Tag Archives: Bisbee Building

The Long Strange History of the Moulton and Kyle Funeral Home

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The history of the Moulton and Kyle Funeral Home graphs itself across the center of the city. It includes an undertaker who sold whiskey flasks and rifles, insurance agents who stole a corpse, and a couple who married in an ambulance; an associated funeral home became a movie theater. The new owners left behind a century of personal records and cremated remains. 

The Barnett National Bank Building, Its Deep Roots and Tendrils through Time

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It was “the Year of the Skyscraper.” The 10 story building next door began to tilt. Alfred duPont raised Florida from the Great Depression, merely from infusions of his personal wealth. When Barnett began the Bank of Jacksonville in 1877, he couldn’t have known it would grow into one of the largest banks in the South. After Herbert Hoover, Alfred’s wife, Jessie Ball duPont, changed direction. Her hair was graying, but her eyes still sparkled.

Barnett’s personification of its first Automatic Teller Machine frightened Southern working class families. Charles Rice said he’d never sell “Bion Barnett’s bank.” Then he checked into rehab. Then he sold. Then he drowned in his own swimming pool. Now UNF is making the Barnett “the front door to the startup community in Jacksonville.”