San Marco is a

neighborhood A neighbourhood (British English, Irish English, Australian English and Canadian English) or neighborhood (American English; see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural area, ...

Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which th ...

, south of

Downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ...

across the St. Johns River. The neighborhood was formerly the independent city of South Jacksonville until it was annexed by Jacksonville in 1932. The neighborhood is primarily residential, with an integrated commercial sector known as San Marco Square. The South Jacksonville community emerged after the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

and incorporated in 1907. It saw its greatest growth after the

Acosta Bridge The St. Elmo W. Acosta Bridge spans the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, Florida on a fixed span. It is named for City Councilman St. Elmo W. Acosta, who convinced voters to approve a $950,000 bond issue for the original bridge at the site. I ...

was completed in 1921, connecting the neighborhood to Downtown Jacksonville. This period included the construction of the original San Marco development, which eventually gave its name to the area as a whole. Since the 1990s, the neighborhood has seen several

historic preservation Historic preservation (US), built heritage preservation or built heritage conservation (UK), is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance. It is a philos ...

and redevelopment projects. It is home to fourteen city parks, several schools and other amenities.

Geography

"San Marco" originally designated only one development within South Jacksonville, but the name is now used for much of the former city's territory, south and east of the St. Johns River across from

downtown Jacksonville Downtown Jacksonville is the historic core and central business district (CBD) of Jacksonville, Florida USA. It comprises the earliest area of the city to be developed and is located in its geographic center along the narrowing point of the St. ...

.Wood, p. 260. The place name "South Jacksonville" or

Southside Southside or South Side may refer to: Places Australia * Southside, Queensland, a semi-rural locality in the Gympie Region Canada * South Side, Newfoundland and Labrador, a community in the St. George's Bay area on the southwest coast of Newf ...

has similarly evolved, and now signifies a much larger area of southeastern Duval County.McEwen, pp. 59–68. The neighborhood's borders are not official and have changed over time. The boundaries used by the San Marco Preservation Society are

Interstate 95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from US Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the Canadia ...

to the north, Philips Highway to the east, Greenridge Road to the south, and the St. Johns River to the west. The area along the riverbank north of I-95, known as the Southbank, was historically part of the community but was designated part of the downtown Jacksonville business district in the 1980s.Wood, p. 252. Notable neighborhoods within San Marco include Colonial Manor and South Riverside.Wood, p. 251. The

St. Nicholas Saint Nicholas of Myra, ; la, Sanctus Nicolaus (traditionally 15 March 270 – 6 December 343), also known as Nicholas of Bari, was an early Christian bishop of Greek descent from the maritime city of Myra in Asia Minor (; modern-day Demre ...

neighborhood is immediately to the east of San Marco.

History

Early history

Permanent habitation on this part of the St. Johns River came only during Florida's British period, when officials established a ferry crossing at the

Cow Ford Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which the c ...

in 1760. The ferry docked on the river's southern bank, which was thus populated continuously long before what is now

. When the Spanish resumed control of Florida in 1783 they built Fort San Nicolas beside the ferry landing in present-day St. Nicholas. In 1793 the Spanish government issued a land grant for a slave plantation, which was eventually taken over by Isaac Hendricks. By 1850, Hendricks had married Elizabeth Hudnall, who owned a large adjacent tract, and his daughter Margaret married Albert Gallatin Philips, owner of the nearby

Red Bank Plantation The Red Bank Plantation House is a historic former plantation house in Jacksonville, Florida. Built in 1854 as the main house for the Red Bank plantation, it is now a private residence within the Colonial Manor area of Jacksonville's San Marco nei ...

