The item that 'shocked the world' was that the North Jacksonville Street Railway Town and Improvement Company was a wholly owned black enterprise at the outset. White investors got involved in it when it faltered financially and Robinson's attempt to save it met with such a push back. Stockton purchased it but ever the diplomat, didn't ruffle the feathers and except for rehabbing a good deal of the equipment, and finishing expansion, he took a hands off attitude.
Not only did the railway have black owners, managers, conductors and motormen, it joined the rest of the local street railways in fighting the Jim Crow laws. When they were forcibly imposed on our most liberal city, the company segregated the cars with the white passengers riding in the back... After all, it WAS the letter of the law. As a part of Jacksonville Traction Company, the North Jacksonville line was a part of the maverick campaign to fight the various rulings. As late as the 1920's the Traction Company called a meeting of all of it's train crews telling them 'You do not have the authority to determine the race of any passenger while in our employ.'
The information I have says that Masons park was part of the Telfair Stockton buyout of the North Jacksonville Street Railway, as the companies eventually merged into the new Jacksonville Traction Company in 1912, as of 1922 (and I believe through 1932-36) the park operated as Roosevelt Park, a 'Colored Trolley Park,' by Stone and Webster, owner-managers of the JTCO. The other park being Panama Park. The Alligator Farm (along with the remains of the Ostrich Farm) moved to the Dixieland site, then to the current Aetna site.
