Tag Archives: El Modelo

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

Walking the Vanished Old Panama Road

Posted on April 12, 2020 | Leave a comment

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The Old Panama Road disappeared beneath the Northside of the city 120 years ago. This story tracks it. It heads north from the murder of Marie Gato, past Club Steppin’ Out, through the diary of a black Civil War soldier reading Lord Byron, a Spanish American War camp teeming with Typhoid Fever and the burning of a sawmill the size of a small town.

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Tagged Alexander St. Clair-Abrams, Andrew Robinson Elementary School, Austin Mann, Austin S. Mann, Bloxham Avenue, Buffalo Avenue, Buffalo Food Store, Camp Bloxham, Charles F. Sibbald, Childe Harold, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Club Steppin' Out, Confederacy, Confederate States of America, Covid-19, Cyrus Brown, E.L. Smith Candy, Eddie Pitzer, Edward Pitzer, El Modelo, Everett Hotel, Evergreen Cemetery, Fairfield, First Coast Automotive, G.W. Wetmore, Gabriel Hidalgo Gato, George W. Clark, Henry John Klutho, Jacksonville Historic Preservation Commission, Jacksonville's Architectural Heritage, James Berry, jax psycho geo, Jim Crow, Joel McEachin, John Bigger, José Alejandro Huau, Jose Marti, Lord Byron, Lycurgis Bigger, manatee, Marie Louise Gato, North Springfield, Old Panama Road, Panama Florida, Panama Mills, Panama Park, Panama Park School, Panama Park Track, Pitzer and Bigger, Relaxx Inn, Sanborn Fire Insurance, Sebald Lane, Silver Street, Spanish moss, Springfield, Tim Gilmore, Trout River, Typhoid Fever, United States Colored Troops, USCT, We’re for Jesus House of Prayer, William Dunnington Bloxham

El Modelo, Part II

Posted on January 30, 2020 | Leave a comment

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Part Two of the three-part series on El Modelo Cigar Factory features the Dying Declaration of Marie Louise Gato, her possible romantic entanglements with young Cuban revolutionaries, and the “Jacksonville Junta,” who organized both clandestinely and not so secretly for the war in Havana.

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Tagged Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, Calixto Garcia, Cuba Libre, Cuban Revolutionary Party, Dauntless, Domingo Herrera, Eddie Pitzer, Edward Pitzer, El Modelo, filibuster, Florida, freebooter, Gabriel Hidalgo Gato, Jacksonville Junta, James Weldon Johnson, jax psycho geo, José Alejandro Huau, José Carbonne, Jose Marti, Marie Louise Gato, Máximo Gómez y Báez, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, Three Friends, Tim Gilmore

El Modelo: Sensational Murder Trials, Cuban Revolutionaries

Posted on January 26, 2020 | Leave a comment

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At El Modelo Cigar Factory, Cuban revolutionaries fomented insurrection. Marie Gato, daughter of El Modelo’s owner, died, bullets to her breast, subject of Jacksonville’s most sensational trial of the 19th century. El Modelo still stands. A practitioner of the law firm that calls the building home claims to have seen Marie’s ghost. Either way, this building’s story shifted history. Click below for the first story in a three-part series.

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Tagged Alexander St. Clair-Abrams, Along This Way, Barnett Bank, Colonel William Kay, Eddie Pitzer, Edward Pitzer, el lector, El Modelo, Florida history, G.H. Gato and Co, Gabriel Hidalgo Gato, Georgia Gato, Hamilton Adams, James Weldon Johnson, Jim Moseley, José Alejandro Huau, Jose Marti, lectores, Lee Adams, Marie Louise Gato, Moseley Prichard Parrish Knight & Jones, Reuben Ragland, Ricardo Ponce, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, Three Friends, Tim Gilmore, Tom Adams