Jacksonville History Guide: From Cowford to Consolidation

Jacksonville dates its start to 1822, when residents of a small St. Johns River crossing called Cowford petitioned for port of entry status and renamed their new city Jacksonville (JAXPORT).

People lived on this river long before the petition. Timucuans had lived in the area and across north Florida for at least 1,000 years before French and Spanish ships arrived in the 1500s (National Park Service). Jean Ribault and his French Huguenots crossed the sand bar into the river in 1562, and the port authority traces its copyrighted designation of America's First Port to a 1565 trade by John Hawkins on the riverbank (JAXPORT port history).

Rene de Goulaine de Laudonniere built Fort Caroline near the mouth of the St. Johns in 1564 with a party of 200, and Spanish troops under Pedro Menendez de Aviles took it in the fall of 1565 (NPS Fort Caroline). The river itself changed names with each power: Welaka, Rio de Corrientes, River of May, San Mateo and finally Rio de San Juan, which English speakers kept as St. Johns (St. Johns River Water Management District). The two official sources differ on the fort's date: the District's history page says the French established Fort Caroline in 1562, while the National Park Service, which keeps the site as Fort Caroline National Memorial, gives 1564 (NPS).

By the time Florida became a state in 1845, Jacksonville was an important port for timber and cotton (JAXPORT). The Jacksonville founding guide follows the Cowford years, the Timucua and Mocama peoples guide covers the people who lived on the river before European contact, and the Spanish and French rivalry on the St. Johns guide covers Fort Caroline and the 1565 battle.

Jacksonville was occupied and burned several times during the Civil War, and in February 1864 Union troops landed there before marching west to defeat at Olustee (JAXPORT; Museum of Florida History).

The 1864 expedition aimed to cut Confederate supply lines, recruit soldiers for Black Union regiments and set up a pro Union government in east Florida (Museum of Florida History). About 5,500 Union troops met a roughly equal Confederate force east of Lake City on February 20, 1864, and when darkness approached the Union troops began their retreat to Jacksonville. Three regiments of Black troops fought in that battle.

After the war, by the early 1880s the downtown had recovered and was thriving as a winter tourist destination served by river steamers (JAXPORT). By the 1860s several steamers made weekly round trips from Charleston and Savannah to Jacksonville and Palatka (SJRWMD).

The Jacksonville in the Civil War guide covers the wartime occupations, the railroads in Jacksonville guide follows the lines that tied the river port to the rest of Florida, and the Jacksonville in the Spanish American War guide covers the army camps of that war.

The Great Fire of 1901 destroyed 2,368 buildings across 146 blocks of Jacksonville on May 3, 1901, left 10,000 people homeless and killed seven residents (State Archives of Florida).

A kitchen fire at lunchtime ignited Spanish moss drying at a mattress factory at Davis and Beaver streets, and the blaze spread across most of downtown before it was under control at 8:30 p.m.; smoke was visible as far north as Savannah (Florida Memory). The State Archives call it the largest metropolitan fire in the American South.

Governor William Jennings declared martial law and sent in the state militia, and Jacksonville municipal authority did not resume until May 17 (Florida Memory). The Confederate Monument in Hemming Park was one of the few landmarks that survived. Rebuilding took the next decade. Architect Henry John Klutho was brought in to design many of the new buildings, and out of the ashes rose the St. James Hotel, later the Cohen Brothers store, which opened in 1911 as one of the largest buildings in the nation and now serves as Jacksonville City Hall.

The Great Fire of 1901 guide covers the day block by block, and the Jacksonville streetcar era guide follows the trolley system of the same downtown Jacksonville years.

Jacksonville's silent film era survives at Norman Studios at 6337 Arlington Road, the last complex from that era in the city, where the Norman Film Manufacturing Company made race films for African American audiences from 1922 to 1928 (National Park Service).

The Eagle Film Company built the complex on the site of a cigar factory, and Richard E. Norman Sr. relocated to Jacksonville at a time when most filmmakers were leaving for Hollywood (NPS). Notable Norman titles include Regeneration, A Debtor to the Law and The Flying Ace. The site is listed in the National Register of Historic Places under reference number 14001084 and is one of the few preserved race film studios in the country.

