Tag Archives: Sanborn Fire Insurance

The Mystery House at Atlantic/Neptune Beach

Posted on January 17, 2021 | 1 comment

Click below for this week’s story, or navigate the city through the search bar or the direction buttons at the top of the page:

Supposedly the hurricane tossed the house back up on the beach that way and rather than tearing it down, some smalltime Barnum charged admission. At the beginnings of a town called Neptune, the “Mysterious House” stood out beyond the dunes. Inside, gravity went askew. You felt like you were walking up the wall.

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Tagged Al Mosher, Atlantic Beach, Dan G. Wheeler, Dan Wheeler, Dixie before Disney, Donald Mabry, Florida history, Jacksonville Beach, jaxpsychogeo, Lemon Bar, Lemon Street, Mayport, Mysterious House, Mystery House, Neptune, Neptune Beach, Ocean Boulevard, Pablo Beach, Sanborn Fire Insurance, Sanborn map, Southern Gothic, St. Augustine, Tim Gilmore, Tim Hollis

Walking the Vanished Old Panama Road

Posted on April 12, 2020 | Leave a comment

Click below for this week’s story, or navigate the city through the direction buttons at the top of the page:

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

Old Philips, w/o Boundaries, Beheadings, the Last Hall-and-Parlor

Posted on February 3, 2018 | Leave a comment

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Someone stole their heads. Their bodies had been burnt. Police found two axes in the scorched desolation of the shack. Just before Christmas. 1913.

Most of the residents of Philips were the children or grandchildren of former slaves, or were former slaves themselves. Sunken ground in the slope and swale of Philips Cemetery at Craig Swamp might mark older unrecorded graves.

Her husband lived to be 97. She was born in the house in 1922. Surely he’d heard the story when he was young.

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Tagged Albert Gallatin Philips, Craig Creek, Craig Swamp, First Coast Industrial Supply, Florida East Coast Railway, hall and parlor, Jacksonville, jaxpsychogeo, Jerusalem, John McLaurin, John McRay, Joseph Moore, King's Road, Ku Klux Klan, Larsen, Louis Hufbauer, Marjorie Moore, Mary Ann Harvich, Mary Hufbauer, Naugle Funeral Home, Philips, Philips Cemetery, Philips Community, Philips Congregational Church, Philips Highway, Pine Forest, Red Bank Plantation, Reddi-Arts, Sanborn Fire Insurance, shotgun house, South Jacksonville, Southbank, St Augustine Road, Stone Tape, T.C. Lethbridge, Tidbits, Tim Gilmore, W.H. Dowling, Yellow Fever