| These are the stories of Jacksonville, Florida, a test case, true and strange, place by place.

New Story: Round Marsh (by the Willie Browne Trail)

Posted on March 4, 2021 | Leave a comment

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People have theorized Round Marsh the result of a meteor, others that it’s the remains of a British rice paddy and a 4,000 year old cypress pond. Willie Browne led friends on hikes around the pond and archaeologists have combed its shores. The World War II airplane and its pilot, meanwhile, are still in the marshes to the north. Willie Browne often said he could hear “the thunder of horsemen racing by in the distance,” when no one was there.

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Tagged Bill Goodyear, Colorinda Creek, conservation history, Craig Morris, Ellis and McClure, Florida history, Fort Caroline, Frances Brewster Smith, Jacksonville history, Jay Huebner, John Nathan Spearing, Keith Ashley, Lorraine "Rainy" Clarke, National Park Service, Nature Conservancy, Round Marsh, Saxon Browne, Shell Mount, St Johns Town, Sub-Tropical Exposition, Theodore Roosevelt Area, Tim Gilmore, Timucuan Ecological and Historical Preserve, William Jones, Willie Browne, Willie Browne Trail

The Strange Story of Slappey’s Town of Ghent Motel

Posted on February 19, 2021 | Leave a comment

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Here’s the strange story of Slappey’s Town of Ghent Motel. The sailor claimed to have built it for his “war bride” to remind her of her hometown. He had the wrong town. A naked man, fleeing Slappey’s, once disrupted church services next door. Police activity at Slappey’s ranged from gambling raids to murder.

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Tagged Anchor Bar, Beaches Drive-In Movie Theater, Cedar Bay Baptist Church, Clyde Slappey, Clyde Woodruff Slappey, Florida history, Gary's Ice Cream, Ghent Gate, Ghent Gate Bruges, Grady Allen Belger, Jacksonville history, John Margolies, Margaret Snowden, Oceanway Oaks Mobile Home Park, Red Cross Lookout Tower, Renee Slappey, Renee van Ceulebroeck, San Mateo Jacksonville, Slappey's, Slappey's Chili Parlor, Slappey's Town of Ghent Motel, Tim Gilmore, Tracy Rigdon

LaVilla’s Progress Furniture Company

Posted on February 13, 2021 | Leave a comment

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Climb the stairs and see there’s more missing than remains of 318 Broad Street. Bernie would tell you, at Progress Furniture Company, 80 years ago, “Buy or Sell…We Treat You Well.” His father was one of two Romanian Jewish immigrants in Jacksonville named Isador Moskovitz. This collapsing commercial building provides a microcosm of decimated and mostly vanished LaVilla. A thistle blooms in bricks near the roof.

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Tagged 318 Broad Street, 324 Broad Street, Bernie Moskovitz, Black Masonic Temple Jacksonville, Broad Street Jacksonville, Broad Street LaVilla, Brooklyn Jacksonville, DeLoach Furniture, Gladys Klausner, Goony Golf, Herman Klausner, Isador Moskovitz, Jacksonville Jewish Center, Jacksonville Train Terminal, Kenneth Klausner, LaVilla, LBee Furniture, Liberty Furniture Company, Manuel Rivera, Manuel's Tap Room, Mayor Ed Austin, Noli Novak, Noli Novak artist, Olga Moskovitz, Paula Klausner, Paula Moskovitz, Progress Furniture Company, psychogeography Florida, Richmond Hotel Jacksonville, Richmond Hotel LaVilla, River City Renaissance, Southern Gothic Jacksonville, Terminal Hotel, Terminal Liquors, Terry DeLoach, Tim Gilmore, United Optical Outlet

Revisiting Jacksonville’s Trisect, Public Art Milestone

Posted on February 5, 2021 | Leave a comment

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It was the first piece of public art in Jacksonville in 50 years. The city seemed hostile. It stood before public housing, not in a public park in a tony neighborhood. Jax roasted it, but the elderly residents in architect Ted Pappas’s new tower behind it loved it. Almost 50 years later, sculptor Carl Andree Davidt’s Trisect sculpture still interrogates the city.

