Tag Archives: jax psycho geo

Making an Old Church — with Its Many Past Lives — Home

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Having renovated this old church and made her home here, Jennifer Raines says she’ll never live anywhere else. When Mike Bennett lived here in 1970, it was a “Jesus Freak” hippy commune. A young Vietnam vet named Larry Colton, missing for more than 40 years now, lived here too. A Haitian church destroyed by arson was the last congregation to call this old church home. What lives this building has lived!

Project: Cold Case — “Because One Unsolved Murder Is Too Many”

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Of all 50 states, Florida has the sixth highest number of unsolved homicides: between 1965 and 2021, nearly 20,000. Yet the motto of Project: Cold Case is “Because One Unsolved Murder Is Too Many.” The advocacy platform grew from Cliff Backmann’s unsolved 2009 murder. Now Project: Cold Case represents families from Florida to Alaska, though every family’s grief is the center of the world.

When Jax Banned Mickey Spillane

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When Jax banned Mickey Spillane, the tough-talking crime novelist and his “blonde bombshell” wife Sherri came to town. Activist Warren Folks wanted all funding for the Jacksonville Public Library system halted until every book was screened. Spillane said if Folks thought this book was bad, “Wait until he sees the next one!”

Robert Broward’s Favorite Design: The Unitarian Universalist Church of Jacksonville

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Recuperating from a nearly fatal car crash, architect Robert Broward drew the first sketches of his design for the Unitarian Universalist Church of Jacksonville in his hospital bed. Near the end of his life, he said it was his favorite design.

The Story of Storyland U.S.A.

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More than a decade before Disney came to Florida, Storyland U.S.A. occupied 10 acres along the Arlington Expressway, featuring static exhibits of nursery rhymes along dirt trails. Storyland didn’t last long, but it influenced Marc Suttle’s earliest remembered dreams and Cheryl Joseph can still see the witch from Hansel and Gretel. 

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.

The Hidden House, by Ted Pappas, a Mediterranean Revival Revival

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This house hidden behind a house on the river, is both classical and contemporary. Ted Pappas designed it when he was restoring the Mediterranean Revival mansion called Epping Forest. Indeed, you could call this house Mediterranean Revival Revival. Its current occupant must go unnamed. He does not speak into his shoe, though he did once have a STU-III.

When the City Dumped Sewage Sludge on the Regency Dunes

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National headlines announced fecal matter raining across the city. Sewage lines collapsed without being replaced. Treatment facilities were overwhelmed. Tankers dumped sewage sludge on the sand dunes behind Regency Square Mall where kids had jumped their dune buggies and dads shot World War II rifles. The mayor jumped into the sludge wars.

The Fisherwoman, Poet and Preacher in the Lost Black Community Called Hogan

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The 92 year old black preacher woman recalls Bishop Noah Nothing and on back to Sister Savannah, who ate nothing but the fish she caught, recited poetry, preached and carried her shotgun everywhere. She lived in the lost settlement called Hogan. Here’s what story still echoes in the landscape.

Updating the Mysteries of the Burdette / Clarke House

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A significant part of the story is chasing dead ends and phantom leads, balancing contradictory evidence, demanding ghosts stand still and be more present. So here’s the story of the Burdette / Clarke House updated, with its frustrated artist, abandoned sanitarium and moonlight shrimping.