Post on 13-May-2023
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Carnival on the Boardwalk
By Donald J. Mabry
© 2010
Merry-go-rounds, Ferris wheels, roller coasters, hot
dogs, salt water taffy, beer, games and more! The surf with
the rollers coming in and lapping at your feet! Sand castles.
Ocean bathing in the surf! Suntans and beach blankets.
Come to the boardwalk!
People flocked to the shore for pleasure after the Civil
War ended in 1865. The United States industrialized and
urbanized and city workers wanted an inexpensive place to
escape the rigors of work and the essential boredom of
factory work. Go-getters met this demand by creating
amusement parks, eateries, bars and beer joints, carnival
games, and hotels in such places as Atlantic City (1880) and
Palisades Amusement Park (1898) in New Jersey and Coney
Island in New York. Coney Island influenced the creation of
a smaller version on the shore of present-day Jacksonville,
Florida. This essay, part of my historical series on the east
coast of Duval County, Florida (see list below), studies the
rise and fall of the carnival on the boardwalk of Jacksonville
Beach, Florida. First, a tad of background about east coast
amusement parks is useful.
In Brooklyn in the 1860s, businessmen began
developing the huge amusement complex known as Coney
Island. Coney grew rapidly in the 1880s, about the same
time that Pablo Beach was founded. Being part of the giant
metropolis, New York City, made the growth and prosperity
of Coney Island easy for the resort had millions of potential
customers.
Coney Island was considered the world's largest and
premier amusement area during the first half of the 20th
Century. It was a beach resort that provided carefree
entertainment and thrilling amusement park rides to the
millions of residents that lived in New York City. It featured
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three huge amusement parks; Luna Park, Steeplechase and
Dreamland, and countless other attractions along the
Bowery, Surf Avenue and its numerous side streets.
It would feature luxury hotels, restaurants, bars,
sideshows, bars, games, a steel pier, bath houses, music,
dancing, beauty contests, gambling and prostitutes. The
carnival rides—Ferris wheel, roller coasters (the first was the
Switch Back Railroad in 1884), carousels, and hundreds of
other rides throughout its history. Its success as an
entertainment venue was a direct result of the growth of the
population of New York City through natural increase,
immigration, and annexation, by the development of cheap
transportation, especially the arrival of the subway in 1923
which brought the urban masses, and completion among the
various businesses located there.1
1 Jeffrey Stanton, “Coney Island History Articles.”
http://www.westland.net/coneyisland/histart.htm. the list of rides can be
found at http://www.westland.net/coneyisland/articles/ridelist.htm.
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Figure 1 Boardwalk Carnival ca. 1959 Source: Don Keller
Jacksonville Beach thrived as an entertainment and
carnival-like amusement center for decades before becoming
a bedroom community and part of the City of Jacksonville;
the core of the entertainment district was the boardwalk, a
strip of five blocks along the oceanfront where the city
began in 1885. The boardwalk as an amusement venue
evolved over time but then went into decline in the 1960s
and became something quite different.
Nomenclature changed as people decided to call the
settlement and its streets different names. In 1885, it was
Ruby Beach, named after the daughter of William E. and
Eleanor K. Scull; two years later the Jacksonville & Atlantic
Railroad renamed it Pablo Beach after the river which
separated this barrier island from the mainland to the west.
In 1925, Pablo Beach officials decided to identify more
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closely with Jacksonville, hoping it cash in on its growth and
rising fame. Then, on October 1, 1968, the City of
Jacksonville Beach also became part of the City of
Jacksonville when Duval County and the City of Jacksonville
became one. This confusing political arrangement works but
with problems.
Street names also changed. The founders named
streets, of course, and then town officials named streets
after themselves and after friends when Pablo Beach was
incorporated in 1907. Putnam Avenue became Pablo
Avenue. What is now Beach Boulevard was Duval Avenue,
then Railroad Avenue, and then Mundy Drive. In 1937, in
order to simplify navigation, north-south streets were
numbered as in 1st Street North and 1st Street South. East-
West roads became numbered avenues, north and south
with the exception of Pablo Avenue and the future Beach
Boulevard. Other named streets also exist but are not part of
this story. To help the reader, both names will be given
when necessary.
Fortunately, the Sanborn Map Company created
schematic maps of Pablo Beach for 1903, 1909, 1917, and
1924 for fire insurance purposes. The University of Florida
Digital Map Collection2 serves up these maps at Sanborn
maps for Florida but, unfortunately, uses a presentation
system which does not allow one to download a full map.
Thus, the essay often utilizes snippets. However, the 1903
map, drawn eighteen years after the community was
founded is available. The full image is difficult to read but
one can discern Leon Avenue (now 1st Avenue North),
Putnam Avenue (now Pablo Avenue), Duval Avenue (now
Beach Boulevard), the Ocean View Hotel at the edge of the
beach, the dancing-skating octagonal pavilion (now a
parking lot), and the train depot. The map also shows
existing stores and cottages. The closer up map makes these
details clearer. Photos and postcards help.
2 http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/ufdc/?c=sanborn
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Figure 4 Postcard View Looking West Source: Andrew Bachman
Figure 5 Pablo Beach Train Depot Source: Andrew Bachman
THE TRAIN
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Pablo Beach and the other beach communities came
into existence because the newly-formed Jacksonville &
Atlantic Railroad Company laid tracks from South
Jacksonville on the banks of the St. Johns River eastward
almost to the ocean. To generate passenger traffic, the
company sold lots in the little settlement of Ruby Beach (and
then Pablo Beach) to whomever could afford summer houses
and to the few permanent resident. Housing was also
provided for railroad workers as well as the people who
worked for others or sold things.
Wealthy people traveled to Jacksonville, arriving by
railroad or steamship from more northerly climes to escape
cold and sometimes inclement weather. Situated near the
mouth of the north-flowing, very large St. Johns River, the
county had over 26,000 people in 1890, not much by
modern standards but, Florida was a frontier state and
Jacksonville its metropolis. When tourists tired of the local
delights, they could take passage up the St. Johns River to
the center of the peninsula, enjoying the beautiful flora and
fauna.
Entrepreneurs decided to extend the reach of this
tourist industry by running a little train of the Jacksonville
and Atlantic Railroad to the ocean east of Jacksonville.
Wealthy people, they hoped, would build summer homes on
the beach and day trippers would sustain railroad
operations. After all, it would only be a forty-five minute trip,
much less than a three-hour boat ride to Mayport.
In October, 1883, a contract was let to build the
Jacksonville and Atlantic Railroad between South Jacksonville
and Pablo Beach. There was ferry service across the St.
Johns between Jacksonville and South Jacksonville. On
November 12, 1884, even before the railroad was
completed, lots were 34 lots sold at Ruby Beach
(Jacksonville Beach) bringing the railroad company $7,514.
In order to maximize profits, the lots were quite small, often
50 feet by 100 feet.3 The railroad tracks were narrow, three-
3 George W. Simons, Jr., Report for Jacksonville Beaches Chamber of
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foot gauge and 35 pound rail. The roadbed and track were
completed in December, 1884.
The railroad allowed people and goods to get to the
ocean shore cheaply and quickly when cars and, later, trucks
were rare or expensive. People in Jacksonville could and did
establish summer residences. “Eagledune,” the L’Engle-
Barnett house built in 1887 was one of a dozen houses
scattered near the railroad terminal. Prominent Jacksonville
men George Wilson, W. A. MacDuff, S. B. Hubbard, P.
McQuaid, J. W. Shoemaker, and others had houses. Tom
Cashen was one of the early residents of Pablo Beach but
built a house on the oceanfront away from the others in
what is now Neptune Beach. General Francis Spinner, former
U.S. Treasurer, lived at Pablo Beach in a tent for about two
years—1885-87—because he said it was good for his health.
Spinner was the father-in-law of Shoemaker, the first cashier
of the First National Bank of Florida. By 1895, Jacksonville
residents had seventy summer cottages there.4
The little railroad became more important when
Henry M. Flagler bought the Jacksonville and Atlantic
Railway Company in 1899 and changed the narrow gauge,
light rail track to standard gauge track with 60-pound rails,
thus making it compatible to the railroads in the country. In
other words, he made the railroad to Pablo Beach part of the
FEC system and the national train network. He extended the
line to Mayport in 1900, and built a railroad bridge across
the St. Johns River between Jacksonville and South
Jacksonville. Moreover, he built a luxury hotel, the
Continental, in Atlantic Beach, opening up that part of the
Commerce, 1944, p.10 comments on the very small lots in Pablo/Jacksonville
Beach. T. Frederick Davis, History of Jacksonville Florida and Vicinity 1513 to
1924 . (Jacksonville, 1925), p. 350, writes of the railroad and real estate.
4 “Ancient History at Beaches Is Recalled As
Landmark Will Be Razed for Modern Buildings,”
Florida Times-Union, 1935; S. Paul Brown, Book of
Jacksonville: A History,(Poughkeepsie, NY: A. V.
Haight, 1895). p. 144.
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beaches at the turn of the century.
Without adequate transportation the Jacksonville
beaches would have remained sand barrens on a barrier
island. People from Jacksonville first had to cross the mighty
St. Johns River by ferry until the bridge was completed in
1921 to South Jacksonville and then sixteen miles across
creeks and swamps until they reached the ocean. Travel on
foot or by a wagon pulled by horse or mule were possible
but not probable. They came and went by train. It chugged
along several times a day carrying passengers and freight to
and from the big city. Its right of way approached within
walking distance of the oceanfront before turning north (at
what became Second Street North) on its way to Atlantic
Beach and then Mayport. Most of the passenger traffic
occurred in the summer, of course, carrying people to enjoy
sun, surf, eats, drink, and the fun and games of the
boardwalk.
BURNSIDE BEACH
Burnside Beach was its potential rival. Located near
Mayport on the south bank of the St. Johns River at its
easternmost point where the river met the Atlantic Ocean,
Burnside could be reached by sea, river, and railroad.
Mayport was an established and important settlement east
of Jacksonville. The arrival of two railroads, the Jacksonville
& Atlantic, and, in May, 1888, the short-lived Jacksonville,
Mayport, and Pablo Railway and Navigation Company (JMP),
seemed to promise a bright future for the little resort.
Nearby Mayport was a thriving settlement with a fine port.
Prior to the railroads, it was a three-hour boat trip to
Mayport, limiting the number of tourists; the railroads
reduced the time and should have brought more people to
Burnside.
Bad luck, undercapitalization, and competition made
Burnside only a stop on its way to and from Mayport on the
route of the Florida East Coast train. The JMP developed a
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bad reputation almost immediately when it got bogged in
sand and passengers had to alight and push. It became
known as the Jump, Man, and Push, a sobriquet that it
never lived down. Arlington, its western terminus, was very
small with bad connections across the river to Jacksonville.
Alexander Wallace, its founder, died in 1889; the JMP went
bankrupt. In March, 1892, the JMP was bought out and its
terminus moved from Arlington to South Jacksonville, but its
financial troubles continued. There was not enough traffic
for two railroads to Mayport and it could not compete with
the Jacksonville and Atlantic Railroad. The hotels, the San
Diego Hotel, the pre-Civil War Burnside House, and the new
4-story Palmetto Hotel were destroyed by fire in 1889 as
was the beach pavilion. Pablo Beach surged ahead with the
backing of the Jacksonville and Atlantic railroad and the
Florida East Coast Railway after Henry M. Flagler bought the
J&A in 1899, modernized it, built a railroad bridge across the
St. Johns River to connect Jacksonville and South
Jacksonville, and built dock facilities at Mayport where he
imported coal for his trains. Worse, for Burnside and
Mayport, he established Atlantic Beach a few miles south
and built the luxury Continental Hotel there to cater to the
wealthy.
Although a paved highway was built from the City of
South Jacksonville to Atlantic Beach in 1910, very few people
had automobiles. Henry Ford figured out how to mass
produce them and pay his workers enough so they could
afford to buy them. In 1910, there were only 468,500
registered cars in the United States for a population of
91,972,266 people or half of one percent of the population.
By 1940, the population had risen 131,954,000, the number
27,465,000 or about 21% of the population owned a car. By
1950, 52% of families owned a car but only 7% owned two
or more. By 1960, 62% did with 15% owning two or more
cars 5 the new highway to the beach made getting there
5 The Statistical History of the United States: From Colonial Times to the
Present. (New York: Basic Books, 1976), 8, 716-17. Burton Parker,
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easier but few people owned cars over a decade later. The
little railroad sped people to the beaches in forty-five
minutes but the mass production of automobiles in the
1920s and their use in the Jacksonville area doomed the FEC
railroad beach branch. The company abandoned it in 1932
during the Great Depression. So the railroad was the key to
development in the pre-automobile age but it had to
generate settlement and traffic.
HOTELS
The Jacksonville and Atlantic Railroad company built a
pavilion at the beach to attract passengers to the beach. The
pavilion had a 64’ by 105’ floor for dancing and roller
skating. The contract with James F. Woodworth called for
the construction to be completed by October 1, 1885 for
$3,980 but work was delayed by heavy rains and difficulty in
getting materials to the site in a timely fashion. Railroaders
were partly to blame but so were suppliers. The workers
were paid $1.25 a day, a decent wage when working men
earned $400 a year on average. The pavilion was finished
November 18th, much later than the contract had specified
and the contractor tried to collect extra money because he
asserted that the J&A had caused the delays by untimely
delivery of materials which cost him more in labor.6
The luxurious Murray Hall Hotel was occupied even
before it opened in 1887. During July 5-10, 1885 it was used
for the encampment of state troops, not long enough to
make a difference. The hotel cost $150,000 and had 192
“Value Of Autos Shown At Garden; Expert Estimates That 350,000 Motor
Cars Are Now in Use in the United States,” New York Times, January 9,
1911, P. 10.
6 October 29, 1885, Florida Times-Union; Jacksonville & A. R. Co. v.
Woodworth. (Supreme Court of Florida. Aug. 18, 1890).
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rooms or a 350-guest capacity. Steam heated the hotel but
it also had 58 open fireplaces, a danger in a wooden building
in a settlement without fire protection. The Hotel generated
electricity for itself and the rest of Pablo Beach. Its artesian
well supplied the city until 1918. For entertainment, it had a
children’s playroom, a billiard room, bar, and an orchestra
for its ballroom. John G. Christopher, a powerhouse
Jacksonville businessman who had pioneered electrical
generating plants in Florida and brought the telephone to
Jacksonville, dreamed of attracting the wealthy in both
summer and winter. One could telephone Jacksonville from
the hotel.
Nevertheless, the hotel was a financial disaster.
Christopher hired C. H. French to manage it; the he and his
wife managed it in 1887 and 1888 before again hiring
someone to try to figure out how to make it profitable.
Figure 6 Murray Hall Hotel, 1988 Source: jacksonvillebeach.org
EARLY POPULATION
Quickly, people and their buildings clustered around
this magnificent structure. In 1887, a directory asserted that
Pablo Beach had one thousand people but listed only 145
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persons. Of these, thirty-three (22.8%) were identified as
African American. The directory lists one baker, two butlers,
a bookkeeper, twenty-nine carpenters, three chambermaids,
two chief cooks, two second cooks, two cooks, three clerks,
a dairyman, fourteen domestics, a drayman for a vegetable
and poultry dealer, a druggist, two grocers who worked at
the James E. Dickerson grocery and dry goods store, a
headwaiter, five hostlers, two janitors , a laborer, three
laundresses, two livery stable employees, two managers, a
nurse, two painters, five porters, a real estate agent, a
railroad section foreman, a servant, a storekeeper, a railroad
superintendent, and three waiters. The “highest ranking”
member of the tiny community was James M. Schumacher,
President of the Jacksonville & Atlantic Railroad and the First
National Bank, but, surely, he resided in Jacksonville and
only had a cottage in Pablo. Eight people, at least, either
worked for the railroad or its bathhouse. Spinner was not
listed in the directory. There were owners—R. M. Call of Call
& Jones, lawyers in Jacksonville, John G. Christopher of the
Murray Hall Hotel, John Clark of John Clark & Son who was a
wholesale and retail grocer as well as a dealer in soap, coal,
champagne, and hotel supplies, W. N. Emery of the Hotel
Pablo, Samuel B. Hubbard of the S. B. Hubbard & Company,
President of the American Illuminating Company, VP of
Jacksonville & Atlantic Railroad, president of the Citizen Gas
Light Company, and other businesses; Thomas McMurray of
McMurray livery stable, and Mrs. Jane R. Mahoney of the
Atlantic Restaurant. Patrick McQuaid was mayor of
Jacksonville and an agent of a firm which sold manure and
grains. Two were two lawyers (one was a notary public; one
was John M. Barrs, Secretary of the Jacksonville & Atlantic
Railroad and law partner of Duncan U. Fletcher, who would
be mayor of Jacksonville, a U.S. Senator, and the namesake
of the Beaches high school in 1937. Most were workers,
however, people living in Pablo Beach to provide services to
the wealthy and to visitors. Most resided there throughout
the year since they could ill afford to own two homes or to
commute. How many resided there year round is not known.
