In just over eight hours on May 3, 1901, a small fire, started in a LaVilla mattress factory, would sweep through 146 city blocks of Jacksonville, destroying over 2,000 buildings, taking seven lives, and leaving almost 9,000 people homeless in the process.  This tragic event would eventually be known as the Great Fire of 1901, the third largest urban fire in American history behind the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Chicago Fire of 1871.

Over time, many cities have left their mark on our architectural landscape.  New York has its Brownstones, Charleston the single house, and Chicago School of Architecture in the Windy City.  Believe it or not, our own city has earned the right to be mentioned in this conversation.

Jacksonville has more examples of the Prairie School style than any city outside the Midwest. It has also lost more great Prairie style buildings than any other city, with perhaps the exception of Chicago.  To many, it seems to be an anomaly that there could be any Prairie School buildings in a second tier Southern city, hundreds of miles from the style’s birthplace… the Midwest.  Unfortunately, a century later, Jacksonville still does not fully appreciate the treasures that it possesses.

For over 40 years, Jacksonville Municipal Airport Imeson Field was the center of the First Coast’s commercial aviation scene. Jacksonville Municipal Airport Number One opened in 1927, with a dedication that included Charles Lindbergh.  In 1931, Eastern Air Transit (eventually Eastern Airlines) became the first major commercial airline to provide regular service to Jacksonville.

In this special, the staff of Metro Jacksonville shares a section of the 1931 Jacksonville Master Plan, that predicts how the city would develop, 40 years into the future.

While the previous article uses city directories to illustrate the rise and fall of downtown, another effective way to get the point across is the use of historic photographs that correlate with the timeline. The pictures below are intended to give readers a visual image of the rise and fall of downtown Jacksonville from the early 1900's up to the 1970's.

While the city has big redevelopment plans for Brooklyn, significant buildings that represented the community for the last 100 years are being knocked down in the process. When will Jacksonville learn that once we destroy our historic fabric, it can not be undone?

The historic community of Durkeeville, one of Jacksonville's most dense historic neighborhoods, developed in the 1930s as a place of refuge for the city’s African Americans during the Jim Crow Era. Like many inner city neighborhoods, the area began to suffer after being cut off from downtown by I-95, and then by blight and crime during the 1970s through the early 1990s. Despite its setbacks, Durkeeville still remains one of Jacksonville’s most intact, pedestrian friendly, working class neighborhoods.