Ghost of Jacksonville: Davis Street
Metro Jacksonville's Ennis Davis exposes a major early 20th century African-American urban thoroughfare that no longer exists.
Over the years, Davis Street has been of great interest to me. Believe it or not, the interest goes beyond the fact that "Davis" is a pretty cool name. In terms of length, Davis Street is pretty insignificant considering it stretches less than three miles, connecting LaVilla to Brentwood. Largely serving Jim Crow era African-American districts, it's a strip that was never known for its architectural elegance. However, once you start peeling back the layers of Jacksonville's past, Davis repeatedly finds itself in the middle of several significant events, home to colorful destinations, activist and entrepreneurs that have helped shape the city we know and love today.
From industry, streetcars, live jazz performances, civil unrest and racing tracks to birthing slaughterhouses, a present day institution of higher learning, a devastating fire and whore houses, Davis Street has played a major role. For many years, it contained the type of vibrancy some would give their right leg for to see consume downtown today.
Unfortunately, the street scene that James Weldon Johnson, Philip Randolph, Zora Neale Hurston, Eartha White, Ma Rainey and others enjoyed a century ago has been erased over the last seven decades. In my quest to utilize Metro Jacksonville to expose local history that may have been considered too dark, ethnically diverse and not architecturally significant enough for many historians of Jacksonville's past to consider researching, I present Davis Street.
Ghost of Jacksonville: Davis Street
Davis Street subject locator map
A. Railroad Row
Railroad Row's intersection of Davis and West Bay Street in 1913.
Prior to the Great Fire of 1901, Davis Street extended one block south of West Bay Street to the railyards serving the Union Depot and Savannah Florida & Western railroad wharves and warehouses at the mouth of McCoys Creek.
By 1913, the construction of a new freight depot and railyard limited connectivity of North and South Davis Street to pedestrians only, between West Bay and Forsyth Streets. Rapid growth of the city and rail traffic in the area would result in the district centered around the intersection of West Bay and Davis Streets becoming known as Railroad Row.
Railroad Row was Jacksonville's answer to NYC's SOHO, Atlanta's Castleberry Hill and Dallas' West End. With Davis Street as the district's central point, Railroad Row was a four-block district along West Bay Street featuring a compact mix of warehouses, wholesale businesses, hotels and restaurants catering to the nearby Jacksonville Terminal Company railroad depot. Businesses located on Railroad Row included the C.E. Guller Wholesale Grocery, the St. Charles Hotel, Hotel Olympia and the Jacksonville Paper Company.
The largest business at the intersection of South Davis and West Bay Streets was the Atlantic Ice and Coal Corporation in the early 20th century. Based out of Atlanta, GA, the Atlantic Ice and Coal Corporation operated 36 ice plants in 21 southern cities. Atlantic's Jacksonville ice plant was situated at the northwest corner of Myrtle Avenue and Dennis Street. Atlantic's Jacksonville cold storage warehouse was located in Railroad Row at the intersection of South Davis and West Bay Streets. Today, this site is a vacant JTA owned lot used as surface parking.
Railroad Row's decline aligned with the fall of rail traffic and the relocation of the railroad station and adjacent railyards to other areas of the city. Unfortunately, while similar settings across the country have come back to life as entertainment and loft districts, Railroad Row has disappeared due to the isolated demolition of the majority of its buildings between 1970 and 2000.
This scene captures utility lines being laid down Bay Street, near Jefferson Street, looking west towards Davis Street. The Atlantic & East Coast Terminal Company's railroad freight depot is located on the right. In the photograph, Davis Street is located where the freight depot building ends.
1913 Railroad Row Sanborn Fire Insurance Map overlayed over 2013 Google Earth aerial. Notice the proximity of the previous rail terminal's train shed to Davis Street. The bordellos of Ward Street were also a short distance from Railroad Row and the passenger rail terminal.
Railroad Row's intersection of Davis and West Bay Street in 2013. Only two buildings on Forsyth Street from the 1913 Sanborn map are still standing today. Can you identify them?
B. The Court - Ward Street
Just north of Railroad Row, the intersection of Davis and Ward Streets was the epicenter of the city's large red light district, which was known as "The Line". The district's origins date back to 1887 when Jacksonville Mayor John Burbridge chased a large portion of the city's prostitutes over the city line into the suburb of LaVilla as a way to make Jacksonville more attractive. However, this would all be for not when Jacksonville annexed the Town of LaVilla less than two months later. By the 1920s, more than 60 'female boarding houses' were operating in the district with whimsical names such as the New York Inn, The House of Spanish Marie and The Turkish Harem. The Ward Street district blossomed into the 1940s when Mayor Haydon Burns focused on cleaning up the area after complaints of health problems by local Navy officials. All but one former brothel in the district have been demolished, replaced by weed filled vacant lots and warehouses.
The Court, the largest early 20th century brothel in the district, was owned by Cora Taylor Crane. Crane, the former common law wife of author Stephen Crane, hired prominent local architect W.B. Camp to design elegant structure on the southwest corner of Ward and Davis Streets shortly after the Great Fire of 1901 in 1903. The two-story building included 14 parlour (bedrooms) rooms, kitchens, a dining room, ballroom and an annex with eight additional bedrooms.
After Cora Crane's death in 1910, The Court became another brothel called the White House Hotel. However, by 1917, the building had been abandoned. Demolished decades ago, the site of The Court and its block of Houston Street (formerly Ward) are now a part of the Salvation Army's West Adams Street facility. Although listed on the National Register of Historic Places due to their architectural significance and colorful past, Rosa Neunert's The New York Inn, The Turkish Harem and 836 Houston Street brothels were demolished in 1979 in anticipation of a JTA transportation center that was never built. Today, the southeast corner of Davis and Houston (formerly ward) serves as the offices and warehouses of Lee & Cates Glass Company.
