Jacksonville Shipyards: From the 1850s to Liberty Ships and the 1992 Closing

Jacksonville's shipyards on the St. Johns River included Merrill-Stevens in downtown Jacksonville, Gibbs Gas Engine immediately across the river, and the wartime St. Johns River Shipbuilding Company (Naval Marine Archive).

Merrill-Stevens grew out of a blacksmith shop that Jacob Brock set up in the 1850s. After Brock died in 1877 the shop was sold to Arthur Stevens, who teamed with James Merrill; Merrill-Stevens Engineering Co. was incorporated in 1887 and began building ships in earnest in 1890 (Naval Marine Archive). In World War I it built small freighters for the Emergency Fleet Corporation at a separate facility that closed after the war.

Across the river, Gibbs Gas Engine Works was founded in 1911 and built gas engines and small wooden and steel vessels; in World War I it built 110 foot sub chasers for the Navy, with SC 151 delivered on December 14, 1917 (Naval Marine Archive). The third yard, St. Johns River Shipbuilding, opened in April 1942 for the Liberty ship program.

St. Johns River Shipbuilding in Jacksonville launched 82 Liberty ships during World War II, plus 12 T1 tankers (MARAD and HAER report).

Merrill-Stevens opened the yard in April 1942 in the fifth wave of the Maritime Commission's emergency program; its six ways could build vessels up to 450 feet long (MARAD). The Jacksonville Historical Society counts it as one of 18 emergency shipyards nationwide, built in partnership with a New York firm of contractors (Jacksonville Historical Society).

The workforce grew from 258 men to 7,000 by August 1942 and peaked at 20,000 by 1944 (Museum of Florida History). Each Liberty cost $2,100,000 and carried men and materiel to Europe and the Pacific, the museum says. Jacksonville's first Liberty ship was the Ponce de Leon, completed in April 1943, and the Historical Society's list runs through the Thomas L. Haley in February 1945, with names such as the John Gorrie, Napoleon B. Broward and David L. Yulee that, the Society notes, reflect both area and national history (Jacksonville Historical Society).

Production stopped with the Allied victory in August 1945 (Museum of Florida History), and in November 1945 the Jacksonville yard was put up for sale, the first of the federally built shipyards to be sold (MARAD).

The Huddell, the 23rd Liberty ship built at St. Johns River Shipbuilding in Jacksonville, survives as the museum ship Hellas Liberty in Piraeus, Greece (MARAD and HAER report).

The Huddell's keel was laid on October 25, 1943, and Jacksonville crews worked overtime to launch it on December 7, 1943, the first anniversary of Pearl Harbor; outfitting was finished nine days later (MARAD). The ship was named for union leader Arthur M. Huddell. After commissioning on December 16, 1943, its first stop was Jacksonville, where the Navy loaded explosives and general cargo before the ship sailed to New York and joined a convoy to London.

In the summer of 1944 the Maritime Commission converted the Jacksonville-built ship to carry fuel pipeline to England for Operation Pluto, part of the invasion of France. AT&T used it to lay communication cable in 1956, and the Navy used it as a cable ship until 1984 (MARAD). After years of negotiation it was transferred to Greece in January 2009. That status comes from a federal report last updated in 2011, so the ship's current status should be checked with its operator.

The Liberty ship John W. Brown, one of two Liberty ships the Jacksonville Historical Society describes as remaining intact, visited Jacksonville from June 4 to 10, 2002, docking at the foot of Newnan Street (Jacksonville Historical Society).

Jacksonville Shipyards, Inc. closed in 1992 after a string of ownership changes ended with Terex Corp., which shut all three of its yards that year (Naval Marine Archive).

The path ran through the postwar repair years. Merrill-Stevens leased its Jacksonville yard to Rawls Brothers Contractors in about 1953 and moved to Miami, while Gibbs, renamed Gibbs Corporation after World War II, concentrated on repair until it returned to steel shipbuilding in 1957 (Naval Marine Archive). Gibbs was sold to Aerojet-General Shipyards in 1964.

Bill Lovett combined the Rawls Brothers yard on Bay Street, the Gibbs yard across the river and Bellinger Shipyards in Jacksonville Beach as Jacksonville Shipyards; Fruehauf Corporation bought the company in 1969 and it reverted to ship repair, and Terex bought it in 1989 (Naval Marine Archive; Gibbs entry). When Terex closed the Jacksonville yards in 1992, it sold the two large floating dry docks to the Arab Ship Repair Yard in Bahrain.

A 1991 photograph by Lawrence V. Smith in the University of North Florida collection records Jacksonville Shipyards, Inc. on Bay Street, Northbank, a year before it closed (UNF Digital Commons).

Nothing remains of the wartime St. Johns River Shipbuilding yard on East Adams Street, according to the Museum of Florida History (Museum of Florida History).

The Gibbs yard sat at the east end of Prudential Drive, where the Southbank Hotel now stands (Naval Marine Archive). The Merrill-Stevens and Rawls Brothers yard at 750 E. Bay Street was meant for residential and commercial use after 1992, but the Naval Marine Archive reported in January 2021 that it still lay deserted (Naval Marine Archive).

A planned development on the downtown riverfront next to the Sports Complex now carries the Jacksonville Shipyards name. In its 2023 announcement, Four Seasons said its hotel and private residences, anticipated to open in 2027, would be the centerpiece, and that Phase One would also include a six story office building, a full service marina and a reinvigorated Metropolitan Park (Four Seasons). Those are the company's own plans; construction status should be checked with the City of Jacksonville.

Sources on Jacksonville's shipyards agree on the 82 Liberty ships and the 1992 closing but differ on the wartime yard's location, on when Bill Lovett took over and on when the Huddell went to Greece (MARAD).

The federal HAER report places St. Johns River Shipbuilding on the south side of Jacksonville, while the Museum of Florida History puts it on East Adams Street across from the present-day Gator Bowl site (Museum of Florida History). The Naval Marine Archive's Merrill-Stevens entry dates Lovett's purchase to 1963, while its Gibbs entry has Gibbs sold to Aerojet-General in 1964 before Lovett leased and then bought it (Naval Marine Archive).

The HAER report on the Jacksonville-built Huddell says in its text that the ship was transferred to Greece in January 2009, while a photo caption in the same report says 2008 (MARAD). The Jacksonville Historical Society publishes the names and completion months of all 82 Liberty ships from the St. Johns River yard (Jacksonville Historical Society).