5 Lost Colleges & Universities of the Inner City
Many would like to see an urban university grow up in the heart of the city. Here's five schools that got away.
1. UNF Downtown Center
Courtesy of the University of North Florida Thomas G. Carpenter Library.
The UNF Downtown Center was a branch of the University of North Florida that opened up for classes in September of 1978. UNF selected downtown's Western Union Building overlooking Hemming Park as an extension of their university for several reasons. For one, transportation was a huge issue, as no bus routes to UNF’s main campus existed on the Southside at this time. They also wanted to increase enrollment, and they valued the proximity of this location to downtown's businesses and employees.
The UNF Downtown Center was nearly 8,000 square feet, with 8 classrooms, office spaces, and library-classroom hybrids. It offered both credit and non-credit earning courses Monday through Friday from 7 AM until 10 PM. Classes were drawn from the Arts and Sciences, Business, Education, and General Education university curriculum.
Enrollment for the first year stood at 1,840 students. In the years that followed, enrollment continued to climb, reaching a peak of 2,247 students in 1981. However, after 1981, a rapid decline in attendance would occur due to factors such as cutbacks in student aid and decreases in course offerings. In 1987, less than 500 students were enrolled. Struggling with rising building maintenance costs and declining enrollment, UNF decided to close their downtown campus in August 1987.
Rather than giving up, UNF tried changing their approach. That same year, UNF opened the Downtown Service Center (DSC). While the actual service center resided in the building that is known to us as the Drew Building, classes were held in various buildings across downtown, in meetings rooms or lounges. The actual center itself acted mostly for a spot for people to register, pay fees, and receive information. Unfortunately, enrollment numbers the first year were even lower than the last year of the Downtown Center in 1987, and the DSC closed in 1988. Today, the building once home to UNF's downtown campus is occupied by MOCA Jacksonville.
2. Cookman Institute
Cookman Institute image courtesy of the University Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at https://docsouth.unc.edu/church/stowell/ill19.html
The Cookman Institute was founded by Reverend S.B Darnell in 1872. Darnell named the institute after the Reverend Alfred Cookman, who gave money for the construction of the institute’s very first building. The Cookman Institute was the first institution of higher education for African-Americans in the state of Florida, specializing in the religious and academic preparation of teachers. Located at the intersection of Beaver and Hogan Street and associated with Atlanta's Clark University, classes were available during the day and night.
When the original campus was destroyed during the Great Fire of 1901, it was decided that a new institute would be built on the outskirts of town. The selected site was in the Sugar Hill neighborhood near the intersection of Davis and West 8th Streets. After the rebuild, Cookman had classes from elementary through high school, and also offered “specialty” courses in normal training, music, domestic science, sewing, public speaking, shoemaking, printing, business, and agriculture. At the time, enrollment stood around 250.
One of Cookman's students, A. Philip Randolph, would go on in life to become a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance and civil rights movement. Randolph, who died in 1979, even played a major role in the 1963 march of Washington where the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.
The Cookman Institute's original location at Beaver and Hogan Streets in 1897.
The educational opportunities for African Americans at this time were inadequate, despite the fact that much of the population was black. As a result, there was a huge demand for teachers, and Cookman Institute thus received a new Principal, Professor Issac Miller, and merged with the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute, which had been founded in 1904 by Dr. Mary Bethune. Bethune had a vision that had been similar to Cookman. When the merger was finalized in 1925, the school became the Daytona-Cookman Collegiate Institute. In 1931, the school's name was officially changed to Bethune-Cookman College. On February 14, 2007, the Board of Trustees approved the name Bethune-Cookman University (BCU) after establishing its first graduate program. With an enrollment of 3,400 students, BCU's 82-acre urban campus is located near downtown Daytona Beach.
After the institute vacated the Jacksonville campus, it was purchased by the Duval County School System. In honor of both Rev. S. B. Darnell and Rev. Alfred Cookman, Jacksonville activist Eartha White, suggested the current name of the school, Darnell-Cookman. Today, Darnell-Cookman Middle/High School is an has an "A" school in the State of Florida's school grading system and a National Blue Ribbon School as designated by the USDOE.
3. William J. Porter University
In 1934, William J. Porter established the William J. Porter University as a private two-year college. Initially classes were held in the First Baptist Church's Educational Building downtown. Only 60 students were enrolled for the first year.
In 1935, the school's name was changed to Jacksonville Junior College (JJC) and classes were moved to the Haddock Business University classrooms at 517 Laura Street. The following year, the school relocated to the Florida Theatre Building, occupying the entire second floor. While downtown, JJC colors changed from scarlet and white to green and white. In 1944, the school moved again. This time, it relocated to the Kay Mansion at 704 Riverside Avenue. This location would be short lived as well with the building sitting in the path of what would eventually become the Fuller Warren Bridge. However, during the school's stay in Riverside, the name "Green Dolphins" was selected through a student contest. Other options considered included the Green Raiders, Green Marlins, Buccaneers, Juggernauts and Green Dragons.
