| 651 true stories from the Southern Gothic heart of one Florida town

Exploring the Mysteries of Cosmo and Gullah Geechee North Florida

Posted on August 12, 2022 | Leave a comment

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Nobody knows how Cosmo got its name. White folks live here, they just don’t know they live in Cosmo. Forged from Emancipation, this historic community of former slaves spoke its own dialects more African than African American. Oh but the buckruh knew how to get their land. Now but vestiges of Cosmo remain.

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Tagged Alberta Bartley Anderson, Alexander Memorial United Methodist Church, Bishop Sophie M. Jewel, black history, buckruh, Chaseville, Church of the Living God, Cleve Powell, Cosmo Florida, Cosmo Gullah Geechee, Cosmo Jacksonville, Cosmo Jacksonville Florida, Cosmo Schoolhouse, Ella Brown, Ethel Deloris Demps, Ethel Montaque, Felix Early Lewis, Florida Act to Provide for and Encourage a Liberal System of Internal Improvements, Fort Caroline Club Estates, Fort Caroline Oaks, Fulton Cemetery, Fulton Jacksonville, Geechee Florida, Geechee Jacksonville, Gullah Florida, Gullah Geechee Cultural Herirtage Corridor Florida, Gullah Geechee Florida, Gullah Geechee Jacksonville, Gullah Jacksonville, Hunters Run, Jacksonville Duval County Consolidation, James Bartley, jaxpsychogeo, Lone Star, Lyn Corley, Marguerite Redding, Mary Neil Bartley, Mother Mary Magdalena Tate, Nathaniel Brown, Old Fulton Town, Palm Springs Cemetery, St. Johns Bluff, St. Johns Landing Estates, the Pillar and Ground of the Truth, Theodore Brown, Tim Gilmore, Willie Anderson, Windsong Loop, Wright Rowan

Remembering O.Z. Tyler, Epic Poet on Willow Branch Canal

Posted on August 7, 2022 | Leave a comment

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A quarter century ago, the ancient epic poet, “the Colonel,” opened his Tudor style home on Willow Branch Canal to a poet in his 20s. Orville Zelotes Tyler, Jr. wanted to be to America, to the South, to Jacksonville what Homer was to Ancient Greece, and his subject was Osceola, the Seminole leader who’d resisted the U.S. Army and was only captured under truce.

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Tagged Bill Slaughter, Cumberland Campus, E.M. Souvielle, Eliza Wilbur, Florida Junior College, Florida State College at Jacksonville, FSCJ Kent Campus, Jacksonville Historical Society, jaxpsychogeo, Marabanong, O.Z. Tyler, Orville Zelotes Tyler, Osceola, Osceola Seminole Chief, Palmer Tyler, Riverside Avondale, Tim Gilmore, Ulyssiad, William Slaughter, Willow Branch Canal, Willow Branch Creek, Willow Branch Terrace

Hogans Creek, Barometer for the Health of the City

Posted on July 29, 2022 | Leave a comment

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Hogans Creek, part of Jacksonville’s “Emerald Necklace,” reflects the level of care the city takes of itself. It always has. It’s been both garbage dump and pseudo-Venetian “Grand Canal.” It’s taken lives. It’s provided a getaway route for the city’s most famous alligator. Now it’s part of Groundwork Jacksonville’s plan for an Emerald Trail. Hogans Creek is a barometer of the health of the city.

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Tagged Charles Imeson, Confederate Park, Daniel Hogans, Dignan Park, Duval County Armory, Elaine Brown Jacksonville, Emerald Necklace Jacksonville, Emerald Trail Jacksonville, Groundwork Jacksonville, Henry John Klutho, Hogan's Creek Tower, Hogans Creek, Hogans Creek Improvement Project, Klutho Park, McCoys Creek, Red Cannon Jacksonville, Springfield Park, Sub-Tropical Exposition

Mount Zion A.M.E. Church, Cradle of Freedom in Florida

Posted on July 22, 2022 | 1 comment

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The story of Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church won’t walk a straight line. It’s a story comprised of stories, of a black congregation that walked right out of the Civil War and purchased this hallowed ground. It’s the stories of its members, from Senator Joseph E. Lee to Dr. LeMorris Prier to Sollie Mitchell, who died just before his 104th birthday in March. It’s the history of tragedy and triumph, one of the cradles of freedom in Florida.

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The Triangle Bar and All That’s Left of Old Lem Turner

Posted on July 10, 2022 | Leave a comment

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One block is all that’s left of Old Lem Turner Road where it met the Turner Ferry. Some seem to think the Triangle Bar has been here about that long. This is where Jesse Carver brought his granddaughter on the first night of her life in 1972, where J.W. Rich, who killed Johnnie Mae Chappell, all but lived for 30 years, where the Trout River Bridge burned in the Civil War. Stories still accrue.

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Tagged Corrine Brown, Donald Coleman, Elmer Kato, Eugene Davis, Frank Van Cleave, Helen Jinright, Highlands Jacksonville, J.W. Rich, Jesse Carver, Johnnie Mae Chappell, Lee Cody, Lem Turner Road, Lemuel Turner, Louise Hersey, Mary Van Cleave, New Triangle Old Lem Turner, Old Lem Turner, One Door for Education Foundation, Rex Sweat, Rick Van Cleave, Silver Star Avenue B, Sonny’s Lake Forest Lounge, Stanley Stover, Susan Cooper Eastman, Susan Eastman, Triangle Bar, Trotters Motorcycle Club, Trout River, Trout River Boulevard, Turner Ferry, Turner Ferry Road, Wayne Chessman, Willie Chappell

Because of Poor Planning, Parking Storage is Hollowing Out Downtown Jax

Posted on July 3, 2022 | Leave a comment

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Call them “parking craters” or “dead zones” or osteoporosis. Mammoth parking garages are eating Downtown alive. When the flâneuX sees only parking storage on either side, they guess Downtown is the “parking district.” Jane Jacobs titled a famous essay “Downtown is for People.” Jax authorities sometimes seem to think otherwise.

