Tag Archives: Yellow Fever

Unparalleled Successes from the Now Abandoned State Board of Health Building

Posted on June 24, 2023 | Leave a comment

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When Florida created its Board of Health in 1889, life expectancy here was 44 years. The successes achieved in making life in naturally inhumane Florida livable stagger the imagination. They’re almost beyond communication. And much of that work happened here — in the now abandoned State Board of Health Building in Jacksonville.

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Tagged 1931 County Health Unit Law, Claude Kirk, Claudius Maximus, Florida Division of Health, Florida Health Notes, Florida polio quarantine, Florida Public Health Office, Florida State Board of Health Building, Governor Claude Kirk, jaxpsychogeo, Joseph Yates Porter, Julia Street Building and Public Health, JY Porter, Raspberry Park, Russell Jackson, State Board of Health Building Jacksonville, Tim Gilmore, Webster Merritt, Wilson Sowder, Yellow Fever, Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1888, Yellow Jack

Hunter’s Mill and the Cursed Waterfront

Posted on February 17, 2023 | Leave a comment

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The East Jacksonville waterfront lies vacant where Shad Kahn talks of building a Four Seasons Hotel. Long ago, before workers built 82 ships here in World War II, Hunter’s Mill and the waterfront sawmills were violent places, full of arson, murder and suicide.

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Tagged Alexander and Hardie, Commodore Point, Dexter Hunter, Elder Eugene Lindsley, Eppinger and Russell, Four Seasons Jacksonville, Green Cove Springs and Melrose Railroad, H.D. Holland, Henry Clark, Hogans Creek, Hunter's Mill, Hunter's Saw Mill, John O’Neill (or O’Neil), Richard Montgomery, Seminole Club Jacksonville, Shad Kahn, Sheriff H.D. Holland, Springfield Advent Christian Church, St. Johns River Shipbuilding Company, T. Frederick Davis, T.V. Cashen, The Pond Jacksonville, Western Railway Company of Florida, Yellow Fever, Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1888

Reposting the Story of the Plague Year

Posted on March 27, 2020 | Leave a comment

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Epidemics are not new. Nor the exception, they’re the rule. In 1888, the jaundiced skeleton who walked through Jax an archetype of death and disease, the newspapers called “Yellow Jack.” Political battles ensued. Jacksonville, with Yellow Fever rampant, locked down under “Shotgun Quarantine.” All these years later, this new pandemic, nobody’s firing cannons in the streets. Not yet, at least.

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Tagged A Century of Medicine in Jacksonville and Duval County, Aedes Aegypti, Alligator Florida, Alligator Lake City, Anna Fletcher, Atmospheric Concussion as a Means of Disinfectant, Duncan Fletcher, Duncan Upshaw Fletcher, Experiences in a Stricken City, Fernandina Beach, Florida history, Gateway Mall, George Storck, Harry Houdini, History of Duval County Florida, Houdini Fortune Telling Bill, Jacksonville Auxiliary Sanitation Commission, James Jacquelin Daniel, Jared Keen, jax psycho geo, Judson House, McCoys Creek, McCoys Creek Tunnel, Merritt Webster, Nathan Vaught, Neal Mitchell, Pest House, Pleasant Daniel Gold, Sand Hills Hospital, Sand Hills Yellow Fever Hospital, Shotgun Quarantine, St. Luke's Hospital, Surgeon General John Hamilton, Tim Gilmore writer, Yellow Fever, Yellow Fever Mosquito, Yellow Jack

The Double Hauntings of Gateway Mall on Yellow Fever Burials at Sand Hills Hospital

Posted on March 21, 2020 | Leave a comment

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“We found so many bones. I had two bags full of them,” John says. Then Lorene wore her hula outfit for Montgomery Ward’s “Hawaiian Days” sale and Pat and Donna both played Easter Bunny. Where Smallpox and Yellow Fever victims died at Sand Hills Hospital, Gateway Shopping Center and Mall suffered cycles of suburban flight and decline. “We found a skull out there,” Linda says, “and took it to school.”

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Tagged A Century of Medicine in Jacksonville and Duval County, Bono's Barbecue, Charlie Suggs, Donald Sluder, Donna Renee Burns, Easter Bunny, Esther Troeger Oetjen, Fashion Earrings and Gifts, Fire Next Time, Florida history, G.C. Murphy, Gatewall Shopping Center, Gateway Mall, Gateway Town Center, George Blum, Golfair Manor, Hogans Creek, J.C. Penney, Jacksonville history, James Baldwin, Jane Delano, jaxpsychogeo, Jim Sieg, John Hal Price, Leave It to Beaver, Linda Curtis, Linda Emerson Sabin, Lorene Peterson Mizell, Louise Hall Hersey, Mark Hodges, Marlboro Circle, Merritt Webster, Montgomery Ward, Norwood Avenue, Norwood Elementary, Orange Julius, Pat Bullard, Sam Morris Spevak, Sand Hills Hospital, Sand Hills Yellow Fever Hospital, Sissy Morgan Guinn, Slippery Dip, Smallpox, St. Luke's Hospital, Symrise, Tim Gilmore, Tom McCurry, Wagonmaster, Wellington Cummer, Yellow Fever, Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1888, Yellow Fever Hill

Two Centuries of Creativity: William Morgan, McMurray Livery

Posted on February 15, 2019 | Leave a comment

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A complete architectural vision would seem to have assembled itself overnight. In William Morgan’s architectural offices, in the old livery and stables he’d renovated downtown, he drafted designs for homes and headquarters where Isaiah David Hart, the founder of the city, built his own first home.

