Senator John Mathews and the Bridge to Nowhere

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When the Mathews Bridge was new, it was “the Bridge to Nowhere,” but it heralded the growth of Arlington east of the river and Downtown Jax. The city painted it “garnet” to celebrate its United States Football League team in 1984. It was named for the Florida senator best known for his proposed legislation to limit black voting rights. Opposing those bills got Harry T. Moore and his wife killed on their 25th anniversary.

From Warhol’s Factory to Babs’ Lab

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It’s the story of her open-heart surgery, how Barbara Colaciello opened her heart and built Jax a stage there. She moved from Factory to Lab, from that most famous art scene in America, Andy Warhol’s NY, to creating Babs’ Lab in NE FL. Here’s what happens now at this cultural crossroads.

Leaving the Carl Swisher Mansion

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Lori Boyer has called the old Carl Swisher mansion in San Marco home for 35 years. She mourned one husband here, married another. John Swisher, manufacturer of King Edward Cigars, built this house for his son right beside his own in 1930. Boyer says she’s a period in the house’s history and now it’s time for another family.

the Robert Burns Monument in Springfield Park

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So why is there a monument to the Scottish national poet, Robert Burns, in Springfield Park, in the middle of Jax? It was the last of many such monuments placed around the country. And how is Rabbie Burns’s fandom different from that of Sir Walter Scott, whom Mark Twain blamed for the American Civil War?

Merry Christmas at the Merrill House

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Before the house was electrified, candles shone at the ends of Christmas tree branches in the bay window. The youngest Merrill boy wears a kilt in that 1880s family photo. And of course, what every Christmas needs is an alligator foot purse.

The Graveyard by the Front Porch on West 17th Street

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The cemetery lies in the front yard. The side of the house faces the street. The earliest grave is from 1879. The farmland that Elder Eugene Lindsley once fertilized with ash from the city crematorium is gone. So is the Adventist church. Who lies in three of the 10 graves beneath the ancient oak, no one knows.

Visiting What Remains of the Yellow Water Nuclear Weapons Storage Area

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These are the woods once guarded by M-16s and complicated lethal security systems. These forest-covered bunkers once held some of the most deadly weapons ever created. This is what the Yellow Water Nuclear Weapons Storage Area, which once held the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the Southeast, looks like now.

Revisiting the Story of the Neff House and the Betz Sphere

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Neff 19

One of my favorite JaxPsychoGeo stories has to be that of the Nettleton Neff House. Abandoned in the hills away from public roads on Fort George Island, the house was born in tragedy a century ago. Neff committed suicide before he could live in the house. Only one family has ever lived here year-round and they ended up fleeing the conspiracy theorists and UFO chasers.

The Stories of Riverside High School, formerly Robert E. Lee

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The story (stories) of Riverside High School, formerly Robert E. Lee, including the girl who’d become my mother, how the yearbook editor-in-chief Ted Pappas embraced his Greek heritage, Vaudeville and Southern Rock, and the fierce campaign to change the school’s name.

Riverside High School (formerly Robert E. Lee), Part 1: The Girl Who Would Become My Mother

Riverside High School (formerly Robert E. Lee), Part 2: Ted Pappas Becoming Ted Pappas

Riverside High School (formerly Robert E. Lee), Part 3: History According to Vaudeville

Riverside High School (formerly Robert E. Lee), Part 4: Becoming Riverside High School

Riverside High School (formerly Robert E. Lee), Part 5 — Coda: The Prehistory of Friday Night Drums

The Arctic Discoverer — the Original Story

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Photo by Wanda Glennon Canaday

It’s been eight years since my sister and I wandered into the Arctic Discoverer. The ship remains in the same place, but nobody can access it now. All it does is deteriorate. Here’s the original story, with photography by Wanda Glennon Canaday.

Photo by Wanda Glennon Canaday