Model of plan for Jacksonville University's campus in 1961. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, https://floridamemory.com/items/show/42275
Enrollment exploded with a large influx of students after the end of World War II, requiring the school to secure a permanent location. A riverfront site in Arlington was the school's selected location. In 1950, the Jacksonville Junior College relocated to Arlington with its first classes beginning on December 7th. JJC became Jacksonville University in 1958. In the following years, it developed into a fully accredited senior college.
With an enrollment of +3,700 students and +180 academic staff, Jacksonville University has grown to become a notable local educational institution offering over 70 majors and programs at the undergraduate level, as well as several Master's and doctorates programs at its 240-acre Arlington campus.
4. Florida Baptist Academy
The Florida Baptist Academy was located in the Eastside between Harrison and Franklin Streets in 1903.
In 1892, the Florida Baptist Academy was established by Reverend Matthew Gilbert, Reverend J.T. Brown, and Sarah Ann Blocker. The school was originally located in the Eastside on Cleveland Street (E 6th Street) between Harrison and Franklin Streets.
The purpose of the institution was to espouse industrial education, domestic arts, teacher education, agricultural education, mechanical education, and religious training. Here, brothers James Weldon and John Rosamond Johnson, wrote "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" in 1900. John Rosamond Johnson was a noted faculty member of the school, recruited by college President Nathan White Collier.
After her mother's death in 1904, Zora Neale Hurston's father remarried and sent her to Jacksonville to attend the school. Eventually, she was expelled after her father stopped paying her tuition. Nevertheless, she went on in life to become a internationally known folklorist, anthropologist, author, and key figure of the Harlem Renaissance. While in Jacksonville, Florida Baptist Academy received financial support from the Rockefeller General Education Board, Baptist organizations, the Bethany Association, and the American Home Mission Society.
In 1918, the Florida Baptist Academy relocated the Old Homes Plantation in St. Augustine. Prior to the Civil War, the site was known as one of the largest slave plantations in the state. The school also changed its name to the Florida Normal and Industrial Institute. In 1941, the school merged with Live Oak's Florida Baptist Institute, changing from a junior college into a four-year liberal arts. Here, Zora Neale Hurston spent some time as a part-time professor, while completing her autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road.
1963 brought another name change--this time, Florida Memorial College. They would relocate to a 44-acre site in Northwest Miami 5 years later. In 2006, Florida Memorial College changed its name to Florida Memorial University. With an enrollment of 1,800, today it remains a private, coeducational university that is 1 of 39 member institutions of the United Negro College Fund. The school is ranked 9th in the country for graduating African America teachers. Back in Jacksonville, the original campus location is the site of Matthew Gilbert Middle School.
5. Trinity Baptist College
Former McDuff Avenue campuse of Trinity Baptist College.
Established in Lackawanna in 1915, Trinity Baptist Church grew from a small neighborhood church into a megachurch after Robert C. Gray became the congregation's pastor in 1954. Gray credited the church's expansion with the completion of the Jacksonville expressway system, which enabled it to spread its ministry countywide.
In 1962, Trinity established the Trinity Rescue Mission on Bay Street in downtown Jacksonville. In 1967, it launched its bus ministry, which grew to become the second-largest bus ministry in the nation, carrying more than 2,400 to church each Sunday during the 1970s.
By this time, the church had outgrown its 6.5-acre McDuff Avenue campus. In 1972, to facilitate additional growth, Trinity moved to a 148-acre tract on Hammond Boulevard off Interstate 10 in Marietta. Two years later, it opened the Trinity Baptist College on its former 426 South McDuff Avenue location. Only allowed to admit 320 students, Trinity Baptist College was a fixture in Jacksonville's urban core until 1998.
A few years earlier, college officials placed the campus up for sale, due to plans to relocate the school for preachers and Christian workers to a site that could accommodate additional growth, put the campus up for sale. That site was the Hammond Road campus in West Jacksonville that the church had relocated to in 1972. This move was made possible after receipt of a $5 million gift from an anonymous donor.
In 1996, Christian Recovery Ministries agreed to purchase Trinity's McDuff Avenue campus. Christian Recovery's plans called for using the college's residential facilities, chapel and library as a facility to house women, children and its social services programs. The purchase was officially completed in 1998. Today, Trinity Baptist College remains on Jacksonville's westside. The campus is home to 377 undergraduates and 28 full-time administrative staff.