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Tagged Bill Harlow, Carl Adree, Carl Adree Davidt, Charles Adrian Pillars, Charles Adrian Pillars Life, Frances Hines, Fred Simpson, Harry Shortstein, Hogan's Creek Tower, Jacksonville Housing Authority, Jacksonville Trisect, John Van Ness, Le Corbusier, public art Florida, public art Jacksonville, Riverside Memorial Park, Riverside Memorial Park Life, Sugar Hill, Ted Pappas, Tim Gilmore Florida, Tim Gilmore Jacksonville, Towers Tenant Association, Unité d’Habitation

Spiritual Lighthouse Church

Posted on January 29, 2021 | 1 comment

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It was home, in the old days, to Southern preaching, bluegrass mandolin, and séances. Bluegrass gospel musicians Billie and Gordon Hamrick were staunch Southern Baptists, but Billie had “psychic visions.” The line of Spiritualist pastors here, almost all women, dates back to training by the famous psychic Edgar Cayce. In one of Jill Cook Richards’s first séances at the church, she says, her guardian angel came to her.

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Tagged Andrew Jackson High School, Anna Fletcher, Association for Research and Enlightenment, Atlantis, Billie and Gordon Hamrick, Billie Hamrick, Bob Gray, Chris Hansen, Cosmic Church of Truth, Crestwood Street, Duncan Fletcher, Duncan U. Fletcher, Edgar Cayce, Glidden, Glidden Chemical Company, Gordon Hamrick, Grace Brewer, Ida Pierce, Jacksonville Woman's Club, Jill Cook, Jill Cook Richards, Jimmy Cox, Katie Seltzer, Kirby Smith Junior High School, Lemuria, Marty Hamrick, Mary Ann Lindley, Mary Cox, Millennium Specialty Chemicals, Naomi Hansen, Norwood, Old Country Church TV show, Playtime Drive-In, Southern Gothic Jacksonville, Spiritual Lighthouse Church, Standard Turpentine Co., Symrise, Tim Gilmore, Tina McAlister, Trinity Baptist Church, William C. Hansen

The Armory

Posted on January 22, 2021 | Leave a comment

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Truly this story has it all. The old Armory has stories enough for a hundred cities. There’s no way to tease it adequately. Urban exploration. Thousands of concerts, from opera to Janis Joplin and the Allman Brothers. Political debates and politicians’ funerals and boxing bouts. Stories of integration (James Weldon Johnson, Duke Ellington, Marian Anderson) defiant against Jim Crow. And a call for a future.

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Tagged Abe Livert’s Records, Allman Brothers Band, Along This Way, Angie Rodeillat Smith, Armory Jacksonville, Bryant Bowles, Charley Johns, Clarence Darrow, Colonel Edward Henry, Confederate Ball, Dave Franklin Duke Ellington, Dennis Riggs, Doyle Carlton, Duncan Fletcher, Duncan U. Fletcher, Duval County Armory, Edge City, First Baptist Church Jacksonville, Florida Civil Rights, Florida history, Florida National Guard, Florida Times-Union, Floripatra, Garage Boutique, Gator Bowl, Great Fire of 1901, Haydon Burns, Hixon’s Surfboard Revolution, Hoyt’s High Fidelity, J.C. Coppedge, Jacksonville Armory, Jacksonville Coliseum, Jacksonville history, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, James Weldon Johnson, Janis Joplin Jacksonville, jax psycho geo, John T. Alsop, Johnny Brewer, Johns Committee, KKK Jacksonville, Ku Klux Klan Jacksonville, Leo Kitchen Orchestra, Marian Anderson, Marian Anderson Jacksonville, Marvin Strickland, McCoys Creek, NAAWP, Nake Pear, National Association for the Advancement of White People, Paulus Music, Pickaninny Chorus, Prohibition Jacksonville, Riggs Promotion, Roosevelt Mall, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Song of Hiawatha, Senator Duncan Fletcher, Sidney Catts, Sidney Drachin, Tim Gilmore, Tim Gilmore Jax Psycho Geo, Tommy Torino, United Confederate Veterans, W.A. Hobbs, W.F. Bunch, Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla, Ye Mystic Revelers

The Mystery House at Atlantic/Neptune Beach

Posted on January 17, 2021 | 1 comment

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Supposedly the hurricane tossed the house back up on the beach that way and rather than tearing it down, some smalltime Barnum charged admission. At the beginnings of a town called Neptune, the “Mysterious House” stood out beyond the dunes. Inside, gravity went askew. You felt like you were walking up the wall.