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The name listed might represent a single individual (except
when identified as Miss) or a family. Richard’s says the
population was one thousand, unlikely unless he counted
summer population from cottagers and tourists.7 The U.S.
census in 1890 counted 282 people, 257 in the town.
The Murray Hall and surrounding buildings burned to
the ground as a result of a boiler room fire on August 7th,
1890. Reports attest to the spectacular sight as the middle
of the night fire lit up the sky; the blaze could be seen for
miles. As Dwight Wilson says:
“The building created a fire storm, and the Ocean
View Hotel, a block away, was almost destroyed.
Pryor’s Grocery burned. The railroad station, the
pavilion, the two pagodas, the sheds, some homes,
the wooden bulkhead and a box car were all
destroyed. Sheet metal from the roof fell 600 feet
from the fire. Railroad rails for a hundred feet twisted and
curled.”
John S. Christopher and wife lost $225,000 less the $4,000
insurance but Mrs. Christopher was relieved that the
financial albatross died. The railroad company lost its
pavilion and terminal but fared better, losing only $500 after
its $5,500 insurance policy was paid. The lessee, J. W.
Campbell, owner of the St James Hotel in Jacksonville, lost
little. 8
Besides the Murray Hall, there was the Hotel Pablo on
what is now 2nd Avenue South and 2nd South (then Orange
Street). The hotel was close to the ocean. It was more
7 Richard’s Jacksonville City Directory 1887. Webb’s Jacksonville &
Consolidated Directory, 1887 http://jpl.coj.net/dlc/florida/rbmp/cd/1887/index.html. 8 James C. Craig, “Murray Hall,” Jacksonville Historical Society Papers,
Vol. III, 1954. Dwight Wilson, drawing heavily upon Craig’s work,
provides an account of the attempts to create luxury hotels on the ocean shore. See “The Murray Hall and the Continental: Our World-Famous
Hotels of Yesteryear,” Tidings Vol. 13, no. 1 Winter 1992; “A Jacksonville Hotel Burned,” New York Times, August 8, 1890.
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modest but did a substantial business until it was consumed
by fire.
Figure 7 Hotel Pablo Source: BAHS
EARLY VISITORS TO PABLO BEACH
Summer residents and day trippers shared Pablo
Beach with other visitors. The Florida State Troops camped
at Pablo Beach in 1886 in the troop’s first encampment. “The
summer encampments, each only an average of five to nine
days long, in addition to greatly increased federal aid, seem
to be responsible for the rapid improvement in the
proficiency and skill of Florida’s State Troops after 1891.”9
Lady Howard gushes about the charms of Pablo
9Robert Hawk, “Florida's Militia and State Troops 1865 – 1898,” Florida
Guard Online.
http://www.floridaguard.army.mil/history/army.aspx?id=300&terms=p
ablo+beach.
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Beach when she stopped there on her North American tour
in the late 1890s. Her comments deserve quotation at
length.
After hurriedly breakfasting at a restaurant, G. went
on by train to St. Augustine, whilst I hurried down to
the ferry-boat across the wide Matanzas River—
starting on its further side at once, by the Jacksonville
and Atlantic railroad, to Pablo Beach— one of the
most charming seaside nooks I know. The train runs
across the island, through seventeen miles of the
sunniest and most delightful forest of tall pines, with
a luxuriant undergrowth of palmetto and wild fruit
trees, cleared at rare intervals for plantations of
orange, lemon, fig, and pomegranate— 'wild roses
and flowering creepers abounding.
Within a mile or two of the sea the forest has been
cleared, but the dense and brilliantly-green mass of
palmetto still decks the open space, though which the
train runs to the very edge of the moderate cliff
overhanging the sparkling blue Atlantic ocean, with
magnificent sands, ideal for bathing, stretching away
to right and left into far distance.
These sands are delightful for walking, riding, or
driving—the heaviest wagon makes no mark—and
many are the delicate and lovely shells to be found.
The cliffs are of richly-coloured yellow, pink, and red
sandstone, crowned with the vividly-green palmetto.
I thought it an enchanting spot—at any rate for one
day—and more than one day it is, at present,
impossible to spend there ; for no sooner rises, with
American quickness, a fine hotel, then comes the
incendiary and burns it down. Two hotels which I was
told were worthy to compare with the best had been
burnt, one after another, within the previous year;
and so surely does this happen, not only here but in
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many other resorts, that the insurance companies, in
places where for some reason new hotels seem not to
be desired, decline any longer to effect insurance, the
fire-doom being next to a certainty.
Many of the well-to-do of Jacksonville have charming
villas here, built (as is often the case in America)
several feet above the ground, resting on short
square pillars of brick or stone, the air circulating
freely beneath—a good way of keeping houses dry.
The villas themselves are mostly of wood with wide
verandas covered with gay creepers and plants in
pots, roses twining round the supporting pillars.
These flowery verandas are all over Florida the great
ornament of the houses, and are furnished with
comfortable rocking-chairs, much used by the
dwellers.
I spent a long delightful day here wandering about
revelling in sunshine,, and had an excellent tea at a
charming little cottage, one mass of creepers and
flowers, close to the sea, to which day visitors were
directed; after which, late in the afternoon, the train
returned to the ferry, where I wandered about for
some time amidst charming villas and gardens and
orange groves of great size, grand pines and giant
cypresses with their drapery of Spanish moss, before
re-crossing the ferry into Jacksonville ; whence at 8
p.m. I started by train for St. Augustine, arriving at 10
p.m., and joined G. at the Cordoba Hotel, in the
grand plaza, which is beautifully laid out with lawns,
fountains, and palms, orange and lemon trees, and
beds of dazzling flowers; one whole side occupied by
the huge and magnificent hotel " Ponce de Leon," and
another by the almost equally splendid " Alcazar"—
neither of these yet open for the winter—and other
fine buildings and villas embowered in flowers and
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gardens. In short, nothing of its kind could be finer or
more gay.10
The hotels she mentions were the Murray Hall and the
Pablo.
J. M. Hawks, a medical doctor, visited the area in
1887 and found seventy-five “good-sized buildings and
several hotels.” The railroad would make this a good
summer report, he opined, but he found Mayport, much of
it sitting on dunes, to be a popular watering place with
almost one hundred cottages owned by Jacksonville
businessmen for summer use.11
The 1888 Yellow Fever epidemic in Jacksonville
helped Pablo Beach because it had no cases originate there.
Swamps had been drained and the breezes helped reduce
the mosquito population. Railroad traffic from South
Jacksonville was closely monitored so as to prevent the
spread of the dreaded disease. Roads were improved. The
community developed a reputation as a healthy place to live.
OCEAN VIEW HOTEL
By 1896, the Murray Hall was replaced by the Ocean
View Hotel. It occupied the same spot as the Murray Hall at
the foot of Putnam Avenue [Pablo Avenue]. It had an
adjoining public bath house to serve clients from elsewhere
who needed to rent a bathing suit and a place to change
clothes. This wood frame structure was the very popular
anchor of the boardwalk. W. H. Adams, Sr. acquired it in
1903 and added a billiard room, bowling alley, shooting
gallery, and a drug store. Both the water system and the
10 Winefred , Lady Howard of Glossop, Journal of a tour in the United
States, Canada and Mexico. (London: S. Low, Marston, 1897), pp. 230-
2.
11 J. M. Hawks ,The East Coast of Florida: A Descriptive Narrative (Lynn,
Massachusetts: Lewis & Winship, 1887), p. 53,
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telephone exchange operated from its premises. Until it
burned in 1926, taking much of downtown and parts of the
boardwalk with it, most images of the boardwalk included
it.12 Soon, Adams replaced it with the Ocean View Pavilion
amusement area; the roller coaster would be built there.
Figure 8 Ocean View Hotel Source: Jacksonville Public Library
12 It is not clear when the hotel was built. Bill Foley, “What Next After
Fire? Beaches Parties On,” Florida Times-Union, August 15, 1997, says
that the Ocean View was 30 when it burned in 1926. That would date it
from 1896. Sidney Johnston, The Historic Architectural Resources of the
Beaches Area: A Study of Atlantic Beach, Jacksonville Beach, and
Neptune Beach, Florida. Jacksonville, FL: Environmental Services, Inc.,
July, 2003, p. 52.
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Figure 9 Front Verandah Source: Laurie Adams Crowson
Figure 10 Beach and Ocean View Hotel Source: Laurie Adams Crowson
22
Figure 11 Pablo Avenue, Walkway, Pavilion Source: Florida Memory
The Pavilion on the right was built in 1905. A decade
later it would become the core of Little Coney Island, a huge
amusement park covering almost an entire city block. The
two bath houses are connected to the pavilion. In the photo,
the ocean is in the background while the Pablo Beach
business district is on the left. The Ocean View Hotel is in
the distant background, the last structure on the left. The
walkway pralleling Putnam (Pablo) Avenue) ran from
Boulevard (First Street North) to the beach sand. The
photograph was taken about 1909.
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Figure 12 Little Coney Island and Ocean View Hotel Source: BAHS
SPANISH AMERICAN WAR
Before Pablo Beach became a serious amusement
locale, the United States Army used it for a few months in
1898. The Army sent troops to camp at the beach and
established a convalescent Army hospital on August 2, 1898.
The Red Cross had to supply furniture, bed linens,
medicines, and other items to this hospital because the Army
was ill-prepared.13 The photo below shows tents west of the
Pavilion, its bathhouses, and the Ocean View Hotel. The
Third Nebraska Regiment was led by Colonel William
Jennings Bryan (the Democratic Party candidate for
President in 1896, 1900, and 1908). Bryan was sent to Pablo
Beach so he couldn’t participate in the war.
The 2nd New Jersey was encamped there, some of its
members were sick.14 One died in the surf. Most of the
troops never saw action in Cuba. They had been sent to
13 Clara Barton, The Red Cross in Peace and War (American Historical Press,
1898), pp. 461ff.
14 New York Times, September 25, 1898.
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Pablo Beach and Jacksonville to become acclimated to a hot,
humid climate or because they had fallen ill. The Second
Virginia Volunteers found a long rattlesnake with 17 buttons,
indicating that the wild was very close to the beach. They
had little to do.
Figure 13 The 2nd Virginia Volunteers Source: Florida Memory
“On September 9 the men were ordered from Panama
Park [in Jacksonville] to Pablo Beach. It was a
welcome change because it was the location of a
small summer resort. The 3rd Nebraska now pitched
its tents near one of the best beaches in the country.
Of course it proved too good to be true, and the
resort atmosphere came to an abrupt end when Pablo
Beach was graced with the worst storms of the year.
Tents were blown away and a nearby creek [Bontall
Creek] swelled to river proportions with a river-sized
current to match. In this disaster Lieutenant Ohlheiser
was noted for his cool head as he calmly led the men
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out of the waist-deep water to town without a single
soldier lost.”15
Figure 14 Ocean View Hotel and the Pavilion Source: Florida Memory
15 David Ott, “Remember the Maine! Adam County’s Involvement in the
Spanish-American War.
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~neadams/spanish.htm
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Figure 15 2nd Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry Source: H. W. Bolton
Figure 16 Drilling on Pablo Beach Source: Florida Memory
Residents liked having the Army spending money and
providing some excitement to an otherwise humdrum life by
the shore. They lobbied the War Department to extend the
stay of the troops and succeeded.16 This valuable lesson of
16 H. W. Bolton, ed., History of the Second Regiment Illinois Voluntary Infantry
(Chicago: R. R. Donnelley, 1899), pp.328-9.
27
being at least partially dependent on U.S. taxpayer money in
the form of the military was learned; they would follow this
precedent several times until the area became one of the
major US military establishments in the country. Units
present included the 2nd Virginia, 3rd Nebraska, 2nd New
Jersey, and the 49th Iowa, a cross-section of the United
States. The camp closed by November 15th, 1898.
RISE OF TOURISM
By the end of 1898, a wooden walkway (boardwalk)
would be built from the end of Putnam (Pablo) Avenue to
the beach. The photo taken in 1909 or 1910 shows the
wooden walkway to the beach with the Dance Pavilion and
bath houses on the right (south). The street is Putnam
(Pablo; at the end is the Ocean View hotel.
The dunes or hummocks so characteristic of the area
disappeared as men flattened them to erect buildings and
ease access to the beach and ocean. Some businesses, such
as the Ocean View Hotel, provided a walkway so its guests
could sit and watch the seaside sights or walk along. Not
many years passed until a boardwalk was built in front of
oceanfront businesses. By the 1920s, not only was there a
boardwalk but also wooden platforms that hosted rides in
some places.
Figure 17 Beach scene with boardwalk, 1920s. Source: Coveman
28
Figure 18 Pablo Beach Restaurant, 1910 Source: Mabry Archive
Some of the entertainment in the little resort village
was clandestine; prostitution existed in Pablo Beach near the
boardwalk as early as 1904 when Cora Crane ran a brothel. .
Ralph Emery of The Jacksonville Story17 Web site told the
following story:
17Glenn Emery, “Cora Crane’s Palmetto House,” The Jacksonville Story,
http://tinyurl.com/no923n.
29
Yesteryear's beachgoers didn't show much skin at
Pablo Beach (Jacksonville Beach). This postcard
dates from around 1910. The people in it evinced a
modesty that probably wasn't present in Palmetto
Lodge, an oceanfront bordello. The Lodge functioned
as the Pablo branch of the Court, Cora Crane's house
of ill repute in Jacksonville. The proprietress built the
surfside brothel in August 1905, and it stayed in
business for three years. Patrons partook of its
offerings within a roomy, two-story frame house with
wide screened porches. Cora split her time between
an apartment at the Court and one at the branch.
She eventually died at the Lodge.
When on the beach in public, Cora dressed like many
of the other women in long black stockings and skirts
below the knees. In fact, she displayed even less
skin. The madam kept each arm covered with a scarf
tied around it, and she donned a wide shade hat
secured under her chin by an elastic band.
The jetties proved a favorite haunt for Cora while
surfside. With a small group of her ladies and their
young boyfriends, she would picnic and fish for crab,
leaving only when the sun sank low in the sky.
30
Palmetto Lodge sold its services to the more
adventurous beachgoers. When lightning struck the
building on July 20, 1907, no doubt some local
residents saw it as the hand of a vengeful God. Just
two months before at Mayport, Cora's husband
Hammond McNeil had killed a teenager he suspected
of being his wife's lover. And, of course, the
unsavory activity at the Lodge inflamed conservative
townsfolk. Here's how the Florida Times-Union
described the zapping of Cora's establishment:
"STRUCK BY LIGHTNING -- House at Pablo Beach
Badly Damaged Yesterday; Roof, Walls and Ceilings
Demolished; Young Woman Stunned. ~
Passengers arriving from Pablo Beach last night
reported that a house was struck by lightning at that
place during a severe thunderstorm yesterday
afternoon, and was badly damaged.
Those reporting the occurrence said that the house
belonged to Cora Taylor of this city and that it is a
large, two-story house situated north of the Ocean
View Hotel.
Lightning struck the roof of the house, tearing away
a large portion of the roof and two corners of the
building; (it) tore out the ceiling and demolished a
large portion of the furniture.
One young woman, whose name was not given, was
reported to have been badly stunned but was
restored to consciousness by Dr. Jackson and Dr.