Stephen and Cora Taylor Crane. Image courtesy of the Florida State Archives.
Inside a bedroom at The Court. Image courtesy of the Florida State Archives.
The New York Inn, Turkish Harem and 836 Houston Street brothels, just west of Davis Street. Image courtesy of the Florida State Archives.
The site of the New York Inn, Turkish Harem and 836 Houston Street today.
C. Hotel Flagler
Catering to nearby railroad terminal passengers, the 125-room Hotel Flagler was located one block north of Ward Street at 905 Adams Street (the intersection of Davis and Adams). The Hotel Flagler was the first hotel owned by hotel magnate Robert Kloeppel, Sr. Kloeppel was a penniless German immigrant who spoke little English when he arrived in America in 1905. Relocating to Jacksonville a year later, he eventually become an attorney who opened a law office in the Flagler Hotel after working in a local sawmill, railyard, and shipyard as a mechanic.
Known for its excellent coffee shop and cocktail lounge, a few years after purchasing the Flagler in 1920, Kloeppel renamed the property Hotel Jefferson. In addition to Hotel Flagler/Jefferson, Kloeppel owned the George Washington, Mayflower, Pennsyvania and Roosevelt Hotels in downtown Jacksonville. Excluding the Roosevelt, which lives on as the Carling, all of Kloeppel's early 20th century downtown Jacksonville's have been demolished.
D. Great Fire of 1901
Sanborn Fire Insurance Company maps illustrate the change in LaVilla's and Davis Street's density between 1897 and 1913.
Most have heard of the Great Fire of 1901 but many may not know that this disaster started on Davis Street. On May 3, 1901, a candle factory boiler explosion set ablaze mattresses filled with Spanish moss at the Cleaveland Fibre Factory, which was located on the block bounded by Davis, Beaver, Lee and Union Streets. Eight hours later, the fire had become the most destructive event in the city's history, leaving 10,000 residents homeless and destroying 2,368 buildings in the process. However, this tragic event paved the way for the rapid rebuilding of a modern Jacksonville.
The rapid population growth that came as a result of the rebuilding effort also transformed the block where the fire originated from. By 1913, Davis Street had been transformed into a roadway lined with a continuous multistory commercial buildings in LaVilla. Businesses operating on this stretch of Davis Street in the heart of LaVilla included William Pappas' Cigars, the Alamo Cafe, Carter Haddock Billiards, Prospect Cleaners, the Duval Barrel & Bottle Company, Bellview Hotel, Julius Jackson Bakers and the Farris & Company dry goods store. A true rags to riches story, Syrian immigrants, Najeeb and Eva Farris, eventually expanded their Davis Street dry goods store into a full blown meatpacking operation on West Beaver Street in 1921.
E. Ashley Street
The Knights of Pythias Building on West Ashley Street contained a hotel, meeting rooms, and street level retail. This block of Ashley Street is now the parking lot of the LaVilla School of the Arts.
Ashley Street between Davis and Broad Streets was the epicenter of African-American entertainment before desegregation. Some have referred to the district as the Harlem of the South although we'd suggest Harlem may be the LaVilla of the North. After all, early 20th century LaVilla regulars such as James Weldon Johnson, Zora Neale Hurston, Philip Randolph, and Ma Rainey were key figures in the 1920s Renaissance in Harlem. Furthermore, the first published account of blues singing on a public stage occurred in a LaVilla performance at Ashley Street's Airdome on April 16, 1910.
This four block stretch of Ashley featured a lively cluster of major entertainment venues, theatres, bars and restaurants including the Knights of Pythias Building, the Strand, Frolic, Roosevelt and Globe Theatres, Lenape Tavern, Manuel's Taproom, Hollywood Music Store, The Boston Chop House and Mama's Restaurant. Through the decades, LaVilla's Ashley Street served as a popular performance spot for nationally known African-American figures such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Charles. Enterainment venue growth also spilled onto Davis Street, which become the location of the Ritz Theatre in 1929.
The fortunes of both Ashley Street and LaVilla would fall as a result of desegregation as middle class African American families abandoned the district for areas of town that had previously been off limits.
However, what the side effects of desegragation could not completely take out, the City of Jacksonville did with the 1990s River City Renaissance plan. In an effort to "clear blight" remaining residents and businesses were relocated and their storied structures were demolished in the process. Today, only two buildings remain of the once popular Ashley Street strip. To make matters worse, the street itself was closed and the LaVilla School of the Arts' surface parking lot was built on top of it.
On Ashley Street, looking east towards the intersection of Davis and Ashley Streets. Once a nationally significant entertainment district, Ashley Street between Davis and Jefferson Streets no longer exists.
F. Intersection of Davis Street and Kings Road
Prior to 1936, the intersections of Davis Street with Beaver Street and Kings Road were major streetcar junctions in LaVilla. Both major African-American streetcar routes, Davis Street and Myrtle Avenue served as major north/south roadways into downtown Jacksonville from
Moncrief Park. Moncrief Park was a 125-acre horse racing track four miles north of downtown that opened in 1909 and was considered one of the best in the country at the time.
Naturally, during the early 20th Century, these corridors morphed into major commercial throughfares serving some of the city's largest African-American districts. Other than the streets themselves, little is left of the walkable commericial building fabric that once dominated Davis Street a century ago.