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Tagged "Parking Craters: A Downtown Vibrancy Killer", Aaron Zahn, Bill Delaney, Bob Wolverton, Brooklyn Jacksonville, Downtown Development Review Board Jacksonville, Downtown Investment Authority Jacksonville, downtown Jacksonville parking, Fidelity Information Services Building, Fire Station No. 5 Jacksonville, Gensler, Herb Coons, Herschel Shepard, Jacksonville Central Park, Jacksonville Electric Authority, Jacksonville parking craters, jacksonville parking garages, jacksonville parking storage, Jacksonville walkshed, James Weldon Johnson Park, Lenny Curry, parking craters, Peter Rumple, Reggie Bridges, St. Johns Episcopal Cathedral, Ted Pappas

This is Where the First House Stood

Posted on July 1, 2022 | Leave a comment

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Here, Lewis Zachariah and Maria Hogans built the first house. It preceded the city (if you could call it that) of Jacksonville by six years. Oddly, the Spanish had built houses here before the “first house” was built. When hotels replaced it, the Old Hogans Well remained. The city burnt and rebuilt and burnt and rebuilt. Today, the concrete discus atop the city looks like a UFO landing pad.

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Tagged "Oldest House in Jacksonville", Atlantic National Bank, Atlantic National Bank Parking Garage, Bob Wolverton, Cafe Belvidere, Duval Hotel, first house in Jacksonville, General John Forsyth, Helmut Jahn, Henry John Klutho, Henry Klutho Seminole Hotel, Herb Coons, Herschel Shepard, Hogans Well, Jacksonville Post Office Tower, Lewis Zachariah Hogans, Maria Hogans, Maria Suarez, Maria Taylor, New Duval Hotel, Nichols House, Parnel Taylor, Patriot War, Peter Rumpel, Robert Pritchard, Seminole Hotel, Seminole Wars, Ted Pappas

A Condemnation of Contraception One Afternoon at Pic N’ Save

Posted on June 26, 2022 | Leave a comment

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I bought Star Wars action figures at Pic N’ Save in 1980 and searched for “fish cheeks” in ’86. The Setzers started their first grocery in the 1920s and Pic N’ Save in ’55, then closed the drug store chain in the ’90s. Though I’d grown up fundamentalist, what that cashier said to me and my first wife, newlyweds, shocked us silent. I’ll never forget it.

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Tagged 103rd Street, Benjamin Setzer, Blanding Boulevard, Blanding Boulevard 103rd Street, Pic N Save Drug Store, Pic N Save Florida, Pic N' Save, Pic N' Save Jacksonville, Setzer's Grocery, Setzer's Pic N' Save, Tim Gilmore

The Myth of Ancient Floridian Giants

Posted on June 25, 2022 | Leave a comment

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The fiction that the Timucua and other indigenous Florida peoples were seven to nine feet tall spread rapidly in the 1950s. My mother believed it, told me we were descended. Another fiction. Willie Browne and Father Dearing believed it. D.B. McKay — Tampa mayor, newspaper editor, and chief organizer of the White Municipal Party — believed nine foot tall ancient Floridians populated the Garden of Eden. So where did these ideas come from?

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Tagged A Land Remembered, Athore, Cross and Sword, Cross and Sword: A Symphonic Drama of the Spanish Settlement of Florida, D.B. McKay, Father Frank Dearing, Fiction Fix, First Presbyterian Church Jacksonville, Fort Caroline, Fort Caroline National Memorial, Garden of Eden Florida, Great Fire of 1901, In Abraham's Bosom, Jacque Le Moyne, jaxpsychogeo, Jean Ribault, Juan Alonso Cavale, Mocama, Mocama Indians, Oriba, Patrick D. Smith, Patrick D. Smith A Land Remembered, Paul Green, Purple Petunia, René Goulaine de Laudonnière, Saturiwa, Theodor de Bry, Tim Gilmore, Timucua, Timucuan Indians, Timucuan Village U.S. Capitol, Wesley B. Plott, White Municipal Party, William Sears, William Sears archaeologist, Willie Browne

JPG is 10 Years Old: Here’s the Top 15

Posted on June 18, 2022 | Leave a comment

10 years ago today, 6/18, JaxPsychoGeo was born. I’d written a nonfiction novel trying to capture pieces of my hometown, Jax, and blend them into a mosaic. I broke the pieces up into the first JPG stories. There are now 642. Here’s the Top 15 most viewed stories on JaxPsychoGeo.com in the last decade.

15. Ottis Toole’s Mother’s House (Until He Burnt It Down)

14. Jacksonville Beach: Ginger’s Place

13. Pumpkin Hill: Anderson Cemetery (Annette’s and Mylette’s Memorial)

12. Hammond Boulevard Exit at the “Perfect Pedophile Paradise”

11. Chopstick Charley’s and The Joe

10. Highway 90 West: Open Spanish Trail Way Station

9. Oakhaven: Moyer House

8. Baymeadows: GMAC Mass Shooting Site

7. Springfield: Ottis Toole House

6. Leon Cheek Castle

5. HerbRoc Fountains: Wilensky House

4. Outlaw Motorcycle Club, Car Bomb, Southside Estates