; as a result much of the area was owned by families connected to each other by marriage.Wood, p. 250. MARTHA REED MITCHELL A woman of the century (page 520 crop)

MARTHA REED MITCHELL A woman of the century (page 520 crop)

After the

, the plantations were broken up for residential developments. In 1873, Elizabeth Hendricks sold the eastern part of the Hendricks-Hudnall tract to retiring Florida governor Harrison Reed, who moved there and established the original South Jacksonville development. In 1882, Hendricks developed the western portion of her land as "Oklahoma". South of Oklahoma, Harrison Reed's sister, Martha Reed Mitchell, and her husband

Alexander Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...

established the vast estate of Alexandria as a winter home. Martha Mitchell became a prominent fixture in Jacksonville society, involved in a number of charities and causes. By 1900, the developments had grown into a community generally known as "South Jacksonville".

South Jacksonville

Promoters marketed South Jacksonville as a suburb of Jacksonville, though access to the city across the river was limited to ferries. Following the completion of the FEC Railway Bridge in 1890, several railways serviced South Jacksonville, contributing to its growth. By 1907, South Jacksonville was a regional transit hub with a population of around 600, though it still lacked paved streets, sidewalks, and electric lights. Led by businessman John Fletcher White and the Hendricks and Philips families, residents voted to incorporate the town. S. M. Scruggs was appointed its first mayor; White defeated him in the inaugural election six months after. Growth came rapidly over the next few years as the town saw the construction of a bank, a public school, a city hall, several sizable industries and a series of amusement parks at present-day

Treaty Oak Park The Treaty Oak is an octopus-like Southern live oak (''Quercus virginiana'') in Jacksonville, Florida. The tree is estimated to be 250 years old and may be the single oldest living thing in Jacksonville,Atlantic Boulevard opened between South Jacksonville and the Jacksonville Beaches, further cementing South Jacksonville's place as a hub for car and ferry traffic. By 1917, the town's population was ten times what it had been when it was incorporated, so local leaders planned the original

, connecting Jacksonville and South Jacksonville by road for the first time. St Johns River Bridge Opening - Front page of The Florida Metropolis 30 June 1921

St Johns River Bridge Opening - Front page of The Florida Metropolis 30 June 1921

The bridge opened in 1921 and spurred a new wave of development in South Jacksonville. New subdivisions were platted in Oklahoma and Villa Alexandria, including South Shores, Alexandria Place, River Oaks, and the original San Marco development, while the old Red Bank plantation became South Riverside and Colonial Manor. In 1857, the Red Bank Plantation House became a residence in the Colonial Manor neighborhood that grew around it; it is Jacksonville's second oldest residential building still in use. The bridge triggered economic development in South Jacksonville as well, though it greatly reduced the ferry business, which disappeared entirely within twenty years.

San Marco development

San Marco, which eventually gave its name to the former area of South Jacksonville, broke ground in 1925 as the city's most ambitious development. It was constructed over 80 acres of the former Villa Alexandria estate, which had deteriorated after Martha Reed Mitchell's death in 1902. The developer was Telfair Stockton, who had previously established the exclusive Avondale neighborhood on the other side of the river. San Marco, designed as a fashionable, upscale development in keeping with Villa Alexandria's reputation, comprised 250 lots and a commercial district. It was remarkably successful from the beginning; apparently driven by

land speculation In finance, speculation is the purchase of an asset (a commodity, goods, or real estate) with the hope that it will become more valuable shortly. (It can also refer to short sales in which the speculator hopes for a decline in value.) Many ...

, San Marco shattered local records by selling every lot within three hours of putting them up for sale, even though very little work had begun. Construction on the first buildings started in 1926. San Marco was originally planned in the Italian Renaissance revival style, which influenced the name of the development and several of its streets. The commercial district was called "San Marco Square" after

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

Piazza San Marco Piazza San Marco (; vec, Piasa San Marco), often known in English as St Mark's Square, is the principal public square of Venice, Italy, where it is generally known just as ''la Piazza'' ("the Square"). All other urban spaces in the city (exc ...