Businesses in this long gone building at Davis Street and Kings Road included A&P Food Stores, Ossi Abdelrahim Grocery, William Davis Barbershop and Jos Bahnon Shoes. This site is now a fenced in grass lot at the State Regional Service Center complex.
G. Davis & Caroline Street
A Jax Beer advertisement can be seen on the side of Watt Moore's restaurant at the intersection of Davis and Caroline Streets in 1941.
the Jax Brewing Company was one of the economic spinoffs of the track at Moncrief Park. One of the track's spectators was William Ostner of St. Louis. From a family with breweries in St. Louis, New Orleans, Memphis, Louisville, Illinois and Wisconsin, Ostner returned to open the last American brewery before Prohibition adjacent to Moncrief Park. By Prohibition, the brewery, which overlooked Moncrief Park, employed over 240 Jacksonville residents. Before their closure, one residual contribution to society made by Jax Beer was the arguable invention of the six pack. For many years, to access Jax Brewing's Durkeeville brewery, either Myrtle Avenue or Davis Street would have been a part of the route.
In addition to Watt Moore's Restaurant, other retail spaces on this block in 1941 were occupied by the Jacksonville Journal sub station, Lee Kwong Meats, and Central Fish & Poultry Market. 72 years later, it's hard to find the location of Caroline Street because it doesn't exist anymore. Along with many buildings and black businesses that lined this corridor, Caroline Street was removed in favor of urban renewal.
H. Davis & Phillips Street
https://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2013-aug-lavilla-shotgun-houses-on-verge-of-being-demolished
Significant blocks of LaVilla, Hansontown and Sugar Hill were originally dominated with shotgun housing. Despite being dominated with commercial uses, dense rows of shotgun housing were also found on certain blocks of the thoroughfare. The shotgun house was the southern answer to the rowhouses of the north.
Predominately found in the urban South, shotgun houses tended to be narrow across the front in order to maximize the number of units on each residential lot. Running deep on the lot, rooms were typically arranged one behind the other connected by a long hallway. Because this long hall usually ran the entire length of the house, the name derived from the possibility of firing a round from the front door through the back door without hitting any part of the house.
Many scholars believe shotgun houses reflect African building traditions that entered the American Southeast via the transatlantic slave trade through the Caribbean Islands, starting in New Orleans and brought to cities like Jacksonville by migrating Black freedmen.
This row of shotgun houses was located near the intersection of Davis and Phillips Street. Like Caroline Street, these homes and Phillips Street no longer exist as 75% of Sugar Hill's families were displaced for the construction of Blodgett Homes and a failed urban renewal project by the City Department of Housing and Urban Development.
To make this feasible, the city threatened residents who refused to move by forcing them to remodel their homes and buy more property. Residents whose homes sat on 25-foot-wide lots, which was typical for shotgun housing, had to buy additional property to meet a new 50-foot wide lot frontage requirement.
For many years, the 654-unit Blodgett Homes was Jacksonville's largest public housing complex. In 1988, the City decided to demolish and redevelop the crime ridden aging public housing development. The Jacksonville Housing Authority's 158 unit Blodgett Villas apartment complex the State Regional Service Center complex occupy this area today. Unfortunately, both developments are gated suburban centers that turn their back to Davis Street and the once proud Sugar Hill community surrounding it.
Blodgett Homes in 1953. Image courtesy of the Florida State Archives.
I. Davis & Missouri Street
Not much is left of Missouri Street today. In fact, the name doesn't even exist anymore. What remains of it is now known as West 3rd Street. Prior to the destruction of Sugar Hill, Missouri Street provided a direct east/west connection to Springfield and Durkeeville for Sugar Hill residents. It's very conceivable that this intersection of the epicenter of the Sugar Hill community.
Wilder Park was located a half block west of this intersection. Wilder Park was the city's largest public space for African-Americans prior to desegregation.
Opened in 1927, the Wilder Park Library was the Jacksonville Public Library's first branch location. Along with the branch library, the park's amenities included a track, a baseball diamond, a diamond ball field and a community center. Unfortunately, the space named for Charles B. Wilder, who's descendants donated the land for the park, was destroyed for the construction of the Jacksonville Expressway (Interstate 95) in 1958.
Today, much of this land that was once home to several businesses and homes lies abandoned overlooking Interstate 95. Streets like Missouri (now 3rd Street) no longer provide the vital neighborhood interconnectivity that they were originally intended to serve.
J. Davis & Griffin Street
Today, the intersection of Davis and West 4th Street (originally Griffin Avenue) isn't much of a gathering place or activity center. Outside of a JTA bus stop, the junction is lined with fences and vacant lots. In 1941, the scene was significantly different.
Louis Rizk operated a grocery market at the northeast corner of the intersection. Sharing a street level retail space in the same building was a small neighborhood bakery operated by Marie Carter. Other retailers on this block of Davis Street included William Smith's Restaurant and Isaac Abraham's Grocery.
K. Cookman Institute
A sketch of the Cookman Institute in 1898. Image courtesy of the Florida State Archives.
In 1872, Rev. S.B. Darnell established the Cookman Institute as the first institution for the higher education of African-Americans in the State of Florida. Located at Beaver and Hogan Streets, the school was named after Rev. Alfred Cookman, a Methodist minister who provided financial assistance to the school's creation. After the Great Fire of 1901 destroyed the school, a new location was built at the intersection of North Davis and West 7th Streets in Sugar Hill.
In 1923, the Cookman Institute merged with the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School in Daytona Beach. In 1941, the school became a 4-year college and the name was changed to Bethune-Cookman College. In 2007, the Board of Trustees approved the name Bethune-Cookman University. Today, Bethune-Cookman's 82 acre urban campus is located just west of downtown Daytona Beach.
