil Field, which during the Cold War was designated
a Master Jet Base, the only one in the South. RF-8 Crusaders
out of Cecil Field detected missiles in Cuba, precipitating
the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1993 the Navy decided to close
NAS Cecil Field and in 1999 this was completed. The land once
occupied by this installation is now known as the "Cecil
Commerce Center". |
| December 1942 saw the addition of a third naval
installation to Jacksonville: Naval Station Mayport at the mouth
of the St. Johns River. This port developed through World War
II and today is the home port for many types of navy ships,
most notably the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy. NS Mayport
current employs about 14,000 personnel. |
| Jacksonville is also not far from Naval Submarine
Base Kings Bay in St. Marys, Georgia, which is home to part
of the US Navy's nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine
(SSBN) fleet. |
| The naval base became a key training ground in
the 1950s and 1960s and as such, the population of the city
rose dramatically. More than half of the residents in Jacksonville
had some tie to the naval base, whether it be a relative stationed
there, or due to employment opportunities, by 1970. While the
city is more independent from the Navy today, it is still a
strong influence in the community. |
| Racial tension |
| Jacksonville has a history of racial segregation
and violence. This came to a head on "Ax Handle Saturday",
August 27, 1960. A group of white men (allegedly some were also
members of the Ku Klux Klan) armed with baseball bats and ax
handles attacked civil rights protesters conducting sit-ins
at segregated downtown restaurants. The violence spread, and
the white mob started attacking all African-Americans in sight.
Rumors were rampant on both sides that the unrest was spreading
around the county (in reality, the violence stayed in relatively
the same location, and did not spill over into the mostly-white,
upper-class Cedar Hills neighborhood, for example). The police
did not make an attempt to stop the violence until the "blacks
started holding their own." |
| Before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of
1964, African-Americans in Jacksonville were denied healthcare
services at every hospital except the all-black Brewster Hospital,
even when their condition was critical or life-threatening. |
| In the aftermath of the Civil Rights Act and Ax
Handle Saturday, the previously segregated African-American
and European-American communities worked together in open dialog,
integration, and participatory government. |
| Despite the progress, racial tension was very
evident when the public schools in Jacksonville were integrated
in 1967. The black students attending integrated schools endured
racial epithets, being spit on and, in some extreme cases, being
stoned by their white classmates. |
| On June 1, 2003, John Peyton became Mayor of Jacksonville
after defeating African-American Sheriff Nat Glover. Matt Carlucci,
a white Republican endorsed Glover (a Democrat) after being
defeated in the open primary. Afterwards, Carlucci's business
was vandalized with the words "NIGGER LOVER", and
Glover's campaign headquarters was vandalized with "NO
NIGGER MAYOR". The only witness to the crime said he saw
two black males running from the scene. |
| It should be noted that Nat Glover was the first
(and only) African-American sheriff in the state of Florida
since Reconstruction, winning two elections before running for
mayor. Before he joined the police force, he was one of the
youths who were involved in the axe handle riots. |
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