Jacksonville, Florida
The Edgewood Theater was the first movie theater in Murray Hill. The Edgewood opened in 1947, the Saturday before Easter. California was the first film screened. It was a western, directed by John Farrow, starring Ray Milland, Barbara Stanwyck, and Barry Fitzgerald. Two thousand people Read More …
The annual Jacksonville Jazz Fest began 3 decades ago. It is now one of the largest jazz festivals in the country. It will be held May 23-26 2019 in downtown Jacksonville. The Jacksonville Jazz Festival is a weekend celebration of jazz in Jacksonville, Florida. Fest Read More …
Speedway Park, also known as Jacksonville Speedway, Opened in 1947. It was a 0.5-mile (0.80 km) dirt oval auto racing track, located at the intersection of Lenox Avenue and Plymouth Street on Jacksonville’s West-side. The track hosted NASCAR Grand National Series, now known as Monster Read More …
Ten years after the Great Fire Jacksonville’s population had nearly doubled to 57,699. 29,293 were black, 28,329 were white. Churches, schools, businesses, a new city hall, a new library, skyscrapers, and many other buildings had been built with more going up every day. The city’s Read More …
Today is the birthday of Ansel Adams. Adams was a legendary American photographer, known for his love of nature, technical innovations in photography, and his dramatic photographs of Western landscapes. He was a pioneer in the movement to preserve the wilderness and one of the Read More …
Ray Charles Robinson, who had attended the Deaf and Blind School in St. Augustine, moved to LaVilla to stay with friends of his mother after she passed. He stayed for just over a year, earning $4 a night. He then moved to Seattle as he Read More …
Alfred L. Cralle was an African American inventor and businessman. While working as a porter in Markell Brothers drugstore and St. Charles Hotel in Pittsburgh, Pa, he noticed that ice cream stuck to the spoons and ladles the servers used, and they usually had to Read More …
Brewster Hospital was founded by the Women’s Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Church. The hospital’s name came from Mrs. George A. Brewster, an early financial contributor to it. Brewster opened in 1901, becoming the first to serve African Americans on the First Coast and Read More …
Today marks the 74th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi-run concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau where more than one million people died or were killed by Nazis. January 27 was later officially commemorated when the United Nations designated it International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The idea behind Read More …
Mapping Our Past, Jacksonville Public Library’s annual affair to celebrate the Lewis Ansbacher Map Collection—a true treasure comprising more than 240 antiquarian maps—returns to the Main Library. This year’s highlight will be the unveiling of the newly updated Jordan and Shirley Ansbacher Gallery to display Read More …
December 31, 1862 the people of the United States waited through the night to see if President Abraham Lincoln would issue the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in the states of rebellion. Lincoln had first shared a draft of his Emancipation Proclamation with his Cabinet early Read More …
In 1562, French explorers landed on Florida’s northeast coast and traveled up the St. Johns River into present-day Jacksonville. Two years later, on June 29, 1564, French colonists led by Captain René Goulaine de Laudonnière (1529-74) constructed one of the first European forts in what Read More …
The contents of the 1960 time capsule found in the cornerstone of the old city hall building on Bay Street have been digitized and stored in the Special Collections Department at the Main Jacksonville Public Library. View the items here. The time capsule was discovered Read More …
The Hope and History Mural Project commemorates the sit-ins and Ax Handle Saturday which began in Hemming Park August 27, 1960. The day when a mob of whites beat a group of students trying to integrate a whites-only lunch counter in downtown Jacksonville. The stunning Read More …
Tim Gilmore will launch, read from, and sign his newest book, Goat Island Hermit: The State of Florida vs. Rollians Christopher. “In 1955, Rollians Christopher, an illiterate goatherd who’d long claimed squatter’s rights on Goat Island, across from the fishing village of New Berlin in Read More …
Your GPS can’t tell you how to get to Shakedown Street but this Sunday, August 5th at the Karpeles Manuscript Museum and adjacent grounds you will find the closest thing to it that Jacksonville has to offer. That’s right folks it’s time for the annual China Read More …
July 13, 2018 falls on a Friday, which means we will once again be visited by Friday the 13th! Many associate the day with bad luck and superstitions. We’ve compiled a few facts about Friday the 13th. Just like the fear of the number 13, Read More …
Atlanta has the BeltLine. New York City has the High Line, Chicago has the 606. Boston has the Rose Kennedy Greenway. World-class cities have signature parks and green spaces where residents can safely walk, bike, recreate and connect with their city and with each other. Read More …