Denton (spelling?), who were called to attend her,
and was reported as getting along very well at the
time the train left the beach.
So far as known, no other damage was done by the
lightning at the beach."
31
Cora Crane Taylor died September 4, 1910, the Sunday
before Labor Day, at age 46. A generous person, she had
overexerted herself by helping push a car out of the beach
sand. One doubts that prostitution ended with her death but
records about it do not exist.
The village grew into a town and was incorporated as
such in 1907. It was much smaller than it would be in 1925
when it became Jacksonville Beach. It did not include what
would become Neptune Beach in 1931. Pablo had reached
326 residents in 1900 according to the US Census Bureau;
by 1910, it only had 249 in the incorporated area but there
were a few hundred more scattered neat the two limits.
Even by 1925, the Florida State Census only showed 744
inhabitants. Bounded on the east by the ocean, it stretched
west to 10th Street, to the north to Wakulla Avenue [15th
Avenue North] and south to Hillsboro Avenue [15th Avenue
South]. In fact, settlement was confined to a few blocks
near the Ocean View Hotel. African Americans, however,
tended to live southwest of the railroad station in an area
which became known as “The Hill.” African Americans could
only use Manhattan Beach, miles north near the mouth of
the St. Johns and now encapsulated by Kathryn Abby Hanna
Park. They did not work in the family-owned businesses on
the boardwalk. If they did, they were invisible.18
18 Manhattan Beach was provided by Flagler’s Florida East Coast railroad
for its African American workers. The Atlantic Beach Corporation
acquired it from the FEC and then Harcourt Bull took over. Bull leased
land to business people and resisted pressure for years from white to drive blacks away. Eventually, the state bought the land to make it a
state park. Letter of J. H. Payne, Atlantic Beach Corporation to FEC vice president J. P. Beckwith. October 24, 1914. Letter of Harcourt Bull to
Lucy Bunch, June 6, 1917. Letter of Harcourt Bull to David Mayfield, February 17, 1920, turning down an offer to buy the pavilions and promising to keep the beach a resort for African Americans. Harcourt Bull
to Joseph W. Davin letter, November 24, 1932; Rogers & Towers letter to
Harcourt Bull, January 27, 1933. work s Marsha Dean Phelts, An American Beach for African Americans (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1997), 3-8 devotes a few pages to Manhattan Beach and has some good
photos. However, her chronology does not always jibe with my research in original sources.
32
Figure 19 Looking East Source: Andrew Bachman
Pablo entered the automobile age, so to speak, when
a paved road was completed in 1910 from South Jacksonville
to the intersection of Atlantic Beach and the Neptune section
of Pablo Beach at the oceanfront. Today’s Atlantic Boulevard
was a marvel at a time when Florida enjoyed few paved
roads. One still had to drive a few miles south to downtown
Pablo but one could drive there on the beach when the tide
was right. The hard-packed sand was suitable for automobile
racing at low tide when the beach was 600 feet wide. Racing
on the beach started in 1906 and continued through 1911.
The five-mile course from Atlantic Beach to Pablo Beach saw
a new world record established in August, 1911when an “E-
M-F 30” ran the course in 4.20 minutes beating a Chevrolet
which had held the previous record at 4.27.19
19 New York Times, August 9, 1911. Randal L. Hall, “Before NASCAR: the
corporate and civic promotion of automobile racing in the American
South, 1903-1927, “Journal of Southern History, August, 2002.
33
LIFE GUARDS
Playing in the ocean was one of the chief draws of
the resort and on which the boardwalk depended but poor
or careless swimmers could get in trouble from the pounding
waves or riptides. By 1912, a Volunteer Life Savings Corps
was organized. The following incident and its legal
ramifications made the existence of a corps more
imperative.
“The drowning of a young nurse in the summer of
1912 prompted Clarence McDonald, then supervisor
of public recreation for Jacksonville, and Lyman
Haskell, a lifesaving teacher from the YMCA, to
quickly recruit, train and organize young men to
volunteer their time to guard swimmers at the
increasingly popular Pablo Beach.”20
W. H. Adams, owner of the Ocean View, was sued for
$50,000 by the estate of Mary E. Proctor, who had rented a
bathing suit, changed in his bathhouse, and drowned in the
ocean on July 7th, 1912. The court ruled that Adams did not
own the Atlantic Ocean and, thus, was not liable.21 Tourists,
who often did not understand the vagaries of the sea,
needed help. Death by downing discouraged visitors. In
April, 1913, the town of Pablo Beach gave the corps the
building shown below. A year later the American Red Cross
absorbed the Volunteer Corps as part of its Water Safety
Program. It still exists. The Life Guards began using the
now-famous Walters’ Torpedo buoy in 1919 which made it
easier and safer to rescue distressed swimmers.22
20 Maggie FitzRoy, “Lifeguards Going Strong,” Shorelines, Saturday, August 3,
2002. 21 The Southern Reporter, Vol. 66, (St. Paul: West Publishing Company,
1915),p. 990.
22 “Torpedolike Buoy Is Efficient Life-Saver,” Popular Mechanics, Vol. 35,
No. 3 (March, 1921).
35
Figure 21 Life Saving Corps, 1913 Source: Pablo Improvement Co.
The American Red Cross Volunteer Life Saving Corps
station was a concrete, visible reminder that visitors to the
36
beach would be protected. Over the years, different stations
were built to meet the needs of the corps but always in the
same spot. The current station, built in 1946, is a much
photographed beach icon. The Corps, of course, only
protected surf bathers once they hit the water,
Figure 22 Life Guard Station, 1989 Photo: Don Mabry
LITTLE CONEY ISLAND
Prosperity for Pablo Beach depended on enticing
people to come to Pablo Beach and spend so Beach
entrepreneurs mimicked what they saw in New York. Pablo
Beach businessmen had built hotels, bath houses, beer halls,
shooting galleries, and the like. In 1916, the Pablo
Development and Power Company started adding on to the
Pavilion to create Little Coney Island. Situated on the
southwest corner of Pablo Avenue and First Street with a
wooden walkway to the beach, it was the area’s first
37
amusement park. Unfortunately, records of the enterprise
are scarce but we do know the following.
An Englishman, Charles Henry Mann who moved to
Jacksonville in 1883 was the president of the Pablo
Development and Power Company. In1892 at age sixteen,
he began a hide and skin business, the Southern Hide and
Skin Company, and eventually the American Oak and
Leather Training Company. In addition, by 1909, he was
vice-president of Citizens Bank and vice-president of Welaka
Mineral Water Company which was incorporated on
November 15, 1907. D. E. Fletcher23 was president and
H.C.D. Williams was secretary. The mineral water company
attracted people to its “healing mineral waters” upstream
from Jacksonville on the St. Johns River. Governor Napoleon
Broward appointed him to the town council of Pablo Beach
when it was incorporated in 1907. Mann bought a lot of real
estate between 1892 and-1909. A Pablo Beach street was
named for him 24
Charles Henry Mann
Figure 23 Charles Henry Mann Source: Makers of America
23 This may have been Duncan U. Fletcher; there is no D. E. Fletcher in
the Jacksonville city directory in that era. 24 “Charles Henry Mann,” Makers of America: An Historical and Biographical Work by an Able Corps of Writers. By Florida Historical
Society (Jacksonville, Fla.). Published by A. B. Caldwell., 1909., pp. 399-400.
38
Little Coney Island was a large amusement park, a
destination for tourists. The Sanborn Fire Insurance
Company map for 1917 shows Little Coney Island with a
bowling alley, a dance floor, a pool room, concession stands,
stores, and a roller skating rink.25 The 1924 map of the area
around Little Coney Island shows the Life Guard Station
across the street and on the shore, a Pavilion at the eastern
terminus of what is now Beach Boulevard, the Ocean View
Hotel in the upper right hand corner, and City Hall and the
Fire Department on 2nd Street North. Photographs from the
1920s show its existence along with the development of the
boardwalk proper.
25 Johnston, p. 53.
41
Figure 26 Postcard of Pavilion Source: Jacksonville Public Library
Little Coney Island, massive as it was, aged badly,
being wooden and buffeted by the constant winds of the
ocean. The Beach News & Advertiser reported on January
26, 1924 that it had been condemned. Razing the building
was a protracted affair with a contract let at the end of
March, and being torn down in January, 1925.26
BOARDWALK AND BATH HOUSES
A new entertainment venue but along the oceanfront
was built. By May, 1925, the call for a boardwalk was made
and plans drawn by late September. The City Council balked
against recommendations for the boardwalk and bulkhead 26 “Coney Island Building Condemned,” Beach News & Advertiser,
January 26, 1924; “Contract For Razing Coney Island Building,” Beach
New & Advertiser, March 29, 1924; “Coney Island Building Changes
Hands,” Beach New & Advertiser, January, 24, 1925; and “Coney Island
Building Razed,” Pablo Beach News, January 25, 1926.
42
the following March b, by April, 1927, the boardwalk was
built on one level and was straight.27
Before the boardwalk was a strip along the beach
edge, Mary E. Perkins built a bath house and boarding house
in 1907. That she operated in a male-dominated society
never stopped her. Born in Wisconsin in 1856, she came to
Florida in 1880 with her husband, L. S. Birks. After he died in
1883, she opened a boarding house in Jacksonville to earn
an income. She established her Pablo Beach business in
Pablo Beach in 1907. Before she died on November 19,
1933, she had yielded control of the Perkins Bath House and
Hotel to her daughter Anna Perkins Pursel in 1931. Perkins
started with a two story house facing the ocean where one
could get room and board. Her success meant expanding the
business until it was quite large by 1924. It consisted of
three separate buildings connected by walkways. It was
destroyed by the 1933 boardwalk fire.
Figure 27 Mary E. Perkins Source: John “Wimpy” Sutton
27 Pablo Beach News, May 2, 1925; September 26, 1925; March 15,
1926; and April 11, 1927.
45
Figure 30 Beauty Pageant, 1920s. Source: Florida Memory
Undaunted, Perkins built a new hotel and more
bathhouses. As her great grandson, John “Wimpy” Sutton,
tells the story:
It was to face on the new concrete boardwalk built by
the Works Progress Administration. Below the hotel,
there was space for a restaurant and other forms of
entertainment and, in front of the bath houses, there
were other concessions such as Joe’s Pee Wee Bar
and the shooting gallery. This very popular area on
the oceanfront, between First and Second Avenues
North, would remain part of our family until 1945.28
28 John “Wimpy” Sutton, Papa’s Memoirs. (Jacksonville Beach, FL, privately
printed, 2005).
46
The hotel and bath house were sold to Pete Dickinson, who
owned a large building with his hardware store across the
street; his son Maxwell still owned it in 2009 but had closed
the hotel when national chains better met consumer tastes.
Figure 31 Double View, Perkins Source: Andrew Bachman
Tourists went to Pablo Beach mostly to enjoy the
ocean and its breezes and each other’s company. House
parties were fun for the younger set. Unlike today, their
dress at the beach was similar to what they would wear in
town. Even on the beach getting a suntan was not in the
fashion. These 1917 photos show one house party as well as
its mode of transportation to Pablo Beach. Even though they
were on the sand by the sea, they covered their bodies. The
party may have been in the Hotel Pablo. The porch seems to
be the hotel porch. Even in the 1920s, swim suits were very
modest.
47
Figure 32 House Party, 1917 Source: Mabry Archive
Figure 33 Leaving the house party Source: Mabry Archive
48
Figure 34 Lawrence Gayle and Anna Grant, 1922 Source: Coveman
World War I intervened briefly in 1917-1919 and then
the “Spanish” Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919. Twenty-
eight men, three of whom were African American, out of 357
people at Pablo Beach served. This represented about 40%
of the adult male population. More than this, the number of
tourists declined during the war because of disruption and
also because prices rose rapidly when the US government
began spending lots of money. Jacksonville and Florida in
general, suffered from the ‘Spanish influenza” with
thousands contracting the virus and hundreds dying from it.
“In the fall of 1918, an Ocala, FL man, Mr. Olson, traveled to
Jacksonville, FL for a carpentry job. Jacksonville was
inundated with the flu at the time, and despite a citywide
quarantine and the use of gauze masks, Olson contracted
the flu.” 29 Travel from other states declined as well. Prices
shot up 17.4% in 1917, 18% in 1918, and 14.6% in 1919
29 Mike Leavitt, “Florida State Summit. “Opening Remarks Prepared for
Delivery By the Honorable Mike Leavitt
Secretary of Health and Human Services.” The Great Pandemic of 1918: State
by State. http://www.pandemicflu.gov/index.html.
49
until prices precipitately dropping 10.5% in 1920.30
Pablo Beach gained national fame when military pilots
used the hard-packed sand as an ideal runway for airplanes,
a new phenomenon in the world, as they experimented with
transcontinental flights. On December 22, 1918, Major Albert
D. Smith and three other Army aviators landed on Pablo
Beach in Curtiss JN-4 biplanes. It had taken 18 days from
San Diego. Then, on February 24, 1921, Lt. William Devote
Coney landed at Pablo Beach after making a flight from San
Diego, California in 22 hours, 17 minutes. His return trip
began March 25, but he crashed and died near Cornville,
Louisiana. That same year, Lt James Doolittle left the
Neptune Beach portion of Pablo Beach on a transcontinental
flight to San Diego in 21 hours and 18 minutes.31
The first half of the 1920s was an exciting time for
Pablo Beach. Getting to the beaches became easier on July
1, 1921, when the Jacksonville-St. Johns Bridge (Acosta
Bridge) was opened. Automobiles, trucks, busses, and
pedestrians could cross the St. Johns River without using a
ferry or a train. In 1922, the Town of Pablo Beach became
the City of Pablo Beach. Residents of the Neptune area in
the north considered seceding, however, for they were
separated by several miles of sand dunes of Pablo Beach but
bordered Atlantic Beach which was on the other side of
Atlantic Boulevard.
Pablo Beach became more modern. The Duval County
school board built a new grammar school for whites in 1924,
a school that building served the community for decades.
The Pablo city government started building a new city hall
which was completed in 1926.32 In 1922 and after, the
30 Historical Inflation Rates, 1914-2009,
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/. 31 Johnny Woodhouse, “‘Doolittle Took Up Challenge After Coney Died,” Times
to Remember: A Calendar for 2005. The Beaches Leader, 2004; Davis, 279- 282.
32 Davis, 324, 330; Johnston, p. 59; Bill Foley, “Tough Decision: Boxing or
Swimsuits,? “ Florida Times-Union, June 3, 1998; Johnston, pp. 60-62. The
school was Jacksonville Beach Elementary School which was eventually
demolished. What was the elementary school for African-Americans then was
named Jacksonville Beach Elementary School.
50
beaches communities made a big push to increase tourism.
To encourage this ”industry without chimneys,” they paved
the road between Neptune and Jacksonville Beaches, built
seawalls or bulkheads, and installed street lights to
illuminate areas near the strand. They bridged Bontall Creek
in south Jacksonville Beach. They persuaded the Seminole
Auto Bus Company to provide daily service from Jacksonville
to Pablo Beach via Atlantic Boulevard. On March 14, 1923,
Pablo Beach joined the Jacksonville electricity grid.33 When
the amusement-bathhouse-room rental part was built, the
boardwalk, it was higher than the sand and ocean so steps
had to be built to allow people to move between the two.
The reflective properties of the beach sand meant artificial
shade was desirable and accomplished by palm frond or
other material umbrellas on the beach. Because of cars on
the beach, sunbathers had to be protected by posts.
A swim suit competition was staged at the Pablo
Beach pavilion on June 6, 1924. The American Legion Post #
9 sponsored the Delegation of Mermaids at the Revue of
Modes and there were twenty-five women contestants who
were said to be modeling swimsuits. Pathe News was to film
the event. The suits were borrowed from the Mack Sennet
film studio. Pablo Beach mayor Joe Bussey proclaimed the
day “American Legion Day” and perhaps 7,000 came. A local
woman, Mary Gonzalez, won.