After the Daytona merger, the Jacksonville facility was purchased by the Duval County School System to serve as a middle school. Eartha White, a well known activist and founder of the Clara White Mission, suggested naming the school to honor both Rev. S.B. Darnell and Rev. Alfred Cookman. While the original school building no longer remains, Darnell-Cookman School of the Medical Arts lives on as a magnet middle/high school with an "A" school grade.
The former location of the Cookman Institute building.
L. Isaiah Blocker Junior High School
The Davis Street SAL Railroad crossing in 1942. Image courtesy of the Florida State Archives.
North of Moncrief Road, Davis Street transitioned into a lesser traveled residential street, making its way into Brentwood. Along that path, it crossed the Seaboard Air Line Railroad (now known as the S-Line Urban Greenway) near 12th Street.
In the 1942 image above, the Isaiah Blocker Junior High School can be seen in the background at the intersection of Davis Street and Lincoln Court (now 15th Street). Originally known as Public School No. 135, the school opened in 1917 and was one of 12 new schools funded by a $1 million bond issue that Duval County voters passed in 1915. Others included the Annie Lytle, Central Riverside, Fishweir, Murray Hill, Brentwood, and South Jacksonville Grammar Schools. Continued high growth in the African-American community surrounding it resulted in a major expansion to school in 1923.
Rutledge Henry Pearson was an American History teacher at Isaiah Blocker when Rodney Hurst, Sr. transferred to the school in 1955. Pearson was the president of the local NAACP branch and advisor to the NAACP Youth Council. He then became present of the Florida State Conference of NAACP and a member of the Board of Directors for the national NAACP. Because of his activism for equal rights, Pearson was forced out of the Duval County school system in 1964. After his death in 1967, he became the first African-American buried at the formerly segregated Evergreen Cemetery.
Excluding the school's cafetorium which was built in 1952, the Isaiah Blocker School was demolished decades ago. However, the building with the tin roof in the 1942 image still exists today.
The Davis Street S-Line Urban Greenway crossing in 2013.
M. 20th Street Expressway
Construction of the 20th Street Expressway in the 1960s. Image courtesy of the Florida State Archives.
For the first half of the 20th Century, Davis Street provided a direct connection between LaVilla and the growing suburb of Brentwood. This connectivity and Davis Street's vitality would soon end with the creation of the Jacksonville Expressway Authority in 1955. As a result, what would become Interstate 95, one block west of Davis Street, opened in 1960. It would be joined by the 20th Street Expressway, Jacksonville's first limited-access beltway a few years later. Now known as the MLK Parkway, the 20th Street Expressway's construction severed direct connectivity between Brentwood and the Davis Street neighborhoods to the south. Today, the dead end blocks of Davis and several surrounding streets have become pockets of forgotten decay as hundreds of thousands of cars and trucks travel overhead nearby.
The pedestrian overpass that can be seen in the 1960s image above is slightly east of where Davis Street was severed to make way for the 20th Street Expressway (now MLK Parkway).
N. Brentwood Lake Apartments
Brentwood Homes under construction in 1939. Image courtesy of the Florida State Archives.
Placed on the market in 1913 by the Brentwood Realty Investment Company under C.W. Bartleson, President, the original Brentwood Subdivision was roughly defined by West 26th Street on the south, West 35th Street on the north, and from North Pearl Street on the east to North Davis Street on the west.
In 1938, the newly created Jacksonville Housing Authority acquired 45-acres of old dairy land for the construction 230 white-only public housing units. The development became known as Brentwood homes. Two years later, 370 additional units where built at Brentwood. Brentwood became the second public housing project to open in Jacksonville behind Durkeeville public housing project, which was completed in 1936. They would be followed by another Davis Street public housing project, Blodgett Homes in 1942.
The crime ridden "barracks-style" public housing complex was demolished in 2004. It was replaced by 325 new apartments and 96 Habitat for Humanity homes for first time homebuyers in 2006. This project was funded by a $20 million federal grant to demolish and rebuild the development.
Inside a Brentwood Homes apartment unit in 1939. Image courtesy of the Florida State Archives.
Brentwood Lake Apartments in 2013.
O. Fairgrounds
Until the construction of a mid-20th century residential subdivision near Gateway shopping center, Davis Street terminated at a large tract of land along Golfair Boulevard. The Sands Hills Hospital was located on this property during the 19th century. It has been said that many residents who died during the 1888 yellow fever epidemic were buried in graves on this property. For many years, a portion of the property was utilized as the Florida State Fair Grounds. During the 1921 fair, the American Motors Export Company, which had recently completed construction on a Northside automobile assembly plant, displayed their first six vehicles. Built by Henry L. Innes, American Motors Export Company's assembly plant still remains standing on Fairfax Street in Durkeeville. However, the luxury auto manufacturing company did not last in Jacksonville long. The same year the plant was completed, its founder, Henry L. Innes, fell ill and died at the age of 46.
The Florida State Fair Grounds and the old Brentwood Golf Course are the namesakes for Golfair Boulevard. Designed by Donald Ross, a famed Scottish golf architect, the City of Jacksonville opened the Brentwood Golf Course in 1923. The construction of what would become Interstate 95, not only sucked the life off Davis Street, it also cut the golf course into two sections. The course remained under city ownership until the 1960s when it was sold to private interest to avoid integration. By the late 1970s, the 18-hole course had closed and was sold to the Duval County School Board. Today, the western portion of the property is home to a 9-hole course and the A. Philip Randolph Academy of Technology. The eastern portion of the track was developed into residential and commercial uses around the time Gateway Shopping Center opened in the late 1950s.
