The History of JAXPORT: From the 1822 Port of Entry to the 2001 Seaport Authority

JAXPORT is younger than the port it runs: the Jacksonville Port Authority was created by the Florida Legislature in 1963, more than a century after Jacksonville became a port of entry (JAXPORT port history).

The authority's own timeline starts in 1822, when people living around the river crossing called Cowford petitioned the federal government for port of entry status and renamed their town Jacksonville. By the time Florida became a state in 1845, the timeline says, Jacksonville was an important port for the timber and cotton trades, and by the early 1880s downtown had recovered from Civil War occupation and was thriving as a winter tourist destination (JAXPORT).

A state marker in Duval County records that Joseph E. Lee, a Jacksonville political leader, held federal appointments as Customs Collector for the Port of St. Johns from 1890 to 1894 and from 1897 to 1898 (Florida Division of Historical Resources markers).

The St. Johns River bar was the first obstacle: the state's Pilot Town marker says the shifting sandbar at the river mouth was a significant impediment to ships, and bar pilots made a living guiding vessels across it (Pilot Town marker).

The marker, at 9954 Heckscher Drive, says early Spanish seamen called the St. Johns the Rio de Corrientas, the River of Currents. Pilot Town grew off Batten Island as river commerce grew, home mostly to harbor pilots and sea captains who boarded ships, steered them around the bar and guided them up the channel to Jacksonville. By 1877 Pilot Town was a landing for tourists and visitors, and a dock was built for steamers to Jacksonville, Charleston and Savannah. Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, later Florida's 19th governor, took a job on St. Johns River tugboats in 1878 and received his pilot's license in 1883 (state marker).

The federal engineers arrived in the same decade. The Corps of Engineers Jacksonville District says its first district engineer stationed in Florida, Capt. William T. Rossell, came in 1884, after a period when the Corps' main Florida mission was building military fortifications; river and harbor work resumed in the late 1800s (USACE Jacksonville District history).

The channel was deepened in a series of projects, from about 12.5 feet in the early 1890s to 38 feet by 1978, according to the Corps of Engineers and JAXPORT (USACE Mile Point study; JAXPORT).

The Corps' Mile Point study says an 1892 project to take the channel from a controlling depth of 12.5 feet to 18 feet was approved by the Secretary of War, with training dikes and dredging at Dames Point, Cedar Creek and Mile Point. To speed it up, Duval County citizens got permission to do the work at their own expense, and an 18 foot channel existed by May 1894. The harbor was deepened to 24 feet from 1903 to 1907 (Corps of Engineers).

A 1910 request to go to 30 feet recommended extending the Mile Point training wall, meant to pull the crosscurrents from several creeks into one channel. A 1928 examination found parts of that wall only half a foot above mean low water against a 6 foot design height, and repairs around 1931 rebuilt it to 6 feet, covering 5,990 linear feet of wall. The wall, also called the Little Jetties, runs about 6,000 feet from Sherman Point past Pablo Creek (Corps of Engineers).

JAXPORT's timeline lists the next steps: 30 feet in 1916, 34 feet in 1952 and 38 feet in 1978, a depth it says was kept for more than 20 years (JAXPORT). A Chief of Engineers report dated May 19, 1965 had recommended deepening the interior channel to 38 feet to the Municipal Docks and Terminals (USACE). Later deepening is covered in the Jacksonville harbor deepening guide.

Jacksonville's public docks began with a 1913 vote, when city voters authorized $1.5 million in bonds to build city owned docks across roughly 160 acres at Talleyrand (JAXPORT port history).

Before that, the waterfront was private. JAXPORT's timeline says that around 1900 downtown Jacksonville had 30 private waterfront ship terminals moving cargo between ship and rail. It also credits the 1895 dredging of the main channel to 15 feet, at a cost of $1.8 million that included $300,000 from the first bond issue Duval County ever sold (JAXPORT).

Talleyrand is still in use. The port's site lists the Talleyrand Marine Terminal at 2085 Talleyrand Avenue and the authority's headquarters at 2831 Talleyrand Avenue. The timeline's first automobile entry comes in 1957, when seven imported Volkswagen Beetles moved through the port (JAXPORT).

The Jacksonville Port Authority was created in 1963, after the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce and Senator Jack Mathews urged the Legislature to set it up, according to JAXPORT (JAXPORT port history).

The city handed the new authority the Talleyrand Municipal Docks and a tract called Goat Island, later renamed Blount Island. JAXPORT's timeline says the original charter granted the authority "1.5 miles of ad valorem taxing authority" to provide a revenue flow for capital investment. In 1998 the authority bought the final property for its third marine terminal, Dames Point, where it owns nearly 600 acres and plans called for potentially leaving more than a third in its natural state to protect wetlands (JAXPORT).

Until 2001 the same agency also controlled the aviation facilities. That year the Legislature passed Chapter 2001-319, Laws of Florida, which created separate airport and seaport authorities and repealed chapter 63-1447 and the other acts that made up the authority's charter, while leaving bondholder rights unimpaired and continuing employee rights (Chapter 2001-319). The Governor approved it on June 5, 2001, and most of its sections took effect on October 1, 2001. The seaport side, formally the Jacksonville Seaport Authority, kept the names Jacksonville Port Authority and JAXPORT (JAXPORT).

Jacksonville's FY2024 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report lists the authority as a component unit created by Chapter 2001-319, governed by seven members, four named by the mayor and three by the governor, with the city able to impose its will through modification and approval of its budgets (City of Jacksonville FY2024 ACFR).

Two official sources disagree on the early channel dates, and this page gives both (JAXPORT; USACE).

JAXPORT's timeline says the first dredging of the St. Johns took the main channel to 15 feet in 1895, while the Corps of Engineers study says an 18 foot channel already existed by May 1894 under a project approved in 1892. For the 24 foot channel, JAXPORT gives 1906 and the Corps gives construction from 1903 to 1907 (JAXPORT; Corps of Engineers).

JAXPORT also calls Jacksonville America's First Port, a designation it says it has copyrighted, based on a 1565 trade at Fort Caroline in which English traders swapped guns and ammunition with the French settlers for food and a vessel. That label is the port authority's own description of its history (JAXPORT).

Last verified: October 18, 2026, against JAXPORT's historical timeline, the city's FY2024 financial report, the Corps of Engineers Mile Point study and district history, the text of Chapter 2001-319 and the state's Duval County marker list.