The Title & Trust Company of Florida Building and The Great Fire

The Title & Trust Company of Florida Building is a historic site in Jacksonville, Florida. It is located at 200 East Forsyth Street. On February 23, 1990, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. From the Florida Division of Historical Resources: Read More …

Old Brewster Hospital Historic Marker

Inscription: Built in 1885 as a private residence, Old Brewster Hospital and Nursing Training School was the first medical facility to serve Jacksonville’s African-American community. Located in the LaVilla neighborhood, the hospital opened in 1901 through the efforts of the Women’s Home Missionary Society of Read More …

1960 Civil Rights Demonstration Historic Marker

Inscription.  On Saturday, August 27,1960, 40 Youth Council demonstrators from the Jacksonville Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) advised by local civil rights leader Rutledge H. Pearson (1929-1967), sat in at the W.T. Grant Department Store, then located at Read More …

Sig Haugdahl and the Wisconsin Special

  Sigurd Olson “Sig” Haugdahl broke the land speed record at Daytona Beach on this date in 1922. Sig reached a speed of 180 miles per hour in a car he built named the “Wisconsin Special.” The car had an 836-cubic inch, 6-cylinder, airplane engine Read More …

PEN/Faulkner Foundation announces that Jacksonville native, Deesha Philyaw has won the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction

“We are so excited to announce that Deesha Philyaw – Writer‘s “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies” (West Virginia University Press) has been selected as the winner of the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction!” “I’m deeply honored and thankful to receive the PEN/Faulkner Award for Read More …

Black businesses rise from the ashes of the Great Fire while battling the flames of racism

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 …

The Roosevelt Theatre

The Roosevelt was one of several theaters in LaVilla, the historically African-American neighborhood adjacent to downtown Jacksonville. The other theaters were the Strand, the Frolic, Excelsior Hall, Little Savoy, The Colored Airdome, the Globe, and the Ritz. Opened in 1949, the Roosevelt was located at Read More …

Florida’s First African-American Insurance Company Historic Marker

Photographs from The Crisis, the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Front Inscription.The Afro-American Insurance Company, formerly the Afro-American Industrial and Benefits Association, was founded in 1901 to provide affordable health insurance and death benefits to the state’s African-Americans. Read More …

Hank Aaron played for the Jacksonville Braves in 1953

Hank Aaron played for the Jacksonville Braves in 1953. The Braves were the Class A affiliate of the Milwaukee Braves, who would become the Atlanta Braves in 1966. During his time with the Jacksonville Braves the team was owned by Jacksonville businessman, Samuel W. Wolfson. Read More …

34th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast

The City of Jacksonville invites you to celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the 34th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Breakfast presented by Florida Blue. The 34th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Breakfast presented by Florida Blue will feature Read More …

Story Tellers: Beaches Women Mayors

Join Beaches Museum for a discussion with the groundbreaking female mayors of the Beaches, past and present. The Mayors will discuss their service to the community and the stories behind their motivation to run for office. Learn what it takes to not only survive, but Read More …

Surviving Confederate Veterans hold reunion in Jacksonville May 1914

This marker is in the Confederate Park, which was earlier called the Dignan Park, in the Springfield Historical District, Jacksonville ,Florida, where the United Confederate Veterans celebrated their 24th reunion in 1914. The marker reads as : “On these grounds, May 6-9, 1914, the United Read More …

Clay County, Florida

 Clay County, Florida’s thirty-seventh, was created on this date in 1858 by carving out part of Duval County in northeast Florida. Named after American statesman Henry Clay, the U.S. senator from Kentucky and secretary of state under President John Quincy Adams, its county seat is Read More …

Cemetery Tour: Women Who Shaped the Beaches

Join local history detective Johnny Woodhouse on a self-guided tour of the H. Warren Smith Cemetery as he discusses the well-known women interred in the cemetery. The event is sponsored by the Beaches Museum. This event is free to Museum members with a $5 suggested Read More …

Remembering Lee Harvey

Lee Harvey died six years ago today. AG Gancarski wrote a memorial piece, titled “Remembering Firebrand Painter Lee Harvey” published by Folio Weekly on November 19, 2014. Gancarski stated that Lee “…taught all of us to open our eyes, see the bullshit around us, and Read More …