A race at the fairgrounds in 1922. Image courtesy of the Florida State Archives.
Article and graphics by Ennis Davis, AICP. Contact Ennis at edavis@moderncities.com
From industry, streetcars, live jazz performances, civil unrest and racing tracks to birthing slaughterhouses, a present day institution of higher learning, a devastating fire and whore houses, Davis Street has played a major role. For many years, it contained the type of vibrancy some would give their right leg for to see consume downtown today.
Unfortunately, the street scene that James Weldon Johnson, Philip Randolph, Zora Neale Hurston, Eartha White, Ma Rainey and others enjoyed a century ago has been erased over the last seven decades. In my quest to utilize Metro Jacksonville to expose local history that may have been considered too dark, ethnically diverse and not architecturally significant enough for many historians of Jacksonville's past to consider researching, I present Davis Street.
Ghost of Jacksonville: Davis Street
Davis Street subject locator map
A. Railroad Row
Railroad Row's intersection of Davis and West Bay Street in 1913.
Prior to the Great Fire of 1901, Davis Street extended one block south of West Bay Street to the railyards serving the Union Depot and Savannah Florida & Western railroad wharves and warehouses at the mouth of McCoys Creek.
By 1913, the construction of a new freight depot and railyard limited connectivity of North and South Davis Street to pedestrians only, between West Bay and Forsyth Streets. Rapid growth of the city and rail traffic in the area would result in the district centered around the intersection of West Bay and Davis Streets becoming known as Railroad Row.
Railroad Row was Jacksonville's answer to NYC's SOHO, Atlanta's Castleberry Hill and Dallas' West End. With Davis Street as the district's central point, Railroad Row was a four-block district along West Bay Street featuring a compact mix of warehouses, wholesale businesses, hotels and restaurants catering to the nearby Jacksonville Terminal Company railroad depot. Businesses located on Railroad Row included the C.E. Guller Wholesale Grocery, the St. Charles Hotel, Hotel Olympia and the Jacksonville Paper Company.
The largest business at the intersection of South Davis and West Bay Streets was the Atlantic Ice and Coal Corporation in the early 20th century. Based out of Atlanta, GA, the Atlantic Ice and Coal Corporation operated 36 ice plants in 21 southern cities. Atlantic's Jacksonville ice plant was situated at the northwest corner of Myrtle Avenue and Dennis Street. Atlantic's Jacksonville cold storage warehouse was located in Railroad Row at the intersection of South Davis and West Bay Streets. Today, this site is a vacant JTA owned lot used as surface parking.
Railroad Row's decline aligned with the fall of rail traffic and the relocation of the railroad station and adjacent railyards to other areas of the city. Unfortunately, while similar settings across the country have come back to life as entertainment and loft districts, Railroad Row has disappeared due to the isolated demolition of the majority of its buildings between 1970 and 2000.
This scene captures utility lines being laid down Bay Street, near Jefferson Street, looking west towards Davis Street. The Atlantic & East Coast Terminal Company's railroad freight depot is located on the right. In the photograph, Davis Street is located where the freight depot building ends.
1913 Railroad Row Sanborn Fire Insurance Map overlayed over 2013 Google Earth aerial. Notice the proximity of the previous rail terminal's train shed to Davis Street. The bordellos of Ward Street were also a short distance from Railroad Row and the passenger rail terminal.
Railroad Row's intersection of Davis and West Bay Street in 2013. Only two buildings on Forsyth Street from the 1913 Sanborn map are still standing today. Can you identify them?
B. The Court - Ward Street
Just north of Railroad Row, the intersection of Davis and Ward Streets was the epicenter of the city's large red light district, which was known as "The Line". The district's origins date back to 1887 when Jacksonville Mayor John Burbridge chased a large portion of the city's prostitutes over the city line into the suburb of LaVilla as a way to make Jacksonville more attractive. However, this would all be for not when Jacksonville annexed the Town of LaVilla less than two months later. By the 1920s, more than 60 'female boarding houses' were operating in the district with whimsical names such as the New York Inn, The House of Spanish Marie and The Turkish Harem. The Ward Street district blossomed into the 1940s when Mayor Haydon Burns focused on cleaning up the area after complaints of health problems by local Navy officials. All but one former brothel in the district have been demolished, replaced by weed filled vacant lots and warehouses.
The Court, the largest early 20th century brothel in the district, was owned by Cora Taylor Crane. Crane, the former common law wife of author Stephen Crane, hired prominent local architect W.B. Camp to design elegant structure on the southwest corner of Ward and Davis Streets shortly after the Great Fire of 1901 in 1903. The two-story building included 14 parlour (bedrooms) rooms, kitchens, a dining room, ballroom and an annex with eight additional bedrooms.
After Cora Crane's death in 1910, The Court became another brothel called the White House Hotel. However, by 1917, the building had been abandoned. Demolished decades ago, the site of The Court and its block of Houston Street (formerly Ward) are now a part of the Salvation Army's West Adams Street facility. Although listed on the National Register of Historic Places due to their architectural significance and colorful past, Rosa Neunert's The New York Inn, The Turkish Harem and 836 Houston Street brothels were demolished in 1979 in anticipation of a JTA transportation center that was never built. Today, the southeast corner of Davis and Houston (formerly ward) serves as the offices and warehouses of Lee & Cates Glass Company.
Stephen and Cora Taylor Crane. Image courtesy of the Florida State Archives.
