Actually, your history is a little off RG.
the Eastside is the remnants of three different communities. East Jacksonville, which was at one point its own township was working class, blue collar, and predominanty white. That is the area around the Ballfield. You have Fairfield, which is the area NE of the stadium, it was also predominantly white, though I am not entirely sure of the social economic make up. I seem to remember reading that a lot of the shipping captains lived there.
Then you have Oakland. This is the bulk of the area highlighted. It was actually a black settlement almost as long as its been settled. Someone told me its roots actually go back further than LaVilla, but again I am going completely on memory.
There was no "east springfield". There is a "new springfield", which is the area platted just north of the Railroad tracks near 12th st and was built as Springfield filled in after the great fire.
Springfield was really more of a farming community before the great fire. It was sparsely populated, and didn't even get trolley service until after the building boom of 1901 and 1902. It was so sparsely populated in 1898, that the US Army was able to station thousands of troops along Ionia St for the Spanish American War effort, at the behest of the citizens of Jacksonville.