Some beach residents fought the post WWI trends,
believing them immoral. It was the age of alcohol
prohibition, 1919-1933) so the law was on their side but this
was the beach where such niceties were often not observed
when family income was at stake. The late Bill Foley told the
wonderful story of the city government banning shimmying,
dancing cheek-to-cheek, possessing or drinking liquor, or
women wearing anything other than a two piece swim suit
with a skirt at least 12 inches long. The police intended to
enforce these laws to save the youth! The 1924 Charter and
Ordinances of the City of Pablo Beach specified a number of
33 Johnston, p. 59;http://www.jea.com/about/history/100years.asp
51
offences against public order which intended to punish such
as prostitution, discharging firearms, gambling, shimmy or
cheek to cheek dancing, or being homeless.34
Horrors abounded in 1922 when Coronel A.R. Stroup
of the U. S. government and Duval County Sheriff R.E.
Merritt and state officials were determined to keep Pablo
Beach “dry” over Labor Day. That September 4th, they
wanted law-abiding citizens to meet them at the Ocean View
Hotel at 10 AM to organize to prevent the consumption of
booze. Working people from Jacksonville planned to
celebrate their holiday at the beach with picnics, games,
playing in the surf, and drinking. “On Shad's pier the ladies
of labor were opening a week's carnival of wholesome
activity, such as a country store and fortune-telling and
raffles and bake sales and other diversions.” After a nice,
“dry” day of family fun, the authorities would clear the beach
for several miles north of the pier so James E. Doolittle could
try again to make the first cross-country flight. He did.35
Besides booze, marathon dancing on Shad’s pier in
1923 flummoxed city officials. Jimmy Trotter, a band leader,
ran the pier and he decided to stage a marathon dance,
promising a thousand dollars in prizes. The last couple
dancing split $400. There was another marathon dance on
the Ortega pier in Jacksonville but no money was involved.
Provisions were made to take care of the dancers as well as
the crowds which watched. In Pablo, the druggist “Doc“
Russell was on hand and he could call upon the American
Red Cross Volunteer Life Saving Corps if need be. In both
cases, the dancing would inevitably slide over into Sunday, a
sin according some religious types and they demanded that
government enforce their religious beliefs. Sheriff Ham
34 Bill Foley. “Millennium Moment: June 2, 1920: Vexing vixen's shimmy
shocks Pablo Beach,” Florida Times-Union (June 2, 1999). Jack Pate,
“It’s the Law!,” in Beaches Area Historical Society archive, dated 1993-
2004.
35 Bill Foley, “Prelude to history at Pablo on a sober Labor Day, 1922,” Florida Times Union (September 2, 1999).
52
Dowling stopped the Ortega marathon at midnight; Mayor
Joe Bussey did in Pablo. Trotter handed out the prize money
on Monday with Herbert Sachs and Patricia Williams taking
the big money for their 100 hours of dancing. 36
The Ku Klux Klan infected Pablo Beach in the 1920s,
threatening anyone who ignored Klan moralism and small
town-rural Protestant values. This terrorist organization
entered Florida on December 22, 1922 through Jacksonville
with its largest Klavern the Stonewall Jackson No. 1 of
Jacksonville and it “joined other Jacksonville civic groups to
protect city beaches from commercial exploitation.”37 Since
Pablo Beach consisted of small family-owned businesses,
this statement is puzzling. Atlantic Beach to the north was
essentially residential. Mayport and Palm Valley would not
have been considered beach communities. What became
Ponte Vedra Beach was then a very small mining settlement
called Mineral City. It had to be directed at the carnival and
honky-tonk character of the boardwalk and adjacent
businesses.
Part of it was simply that the Klan opposed most
Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Asians, Africans, most
Europeans, urban mores, and African-Americans. People,
including the Pablo Beach police chief, who supported the
Roman Catholic New Yorker for U.S. President in 1928, were
threatened by the Klan. 38
Jacksonville had a very large African America
population but Pablo Beach did not so it was not an anti-
black movement at the beach. Instead, it appears to be a
reaction to the growing tourist industry and the atmosphere
it engenders. Bars (illicit during Prohibition), games and
other amusements, hotels, and a desire for pleasure
36 Bill Foley, “Dancing was so big some refused to stop,” Florida Time-Union
(June 15, 1999) found at http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-
online/stories/061699/nef_allfoley.html
37 David Chalmers, “The Ku Klux Klan in the Sunshine State: The 1920's ,”
Florida Historical Quarterly 42:3, 210-216. 38 Michel Oesterreicher, Pioneer Family: Life on Florida's Twentieth-Century
Frontier. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1996. pp. 91-95.
53
offended those who believed that one should only work, go
to church activities, pray, and stay at home. Businessmen
coped, ignored threats, and got on with the business of
earning a living. They continued to improve the boardwalk.
SHAD’S PIER
Charles Shad led the next major development, the
building of a dance pier jutting from the boardwalk. Martin
G. Williams, Sr., a very successful tailor and men’s clothier in
Jacksonville since 1919, invested in the boardwalk after
becoming fascinated with it and the beach. In time, Williams
would be known as the “Father of the Boardwalk.” Shad and
Williams had joined forces in 1917 to acquire the patent
rights to a sprinkler from Hugh Partridge and to renew the
rights in 1919. Together with Charles Hawkins, they worked
to get permission to build the pier. Williams sold his interests
to Shad and the others.
Shad’s Pier opened on June 8, 1922, providing a place
for visitors and residents alike to dance, relax, and fish. It
was inspired by the Steel Pier on Coney Island in Brooklyn
and that is what the Pablo City Council wanted built but the
cost was prohibitive. U.S. Census Bureau figures explain the
economic limitations. Jacksonville only had 91, 558 people.
Duval County had 113,540. Pablo Beach had only 357. Kings
County, New York (Brooklyn) had 2,018,356 and New York
County (Manhattan) had 2,284,103. Coney Island was then
an island in the southwestern part of Kings County but it
was only a nickel subway ride from Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Millions would visit Coney. So the Council reluctantly had to
settle for Shad’s palmetto pilings and wood.
Shad installed a 10-watt generator and strung lights
to light the entire structure, making it visible for miles. There
was little danger that ships or airplanes would mistake what
it was even though it was twenty-five feet wide and four
hundred feet long with a large dance pavilion, La Brisa (the
breeze), almost at the end. Music floated from the pier as
54
James B. Trotter’s dance band or visiting major bands
played on weekends and juke boxes on weekdays. Shad,
however, died in late 1922, so he never knew how much he
had accomplished. Hawkins and Williams assumed control of
the pier.39
The pier was not static. It was “Trotter’s Pier” after
Shad died, but others owned it subsequently. Storms as well
as age meant repairs had to be made. At one point, the
fishing extension was swept away only to be rebuilt. It
burned in 1937 but was rebuilt. Some old timers said there
was a whirlpool at the end of the pier in the 1920s but that
myth was probably just a reflection of the pier’s iconic
presence at Pablo.
The Jacksonville coast did not suffer direct hits from
hurricanes except in 1964 but hurricanes generate peripheral
winds, rain, and sea surges; more dangerous were the
Northeasters which battered the coast for days in the late
Fall and Winter and could arrive one after another. In 1925,
storms damaged the pier and again in 1932. Fire, the
bugaboo of the old beaches, struck in 1938 and 1949. In
the 1938 fire, Charles W. Hawkins of Jacksonville, the
owner, had insurance. E.W. Compton owned the concession
equipment and furnishings which were lost. The pier was
rebuilt. The 1949 damage was not as bad.40
That first pier was integral to the history of the
39 United States. Patent Office, Official Gazette of the United States
Patent Office. Patent Office Published by The Office, 1919. v. 268, pp.
512. #1,322,466; Martin G. Williams, Jr., “Jacksonville Beach
Boardwalk,” typescript sent to Donald J. Mabry. June, 2009. Beach
News, December 16, 1922. Stone & Webster Journal, Vol. 30 (January,
1922) p. 255. Trina Polkey, “Jacksonville Beach Pier,” GAFF
Magazine, 2008.
http://www.gaffmag.net/articles/jacksonville_beach_pier; Jack
Pate, “The Old Pier, “ Tidings, 20 No. 1 (January 1999).
40 “Pier Burned In Less Than An Hour,” Ocean Beach Reporter,
November 4, 1938.
55
boardwalk from 1922 through the 1961 season. Its entrance
was on the boardwalk between 2nd Avenue North and 3rd
Street North but its long profile out in the water made it
hard to miss. Couples in fancy dress danced to the music of
famous bands in until 1950 or so. Advertising signs
decorated its sides. Signs warning bathers to stay 50 feet
away from the pilings (the barnacles were like razors) were
sometimes ignored. Life Guards and other young men would
dive off the fishing extension during storms because the
high waves gave such a good and dangerous ride to the
shore. Beach teenagers hung out and danced on the pier,
often unbeknownst to their parents. Those who fished loved
its projection into the ocean and were willing to pay the
small fee.
Figure 35 1920s Shad’s Pier Source: Florida Memory
57
Figure 38 Ticket Booth to the fishing extension Source: BAHS
The Florida land boom of the first half of the Twenties
contributed to the prosperity of the beaches but so, too, did
Henry Ford by manufacturing and selling cheap automobiles
to the middle classes. Pablo Beach attracted investment
because more people could buy amusement. In the early
1920s, Martin Williams built a large bathhouse complex on
the boardwalk at 3rd Avenue North across from the pier
entrance, operating it during the season. (See below) The
president of the United Amusement Company, on April 16,
1922, proposed two or more riding devices; tented
attractions of an amusement nature; free seats for the
public; and free admissions to Oceanside Park at Pablo
Beach. Further, he offered to fill the plot used to the level of
First Street; to maintain at all times an orderly and credible
amusement park, and to cooperate with the town
government.41
Fires could not destroy the Casa Marina Hotel, started
in 1925 and opened in 1926, for it was built not of wood but
of masonry. Modest in size it would still exist in 2009 but not
so the Ocean View Hotel which burned in 1926. The Ocean
View Hotel and all about it were gone. Fate picked the night
for a $100,000 fire. The Adams bathhouses, ''numerous''
concession stands, King Tut's theater and restaurant, the
41 Letter, President, United Amusement Company, April 16, 1923 to
Mayor of Pablo Beach, BAHS collection.
58
north boardwalk and the 60-room seaside hotel perished in
the debacle.42 The Casa Marina was just north of the
boardwalk, blocks from the fire’s center.
Figure 39 Williams Bath Houses Source: Sanborn Fire Insurance Co.
42 Bill Foley, “Millennium Moment: July 28, 1926” Florida Times-Union,
July 28, 1999.
59
Figure 40 Casa Marina Hotel, 1925 Source: Jacksonville Public Library
ROLLER COASTER
In August, 1926, W. H. Adams, Sr. created the Ocean
View amusement park on the site of his former hotel and
encouraged the construction of a large roller coaster in 1928
in imitation of Coney Island coasters. John Miller of the Miller
& Rose Amusement Company of Milwaukee built the ride. It
was 93-feet high and its trains reached speeds of 50 miles
per hour. It was 3,168 feet long; its two trains with two cars
with the riders arranged 2 across in 3 rows for a total of 12
riders per train. Although it may have seemed longer for
some passengers, it made the circuit in a minute and one-
half, reaching a speed of fifty miles per hour. The coaster
was huge, dominating the skyline where it could be seen for
miles.43
It was vulnerable to storms and had to be repaired
several times. In 1933, Miller sold it to W. H. Adams, Jr.,
who put Lake R. Peddy in charge. By 1949, the wooden
coaster was increasingly unsafe and was dismantled in 1950
to be replaced by the metal, small “Wild Mouse.” Other rides
and amusements were brought into the space. The Coaster
43 Beach News & Advertiser, August 9, 126; Rollercoaster database.
http://www.rcdb.com/id2891.htm
60
Block complex included restaurants, apparel stores, game
parlors, and other amusements.
Figure 41 Late 1920s-1933 Source: BAHS
Figure 42 Storm Damage probably 1929 Source: BAHS
62
Figure 45 Boardwalk & Pier, 1920s Source: BAHS
Figure 46 The Wild Mouse, 1st Street North (1961) Source: BAHS
63
NEW DEAL
Storms were but one of the many threats to the
boardwalk but merchants could batten down the hatches
with plywood. Fiscal storms battered everyone. The wild,
speculative, real estate and housing bubble of the first half
of the 1920s collapsed by 1926. For Florida, that was the
beginning of the Great Depression. Land and buildings were
sold for back taxes. The Florida East Coast Railway went into
receivership in September, 1931; service to the beaches
ended in 1932, making day trips more difficult for those
without automobiles. Few people owned automobiles. Beach
dwellers were accustomed to meager incomes since most
depended on seasonal work but conditions worsened until
the New Deal began in 1933.
Jacksonville and its beaches became very dependent
on federal spending since 1993 when the New Deal began
and prospered because of it. The liberal New Deal
government of Franklin D. Roosevelt pumped money into
beaches’ infrastructure and spurred a population increase.
Duncan U. Fletcher, liberal Democratic U. S. Senator,
managed to direct U. S. government money to Duval
County, including the beach area. The Works Projects
Administration (WPA) built a concrete seawall and concrete
boardwalk (thus creating a wonderful place to skate when
the tourists had left!). The U.S. government financed most
of the construction costs of Duncan U. Fletcher Junior-Senior
High School in 1936-37, an institution which unified the
white people at all the beaches including those in the St.
Johns County communities of Palm Valley and Ponte Vedra
Beach. The Civilian Conservation Corps and its projects
provided work. In 1940, the Works Progress Administration
completed the concrete sea wall from 16th Avenue South to
37th Avenue South; in 1941, the WPA authorized $170,000
for additional improvements. Governor Dave Sholtz worked
closely with New Deal agencies to garner federal money for
Florida. He established a State Welfare Board, Planning
64
Board and Emergency Relief Administration. As a result,
Jacksonville Beach and Atlantic Beach grew from 1,046
people in 1930 to 5397 in 1940 with the Jacksonville Beach
area leading the way by going from 882 to 3,566 even
though it lost Neptune beach in 1931.
Federal spending and the national debt increased
exponentially in the 1930s through 1945. Herbert Hoover’s
Republican government had increased federal spending from
$3.127 billion to $4.623 billion in 1933, a 47.8% increase.
Roosevelt’s New Deal increased it to $8.858 billion in 1939, a
91.6% increase. Massive federal spending came with World
War II; federal expenditures jumped to $95.184 billion in
1945, the last year of the war! Similarly, in 1929, the
national debt was $16,931,088; in 1933, the national public
debt was $22,538,673, a 33% increase; by 1939, it was
$40,439,532, a 139% increase over 1929 and a 79.4%
increase over 1933. The US borrowed money to fight the
war so the national debt in 1945 was $258,682,187.44 Wars
bring big government.
Federal spending was not the concern of people in
October 1933 when the boardwalk fire occurred. Survival
was. Fire had always been the bête noir of the beaches. The
Ocean View Hotel and neighboring structures had been
consumed only seven years before. This time, however,
following the lead of the Casa Marina Hotel, rebuilding would
be done with concrete. Mary Perkins and Anna Pursel saved
their safe and began rebuilding, contracting with Manuel
Chao, a friend, to do the work. Next door, to the north,
Martin G. Williams lost his oceanfront amusement businesses
but he used his credit to build a new building which
contained Martin’s Grill, a bowling alley, soda fountain, and
luncheonette. W. E. “Monty” Montgomery, Jacksonville
Beach Mayor in 1933-35, took over from his friend Williams
44 The Statistical History of the United States: From Colonial Times to the
Present (NY, Basic Books,1976 ), 1114-1117.
65
to lead the reconstruction effort.45
MARTIN G. WILLIAMS, SR.