Article by Kristen Pickrell and Ennis Davis, AICP.
Courtesy of the University of North Florida Thomas G. Carpenter Library.
The UNF Downtown Center was a branch of the University of North Florida that opened up for classes in September of 1978. UNF selected downtown's Western Union Building overlooking Hemming Park as an extension of their university for several reasons. For one, transportation was a huge issue, as no bus routes to UNF’s main campus existed on the Southside at this time. They also wanted to increase enrollment, and they valued the proximity of this location to downtown's businesses and employees.
The UNF Downtown Center was nearly 8,000 square feet, with 8 classrooms, office spaces, and library-classroom hybrids. It offered both credit and non-credit earning courses Monday through Friday from 7 AM until 10 PM. Classes were drawn from the Arts and Sciences, Business, Education, and General Education university curriculum.
Enrollment for the first year stood at 1,840 students. In the years that followed, enrollment continued to climb, reaching a peak of 2,247 students in 1981. However, after 1981, a rapid decline in attendance would occur due to factors such as cutbacks in student aid and decreases in course offerings. In 1987, less than 500 students were enrolled. Struggling with rising building maintenance costs and declining enrollment, UNF decided to close their downtown campus in August 1987.
Rather than giving up, UNF tried changing their approach. That same year, UNF opened the Downtown Service Center (DSC). While the actual service center resided in the building that is known to us as the Drew Building, classes were held in various buildings across downtown, in meetings rooms or lounges. The actual center itself acted mostly for a spot for people to register, pay fees, and receive information. Unfortunately, enrollment numbers the first year were even lower than the last year of the Downtown Center in 1987, and the DSC closed in 1988. Today, the building once home to UNF's downtown campus is occupied by MOCA Jacksonville.
2. Cookman Institute
Cookman Institute image courtesy of the University Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at https://docsouth.unc.edu/church/stowell/ill19.html
The Cookman Institute was founded by Reverend S.B Darnell in 1872. Darnell named the institute after the Reverend Alfred Cookman, who gave money for the construction of the institute’s very first building. The Cookman Institute was the first institution of higher education for African-Americans in the state of Florida, specializing in the religious and academic preparation of teachers. Located at the intersection of Beaver and Hogan Street and associated with Atlanta's Clark University, classes were available during the day and night.
When the original campus was destroyed during the Great Fire of 1901, it was decided that a new institute would be built on the outskirts of town. The selected site was in the Sugar Hill neighborhood near the intersection of Davis and West 8th Streets. After the rebuild, Cookman had classes from elementary through high school, and also offered “specialty” courses in normal training, music, domestic science, sewing, public speaking, shoemaking, printing, business, and agriculture. At the time, enrollment stood around 250.
One of Cookman's students, A. Philip Randolph, would go on in life to become a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance and civil rights movement. Randolph, who died in 1979, even played a major role in the 1963 march of Washington where the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.
The Cookman Institute's original location at Beaver and Hogan Streets in 1897.
The educational opportunities for African Americans at this time were inadequate, despite the fact that much of the population was black. As a result, there was a huge demand for teachers, and Cookman Institute thus received a new Principal, Professor Issac Miller, and merged with the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute, which had been founded in 1904 by Dr. Mary Bethune. Bethune had a vision that had been similar to Cookman. When the merger was finalized in 1925, the school became the Daytona-Cookman Collegiate Institute. In 1931, the school's name was officially changed to Bethune-Cookman College. On February 14, 2007, the Board of Trustees approved the name Bethune-Cookman University (BCU) after establishing its first graduate program. With an enrollment of 3,400 students, BCU's 82-acre urban campus is located near downtown Daytona Beach.
After the institute vacated the Jacksonville campus, it was purchased by the Duval County School System. In honor of both Rev. S. B. Darnell and Rev. Alfred Cookman, Jacksonville activist Eartha White, suggested the current name of the school, Darnell-Cookman. Today, Darnell-Cookman Middle/High School is an has an "A" school in the State of Florida's school grading system and a National Blue Ribbon School as designated by the USDOE.
3. William J. Porter University
In 1934, William J. Porter established the William J. Porter University as a private two-year college. Initially classes were held in the First Baptist Church's Educational Building downtown. Only 60 students were enrolled for the first year.
In 1935, the school's name was changed to Jacksonville Junior College (JJC) and classes were moved to the Haddock Business University classrooms at 517 Laura Street. The following year, the school relocated to the Florida Theatre Building, occupying the entire second floor. While downtown, JJC colors changed from scarlet and white to green and white. In 1944, the school moved again. This time, it relocated to the Kay Mansion at 704 Riverside Avenue. This location would be short lived as well with the building sitting in the path of what would eventually become the Fuller Warren Bridge. However, during the school's stay in Riverside, the name "Green Dolphins" was selected through a student contest. Other options considered included the Green Raiders, Green Marlins, Buccaneers, Juggernauts and Green Dragons.