The City of Jacksonville bought the studio on December 19, 2002 (City of Jacksonville). The property holds a production building, a generator building, a small cottage for visiting actors and a prop shed. The Flying Ace, from 1926, is the only Norman film to survive, with one print at the Black Film Center and another at the Library of Congress.

The two official pages disagree on dates and status. The City says the Eagle studio was built in 1916 and that Phase 1 had its grand opening in August 2023 (City of Jacksonville), while the NPS place page says the complex was developed in 1915 and still lists it as not open to the public (NPS). Check the City parks page before a visit. The Jacksonville Winter Film Capital guide covers the wider studio era and the Norman Studios guide covers the Arlington complex.

Jacksonville built its working waterfront with public money, starting with an 1895 channel dredge to 15 feet funded partly by Duval County's first bond issue (JAXPORT).

That 1895 project cost $1.8 million, including $300,000 from the county bond, and at the turn of the century downtown Jacksonville had 30 private waterfront terminals moving cargo between ship and rail (JAXPORT port history). In 1913 Jacksonville voters approved $1.5 million in bonds for municipal docks on about 160 acres in the Talleyrand area. In 1963 the Legislature created the Jacksonville Port Authority, and the City transferred the Talleyrand docks and Goat Island, later renamed Blount Island.

World War II brought the St. Johns River Shipbuilding Company on East Adams Street, which opened in April 1942 with 258 workers, reached 7,000 by August and reached a peak of 20,000 by 1944 (Museum of Florida History). Its six ways launched 82 Liberty ships at about $2,100,000 each, and nothing of the yard remains today.

The latest chapter is the harbor deepening: work began in 2018 and by 2022 the federal channel was 47 feet deep for 11 miles from the sea buoy to Blount Island, up from 40 feet (JAXPORT). The history of JAXPORT guide, the Jacksonville shipyards guide, the Imeson Airport guide and the Jacksonville Landing guide go deeper on the port, the Liberty ship yards, Imeson Airport and the Landing.

On August 27, 1960, nearly 3,000 people demonstrated in Hemming Plaza, now James Weldon Johnson Park, after weeks of student sit-ins at segregated downtown Jacksonville lunch counters, and a white mob carrying ax handles and baseball bats turned on them (National Park Service).

That morning in downtown Jacksonville an interracial group from the NAACP Youth Council, led by high school student Rodney Hurst, sat at the whites only lunch counter of the W.J. Grant store (NPS). The campaign was planned by Rutledge Pearson, a social studies teacher and NAACP leader inspired by the North Carolina sit-ins. The NPS lists the park in the African American Civil Rights Network and credits the sit-ins and demonstration as a catalyst for the eventual integration of public accommodations citywide.

The Ax Handle Saturday and civil rights era guide covers the day and what followed. Five more guides cover Black Jacksonville: the LaVilla African American history guide, the Lift Every Voice and Sing guide, the Eartha M. M. White guide, the Duval County school desegregation guide and the Bethel Baptist story in the landmarks section. The birthplace of Southern rock guide covers a later Jacksonville music chapter.

Jacksonville consolidated its city government in 1968, and Mayor Donna Deegan, sworn in on July 1, 2023, is the 45th mayor of the city and the 9th since that consolidation (City of Jacksonville).

The City's official website now serves as the joint City of Jacksonville and Duval County government site (City of Jacksonville). The City-County Consolidation of 1968 guide explains how the consolidated government took shape. The table below pairs the common Jacksonville history questions with the key dated fact and the guide that goes deeper.

Other Jacksonville guides fill in the gaps: the Jacksonville in the Spanish American War guide, the railroads in Jacksonville guide, the Jacksonville streetcar era guide, the history of JAXPORT guide, the Imeson Airport guide, the Jacksonville Landing guide, the LaVilla African American history guide, the Lift Every Voice and Sing guide, the Eartha M. M. White guide, the Duval County school desegregation guide and the birthplace of Southern rock guide.