Williams, who was Jacksonville Beach mayor in 1929-
33, emerged as the undisputed leader of the boardwalk,
specifically, and the little city’s business class in general. His
story is remarkable. When he arrived at the Beach, there
were about 300 people, no paved streets, and only one or
two sidewalks. He was born on August 22, 1887 in
Maclenny, west of Jacksonville; he and his family moved to
Jacksonville after his father died in 1889. At age 12, he
went to work for the W. R. Grace Company in the daytime
as an office boy and for American Telephone Company at
night in Jacksonville. In 1919, he opened a successful tailor
shop in Jacksonville but spent so much time in Pablo Beach
that he moved there in 1929. Charles Shad was a close
boyhood friend. He decided to build a boardwalk, bath
house, and fishing and amusement pier. He built an arcade
which had been a dance hall leased to Jimmy Trotter, the
orchestra leader. Williams owned an ice company and
various other businesses. Later, he had a miniature golf
course on First Street North.46
45 Montgomery was mayor again in 1937 to 1939, Councilman and
Mayor Pro Tempore from 1943 to 1945; Councilman from 1945 to
1947 and Councilman and Mayor Pro Tempore from 1947 to 1949. His
nephew, Justin Montgomery, would be mayor in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He would be president of the Beaches Chamber of Commerce in
1968. He died in January, 1960. 46 Martin G. Williams, Jr. to the author; The Beaches Leader (March 6,
1969). Williams died on August 20, 1977, a week before his ninetieth birthday.
66
Figure 47 Boardwalk Fire, 1933 Source: BAHS
Figure 48 Boardwalk Fire 1933 Source: BAHS
The devastation was tremendous but the expensive
rebuilding of businesses, the sea wall, the concrete
67
“boardwalk,” and houses generated jobs and sales. People
came to do the work and stayed. New money also brought
visitors from Jacksonville and nearby who wanted a respite
from the daily grind.
Williams understood that the boardwalk and the
beach had to be merchandized through ads, sales,
gimmicks, and free publicity. He owned Martin G. Williams
Tailor Made Suits next to the Florida Theater in downtown
Jacksonville but he worked at night and weekends at his
businesses on the boardwalk from May to September. He
persuaded many of his fellow Jacksonville merchants to let
their employees go to the beach on Thursday afternoons
and beach merchants, including on the boardwalk, to give
them discounts; he promoted these Thursdays via
newspaper ads and flyers. In 1929, he closed the tailor shop
and devoted his time to the beaches.
In cooperation with other boardwalk owners
informally and then through the Boardwalk Association and
Beaches Chamber of Commerce he founded in the 1930s
and early 1940. The group would issue scrip which was
buried in the sand; finders could be redeem it for rides,
games, and food. Bathing beauty contests, started in the
1920s, became common after World War II as sexual mores
changed. In 1946, the “season” was begun with an Opening
Day Parade to draw crowds and to get newspaper coverage.
Whenever possible, officials and groups from other towns,
particular in Georgia, would be invited to participate. He got
the first convention, the Florida State Firemen’s Sixth Annual
convention. to come to Jacksonville Beach by going to the
1930 convention and handing out photos of bathing
beauties; it worked.47
Efforts to attract people to Jacksonville Beach and its
boardwalk not only occurred before and during the summer
season but also at the end as merchants sought to earn a bit
47 “The Leader Salutes: Martin G. Williams, Sr.: Grand Old man of the
Boardwalk, “The Beaches Leader (March 6, 1969). Steve Crosby, “He Was
‘King of the Boardwalk,’” Florida Times-Union, 1977.
68
more before the long eight-month idle period. These
clippings from September, 9, 1935 of the Jacksonville Florida
Times-Union demonstrate the “end of the season” festivities.
The first shows the crowd attending the baby parade
contest; the second the victor of the 6th annual Life Guard
swimming marathon being hoisted by fellow guardsmen;
and the third women in a bathing beauty contest. Their
platform was built perpendicular to the pier.
Figure 49 Closing Day, 1935 Source: Florida Times-Union
69
Figure 50 Boardwalk Looking South Source:
metrojacksonville.com
Figure 51 1936 Boardwalk Looking North Source: metrojacksonville.com
70
Figure 52 Boardwalk Source: metrojacksonville.com
As Martin G. Williams, Jr. remembers “What is vivid in
my mind as a kid (1930-40) were the images of men in
shirts and ties, panama straw hats and ladies wearing
dresses and gloves seated on the Boardwalk benches
enjoying the cool ocean breezes in the evening and the
strollers walking in similar dress.” One can see this formal
style of dress in the photo below.
71
Figure 53 Martin G. Williams Building Source: metrojacksonville.com
The boardwalk and other beach fun places recovered so
much by 1938 that the ministerial alliance of Jacksonville
campaigned against them but to no avail. The beach had
only two sources of income—commuters and tourism—and
was not about impoverish itself because some church people
objected to entertainment establishments. The State of
Florida had legalized horse and dog racing as well as jai alai
after the Depression hit. Other forms of gambling were at
the discretion of the county sheriff. Poker, bingo, slot
machines, roulette wheels and the like on the boardwalk and
nearby bars seemed ordinary. Carl S. Ward, who owned 200
slot machines, filed suit in federal court in the Fall of 1937 in
an effort to get the courts to grant an injunction to stop
sheriffs from seizing slot machines.48 Drinking alcoholic
beverages and dancing at the beach started when the town
was founded. One suspects that adultery and even
prostitution even occurred in some hotels and rented rooms.
After all, the beach was far enough from Jacksonville to
48 “Florida Slot Machine Owner Withdraws Test Case, “St. Petersburg Times,
October 22, 1937. He withdrew the suit, however.
72
afford some privacy.
THE MILITARY RETURNS
Then came the military and war and lots and lots of money.
The Army used Camp Blanding near Jacksonville beginning
in 1939. Florida had been friendly to the New Deal and the
War Department rewarded the state with the Jacksonville
Naval Air Station in 1940 and McDill Air Force Base in 1939.
The Navy passed 10,000-plus pilots and 11,000 air crewman
through JAX NAS during the war. Naval Air Station Cecil Field
came on line in June 1941; by 1943, all Navy pilots went
through Cecil Field before joining either the Atlantic or
Pacific theatre.
To accommodate the visiting service members who
came to enjoy our beaches, a Recreation Camp was
built with the aid of Civil Conservation Corps labor in
Jacksonville Beach on Seventh Avenue North between
Eighth and Ninth streets.
When completed in July 1941, it afforded over 100
shelters on concrete slabs, each with six folding army
cots, where servicemen could be based while on pass
to the beach. Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 135th
Infantry Division maintained the camp and furnished
patrons for the Beaches.
It then became the Combat Training Camp in 1942 in
Atlantic Beach. Much more important was the selection of
the Mayport Naval Auxiliary Station in 1939 and its
commission in December, 1942. In 1943, the Casa Marina
Hotel was leased to the US government to house immigrant
workers and converted into forty-nine apartments. When the
war ended, the Mayport naval base was deactivated until
1948 when it was revived. In 1951, Mayport NAS was
expanded and the channel deepened. The next year, the
first aircraft carrier berthed in Ribault Bay, the carrier basin
that had been developed. In 1955 the Navy added a master
73
jet runway. The base became more important as the United
States fought the Cold War and hot wars in Korea and
Vietnam. It has become one of the three largest US Navy
bases in the country, covering 3,409 acres and is the third
largest US Navy facility in the continental United States. 49
Billions of dollars were spent to operate these bases.
The military acquired land, bought supplies, provided
housing, and all the other necessities to establish small cities
for its personnel. Besides thousands of sailors, soldiers, and
Marines, the military hired civilians. The presence of the
bases increased the demand for social services such as
schools.
In the 1940s and 1950s, most military personnel were
young males; they wanted fun and the beach specialized in
fun. Relief from military discipline might mean traveling and
they did it. Some had never seen an ocean. Some wanted to
enjoy the beauty and beauties on the beach. The USO
helped with loneliness; so, too, did professionals. This
author remembers the 1950s when the bus from Mayport
discharged its passengers at the terminal on 1st Street North
and 6th Avenue and a “sea of white hats,” headed for hotels
and bath houses to change into civvies or to bars or the
boardwalk or all three. An unusual number of youngish
women arrived the day before. Testosterone worked. Sailor
tourism became a mainstay of the boardwalk.
The war ceased to be an abstraction in April, 1942
when a German submarine sank the SS Gulfamerica off the
Jacksonville Beach coast. Boardwalk lights, including those
of the pier, made the SS Gulfamerica a better target but the
captain of the sub, once he surfaced, saw that firing on the
ship would endanger civilians on show and sailed between
the shore and sea before firing. People could see fire; some
49 “The Military Zone.
http://themilitaryzone.com/bases/mayport_naval_station.html;
“Everyone Pitched in For War Effort, “The Beaches Leader, June 29,
2001
74
tried to rescue survivors. The boardwalk lights dimmed.
Then on June 17, 1942, four German saboteurs landed at
Ponte Vedra Beach in Operation Pastorius. Four others had
landed on Long Island on June 13, 1942. The Florida group
included Edward John Kerling, 33; Herbert Hans Haupt, an
American citizen; Werner Thiel; and Herman Neubauer. They
carried boxes of incendiary devices and bombs and money.
They walked the few miles to downtown Jacksonville Beach
and took the bus to Jacksonville where they had a large
breakfast. Two stayed at the Seminole Hotel; the other two
at the Mayflower Hotel. Kerling and Thiel went to New York
City and were arrested on June 24; Haupt and Neubauer
went to Chicago and were arrested on June 27th. One of the
Long Island party ratted out the Florida group before it had
landed. On August 8, 1942, the Ponte Vedra four were
executed.50
Security measures were taken. Blackouts were
required. Dark curtains on the windows and shaded car
lights and, on the boardwalk, more elaborate means of
hiding light. Barriers were installed at ramps to the beach to
hide car lights. Coast Guard patrols became more active.
Passes were required, even of students. Bus passengers to
Jacksonville had to be inspected. Civilian lookouts were
used.
50Leon O. Prior,” Nazi Invasion of Florida!” Florida Historical Quarterly
49:2 ( October 1970 ),129-140; Stan Cohen and Don DeNevi with
Richard Gay, They Came to Destroy America: The FBI Goes to War
against Nazi Spies and Saboteurs before and during World War II
Missoula, MT: Pictorial Histories, 2003; see also Michael Gannon, Florida,
A Short History. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1993, pp. 105-
107.
75
Figure 54 Beach Pass Source: Clint Sykes
City boosters, however, insisted that the growth of
Jacksonville Beach between 1937 and 1942 owed nothing to
wartime spending. Their advertisement in the Beaches
Outlook (Summer, 1944) asserted that the City’s capital and
surplus from $300,000 in 1937 to $1,160,000,000 in 1942,
that private investment had built The Flag, the Bowling
Center, the Baker Bryan Building, the Beach Bank, and the
Sportland Building. The City adopted radio to contact its
police officers, beautified the city park, paved seven miles of
roads and paved two miles of sidewalks, installed sewage
systems, and completed three sea walls. The building total
was one and one-half million dollars.51 True as these
statements were, they ignored the injection of New Deal and
military monies.
The boardwalk survived the war even though its lights 51 BAHS Tidings, Vol. 24, No2,,May 2002
76
had to be dimmed at night. The daytime was no problem, of
course, and tourists could play at night as long as light
emissions towards the sea were controlled. The Flag, owned
by Carl S. Ward and operated by Cecil Summers and Fred
Blas. advertised itself as the South’s Largest Amusement
Center, “Open All Year,” with 14 bowling lanes, billiards,
Bingo, a soda fountain and grill, and games, penny arcade,
pinball machines, and a dance floor (see Figure 36). It was
built between 1937 and 1942 and occupied the city block
between 4th and 5th Avenues North. Originally, Ward had
installed seats for 3,000 for bingo, hoping to earn his
fortune, but had to cut back and install the bowling alley.
Ward was virtually illiterate but could count on his wife to
help. The gambling Club 21, upstairs, was owned by George
MacDonell.
Figure 55 The Flag Source: E. J. MacDonell Taylor
77
The Flag went down in flames. A large part burned on
Tuesday, February 1, 1944 in a fire caused by a short circuit,
but Ward had it rebuilt and open for business the summer of
1944. Then, on Monday, August 17th, it burned completely.
Some say a problem with the neon sign was the cause;
others say it began in the bowling alley. Regardless, Ward
collected the $100,000 insurance. Luckily, the 500 people in
the building escaped without injury and firemen were able to
save neighboring buildings. Some rides were scorched.52
After the Flag burned, W. A. “Buddy” Albury and
Frank Griffin bought the site and installed an amusement
park and the Club 21 was opened further south. This 1948
photo of a bathing beauty contest also shows Club 21 on the
second floor and the sign indicating where the entrance was
can be seen behind the boys on the roof.
52 Billboard, September 1, 1945.
78
Figure 56 Beauty Contest, 1948, With Bobbie MacDonell Source: BAHS
Beauty contests always drew a crowd but so, too, did
motorcycle races, Opening Day Parades, fireworks displays,
and stunts. In the immediate postwar years, amphibian
vehicle (duck) became a popular ride which took people out
into the ocean almost beyond the site of land allowing
passengers to see sea life. Martin G. Williams, Jr. tells of one
famous stunt used to draw crowds to the boardwalk:
One famous 1949 act was Dynamite Jones. He had a
platform out from the Boardwalk. A wire cage
contained a wooden coffin and at 10 p.m. on
Thursday nights Jones would enter with a crash outfit
and helmet. He would climb into the coffin, an
assistant would insert a stick of dynamite into a hole
in the end of the coffin, and light it. When it
exploded, wood and splinters went everywhere in the
wire cage, there was lots of smoke. An assistant
would rush in; at first there was no movement, then
79
finally a hand and arm would come up and they
would assist Jones to his feet; he would wave and
slowly be helped off the platform until the next week.
This was sponsored in August when summer business
slowed and it was at 10 p.m. to keep the crowd at the
Boardwalk.
GAMBLING
Until the crackdown in 1950, gambling was common
on the boardwalk and the beach. Bingo was a popular
gambling pastime. Martin G. Williams had a bingo parlor as
did The Flag and another business. When The Flag
ownership realized that seating 3,000 players was too many,
fourteen bowling lanes were installed in some of the space.
Art Alexander’s mouse game involved betting into which hold
a mouse would go. Martin G. Williams, Jr. said he saw a
man win $500 once. There were three gambling clubs, one
at Club 21 in The Flag. A headquarters for serious gambling
was Kite’s Bar & Grill, owned by Earl and Mary Kite, who ran
a numbers or bolita game. The kingpin of bolita in Florida
was Santo Trafficante, Sr. and then Jr. of Tampa. The Tax
Court of the U.S. penalized the Kites, equal business
partners, for underpayment of taxes in 1943, 1944, 1945,
and 1946 and they appealed. The Fifth Circuit Court of
Appeals ruled against them for each year except 1946 in its
February 4, 1955 decision. “They operated a retail whiskey
business under the name of Kite's Bar, an illegal gambling
operation, an apartment house, a riding stable and a fishing
boat.” The Court ruled that they owed $29,367.94 in back
taxes plus another $ 13,152.50 in penalties for a total of
$42,520.44. The bar was raided on July 1, 1950 as part of a
State Beverage Department push to stop the bolita industry
in Duval County, The Havana Nite Club and Mac’s Bar and
Package Store in Jacksonville were also hit. Bill Foley
reported that “fifty-five persons were arrested and between
80
$30,000 and $50,000 [were] seized.” 53
That was not the end of troubles, for Duval County
Sheriff Rex Sweat, at the urging of Governor Fuller Warren,
closed the games on the boardwalk just before the second
busiest weekend of the season, Labor Day, September 1-4,
1950. The sledgehammer approach threatened the livelihood
of hundreds or more and the fun of thousands. Most of the
games were hardly gambling since one always or almost
always got a prize or required some degree of skill such as
Pull-the String, darts, shooting ranges, throwing a ball at
dolls, and the like. Bingo, if played in hopes of winning a
prize was gambling. So, too, was Art Alexander’s mouse
games where patrons bet on the hole a mouse would dart
into. Betting on cockroach racing was as well. Club 21,
above the mouse game after The Flag burned, was a pool
hall and gambling place; some assert it was a horse parlor.