Model of plan for Jacksonville University's campus in 1961. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, https://floridamemory.com/items/show/42275
Enrollment exploded with a large influx of students after the end of World War II, requiring the school to secure a permanent location. A riverfront site in Arlington was the school's selected location. In 1950, the Jacksonville Junior College relocated to Arlington with its first classes beginning on December 7th. JJC became Jacksonville University in 1958. In the following years, it developed into a fully accredited senior college.
With an enrollment of +3,700 students and +180 academic staff, Jacksonville University has grown to become a notable local educational institution offering over 70 majors and programs at the undergraduate level, as well as several Master's and doctorates programs at its 240-acre Arlington campus.
4. Florida Baptist Academy
The Florida Baptist Academy was located in the Eastside between Harrison and Franklin Streets in 1903.
In 1892, the Florida Baptist Academy was established by Reverend Matthew Gilbert, Reverend J.T. Brown, and Sarah Ann Blocker. The school was originally located in the Eastside on Cleveland Street (E 6th Street) between Harrison and Franklin Streets.
The purpose of the institution was to espouse industrial education, domestic arts, teacher education, agricultural education, mechanical education, and religious training. Here, brothers James Weldon and John Rosamond Johnson, wrote "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" in 1900. John Rosamond Johnson was a noted faculty member of the school, recruited by college President Nathan White Collier.
After her mother's death in 1904, Zora Neale Hurston's father remarried and sent her to Jacksonville to attend the school. Eventually, she was expelled after her father stopped paying her tuition. Nevertheless, she went on in life to become a internationally known folklorist, anthropologist, author, and key figure of the Harlem Renaissance. While in Jacksonville, Florida Baptist Academy received financial support from the Rockefeller General Education Board, Baptist organizations, the Bethany Association, and the American Home Mission Society.
In 1918, the Florida Baptist Academy relocated the Old Homes Plantation in St. Augustine. Prior to the Civil War, the site was known as one of the largest slave plantations in the state. The school also changed its name to the Florida Normal and Industrial Institute. In 1941, the school merged with Live Oak's Florida Baptist Institute, changing from a junior college into a four-year liberal arts. Here, Zora Neale Hurston spent some time as a part-time professor, while completing her autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road.
1963 brought another name change--this time, Florida Memorial College. They would relocate to a 44-acre site in Northwest Miami 5 years later. In 2006, Florida Memorial College changed its name to Florida Memorial University. With an enrollment of 1,800, today it remains a private, coeducational university that is 1 of 39 member institutions of the United Negro College Fund. The school is ranked 9th in the country for graduating African America teachers. Back in Jacksonville, the original campus location is the site of Matthew Gilbert Middle School.
5. Trinity Baptist College
Former McDuff Avenue campuse of Trinity Baptist College.
Established in Lackawanna in 1915, Trinity Baptist Church grew from a small neighborhood church into a megachurch after Robert C. Gray became the congregation's pastor in 1954. Gray credited the church's expansion with the completion of the Jacksonville expressway system, which enabled it to spread its ministry countywide.
In 1962, Trinity established the Trinity Rescue Mission on Bay Street in downtown Jacksonville. In 1967, it launched its bus ministry, which grew to become the second-largest bus ministry in the nation, carrying more than 2,400 to church each Sunday during the 1970s.
By this time, the church had outgrown its 6.5-acre McDuff Avenue campus. In 1972, to facilitate additional growth, Trinity moved to a 148-acre tract on Hammond Boulevard off Interstate 10 in Marietta. Two years later, it opened the Trinity Baptist College on its former 426 South McDuff Avenue location. Only allowed to admit 320 students, Trinity Baptist College was a fixture in Jacksonville's urban core until 1998.
A few years earlier, college officials placed the campus up for sale, due to plans to relocate the school for preachers and Christian workers to a site that could accommodate additional growth, put the campus up for sale. That site was the Hammond Road campus in West Jacksonville that the church had relocated to in 1972. This move was made possible after receipt of a $5 million gift from an anonymous donor.
In 1996, Christian Recovery Ministries agreed to purchase Trinity's McDuff Avenue campus. Christian Recovery's plans called for using the college's residential facilities, chapel and library as a facility to house women, children and its social services programs. The purchase was officially completed in 1998. Today, Trinity Baptist College remains on Jacksonville's westside. The campus is home to 377 undergraduates and 28 full-time administrative staff.
Article by Kristen Pickrell and Ennis Davis, AICP.