There was a fire in 1850. There were fires in the Civil War. The Great Fire of 1901 was the third largest urban fire in United States history. In 2012, artist and photographer Tiffany Manning smelled smoke in her studio above where a blacksmith’s shop had stood 100 years before. Firefighters said if she hadn’t been there, the building would have burned down. She writes with light.

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Tagged 8th Maine Volunteer Infantry, Annie Lytle School, Arnold Printing, Bernice Morgan, Bunny Morgan, Charlotte Mabrey, Court House Garage, Cynthia Parks, Duval County Armory, Embers Restaurant, Isaiah David Hart, Jacksonville Sale and Livery Stable, Jacksonville Transfer, jax psycho geo, Joseph Corrigan, Madison Manning, Matt Colaciello, Matthew Colaciello, McMurray Livery, Patrick McMurray P.E. McMurray, Paul Rudolph, Philip Frazer House, Richard Shieldhouse, Robert Arleigh White, Rutledge Holmes, School Number Four, Thomas McMurray, Tiffany Manning, Tim Gilmore, United States Colored Troops, Universal Marion Building, Wayne Wood, William Ebert, William Morgan, Windsor Hotel, Yellow Fever

Goat Island, Christopher’s Pier, Rattlesnake Hunting, a Man Shot in the Face, and Tim Gilmore’s Upcoming Book Launch at the Jacksonville Historical Society

Posted on August 11, 2018 | Leave a comment

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On August 23 at 6:30 pm at the Jacksonville Historical Society, Tim Gilmore will launch, read from, and sign his newest book, Goat Island Hermit: The State of Florida vs. Rollians Christopher. (Your invitation is at the bottom of this post.)

Rollians Christopher, 1955, photograph unattributed, courtesy Florida Times-Union

Here’s an early version of a story that makes its way into the book, a story about Christopher’s Pier, the tavern that protruded from the fishing village over the river for decades, about a Yellow Fever quarantine hospital, about a fisherman whose legs were car tires, about shrimp boats and hunting rattlesnakes, about a man shot in the face.

Goat Island, 1955, prior to its development into Blount Island, photograph unattributed, courtesy Florida Times-Union

You are invited: https://www.facebook.com/events/314940972382209/

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Tagged Agnes K, Anita Johnson, Apollo Street, Blount Island, Christopher's Pier, Cleve Powell, Dames Point, finfish, Florida Ship Canal Authority, Fred Nichols, Fred's Island, George Christopher, Gilmore, Goat Island, Goat Island Hermit: The State of Florida vs. Rollians Christopher, Grey Hotel, Heckscher Drive, Henry Von Balsan, J. Henry Blount, Jacksonville, JaxPort, jaxpsychogeo, Joe Christopher, Joseph Leonard Johnson II, Junior Hodge, Mill Cove, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, New Berlin, New Berlin Cemetery, Nichols Creek, Overstreet Pride, Quarantine Island, Rollians Christopher, Rollie Christopher, Tim Gilmore, Yellow Fever

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

Gilmore Cemetery and Settlement

Posted on December 3, 2017 | Leave a comment

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Irish immigrant Archibald Gilmore founded this settlement in 1885. The Gilmore train station stopped somewhere along today’s Gilmore Heights Road North.

Bill Hawley trudged through the dark wooded night in fear of the escaped convict. The Timucuans were here five millennia before all that.

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Tagged Archibald Gilmore, Arlington, Boggy Branch, Cleve Powell, Eggleston, Gilmore, Gilmore Cemetery, Gilmore Heights, Gilmore Train Station, Hawley, James Shields, JM&P, Mill Creek, Rio St. Johns, Rondette Lake, Shields Mound, Timucua, Turner's Fish Camp, W.F. Hawley, Yellow Fever

Anna Fletcher’s Final Home

Posted on September 5, 2017 | Leave a comment

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Photographs of ghosts, of ectoplasm. She died here, in her final home, on Riverside Avenue.

The wife of the Jacksonville mayor and longest-serving U.S. senator from Florida testified before Congress, against Houdini, on behalf of Spiritualism.

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Tagged Anna Fletcher, Anna Louise Fletcher, Arthur Conan Doyle, Cassadaga, Clara Louise Leslie, Death Unveiled, Duncan Fletcher, Duncan U. Fletcher, ectoplasm, Fletcher Mansion, H.P. Lovecraft, Harry Houdini, Hugo's Interiors, Jacksonville, jaxpsychogeo, Jennie Hugo, Riverside Avenue, Rosabelle Believe, seance, Sherlock Holmes, Spiritualism, Thomas Porter, Tim Gilmore, Yellow Fever

Sister Mary Ann at the Church of the Immaculate Conception

Posted on July 10, 2017 | Leave a comment

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Sister Mary Ann braved the jails, whispered with the condemned. She nurtured soldiers shot, stabbed, battered and dismembered in Civil War Jacksonville. She raised the funds to open the orphanage, and St. Mary’s Home opened on August 15^th, the Feast of Assumption, 1886.

Daily, she’d made her rounds among those dying of Yellow Fever, their yellow eyes and the vomiting of blood, the seizures that mocked demonic possession.

By the time she died in January 1914, “Jacksonville’s Angel of Mercy” had selflessly served the sick, the dying, the condemned, the homeless, the lost, and the orphaned in Jacksonville for 50 years.

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Tagged Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, Church of the Immaculate Conception, Civil War Jacksonville, Eartha White, Ellen Hoare, Father William John Hamilton, Great Fire of 1901, Jacksonville, Jacksonville's Angel of Mercy, jaxpsychogeo, pieta, Sister Mary Ann, Tim Gilmore, Yellow Fever