Inside a bedroom at The Court. Image courtesy of the Florida State Archives.
The New York Inn, Turkish Harem and 836 Houston Street brothels, just west of Davis Street. Image courtesy of the Florida State Archives.
The site of the New York Inn, Turkish Harem and 836 Houston Street today.
C. Hotel Flagler
Catering to nearby railroad terminal passengers, the 125-room Hotel Flagler was located one block north of Ward Street at 905 Adams Street (the intersection of Davis and Adams). The Hotel Flagler was the first hotel owned by hotel magnate Robert Kloeppel, Sr. Kloeppel was a penniless German immigrant who spoke little English when he arrived in America in 1905. Relocating to Jacksonville a year later, he eventually become an attorney who opened a law office in the Flagler Hotel after working in a local sawmill, railyard, and shipyard as a mechanic.
Known for its excellent coffee shop and cocktail lounge, a few years after purchasing the Flagler in 1920, Kloeppel renamed the property Hotel Jefferson. In addition to Hotel Flagler/Jefferson, Kloeppel owned the George Washington, Mayflower, Pennsyvania and Roosevelt Hotels in downtown Jacksonville. Excluding the Roosevelt, which lives on as the Carling, all of Kloeppel's early 20th century downtown Jacksonville's have been demolished.
D. Great Fire of 1901
Sanborn Fire Insurance Company maps illustrate the change in LaVilla's and Davis Street's density between 1897 and 1913.
Most have heard of the Great Fire of 1901 but many may not know that this disaster started on Davis Street. On May 3, 1901, a candle factory boiler explosion set ablaze mattresses filled with Spanish moss at the Cleaveland Fibre Factory, which was located on the block bounded by Davis, Beaver, Lee and Union Streets. Eight hours later, the fire had become the most destructive event in the city's history, leaving 10,000 residents homeless and destroying 2,368 buildings in the process. However, this tragic event paved the way for the rapid rebuilding of a modern Jacksonville.
The rapid population growth that came as a result of the rebuilding effort also transformed the block where the fire originated from. By 1913, Davis Street had been transformed into a roadway lined with a continuous multistory commercial buildings in LaVilla. Businesses operating on this stretch of Davis Street in the heart of LaVilla included William Pappas' Cigars, the Alamo Cafe, Carter Haddock Billiards, Prospect Cleaners, the Duval Barrel & Bottle Company, Bellview Hotel, Julius Jackson Bakers and the Farris & Company dry goods store. A true rags to riches story, Syrian immigrants, Najeeb and Eva Farris, eventually expanded their Davis Street dry goods store into a full blown meatpacking operation on West Beaver Street in 1921.
E. Ashley Street
The Knights of Pythias Building on West Ashley Street contained a hotel, meeting rooms, and street level retail. This block of Ashley Street is now the parking lot of the LaVilla School of the Arts.
Ashley Street between Davis and Broad Streets was the epicenter of African-American entertainment before desegregation. Some have referred to the district as the Harlem of the South although we'd suggest Harlem may be the LaVilla of the North. After all, early 20th century LaVilla regulars such as James Weldon Johnson, Zora Neale Hurston, Philip Randolph, and Ma Rainey were key figures in the 1920s Renaissance in Harlem. Furthermore, the first published account of blues singing on a public stage occurred in a LaVilla performance at Ashley Street's Airdome on April 16, 1910.
This four block stretch of Ashley featured a lively cluster of major entertainment venues, theatres, bars and restaurants including the Knights of Pythias Building, the Strand, Frolic, Roosevelt and Globe Theatres, Lenape Tavern, Manuel's Taproom, Hollywood Music Store, The Boston Chop House and Mama's Restaurant. Through the decades, LaVilla's Ashley Street served as a popular performance spot for nationally known African-American figures such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Charles. Enterainment venue growth also spilled onto Davis Street, which become the location of the Ritz Theatre in 1929.
The fortunes of both Ashley Street and LaVilla would fall as a result of desegregation as middle class African American families abandoned the district for areas of town that had previously been off limits.
However, what the side effects of desegragation could not completely take out, the City of Jacksonville did with the 1990s River City Renaissance plan. In an effort to "clear blight" remaining residents and businesses were relocated and their storied structures were demolished in the process. Today, only two buildings remain of the once popular Ashley Street strip. To make matters worse, the street itself was closed and the LaVilla School of the Arts' surface parking lot was built on top of it.
On Ashley Street, looking east towards the intersection of Davis and Ashley Streets. Once a nationally significant entertainment district, Ashley Street between Davis and Jefferson Streets no longer exists.
F. Intersection of Davis Street and Kings Road
Prior to 1936, the intersections of Davis Street with Beaver Street and Kings Road were major streetcar junctions in LaVilla. Both major African-American streetcar routes, Davis Street and Myrtle Avenue served as major north/south roadways into downtown Jacksonville from
Moncrief Park. Moncrief Park was a 125-acre horse racing track four miles north of downtown that opened in 1909 and was considered one of the best in the country at the time.
Naturally, during the early 20th Century, these corridors morphed into major commercial throughfares serving some of the city's largest African-American districts. Other than the streets themselves, little is left of the walkable commericial building fabric that once dominated Davis Street a century ago.
Businesses in this long gone building at Davis Street and Kings Road included A&P Food Stores, Ossi Abdelrahim Grocery, William Davis Barbershop and Jos Bahnon Shoes. This site is now a fenced in grass lot at the State Regional Service Center complex.