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Tagged Al Mosher, Atlantic Beach, Dan G. Wheeler, Dan Wheeler, Dixie before Disney, Donald Mabry, Florida history, Jacksonville Beach, jaxpsychogeo, Lemon Bar, Lemon Street, Mayport, Mysterious House, Mystery House, Neptune, Neptune Beach, Ocean Boulevard, Pablo Beach, Sanborn Fire Insurance, Sanborn map, Southern Gothic, St. Augustine, Tim Gilmore, Tim Hollis

The Bodies Left Behind in Billy Goat Hill

Posted on January 8, 2021 | Leave a comment

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A hundred years after the bodies were moved, workers digging immediately north of St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral found skeletons. Four decades later, other workers found skulls. Is anybody still down there? These are the kinds of things that can happen when you work in older parts of a city, he said.

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Tagged A.M. Reed, Billy Goat Hill, Cathedral District Jacksonville, Charles Willey, downtown Jacksonville, Florida history, History of Jacksonville, Jacksonville history, Old City Cemetery, Parks at the Cathedral, Paul Krutco, St. John's Episcopal, T. Frederick Davis, Tim Gilmore

New Story: Gary’s Ice Cream / Creamette

Posted on January 3, 2021 | Leave a comment

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First JaxPsychoGeo story of 2021. The photographer John Margolies made Gary’s Ice Cream famous. But who was Gary? Why can nobody remember? And what happened to him? What was Margolies after, driving more than 100,000 miles to take pictures of places like Slappey’s Town of Ghent Motel, the Beaches Drive-In and Gary’s? And why does history care about ice cream?

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New Story: St. Elmo “Chic” Acosta House

Posted on December 28, 2020 | Leave a comment

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When the old man fired his gun over the boy’s head for stealing oranges, the future city commissioner said one day Armstrong’s house would be his. He bought it in 1911. St. Elmo “Chic” Acosta was arrested in 1924 on “false charges” of keeping a “disorderly house” and indicted in 1933 for giving away the city’s “sack of potatoes” and a mule. He made enemies easily, but always fought for urban “beautification.” After the Acostas donated the house in 1966, it became the artistic heart of Episcopal School of Jacksonville.

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Tagged Acosta Bridge, Acosta House, Anna Van Valkenburgh, Barbara Stevenson, Charles Cummings, Chic Acosta, Cohen Brothers, El Modelo, El Modelo Cigar Factory, Elmo Acosta, Elmo Chic Acosta, Elmo W. Acosta, Episcopal Boys Home, Episcopal High School, Episcopal School of Jacksonville, Ernest Anders, Ernest E. Anders, Federal Writers Project, Florida history, J.E.T. Bowden, Jacksonville history, jax psycho geo, Jean Ribault, John Alsop, John T. Alsop, John W. Martin, Keystone Bluff, L.H. Armstrong, Mark Zimmerman, Munnerlyn Campus, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, Pedro Menendez, Robert Bruce Van Valkenburgh, Rose Shepherd, Satsumas, Sean Bean, Second Seminole Indian War, St. Elmo Acosta, Tim Gilmore, Unshu Mikan, Van Valkenburgh, Van Valkenburgh House

New Story: Round Marsh (by the Willie Browne Trail)

The Strange Story of Slappey’s Town of Ghent Motel

LaVilla’s Progress Furniture Company

Revisiting Jacksonville’s Trisect, Public Art Milestone

Spiritual Lighthouse Church

The Armory

The Mystery House at Atlantic/Neptune Beach

The Bodies Left Behind in Billy Goat Hill

New Story: Gary’s Ice Cream / Creamette

New Story: St. Elmo “Chic” Acosta House

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