Jacksonville, FL - Cowford Jaguars

Hey, have you ever heard of the NFL team named the Cowford Jaguars? Pretty catchy name isn’t it? But, I don’t think anyone has ever heard of it. Well, it could have been. Back in 1822, Jacksonville, FL began life as Cowford, FL. Nope, I don’t think that is the name of a world class city. Can’t name an international airport the Cowford International. And, an NFL team called the Cowford Jaguars? Nope, that cow cain’t fly.

We’re in Jacksonville, FL and it’s time for a little history of the place. Do you know that it is the largest city in the US - well, in terms of area? It is 840 sq. miles - that’s huge. And, if you want to pace off 20 miles by 42 miles to see how big it is, you can do that. Me? I’m going to believe them. It was founded in 1822 and named after Andrew Jackson, the territorial governor. Now, originally it was called Cowford since the British used a narrow part of the St. Johns river for their cattle to ford to escape from the Spanish. But, Cowford doesn’t sound like a world class city. So ‘Jacksonville’ was chosen.

It was sacked repeatedly during the Civil War but the real devastation came during the Great Fire of 1902. This is when a cooking fire in a Spanish moss drying building caught fire and, fanned by the gusty winds, spewed sparks throughout the wooden town. 8 hours and the city was a smoldering pile of ashes. In the end, 2300 buildings were destroyed and 10,000 were homeless.

Bad deal. But, Jacksonville then became a beehive of building and architects and builders flocked to the town to try out their trade. In the following decade, Jacksonville revitalized its city and the population doubled.

There, the history is done - not so bad was it? Just one more little tidbit. Spanish moss was used in upholstery in the early cars. Cheap, plentiful and spongy enough to be good for upholstery - mattresses and car seats. One problem - the bugs in it. Ticks, beetles, ants. Yecch. Finally Henry Ford had to replace this in his Model T’s. But, meanwhile, drying Spanish moss was a big industry.

We’re signed up for a ‘Top to Bottom’ tour of the central city today led by Susan Sass, who came dressed for the part. She is originally from Australia but, after she and her family lived in Chicago and several other areas, chose this area to live in. She and her husband run this business and give tours not only in Jacksonville but also to Saint Augustine and other near-by towns. She really loves her town and is a great ambassador for it.

We first walked over to the Bank of America building, rode the elevator to the top and got this splendid view across the river.

Off in the distance where the smoke is rising, is the Maxwell Coffee factory - no tours there since the coffee business is so competitive. However, when Teddy Roosevelt tasted their coffee on a visit to Jacksonville, he pronounced their coffee - ready for this? - ‘Good to the last drop.’

The city is on the St. Johns River and thus has 7 bridges, all with long names but Susan called them the Red, Blue, White and Yellow to make it simple for us. But, what views of the city and we could easily see how important the river is to the economy.

Next, we headed down to the tunnels under the city. Now this tunnel system isn’t as extensive as the tunnels in San Francisco, Port Angeles, WA or in Seattle. (By the way, if you want to take a tunnel tour, the best tour is in Port Angeles, WA although San Francisco is a close, close second.) These tunnels were really just between banks. Back when they were built, cash and stock certificates were king - none of that ATM, automatic deposits or electronic transferring stuff that we all do now. You actually had to have the stock certificates or cash and banks had to get stock certificates out of their basement vaults carry them upstairs, over to the next bank and down into their vaults when people wanted to transfer. Hey, how about tunnels? Lots safer and lots less hassle.

Here we are at the safe deposit part of the bank in the basement, behind this huge Diebold door.

Note that there are two tumblers for two different keys. And, the safe deposit boxes were huge and heavy and well plated them selves.

In the next room are heavy jugs of ‘emergency drinking water’ for when the vault could be used as a bomb shelter during the Cold War in the 60’s and 70’s. Most of the tunnels are closed off now by brick walls but a few are open for a short distance. Many speculate that there are lots more tunnels that no one knows about. When the bank moved out of this building - they left the safe. I wonder why.

We hit the city VC where we saw some snippets of old silent movies that had been made in Jacksonville. At one time there were over 25 studios making movies here but they continually caused trouble like calling in false fire alarms just to get scenes of a fire truck roaring by. They wore out their welcome and finally moved out - to Hollywood.

Next we toured over to the Florida Theater, still used but, as a National Historic Site, still is kept in its original form. Beautiful staging. Elvis Presley performed here and the old fuddy duddy mayor told him that there would be no hip-shaking or suggestive moves or he would stop the show and run Elvis out of town. At the concert the mayor sat in the front row, with his 2 daughters, and watched but Elvis preformed behind a piano and, if is hips were twisting, the mayor couldn't see. Elvis was allowed to finish.

After the tour Gary and I wandered through town and found ? Sweets and marveled at all the candies. How can there be so many? Gary’s having a hard time choosing. Me - I just choose chocolate.

When we got back to the campground, we found our neighbor who had taken off his tie - now washing his RV. Still in his Florsheim's.