Herb Shelley, H. A. Prather and Martin G. Williams, president
of the Beaches Chamber of Commerce, appealed to Florida
Attorney General Richard Ervin who ruled that games which
involved some skill in order to win a prize were not gambling
53 Steve Crosby, “He Was ‘King of the Boardwalk,’” Florida Times-Union, 1977. Chauncey Holt, a shady character, said he was sent to the bar to monitor the books and found that Earl Kite was skimming: “Their business was dropping off about $15,000 a week and they figured that Mr. Kite probably had his hand in the till. So we went down there and I stayed there about a month as a book keeper, numbers writer, that sort of thing. And as soon as we found out that, yeah, he was stealing, I moved on.” Holt asserted that Earl Kite was found floating in the surf with a bullet in his brain. “Interview With Chauncey Holt,” http://www.jfkmurdersolved.com/holt1.htm. However, Earl Kite
died in March 1967 at age 70; 217 F.2d 585, 55-1 USTC P 9199. Earl KITE, Petitioner, v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Respondent. Mary B. KITE, Petitioner, v. COMMISSIONER OR INTERNAL REVENUE, Respondent. No. 14936. United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. Feb. 4, 1955, found at http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/217/217.F2d.585.14936.htm; Bill
Foley, “Bolita just didn't have lottery's Respectability,” Florida Times-Union, July 3, 1999, found at http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/070399/nef_allFoley.html.
81
and could reopen Labor Day weekend was saved, but then
the rain came. Operating a giant amusement park was a
gamble itself.54
THE END BEGINS
The year 1949 was a turning point for the boardwalk
although few realized it at the time. It lost its most
distinctive ride, the roller coaster, which was torn down after
the 1949 season in 1950. The Wild Mouse which eventually
replaced it paled by comparison; small amusement parks
could have one. Any amusement park could have such rides
as Ferris wheels, Tilt-a-Whirl, bumper cars, The Bullet or
Roll-O-Plane (pictured), carousels, and children’s rides, but
Jacksonville Beach’s boardwalk was distinctive because it
had a huge coaster.
54 .Bill Foley, “Beaches bet against law and lose,” Florida Times-Union, August 29, 1999.
82
Figure 57 Bullet or Roll-o-Plane Source: BAHS
the opening of Beach Boulevard in late 1949 changed
the beaches even more profoundly. It was constructed on
the roadbed of the defunct Florida East Coast Railway as a
four-lane, divided highway allowed motorist to speed to
Jacksonville Beach, cutting the travel time between south
Jacksonville to the beach in half. Moreover, it ended at the
ocean once B. B. McCormick extended it from Third Street
North. The American Red Cross Life Saving station was the
north side of the ramp to the beach. Visitors could drive onto
the beach as long as the tide was not high and drive for
miles or park on the sand. Beach Boulevard delivered
customers of the boardwalk to its door.
With a fast, easy means of getting to Jacksonville
Beach, the little city grew as did its neighbors, so much so,
that Third Street had to be widened in less than a decade to
accommodate the increased traffic. The new highway had its
downside as well. More people could commute to jobs in
83
Jacksonville, making them independent upon the
Jacksonville Beach entertainment industry. South
Jacksonville Beach and Ponte Vedra Beach quickly lost their
relative isolation created by the long trip to Jacksonville via
the curvy Atlantic Boulevard. Prudential Insurance Company
management employees who came from New Jersey in 1953
to work in the South Central home office on the south bank
of the St. Johns could live at the beach and work “in town,”
thus importing persons with higher salaries and a different
cultural norm. Within fifteen years, the beaches were
bedroom communities which depended upon commuters for
income rather than laid-back, small, relatively poor places
whose chief livelihood was seasonal and dependent upon
visitors.
For the last decade of the height of its existence (the
fifties) and until the Coaster Block burned down in 1961, the
businesses remained essentially the same although their
owners may not have. The boardwalk, bounded on the west
by 1st Street North, stretched along the oceanfront for
five/six blocks beginning at Pablo Avenue and going north to
the Casa Marina Hotel at Sixth Avenue North.55
The southernmost section between Pablo Avenue and
First Avenue North was the Coaster block (once called the
Ocean View Pavilion since it was the site of the Ocean View
Hotel). Entering from the south, one first came upon
Howards Restaurant followed immediately by the entrance
to Coaster Park and its rides—The Wild Mouse, the Bullet, a
merry-go-round—as well as Ring the Bell and Guess your
Age or Weight. Next were Paul’s Restaurant, Pitch Until You
Win, the Coaster Bath House and Raft rental, Beach Kiddie
Land, Balloon Dart Game, Chinese String Gallery, Shooting
Gallery, and, at the end, The Hitching Post Restaurant,
famous for its “steam burgers, hamburger meat cooked
55 My comments are based on the Polk City Directories for 1948, 1954, 1956,
1958, and 1960. They are available at the Beaches Area Historical Society. In
addition, Martin G. Williams has been very kind in providing me with his
recollections. So, too, have a number of persons I know from Duncan U.
Fletcher Junior-Senior High School.
84
loosely instead of in a patty and with a little pepper added.
On the backside or the First Street North side were shops
and restaurants.
Going north one block, there was another amusement
park and masonry buildings. The amusement park, called
Playland Park, featured a Ferris wheel, Dodgem or bumper
cars, boat ride, Tilt-A-Whirl, and merry-go-round. Next was
Pee-Wee’s Restaurant and Bar where local icon, John
“Wimpy” Sutton worked in the summer as an adolescent; his
great grandmother was Anna Perkins, who founded Perkins
Bath House and Perkins Hotel north of Pee-Wee’s. A gift
shop, Bud’s Cat House ballgame, Bud’s Juice Bar, Cup and
Saucer Restaurant, Martin G. Williams 15’ by 30” Shooting
Gallery, and the Playland Arcade operated by Gus
Leisengang. This “penny arcade” was filled with machines.
Pinball machines lined its north side; the older machines
were priced at a lowly two cents but their tilt triggers were
set to react quickly. One of the most notable machines was
the Gypsy Fortune Teller whom some found scary. One
could shoot a .22 rifle at a target, test one’s ability to endure
an electrical current, discover one’s “love appeal” and other
nonsensical but fun attributes, and other games/devices
typical of such places. To facilitate people putting money
into the machines, there was not only a person in a change
booth at the front but also boys patrolling the arcade with
change aprons and saying “change, here, change.” Prior to
being a game room, it had been Martin’s Grill, then Jimmy
Trotter’s Dance Hall, and the Lucky Game for bingo. Behind
the arcade was Williams’ ice house.
85
Figure 58 Juice Stand Source: BAHS
Crossing Second Avenue North, one entered the pier
block with the Griffin Amusement Park, Tastee Freeze, the
entrance to the pier, Tradewinds Restaurant, Maybelline’s
Gifts, and various games. In 1940, Williams moved Lucky
Game adjacent to Griffin’s Amusement Park. Adjoining on
the north was the Martin G. Williams property, a 2-story
bowling alley building (18 lanes) built in 1939. In 1940 the
end store became the famous Art’s Mouse Game, run by Art
Alexander.
Across Third Avenue North were the Tropical Gift
Shop, a ball game, Dave's Beer Garden, Ski Ball, Williams
Photography, the Pantry Restaurant, White House Rooms,
and Nicks’ Shooting Gallery, and a Salt Water Taffy store.
The famous Mermaid Tavern and restaurant were on 1st
Street and 3rd Avenue.
86
Figure 59 Pantry, 1962 Source: Mike and Vicki Wright
Figure 60 Booths in the Pantry. View to 1st St, N. Source: Wrights
88
Figure 63 Fascination Source: BAHS
Between 4th and 5th, where The Flag had been, Fred
M. “Frenchy” LeGrand operated rides and amusements
rides.56 Buddy’s Bar at 1st Street North and 4th Avenue North,
owned by W. A. Albury provided thirst quenchers. The
Sandpiper Hotel with its bathhouse and pool open to the
public was the northernmost boundary of the boardwalk.
Vendors also sold suntan oil and rented rafts.
56 This colorful character He had begun as a carny in 1925 at age 15
after he left his Detroit, Michigan birthplace. Although the March 9, 1962
boardwalk fire damaged his business, he started over, continued after
Hurricane Dora in 1964, and, when the carnival parts of the boardwalk
disappeared, he continued being active in the field elsewhere in Duval
County. He died August 22, 1993. “Boardwalk Used To Have A Carnival
Flavor,” The Beaches Leader, September 3, 1993.
89
Figure 64 Postcard, Sandpiper Hotel Source: Andrew Bachman
Downtown businesses, besides those of the
boardwalk, served the needs of tourists and residents within
three blocks east and west and six blocks north and south.
First Street North edged the boardwalk on the west and was
a mix of ordinary main street shops and places to have fun.
What made it different from other small towns were the
number of bars, liquor stores, tourist shops, places to rent
rooms, and, of course, a carnival on the beach front.
Businesses at the beach were family-owned; A&P and
Winn-Dixie supermarkets were two exceptions but non-chain
food stores coexisted. A&W Root Beer had a stand on Beach
Boulevard. There were no chain-owned motels, hotels,
rooming houses, apartment complexes, fast food
restaurants, amusement rides, boardwalk amusements, and
bars. Owners not uncommonly lived in the motels, which
might have only six rooms. People rented rooms in their
homes to tourists. Many times the employees were family
members; many children or their friends or schoolmates
worked in the stores. Non-family members were also
employed, of course. Some boardwalk employees were
seasonal, leaving after the rides were stored for the off-
90
season and the stores shuttered. Often those who stayed
made repairs, cast the plaster dolls given as prizes, or found
other employment.
Downtown Jacksonville offered things which could not
be purchased at the beach because they were not in stock
or not priced competitively. A bus ride on Atlantic Boulevard
or, increasingly, an automobile jaunt on either Atlantic or the
much faster Beach Boulevard solved the problem. The new
St Johns River bridges in the early 1950s expedited traffic.
People “dressed” to go to Jacksonville’s downtown for it did
not practice the informality of the beach.
To the white residents of the beaches were insular in
several ways. Their lives were idyllic. New money improved
the infrastructure of schools, roads, water and sewage
system, telephones, and electrical service. More and more
people built or bought houses, stimulating a real estate
boom and the need for more and different businesses. The
small African American population seemed content, unlike
those if other places including Jacksonville. The beaches
communities—Ponte Vedra and Palm Valley in St. Johns
County, Jacksonville Beach, Neptune Beach, and Atlantic
Beach—and the village of Mayport and the adjacent Navy
Base cooperated on most matters, partly because they
shared a common high school. This good will extended to
those just west of the island on San Pablo Road and in the
Isle of Palms subdivision. Social change, be it the advent of
chain stores and motels, shopping centers, much stronger
competition for the Florida tourist dollar, or racial
integration, seemed something that happened to others.
Krystal Hamburgers, the Chattanooga chain, set up
shop on North 3rd Street a few blocks from the high school,
breaching the food bulkhead. A Chattanooga chain founded
in 1932, it had long existed in Jacksonville but its little
square hamburgers served in boxes might satisfy downtown
workers and shoppers but beach adolescents preferred Bill’s
Drive-In and then the Surf Maid. Still Krystal proved that
could survive on the beach. More ominous were the Burger
King and McDonald’s fast food restaurants which opened in
91
southside Jacksonville.
Small family-owned businesses lacked investment
capital. Commonly, they earned enough income to support a
famous modestly but not enough to enable the owners to
build the kinds of tourist facilities Americans began
demanding by the mid-1950s. Americans wanted more
luxury and convenience and wanted it immediately.
The worst part of the boardwalk was the Coaster
block. Its wooden structure needed replacement because it
was becoming a firetrap and seemed seedy. The masonry
structures were in better shape but needed refurbishing. The
hamburger and hot dog stands paled in comparison to fast
food restaurants such as Burger King and McDonald’s which
had made their appearance in south Jacksonville by the mid-
1950s.
In 1960, there were thirty-seven family-owned motels
that belonged to the Beaches Chamber of Commerce, none
of which belonged to a regional or national chain. They
varied in cost and quality. Some had no air conditioning or
inefficient window units added after the fact. Investors who
wanted to build a modern motel or hotel had to decide
whether the millions invested would yield a good return in
the face of such competition. Howard Johnson and the
Holiday Inn had motels in Jacksonville but avoided the beach
for years. As prosperity increased so, too, did consumer
demand for better accommodations. In a short time,
travelers to Jacksonville Beach demanded the upscale,
modern facilities they found elsewhere. The first modern
chain hotel was a Holiday Inn which opened in 1969.57
57 “Holiday Inn Completed,” Beaches Leader, April 3, 1969.
93
Figure 65 Beaches Motel Map, 1960 Source: Pat Carlton Sanders
Air conditioning in the 1960s became a “necessity” in
Florida because rising prosperity gave people the means to
cool their homes and cars, stores, and restaurants. The
opening of Regency Square Mall in Arlington in 1967 marked
the beginning of the end for downtown Jacksonville and for
downtown Jacksonville Beach. Shopping in a mall with its
free parking, climate control, wide variety of stores, and
wonderful lighting was easier than paying to park and
trudging in the weather from store to store. So shoppers
quit going downtown. The city centers, both in Jacksonville
and in Jacksonville Beach, became hollow. Cool breezes on
the boardwalk were not as cool as air conditioning. Along
with television broadcasts, it helped kill most outdoor
entertainment including the boardwalk.58
Television also helped destroy the boardwalk as it
revolutionized the entertainment industry. It was free except
for the receiver. It promoted the cultural values that
generated profits for business; TV was, after all, a business
itself. Unlike the movies, TV taught that one should buy and
buy and buy. Television sets became the idols that people
worshipped, almost always having the prominent place in
the home. The commercials were often better than the
programs. They were more important. Commercials
promised that “Article X” would bring love, pain relief,
respect, sexual fulfillment, or happiness or some
combination thereof. As the decades marched relentlessly
on, TV broadcast in living color and received by cheaper and
cheaper sets. To attract viewers, TV taught self-indulgence
and instant gratification, the efficacy of violence, the
supremacy of the U.S., tolerance of divorce and adultery,
and that any and all life's problems could be solved in less
58 “Stay Cool! Air Conditioning America;“ Susanna Robbins,
“Keeping Things Cool: Air-Conditioning in the Modern World,”
OAH Magazine of History, 18 (October, 2003); "Interview with
Marsha Ackerman on Talking History; U.S. Department of
Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Census of Population: 1960,
Vol. 1. Florida (Washington, US Government Printing Office),
1961.
94
than half an hour. Serious, complicated information could be
reduced to a sound bite or two.59
The expansion of the Naval base at Mayport during
the Korean War and then the Vietnam War helped the
beaches economy in general but began moving the tourist
industry away from being family-oriented. Some sailors,
often officers, brought families to live at the beaches but
most sailors were young, single, enlisted men. When an
aircraft carrier came into port with its flotilla, thousands of
these young men got liberty and headed for Jacksonville
Beach and the pleasures it offered. Sailors came from all
over the United States. When on shore leave, they tended to
act the way adolescent and young adult males away from
home commonly acted. Some got inebriated. The Shore
Patrol tried to keep order. Others sought sex.
So, too, did some locals, for the rock ‘n’ roll revolution
had struck full force by the mid-1950s and some adults were
threatened by the music and its sexuality. Although school
and church dances were restrained, those who went to the
pier sometimes danced the “dirty boogie.” Not often but
parents and other community adults tended to associate the
pier with licentiousness. The scene of sailors and/or
adolescents dancing to black music or rock ‘n roll alarmed
some. Gone were the days of ballroom dancing to Tin Pan
Alley tunes.60
Many deplored the condition of downtown
Jacksonville Beach, including the boardwalk, but the road to
redevelopment twisted through issues of what to do about
the Coaster block and the pier, sharp political differences
within the City Council, and fear of change and its costs.
Some people had begun to object to the numerous bars in
the entertainment district centered on 1st Street North and
59 See Bob Garfield, " Top 100 Advertising Campaigns of the
Century; Randall Rothenberg, "The Advertising Century,"
http://adage.com/century/rothenberg.html gives a quick
overview of the power of television advertising. 60 Donald J. Mabry, “Rock ‘n Roll: the Beginnings,” HTA Press, April 30, 2004.
http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=738. I
worked on the boardwalk and hung out on the pier. The fears were unfounded.
95
neighboring streets even though they were decades old.
Many of the drinkers were young sailors. Downtown
merchants found competing with Jacksonville increasing
difficult when shoppers could speed at 65 miles per hour for
most of the trip. People had to be enticed to the beaches.
