Jax's Confederate Veterans Convention: 1914 SILENT FILM

A brief original 1914 silent film of the event that led to naming of Springfield's Confederate Park.

The film was produced with titles and shows meeting of 40,000 Confederate war veterans in Jacksonville. This clip shows the veterans dancing to fiddle music and posing for the camera. To see full-length versions of this and other videos from the State Archives of Florida, visit https://www.floridamemory.com/video/.

Repository: State Library and Archives of Florida, 500 S. Bronough St., Tallahassee, FL 32399-0250 USA. Contact: 850.245.6700. Archives@dos.state.fl.us


Confederate Park History



Confederate Park is located near downtown, in the Springfield area of north Jacksonville. First named Dignan Park, for a chairman of the Board of Public Works, it opened in 1907 and contained the City’s first supervised playground. The United Confederate Veterans chose Jacksonville as the site for their annual reunion in 1914, and the park as the site for a monument honoring the Women of the Southland. Five months after the reunion of an estimated 8,000 former Confederate soldiers, the City renamed the park, and the monument was erected the next year. During the early decades, citizens came from all over Jacksonville to attend cultural events at the park or to see the beautiful Rose Arbor. Visitors strolled along the lovely Hogans Creek Promenade that opened in 1930, and in more recent years attend events sponsored by the Springfield Improvement Association & Woman’s Club.

https://apps2.coj.net/parksinternet/parkdetails.asp?parkid=236

Click Here for Photo Tour of Confederate Park