G. Davis & Caroline Street
A Jax Beer advertisement can be seen on the side of Watt Moore's restaurant at the intersection of Davis and Caroline Streets in 1941.
the Jax Brewing Company was one of the economic spinoffs of the track at Moncrief Park. One of the track's spectators was William Ostner of St. Louis. From a family with breweries in St. Louis, New Orleans, Memphis, Louisville, Illinois and Wisconsin, Ostner returned to open the last American brewery before Prohibition adjacent to Moncrief Park. By Prohibition, the brewery, which overlooked Moncrief Park, employed over 240 Jacksonville residents. Before their closure, one residual contribution to society made by Jax Beer was the arguable invention of the six pack. For many years, to access Jax Brewing's Durkeeville brewery, either Myrtle Avenue or Davis Street would have been a part of the route.
In addition to Watt Moore's Restaurant, other retail spaces on this block in 1941 were occupied by the Jacksonville Journal sub station, Lee Kwong Meats, and Central Fish & Poultry Market. 72 years later, it's hard to find the location of Caroline Street because it doesn't exist anymore. Along with many buildings and black businesses that lined this corridor, Caroline Street was removed in favor of urban renewal.
H. Davis & Phillips Street
https://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2013-aug-lavilla-shotgun-houses-on-verge-of-being-demolished
Significant blocks of LaVilla, Hansontown and Sugar Hill were originally dominated with shotgun housing. Despite being dominated with commercial uses, dense rows of shotgun housing were also found on certain blocks of the thoroughfare. The shotgun house was the southern answer to the rowhouses of the north.
Predominately found in the urban South, shotgun houses tended to be narrow across the front in order to maximize the number of units on each residential lot. Running deep on the lot, rooms were typically arranged one behind the other connected by a long hallway. Because this long hall usually ran the entire length of the house, the name derived from the possibility of firing a round from the front door through the back door without hitting any part of the house.
Many scholars believe shotgun houses reflect African building traditions that entered the American Southeast via the transatlantic slave trade through the Caribbean Islands, starting in New Orleans and brought to cities like Jacksonville by migrating Black freedmen.
This row of shotgun houses was located near the intersection of Davis and Phillips Street. Like Caroline Street, these homes and Phillips Street no longer exist as 75% of Sugar Hill's families were displaced for the construction of Blodgett Homes and a failed urban renewal project by the City Department of Housing and Urban Development.
To make this feasible, the city threatened residents who refused to move by forcing them to remodel their homes and buy more property. Residents whose homes sat on 25-foot-wide lots, which was typical for shotgun housing, had to buy additional property to meet a new 50-foot wide lot frontage requirement.
For many years, the 654-unit Blodgett Homes was Jacksonville's largest public housing complex. In 1988, the City decided to demolish and redevelop the crime ridden aging public housing development. The Jacksonville Housing Authority's 158 unit Blodgett Villas apartment complex the State Regional Service Center complex occupy this area today. Unfortunately, both developments are gated suburban centers that turn their back to Davis Street and the once proud Sugar Hill community surrounding it.
Blodgett Homes in 1953. Image courtesy of the Florida State Archives.
I. Davis & Missouri Street
Not much is left of Missouri Street today. In fact, the name doesn't even exist anymore. What remains of it is now known as West 3rd Street. Prior to the destruction of Sugar Hill, Missouri Street provided a direct east/west connection to Springfield and Durkeeville for Sugar Hill residents. It's very conceivable that this intersection of the epicenter of the Sugar Hill community.
Wilder Park was located a half block west of this intersection. Wilder Park was the city's largest public space for African-Americans prior to desegregation.
Opened in 1927, the Wilder Park Library was the Jacksonville Public Library's first branch location. Along with the branch library, the park's amenities included a track, a baseball diamond, a diamond ball field and a community center. Unfortunately, the space named for Charles B. Wilder, who's descendants donated the land for the park, was destroyed for the construction of the Jacksonville Expressway (Interstate 95) in 1958.
Today, much of this land that was once home to several businesses and homes lies abandoned overlooking Interstate 95. Streets like Missouri (now 3rd Street) no longer provide the vital neighborhood interconnectivity that they were originally intended to serve.
J. Davis & Griffin Street
Today, the intersection of Davis and West 4th Street (originally Griffin Avenue) isn't much of a gathering place or activity center. Outside of a JTA bus stop, the junction is lined with fences and vacant lots. In 1941, the scene was significantly different.
Louis Rizk operated a grocery market at the northeast corner of the intersection. Sharing a street level retail space in the same building was a small neighborhood bakery operated by Marie Carter. Other retailers on this block of Davis Street included William Smith's Restaurant and Isaac Abraham's Grocery.
K. Cookman Institute
A sketch of the Cookman Institute in 1898. Image courtesy of the Florida State Archives.
In 1872, Rev. S.B. Darnell established the Cookman Institute as the first institution for the higher education of African-Americans in the State of Florida. Located at Beaver and Hogan Streets, the school was named after Rev. Alfred Cookman, a Methodist minister who provided financial assistance to the school's creation. After the Great Fire of 1901 destroyed the school, a new location was built at the intersection of North Davis and West 7th Streets in Sugar Hill.
In 1923, the Cookman Institute merged with the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School in Daytona Beach. In 1941, the school became a 4-year college and the name was changed to Bethune-Cookman College. In 2007, the Board of Trustees approved the name Bethune-Cookman University. Today, Bethune-Cookman's 82 acre urban campus is located just west of downtown Daytona Beach.
After the Daytona merger, the Jacksonville facility was purchased by the Duval County School System to serve as a middle school. Eartha White, a well known activist and founder of the Clara White Mission, suggested naming the school to honor both Rev. S.B. Darnell and Rev. Alfred Cookman. While the original school building no longer remains, Darnell-Cookman School of the Medical Arts lives on as a magnet middle/high school with an "A" school grade.