Boardwalk merchants, of course, earned their money from
visitors not locals who rejected the tone established by
young people, including sailors; the adults seldom went
there and more and more commuted to Jacksonville to work
and felt little loyalty to the boardwalk. Further complicating
the issues was race, for some city councilmen and prominent
people were strongly opposed to desegregation. So we must
weave in and out to get the story.
By May 1960, city leaders planned to renovate the
oceanfront back to Third Street with a $2.5 million but only
managed to get it passed by a 4-3 vote. The Council had a
long history of contentiousness and tackling the issue of
redevelopment would bring it to the fore. Some thought the
city was doing well without spending money. Some wanted a
civic center. Some thought the boardwalk was in good
shape; others thought it, including the pier, were ratty or
decadent and wanted them gone and said so in September,
1960. The City Council, the Jacksonville Beach Advisory
Planning Board, and the Chamber of Commerce (which
shared some members) wanted downtown to look better, to
be modern, and make other needed civic improvements. In
January, 1961, the Council and Planning Board began
studying a new Master Plan. In February, the city bought the
Beach Bank building and approved plans for a new police
station. May 5, Council nixes former Councilman T. N.
Abood’s plan for redevelopment referendum.61
Fire came to the rescue, forcing the issue of the
boardwalk. City Manager Walter F. Johnson as early as
November, 1959, recommended that the Coast Block be
61 Beach News & Advertiser, July 29, 1960 says the Council took initial
steps on the new jail and planned to use a federal loan to cover costs.
96
condemned. In November, 1960, the City Council said
conditions on the boardwalk were deplorable and demanded
that inspectors go to work. Then, in December, 1960,
Johnson said he would recommend to the city council that
the Coaster block condemned as a fire hazard because of
debris, butane, paint cans, bare wires, and rotted roofs.
This came a week before downtown redevelopment plans
were announced, plans that generated controversy. On
March 9, 1961, most of the wooden Coaster block burned for
three hours, wiping out decades of history in the process.
Frenchy LeGrand suffered heavy losses when his amusement
rides were damaged. At the north end, the shooting gallery
and The Hitching Post restaurant survived with minimal
damage but Councilman Franklin Left wanted them
condemned so the entire block would become available for
development.62
The Jacksonville Beach Advisory Planning Board
unanimously urged the City Council to buy or lease the
property which was owned by W. H. Adams, Jr. but leased
to Adwolf Amusements Corporation owned by the Sam W.
Wolfson, a successful Jacksonville businessman and
philanthropist.
Demolishing the old pier turned out to be a difficult
decision. The city owned the pier as of May 1 and had let
bids to have it destroyed. Stormes and Bryant and
merchants wanted to wait until September so beach would
be open. The Council voted 5-2 in May to continue plans to
demolish it even though Councilmen Bryant and Stormes
and some merchants wanted the city to delay until
September so the demolition process would not interfere
with the tourists enjoying the beach. Demolition would be
expensive and Stormes joked that it should be burned
because it would only take 3 days—one to burn, two to
clean up .When the bids were opened on June 5, the low bid
62 “City manager to recommend that Boardwalk block be condemned,”
Beaches News, November 6, 1959; “Boardwalk Used to Have Carnival
Flavor,” The Beaches Leader, September 3, 1993.
97
by P. L. Burkhalter Company was $16,723. City manager
Walter F. Johnson got the Council to reject all bids asserting
that city crews could do it more cheaply. Later, the Council
decided that Johnson should study the issue further because
demolition would be dangerous.63
In June, pier demolition bids were sent back to the
city manager for further study. July, 1961, the Chamber
wanted a $1,350,000 municipal improvement plan for off-
street parking, a new civic center, a new city hall building to
house all city departments, and a new police headquarters
and jail. It proposed financing the revenue bonds with
cigarette tax rebates. That month, the City Council voted to
have plans drawn but Mayor Ira D. Sams opposed building a
civic center. After municipal elections the new city council in
late October began considering a one million dollar bond
issue but insisted on the construction of a new city hall be
the first priority. By December, 1962, the bond issue of $1.2
million passed and the city could spend 1962 acquiring
property and planning the new city hall. It bought the lot on
the south side of 1st Ave N between 1st and 2nd Streets for
the city hall project and, in March, the oceanfront lot on the
north side of 1st Avenue from the sea wall to 1st Street
North, thus beginning acquisition of the boardwalk.
Wolfson had the ruins cleared but noted that Adwolf
had no plans to make improvements. The City Council
persisted, however, encouraging Wolfson to build a modern,
large motel on the site but Wolfson finally said no in
September, 1962 when he could not get Adams to
subordinate his ownership to Wolfson. The Council was
determined not to let anything stand in its way; in June,
63 Beach News & Advertiser 5-12-1961; Beach News & Advertiser 5-19-
1961; Beach News & Advertiser, June 9, 1961
98
1961, it rejected an application for a walk-up lunch stand in
Coaster block because it wanted to change is usage. Adams
dug his feet and the city threatened to condemn the
property and seize it. Adams won; he received an out-of-
court settlement from the City of $265,000, which included
$15,000 in attorney fees and court costs, in October, 1963.
Subsequently, the entire block was cleared. Obviously, the
owners decided rebuilding was not profitable. 64
The old pier, the dancing-fishing pier between 2nd and
3rd Avenues, came under scrutiny by the City Council
because it was old and a bit rickety. The structure had been
leased to Curtis Amerson for one and one-half years by W.
E. Montgomery, uncle of Mayor Justin C. Montgomery. At
the end of Amerson’s lease, the pier would revert to the city.
Amerson agreed to make repairs within 30 days, including
40-50 pilings, the sewer system, and the electrical system,
facets of the pier that fell into disrepair under the last
lessee, Paul Ward. City manager Buford McRae had had to
close the pier when Ward didn’t fix things. The Beach News
& Advertiser featured three photos of the pier’s
understructure to illustrate damage. The Chamber of
Commerce, who had many boardwalk business owners,
wanted the city to repair the pier and assume the lease of
the present defunct operator, former mayor W. A. “Monty”
Montgomery. Chamber president, Frank A. Griffin, who
owned one of the amusement parks, argued that the pier
could be made operational for two thousand dollars. Others
estimated the cost could go as high as eighteen thousand
dollars. The difficulty was that private enterprise had failed
to modernize, much less maintain, the pier. 65
Then, on Friday, October 13, 1962, one day before
the city council was going to condemn it, the dancing
64 “Boardwalk Used to Have Carnival Flavor,” Beaches Leader, September
3, 1993 says the fire occurred on March 9, 1962. 65 Beach News & Advertiser, August 7, 1959; Beach News and Advertiser,
7-24-1959; Beach News & Advertiser, 8-7-1959
99
pavilion and much of the rest of the pier was consumed by
fire. The fire was fortuitous because the city council had
been discussing the demolition of the pier since May, 1961;
city firemen watched it burn. Nevertheless, it had been fine
for parents’ to host the annual post-Junior-Senior Prom of
Fletcher Junior-Senior High School as late as June 1960.
Figure 66 No Coaster Block nor Pier, 1962 Source: Florida Memory
The demise of the pier and the Coaster Block seemed
to provide an opportunity to modernize the boardwalk. One
proposal was to build a new pier with a waterfront coliseum
between Pablo Avenue and 1st Avenue North, the former
Coaster Block. The Chamber supported the idea since having
a vacant block on Boardwalk was bad for business. By late
November, a little over a month since the pier fire, the City
Council approved a plan to redevelop the Coaster Block,
voted to hire a design firm, and began negotiations to buy
the property from Bill Adams, Jr.66 Life, however, rarely
66 Beach News & Advertiser , November2, 1962; Beach News &
Advertiser , November 9, 1962; and Beach News & Advertiser ,
November 23, 1962.
100
proceeds in a straight line. Nothing could built until the
property was the city’s; disagreements about plans and
costs grew heated; and the issue of fair play among citizens
delayed resolution.
INTEGRATION
The Civil Rights movement finally came to the
beaches although it had been active in Jacksonville where it
had been met by violence. When Rutledge Pearson led
demonstrations in August, 1960 against segregated lunch
counters at the downtown Woolworth's, McCrorys, and Kress
stores. One day, two black youths accidentally knocked a
white woman into a plate glass window. Then on another
day two women got into a fight. On August 27th, hundreds
of Klansmen and other bigots demonstrated in downtown
Jacksonville with the police watching. When some young
African Americans tried to get lunch counter service at the
Grant's store and were refused, they were attacked by the
white demonstrators who used ax handles and other
weapons. They chased the teenagers into a black section of
town but were run out by a black gang. Police intervention
stopped the riot. More "blacks" than "whites" were arrested,
of course.
The city government of Haydon Burns, even though
African-American votes put him in office, was racist. He was
a powerful force in Jacksonville affairs as mayor from 1949-
1965, when he became governor. Burns was a
segregationist so he refused to create a biracial commission
to resolve the issues. He was a determined conservative
mayor of a conservative city. African-Americans threatened
an economic boycott and white businessmen, fearing loss of
profits, agreed to meet with African-American leaders and
work out compromises. Desegregation began. "Green" was a
more powerful color than white and "black."
Jacksonville had a large African American population,
101
potential customers for the boardwalk; it had once been a
majority black city but annexations of suburbs changed that.
In 1960, the city of 372,569 was 26.9% African American
(100,169 persons); the Standard Metropolitan Statistical
Area population was 455,411 was 23.2% African American
(105,843 persons). However, the tradition of racial
segregation meant that Beach business owner did not want
the patronage of a quarter of the population of the county.
This was not a Duval County phenomenon; racial bigotry
was common throughout the United States.
Not many African Americans, either in absolute
numbers or as a percentage of the total population lived on
the beaches and the periodic influx of white tourists, civilian
or military, shrank both numbers. The 1960 Census is
instructive. Of the 12,049 persons living in Jacksonville
Beach, 1,111 (9.2%) were African American; since
Jacksonville provided most of the jobs at the beaches, it is
not surprising. Atlantic Beach, a wealthier community of
3,125 persons, was home to 605 (19.4%) African
Americans. The high percentage surely reflects the legacy of
the fishing and U. S. Naval industries of Mayport, the
Atlantic Beach Hotel, and the Florida East Coast Railway.
Neptune Beach had three African Americans out of a
population of 2,868. probably live-in servants.
The Census also had Division categories. The
Jacksonville Beach Division of Duval County (covering more
than the political boundaries) had 23,823 of whom 2,366
(9.9%) persons were African American. Palm Valley and
Ponte Vedra Beach were small, unincorporated areas of the
Northern St. Johns County Division, an area larger than
these two tiny communities. This Division contained 5,020
persons of whom 391 (7.8%) were African Americans. Ponte
Vedra Beach had been founded as an upper-income, private
settlement and it was exclusive and wealthy. 67
67 U.S. Bureau of Census, Census of Population: 1960 Florida-Volume I
Part 11: Characteristics of the Population.
http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/11085788v1p11_TOC.pdf. Atlantic Beach had a median family income of $ 6,053; the
102
There were so few African Americans at the beaches
and the adults were so well known meant that retaliation for
any efforts to acquire access to the public beaches or to use
the public accommodations of the boardwalk seemed highly
likely. Councilman Moses Stormes, President of the newly-
chartered Organization of American Rights, Inc., Franklin J.
Left, Vice President, and Robert J. Taylor, Secretary
Treasurer, were its officers; the Board of Directors included
Chuck Franks, Chief of the Jacksonville Beach Police, A. W.
Sands, Lieutenant of Police, Robert R. Craig, Sergeant of
Police, Harry E. Burns, architect, James D. Smith, electrician,
and Fred Downs, painter. The OAR sent a scurrilous letter in
the Fall of 1960 saying that integration meant African
Americans (the letter used a different word) would be raping
white girls and other similar comments. It also issue a
membership recruitment flyer (pictured). The members’
position on race and segregation was clear; it was to be
maintained at all costs.
The OAR leaders went too far and most had to
repudiate the letter and resign from the OAR. Left, Franks,
Sands, Craig, and Downs resigned. Burns said he was never
a member and condemned the letter. Taylor admitted that
some of the language was objectionable and then resigned.
Stormes, on the other hand, defended the letter. At a
Council meeting in October, two different citizens rose to
demand that Stormes resign. The Council members ignored
them, perhaps indicating that they were segregationists.68
Jacksonville SMSA, had $4,433; Jacksonville Beach, had $5,077; and Neptune Beach had $ 5,833. 68 Beach News & Advertiser, Friday, September 30, 1960; Beach News
& Advertiser, October 21, 1960. Smith, according to his son Austin, was
not only not a member but a civil rights advocate. His sister, Lillian, had
written Forbidden Fruit.
104
The views of Stormes and his ilk did not reflect the
views of others or, perhaps, others were practical. In my
research in beaches newspapers, I found nothing about
desegregation. My sense is that the local media cooperated
to keep it from being an issue. The available accounts differ
but the essential facts are the same.
Contemporaries described the events in an oral
history session recorded at the Beaches Area Historical
Society and Museum in Jacksonville Beach in early 2007.
They noted that the integration drove whites away from the
boardwalk but there was no violence. Because of the danger
of retaliation, the 1,111 Jacksonville Beach African
Americans tended not to pioneer. White tourists had come
from north Florida towns as well as Georgia; the Chamber of
Commerce had done everything it could to promote it.
However, they expected a whites-only situation. With the
beach and boardwalk being opened to all, many whites
stayed away. Martin G. Williams, Jr. in a message to the
author in June, 2009 believed that the boardwalk as he
knew was dying in the 1960’s for several reasons. Many
blamed integration in 1961 or 1962, a difficult situation that
Mayor Justin Montgomery handled very well. Busloads of
blacks were brought to the Beach and Boardwalk by the
NAACP. White families stayed away. By 1970, the number
of rides and amusements were sparse because business had
declined. He noted “there was much competition from
Daytona Beach, Myrtle Beach, Panama Beach, other vacation
attractions and travel had gotten much easier. Disney and
the Mouse arrived in Orlando, air conditioned hotels were
common and golf and boating had become very popular.
The family visitors from South Carolina, Georgia and
Alabama were gone.”69
69 Martin G. Williams, Jr. , Jacksonville Beach Boardwalk,” email attachment,
June, 2009.
105
A quite different view emerges from an anonymous
typed document possessed by the Beaches Area Historical
Society, the view that civic leaders were progressive and
quietly took the lead to achieve integration. This six-page
document is unsigned and undated although may have been
written in the late 1960s. It says the true story of what
happened was revealed to a reporter of The Beaches Leader
and that a member of the “black community” wanted it
known. Some fifteen years before this essay was written,
the City Council completed the Carver Recreation Center and
swimming pool and began tackling the problem of
substandard housing in 1955 in the African American section
of town called “the Hill.” It took five years to complete the
application process and begin construction but the City
demonstrated that the government was not just for whites.
They had integrated the city golf course, built 1963, without
incident and it turned a huge profit in 1965.
In 1963, the mayor, W. S. Wilson, the City Council,
and City Manager and other civic leaders such as Justin C.
Montgomery, a former mayor and nephew a former mayor
and city councilman, , decided that the time for change had
come. They did not want the violence they had seen in
Jacksonville or the demonstrations occurring in St Augustine
in 1964 under the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
They desegregated the beach or waterfront by quietly
arranging for African American sailors, dressed in civilian
clothes, to drive onto the strand on a busy Saturday
afternoon and go into the surf. Law enforcement officers
were hidden but acted quickly to disperse any hostile
crowds. They would use the tactic of a fait accompli to
desegregate further.
Before the Civil Rights Act of July 4, 1964 was passed
Jacksonville Beach had desegregated its public
accommodations. The Council asked the Chamber of
Commerce to meet with local motel and restaurant owners
and ask them to desegregate; ninety percent complied. On
early June, 1969, the Chamber cooperated to desegregate
106
the bars.70
Desegregation occurred in other important ways.
African American citizens were not allowed at City Council
meetings. Instead, the City Council came to them at the
Carver Center. In the Spring, 1965, at an outdoor ceremony
for Beaches Welcome Day, invited groups were announced,
applauded, and seat on the platform. Then came the group
of African American invitees. They were announced,
vigorously applauded and seated. Then there was the
desegregation of the local high school, Duncan U. Fletcher in
1967. Again, the acceptance of a fait accompli was the
strategy. During the last week of the school year, an African
American student attended and graduated.
