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Robinson's Addition is located along Beaver Street, just west of the Beaver Street viaduct.
Westbrook Park, the neighborhood's premier 9 acre public space, straddles Three Mile Branch Creek. Robinson's Addition is characterized by narrow gridded streets, small wood frame housing, occasional masonry corner stores, churches and industrial facilities.
A former streetcar electrical substation still standing.
West Beaver
Paralleling the CSX Railroad and old West Jacksonville Yard, Beaver Street is one of the oldest industrial corridors in urban Jacksonville. Anchored by the Jacksonville Farmer's Market, a significant amount of the businesses cater to the food industry.
Historical images of West Beaver Street.
The Jacksonville Farmer's Market has been a major institution on Beaver Street since 1938. The market is the only one in Florida open seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Beaver Street Fisheries debuted in 1950 as a small, retail fresh fish store on West Beaver Street in Jacksonville, Florida. Together with their mother, brothers Alfred and Hans Frisch worked around the clock to expand their business. With a single truck, they procured a variety of fish from both the Gulf and Atlantic coasts by night, delivering their product fresh to Jacksonville area hotels, restaurants and grocery stores by day. From such a modest beginning over four decades ago, Beaver Street Fisheries had grown rapidly to become one of the top seafood suppliers in the United States
www.beaverfish.com
Condaxis Coffee & Tea, Inc. is located directly across the street from the Jacksonville Farmer's Market. The wholesale coffee, tea and spices company has operated out of what began as a former gas station on West Beaver Street for 50 years.
The neighborhood's WhiteWave Foods plant on Beaver Street, processes, packages and distributes Silk Soymilk and Land O' Lakes Whipping Cream throughout the Southeast. This location recently underwent a $7 million expansion to increase its processing and distribution capacity.
Located behind filled in storefront windows at 2385 West Beaver, Premier Meats is one of the recent businesses to open up shop in the neighborhood.
Mary Ann's Golden Fried Chicken has been a long time staple of the community for decades at Beaver and Stockton Streets.
Article by Ennis Davis
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billy
February 17, 2009, 06:34:56 AMThree Mile
Very interesting.
Does Three Mile Branch creek feed into Mccoy's Creek?
heights unknown
February 17, 2009, 08:42:08 AMWhat an industrial waste fart.
Ocklawaha
February 17, 2009, 10:57:00 AMWhoo Y'all, that soil is sacred to Southron or Yankee, Black or White, it is red with the blood of our ancestors.
Just one more dot on the Jacksonville map that we have completely ignored, even though their is a large park and a beautiful area for a board walk along the creek, a brick church reconstruction, some first class signage.
This is a quite, calm neighborhood that lived with the last full size Stone and Webster TURTLEBACK streetcar in the City. It sat next to that park for 50 years and didn't even have a broken window! Of course the city took care of that, lest the government think we were "hording" streetcars, and thus wouldn't fund our SKYWAY. Thanks Jake, my children will enjoy that history. NOT!
MARCH 29, 1862 Federal officers in Jacksonville sent five companies of soldiers to investigate a report that a large force of Confederates was in the vicinity of Three Mile Creek. The Union soldiers determined that a force of nearly 100 Confederates had been the area earlier today, but had since left.
MARCH 25, 1863 Federal soldiers from the Jacksonville garrison advanced to Three Mile Branch today. After destroying a few miles of railroad track and burning several houses, they were forced to retreat to the city when Confederate artillery positions opened fire.
Very Interesting....
OCKLAWAHA
stjr
February 17, 2009, 11:35:04 AMBy the way, based on records I have seen, Beaver Street used to be called Enterprise Street. Going back to the 1800's, it apparently was called the Old Spanish Trail. It would be great if someone could do more history on this.
I think areas such as this are vastly under appreciated, underutilized, and take time to familiarize one's self with. If Beaver Street (US 90/SR 10) was ever reconstructed/widened, landscaped, and maintained in accordance with the standards of most every other state and federal highway in Jax, this area could undergo an amazing transformation.
Even as a stepchild, the area produces thousands of jobs deceptively intermingled with the housing. The buildings may not be the prettiest, but I bet you will find some of the oldest and most consistent and steady businesses in Jax are embedded in sections of town like this. Probably, because such businesses are relatively conservative in nature, not desiring to pay for the glitz and glamour of being located in nicer or higher trafficked areas. Rather, they humbly toil to mind their businesses, a noble trait in this day and age, and save their pennies to whether downturns such as now. It's the classic "you can't judge a book by its cover".
stjr
February 17, 2009, 07:02:43 PMIF a MetroJax webmaster is reading this, you have filed this story under the "History" board, not "Urban Neighborhoods" as specified. Can this be filed correctly for future reference?
MJ should look to see if they file stories consistently. Sometimes stories like this go in Photoboard, other times History, and then Urban Neighborhoods.
Also, I have seen reference in recent posts to a photo archive. How does one access it?
Thanks.
stjr
February 17, 2009, 07:36:18 PMCouldn't extract them, but there are two more historic photos at the Jacksonville Farmers Market, "About Us" web page:
One of the Farmers Market in 1938, complete with horse-drawn carts, and the other of Beaver Street Robinson Addition near the overpass in the mid-1950s or so:
http://www.jaxfarmersmarket.com/about.asp
thelakelander
February 17, 2009, 09:57:23 PMMJ should look to see if they file stories consistently. Sometimes stories like this go in Photoboard, other times History, and then Urban Neighborhoods.
Thanks. This story has been moved to the neighborhood section.
Thanks.
We haven't publicized it because we wanted to dump a ton of photos in it first. Nevertheless, here is a link to what we have so far.
http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/
deathstar
February 18, 2009, 03:36:50 AMHaving just purchased a Nikon D40 myself, I can't wait to get out and explore the "hidden" Jax.
stjr
February 19, 2009, 11:43:06 PMMJ should look to see if they file stories consistently. Sometimes stories like this go in Photoboard, other times History, and then Urban Neighborhoods.
Thanks. This story has been moved to the neighborhood section.
Lake, FYI, I don't think this story has yet been moved successfully to the "neighborhood" section. I still see it under "history".
Thanks.
Thanks for the info. Will users be able to re-post or link in their posts on MJ to the pictures or will they be restricted to view them only on the photo gallery site? If restricted, will they be indexed so users can reference them in their posts?
thelakelander
February 20, 2009, 12:49:24 AMOkay. Now it shows up under the main neighborhood link on the front page.
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/content/section/9/117/
I also relocated it to the photoboard section in the discussion board.
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php/board,24.0.html