The former location of the Cookman Institute building.
L. Isaiah Blocker Junior High School
The Davis Street SAL Railroad crossing in 1942. Image courtesy of the Florida State Archives.
North of Moncrief Road, Davis Street transitioned into a lesser traveled residential street, making its way into Brentwood. Along that path, it crossed the Seaboard Air Line Railroad (now known as the S-Line Urban Greenway) near 12th Street.
In the 1942 image above, the Isaiah Blocker Junior High School can be seen in the background at the intersection of Davis Street and Lincoln Court (now 15th Street). Originally known as Public School No. 135, the school opened in 1917 and was one of 12 new schools funded by a $1 million bond issue that Duval County voters passed in 1915. Others included the Annie Lytle, Central Riverside, Fishweir, Murray Hill, Brentwood, and South Jacksonville Grammar Schools. Continued high growth in the African-American community surrounding it resulted in a major expansion to school in 1923.
Rutledge Henry Pearson was an American History teacher at Isaiah Blocker when Rodney Hurst, Sr. transferred to the school in 1955. Pearson was the president of the local NAACP branch and advisor to the NAACP Youth Council. He then became present of the Florida State Conference of NAACP and a member of the Board of Directors for the national NAACP. Because of his activism for equal rights, Pearson was forced out of the Duval County school system in 1964. After his death in 1967, he became the first African-American buried at the formerly segregated Evergreen Cemetery.
Excluding the school's cafetorium which was built in 1952, the Isaiah Blocker School was demolished decades ago. However, the building with the tin roof in the 1942 image still exists today.
The Davis Street S-Line Urban Greenway crossing in 2013.
M. 20th Street Expressway
Construction of the 20th Street Expressway in the 1960s. Image courtesy of the Florida State Archives.
For the first half of the 20th Century, Davis Street provided a direct connection between LaVilla and the growing suburb of Brentwood. This connectivity and Davis Street's vitality would soon end with the creation of the Jacksonville Expressway Authority in 1955. As a result, what would become Interstate 95, one block west of Davis Street, opened in 1960. It would be joined by the 20th Street Expressway, Jacksonville's first limited-access beltway a few years later. Now known as the MLK Parkway, the 20th Street Expressway's construction severed direct connectivity between Brentwood and the Davis Street neighborhoods to the south. Today, the dead end blocks of Davis and several surrounding streets have become pockets of forgotten decay as hundreds of thousands of cars and trucks travel overhead nearby.
The pedestrian overpass that can be seen in the 1960s image above is slightly east of where Davis Street was severed to make way for the 20th Street Expressway (now MLK Parkway).
N. Brentwood Lake Apartments
Brentwood Homes under construction in 1939. Image courtesy of the Florida State Archives.
Placed on the market in 1913 by the Brentwood Realty Investment Company under C.W. Bartleson, President, the original Brentwood Subdivision was roughly defined by West 26th Street on the south, West 35th Street on the north, and from North Pearl Street on the east to North Davis Street on the west.
In 1938, the newly created Jacksonville Housing Authority acquired 45-acres of old dairy land for the construction 230 white-only public housing units. The development became known as Brentwood homes. Two years later, 370 additional units where built at Brentwood. Brentwood became the second public housing project to open in Jacksonville behind Durkeeville public housing project, which was completed in 1936. They would be followed by another Davis Street public housing project, Blodgett Homes in 1942.
The crime ridden "barracks-style" public housing complex was demolished in 2004. It was replaced by 325 new apartments and 96 Habitat for Humanity homes for first time homebuyers in 2006. This project was funded by a $20 million federal grant to demolish and rebuild the development.
Inside a Brentwood Homes apartment unit in 1939. Image courtesy of the Florida State Archives.
Brentwood Lake Apartments in 2013.
O. Fairgrounds
Until the construction of a mid-20th century residential subdivision near Gateway shopping center, Davis Street terminated at a large tract of land along Golfair Boulevard. The Sands Hills Hospital was located on this property during the 19th century. It has been said that many residents who died during the 1888 yellow fever epidemic were buried in graves on this property. For many years, a portion of the property was utilized as the Florida State Fair Grounds. During the 1921 fair, the American Motors Export Company, which had recently completed construction on a Northside automobile assembly plant, displayed their first six vehicles. Built by Henry L. Innes, American Motors Export Company's assembly plant still remains standing on Fairfax Street in Durkeeville. However, the luxury auto manufacturing company did not last in Jacksonville long. The same year the plant was completed, its founder, Henry L. Innes, fell ill and died at the age of 46.
The Florida State Fair Grounds and the old Brentwood Golf Course are the namesakes for Golfair Boulevard. Designed by Donald Ross, a famed Scottish golf architect, the City of Jacksonville opened the Brentwood Golf Course in 1923. The construction of what would become Interstate 95, not only sucked the life off Davis Street, it also cut the golf course into two sections. The course remained under city ownership until the 1960s when it was sold to private interest to avoid integration. By the late 1970s, the 18-hole course had closed and was sold to the Duval County School Board. Today, the western portion of the property is home to a 9-hole course and the A. Philip Randolph Academy of Technology. The eastern portion of the track was developed into residential and commercial uses around the time Gateway Shopping Center opened in the late 1950s.
A race at the fairgrounds in 1922. Image courtesy of the Florida State Archives.
Article and graphics by Ennis Davis, AICP. Contact Ennis at edavis@moderncities.com