We cannot know whether Jacksonville Beach and its
entertainment industry would have changed if national policy
and practice had not changed. Certainly respect for the law
and a more tolerant attitude in a resort community made a
difference. Increasing dependence on the Navy at Mayport
surely did. The armed forces had desegregated decades
before. As the naval base at Mayport grew, its sailors had to
have recreational place.
RELICS
The carnival on the boardwalk continued for a few
more years as the unburned businesses continued to serve
the thousands who flocked to Jacksonville Beach. Dancing,
fishing, and gawking on the pier survived the Coaster block
fire for more than a year but the combined demise marked a
demarcation line in boardwalk history. Frenchy LeGrand
maintained rides until the late 1960s. Hurricane Dora also
damaged what was left of the boardwalk in September,
1964 but did not end it. The Seven Seas Drive-In and other
Boardwalk businesses were damaged. That same year the
1964—Pablo Avenue ramp to the beach was removed. The
Civil Rights movement kept some people away.
The boardwalk and its surrounding businesses failed
70 See Jacksonville Journal, June 12, 1969 for the desegregation of bars.
107
to modernize and appeared shabby to contemporary ideas.
Shiny, colorful plastics dazzled the brain unlike old painted
wood and masonry. Shopping centers and then air
conditioned malls sucked customers away from main street
because they offered more. Better roads made them easily
accessible. That was the opinion of Martin G. Williams, Sr.
The United States had been going through an
economic boom since 1946 Americans sought to overcome
the relative deprivation of the Great Depression and World
War II by buying what they wanted. Money was pumped
into the economy to fight WWII and then the Cold War
encouraged consumer spending. People had more
discretionary income and used it for themselves and the
children of the Baby Boom. They bought TV sets, air
conditioning units or centrally air conditioned homes,
shopped and went to movies and restaurants in air
conditioning. They stayed in air conditioned hotels and
motels. The Interstate Highway system, begun in the 1950s,
gave them faster, safer, and easier access to different
places. They could speed through Jacksonville on I-95,
passing nowhere near the beach, as they sought Daytona
Beach, Orlando, Saint Petersburg, Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale,
and Miami.
Carnival-like entertainment was dying in general.
Coney Island, the prototype, declined and ran into trouble in
1963-64. In 1963, fire destroyed six amusement places;
parts of it. The 1964 season was the worst in 25 years,
partly because the nearby World’s Fair enticed millions to
view its very modern exhibitions and facilities, upping the
ante for amusement venues. Concessionaires blamed other
variables—the influx of African American customers,
weather, gangs, inadequate parking, and unsafe subways,
Steeplechase Park shut its door in September. Over the next
two years, Coney Island’s reputation went into steep
decline.71
71 Coney Island Timeline.
108
CONCLUSIONS
What happened to Coney Island and to the
amusements parks on the Jacksonville Beach boardwalk was
common in the 1960s; people had better opportunities for
amusement when entrepreneurs built prettier, more
sophisticated venues. Disneyland, built in southern California
in 1955, became the standard by which all other amusement
parks would be judged. It was clean, sleek, and appealing.
Its world famous cartoon and movie characters gave it a
cache that no other amusement park could muster. Its sister
Florida park, Disney World south of Orlando, was even more
sophisticated, aided by the fact that the state of Florida gave
almost carte blanche to the company to do what it wanted.
Disney tested his ideas at the World’s Fair in 1964 and
began secretly buying property in Florida that same year. He
would transplant some of the World’s Fair attractions to
Disneyland and Disney World. Other themed amusement
parks were soon built. Tampa’s Busch Gardens opened in
1959 as a free bird sanctuary and hospitality center for
those who visited the Anheuser-Busch brewery. By 1962,
the process of converting it to an African-themed park began
with the creation of the Serengeti Plain. Then, Anheuser-
Busch started charging admission in 1970 in order to support
and expand the park. Six Flags over Texas opened in 1961
in Dallas and subsequent similar parks were opened in
Atlanta and St. Louis.
Were there enough money to be earned by
modernizing the oceanfront carnival in Jacksonville Beach, to
make it a more attractive area which provided both cheap
and moderately-priced entertainment and air conditioning,
the “carnival” would have not only survived but would have
blossomed. However, the cost would have been in the
millions, way beyond the means of the “mom and pop”
entrepreneurs who owned it. So the carnival atrophied until
www.westland.net/coneyisland/articles/1960.htm
109
death.
Jacksonville sped this change in 1968 when it
absorbed all of Duval Country in a complicated governmental
structure which allowed Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach,
Jacksonville Beach, and the west Duval County town of
Baldwin to remain independent municipalities and part of
Jacksonville. This confusing arrangement was invented in
April, 1967 because the beach communities could have been
abolished under a 1934 law that the pro-consolidators were
avoiding because it would mean years of court fights. They
knew that the beach cities were likely to vote against
consolidating Duval County into one government called
Jacksonville. Some prominent beach leaders—Joseph Van
Dyke a Neptune Beach Councilman, Maxwell Dickinson of
Atlantic Beach, Mayor W. S. Wilson of Jacksonville Beach—
were among those opposing consolidation. State
Representative George Stallings and Richard Featheringill,
President of the Duval County Young Republican Club led
much of the anti-consolidation forces at the beaches.
Featheringill headed Citizens for Better Government even
asserted that consolidation would bring dictatorship and
communism. Justin Montgomery led a strong coalition that
spoke repeatedly for the compromise consolidation plan.
They and others had tired of Jacksonville and Duval County
corruption and/or inefficiency so they took the compromise
of being part of Jacksonville (Duval County) and self-
governing municipalities.
When the smoke of battle cleared, the beaches voted
2,173 to 2,003 for consolidation. They also voted 2,548 to
1,534 for retaining their existing governments. That Florida
county governments had some power over the municipalities
in them was nothing new. All of this would have been easier
to understand had Duval County been renamed Jacksonville
instead of keeping both names. Although the Duval County
beach communities kept some autonomy, they could not
compete against the fiscal and personnel resources of
110
Jacksonville. For most purposes, they had been absorbed.72
Jacksonville not beach politicians made the decisions
which influenced beach growth. They had refurbished the 6th
Avenue South pier; they would fund the 5th Avenue North
pier. They funded the social services at the beach including
the beach branch of the public library. Off the barrier island,
they determined where, when, and why roads would be
repaired or built. The roads largely determined settlement
patterns. When the J. Turner Butler Boulevard (FL 202)
multi-lane highway was built in 1997 from US 1 and I-95 to
southern Jacksonville Beach, so many businesses and
housing developments sprang up along the route and in
bordering St. Johns County that it had to be extended a little
more than a decade later. The St. Johns County community
of Ponte Vedra Beach grew rapidly and effectively absorbed
Palm Valley, funneling more prosperous families out of
Jacksonville Beach.
As the old downtown of Jacksonville Beach changed,
the city government tried various schemes to reverse what it
saw as decline. Beautification, park improvements, better
parking, the Flag Pavilion, decorative paving of the
“boardwalk,” and the Sea Walk Pavilion were created.
Nothing worked immediately. The entertainment center
shifted to Town Center where Atlantic and Neptune Beaches
faced each across the eastern terminus of Atlantic
Boulevard.
The boardwalk survived, however, and even acquired
72 Richard Martin, Consolidation: Jacksonville-Duval County;: The
Dynamics of Urban Political Reform. (Jacksonville, Crawford Publishing
Company, 1988) is an account by a Florida Times-Union reporter who
was an ardent supporter of consolidation. James B. Crooks, The
Consolidation Story From Civil Rights To The Jaguars. (Gainesville:
University of Florida Press, 2004) is a more sweeping book without much
detail on consolidation. The Beaches Leader was opposed to
consolidation.
111
a fishing pier in time. After all, people flock to the sun and
surf, play, eat, and spend the night. Driving and parking on
the beach ended in 1979. The concrete bulkhead was
encased in sand and sea oats grown to restore the shore to
a more natural state. The boardwalk itself changed to
accommodate a different, more prosperous clientele. Some
older buildings remained but private enterprise built high rise
hotels and condominiums by the late 20th century. Old-time
residents complained about the view being blocked but could
not stop construction. The boardwalk became more
attractive so a fishing pier reappeared in the 21st century.
The abandonment of the carnival aspect of the
boardwalk began in 1960 when a 1,200 foot fishing pier was
built at 6th Avenue South, then blocks south of the business
district. R.L Williams, owner of the new pier, wanted it to be
much like the old pier with dancing and beer sales. At first,
the City Council balked because it seemed to be replicating
what some thought was undesirable about the old pier. It
agreed later that May to allow the sale of alcoholic
beverages. Lewis Stewart awarded a beer license so he
could have a tavern. 73 After all, such had been sold since the
city had been founded as Ruby Beach. It suffered storm
damage more than once, losing 400 feet to Hurricane Dora
on September 9, 1964, and then collapsed into the ocean
because of the 1999 storm created by Hurricane Floyd. The
City of Jacksonville spent a million dollars on June 16, 2000
to restore the pier and its restaurant. An arsonist destroyed
the Pier Point restaurant at the foot of this pier on June 17,
2002.
73 Beach News & Advertiser, May 6, 1960; Beach News & Advertiser, May 20,
1960.
112
Figure 68 6th Avenue South Pier, 2001 Photo by Don Mabry
Hotels built on the boardwalk encouraged the building
of a 1,300 foot fishing pier at the end of 5th Avenue North,
the northern limit of the old boardwalk. Sturdier than
previous piers, it opened in December, 2004 and instantly
became a favorite of fishermen and strollers. Its length
allowed one to enjoy a panoramic view of downtown
Jacksonville Beach. Pelicans, hoping for a free meal, loiter.
Few, if any, miss a place to dance since dancing declined
precipitously with the advent of rock concerts in the 1960s;
clubs along First Street North meet the demand. Although a
storm damaged some of the flooring which was quickly
replaced, the pier became a beach icon. See the photos
below.
114
Figure 71 Jacksonville Beach from the Pier Photo by Don Mabry
People of all hues and ages flock to Jacksonville
Beach to enjoy its sand, surf, bars, clubs, and boardwalk.
They watch free movies and attend festivals and concerts at
the Seawalk Pavilion by the ocean and see spectacular
fireworks exploding over the ocean. Those who spend the
night do so in comfort and luxury whether at the historic
Casa Marina or the Quality Suites on the old roller coaster
site. Driving on the beach was forbidden in 1979. The
bulkhead is covered with sand so that sea oats and other
natural vegetation can grow, making the shoreline more like
its 1880 status. The concrete boardwalk is now prettified.
Only five buildings from the carnival days remain. At
the southern end, the iconic American Red Cross Volunteer
Life Saving Corps Station (1946) stands guard where a
station has stood since 1913. The Guards still use the Walker
torpedo buoy and the high orange guard stand with its
banner flying, a banner the guard waves to signal for help
before racing to the surf to the rescue. Going north, the
public toilets at the foot of First Avenue North have been
refurbished a bit. The Perkins Bath House and Hotel Building
contains a restaurant and souvenir shop; the hotel and
bathhouse are closed, made redundant by modern facilities
115
and automobiles. The former Playland Arcade, the “penny
arcade” of yesteryear now sells seashells, coral bits, T-shirts,
and beach supplies business. The Casa Marina grandly
anchors the northern boundary. All the rest exist in memory
and photographs.
Figure 72 ARC Life Saving Corps. Photo by Don Mabry
Figure 73 Public Toilets, First Avenue North. Photo by Don Mabry
116
Figure 74 Perkins Bathhouse & Williams Buildings Photo by Don Mabry
Figure 75 Perkins Bathhouse Building, June 2009 Photo: Don Mabry
117
Figure 76 Hotels and Condominiums on the Boardwalk Photo: Don Mabry
The boardwalk of 2009 more closely resembles the
vision of the founders of Pablo Beach in 1885, for it caters to
those who afford to live on the shore in a condominium
either as primary or secondary home or afford a nice hotel
room. The little area serves day trippers as it did in the
beginning but they travel by automobile not train. It exists
for an affluent society with a strong business sector and with
a very large military presence now instead of a small frontier
city that grew into a large metropolitan area.
Why bother? Why spend time, effort, and money on
this micro history, this tiny little area of Jacksonville-Duval
County, Florida? The Jacksonville Beach boardwalk, the
appellation the locals gave the carnival, was never as big or
influential as its New York and New Jersey counterparts.
After all, they served New York City and Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania and their hinterlands not Jacksonville and its
feeder area. Such a history illustrates the larger historical
understanding. Going from the particular to the general is
more accurate than deducing the particular from the
general, the way history is generally written. Besides, it is
fun.
118
__________________________________________
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This sweeping outline would not have been possible
without the aid of many people. Thanks to my wife Paula C.
Mabry, a magnificent person who has been supportive of my
fascination with “home.” Harley Henry, a fellow alum of both
Fletcher High School and Kenyon College and an avid
supporter of beaches history. Without the extraordinarily
valuable Beaches Area Historical Society & Museum studies
such as this could not be done. BAHS deserves more support
than it gets. Dwight Wilson, former archivist, carries so
much beaches history in his head and is willing to share.
Taryn Rodríguez-Boette, archivist, is talented, helpful, and
knowledgeable; I consider her a friend. Austin Smith of
Neptune Beach, Tom Ravoo of Orlando, Paul Marino of
Jacksonville always answered when I called upon them for
help. One family-- E.J. MacDonell Taylor, Bobbie MacDonell
Sutton, John “Wimpy” Sutton, Janet MacDonell, and Anne
MacDonell Reilly—is special; the members gave me insights
unavailable elsewhere. Maxwell Dickinson still owns part of
the boardwalk; he has been a president of BAHS. Martin G.
Williams, Jr. was a prominent beaches leader and the son of
the most important owner on the boardwalk. Leigh Callahan
proofread the manuscript. George Hapsis, historian of the
American Red Cross Volunteer Life Saving Corps, helped
both with the Corps and as a volunteer staff member of
BAHS. My beaches friends of more than half a century--Ron
and Diane Wingate and Hazel Wern Dalton—encouraged me.
Vicki Wright Shattles and Mike Shattles supplied photos of
the family business on the boardwalk, “The Pantry, “and
regaled me with stories. My grandmother and her children
moved to Jacksonville in 1916. My mother was raised there
and went back intermittently until she finally moved to the
area. I went to school in Jacksonville Beach at various times
in elementary school and then six years at Fletcher Junior-
119
Senior High School. Fletcher alumni contributed their
memories to the project. So many people have made this
and my other studies of the beaches possible and fun.
Thanks.
SOURCES
Newspapers
Beaches Leader Beach News Beach News & Advertiser Beach Outlook Ocean Beach Reporter Pablo Beach News Florida Times-Union
Jacksonville Journal
New York Times
Saint Petersburg Times
Tidings
DVDs
“Reminiscence Session,” Oral History DVDs, February 17,
2007 morning and afternoon sessions. Beaches Area
Historical Society archives.
PHOTOS
Andrew Bachman Postcard Collection
Beaches Area Historical Society
H. W. Bolton
Coveman on Flickr
Laurie Adams Crowson
Florida Memory Project
Florida Times-Union
Jacksonville Public Library, Florida Collection
jacksonvillebeach.org
Don Keller
Mabry Archive
120
Makers of America
metrojacksonville.com
Pablo Improvement Company
Popular Mechanics
Sanborn Fire Insurance Company via University of Florida
Patricia Carleton Sanders
Vicki Wright Shattles and Mike Shattles
Austin Smith
Clint Sykes
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BEACHES HISTORY BY DONALD J. MABRY Published by and Hyperlinked to the HTA Press
Book: World's Finest Beach (February, 2006)
Articles
1. A Man and Three Hotels (March 16, 2006) 2. Neptune Beach Before 1931 (October 10, 2006) 3. Harcourt Bull's Atlantic Beach (February 8, 2007) 4. Beaches Veterans in WWI (March 3, 2007) 5. Mighty Mayport (February, 2008) 6. Florida's Napoleon (May 8, 2008) 7. Baseball on the Beach, Sea Birds, 1952-54
(September 24, 2008)