, and featured several Mediterranean buildings and a fountain. Ultimately, however, few of the homes built there kept to the style, which was falling out of favor at the time. Instead, a diverse mix of contemporary architectural styles appeared in the development in the late 1920s. A former

clay pit A clay pit is a quarry or mine for the extraction of clay, which is generally used for manufacturing pottery, bricks or Portland cement. Quarries where clay is mined to make bricks are sometimes called brick pits. A brickyard or brickworks i ...

was landscaped into an artificial lake, Lake Marco.Wood, p. 262. Unlike most of Jacksonville's neighborhoods, San Marco's momentum and profusion of desirable properties carried it through the collapse of the 1920s Florida land boom and the onset of the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. While other neighborhoods faltered in the downturn, in 1929, Telfair Stockton formed a company to purchase and develop the remainder of the former Villa Alexandria property as the "First Addition to San Marco". San Marco grew steadily through the 1930s, with new lots selling into the 1940s.

Annexation and later history

By 1931, many Duval County residents were warming to the idea of merging municipal and county governments to reduce bureaucracy, corruption and weak management. As a result, in 1932, citizens of both cities voted for the annexation of South Jacksonville into Jacksonville. While full

city-county consolidation In United States local government, a consolidated city-county is formed when one or more cities and their surrounding county ( parish in Louisiana, borough in Alaska) merge into one unified jurisdiction. As such it has the governmental powers ...

was voted down, the efforts of the 1930s set the stage for further attempts, ultimately resulting in the 1968 Jacksonville Consolidation. In 1937, Jacksonville annexed the neighborhoods on the old Red Bank property. As development continued to spread south of the city limits, much of the former city of South Jacksonville came to be called "San Marco". The area was increasingly integrated into Jacksonville's urban fabric, and in the 1980s the area along the St. Johns River, known as the Southbank, was designated part of the

Downtown Jacksonville Downtown Jacksonville is the historic core and central business district (CBD) of Jacksonville, Florida USA. It comprises the earliest area of the city to be developed and is located in its geographic center along the narrowing point of the St. ...

central business district and was developed primarily for commercial office uses. Meanwhile, the neighborhood began to decline under the pressure of suburban sprawl. In 1975, the San Marco Preservation Society (SMPS) was formed to encourage

and to revitalize the commercial district. Subsequently, the society and the City of Jacksonville undertook a series of urban renewal projects, including renovating San Marco Square, building a new branch library and park complex, and converting the former South Jacksonville City Hall as the SMPS headquarters.

San Marco Square

San Marco Square is the neighborhood's major commercial district. The triangular district is located at the three-way juncture of Atlantic Boulevard, Hendricks Avenue and San Marco Boulevard; a tiered fountain at the center of the square originally marked the convergence of these streets. The San Marco Building, a

Mediterranean Revival Mediterranean Revival is an architectural style introduced in the United States, Canada, and certain other countries in the 19th century. It incorporated references from Spanish Renaissance, Spanish Colonial, Italian Renaissance, French Colonia ...

structure completed in 1927, was the district's first commercial building and set its architectural tone. Other features of the square include the San Marco Theatre, an

art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...

single-screen

movie theater A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall ( Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a ...

first opened in 1938; and the

Little Theatre Little Theatre or Little Theater may refer to: Australia * Little Theatre, Adelaide, South Australia * Little Theatre, Sydney, former name of the Royal Standard Theatre, Sydney, New South Wales * Melbourne Little Theatre, an amateur theatre compan ...

, home to Theatre Jacksonville, one of the country's oldest

community theater Community theatre refers to any theatrical performance made in relation to particular communities—its usage includes theatre made by, with, and for a community. It may refer to a production that is made entirely by a community with no outside hel ...

troupes. Designed as the commercial heart of San Marco, the square had declined seriously by the 1970s, with many businesses closing. The original, compass-themed fountain was demolished. In the 1990s, the City of Jacksonville undertook a major renovation and streetscaping project, which included restoring the fountain with three lion statues inspired by the Piazza San Marco. Since then, the square has become a popular commercial destination with many shops, restaurants and bars. In 2013, the square underwent another renovation project that rerouted the streets and expanded the small park in the center, named Balis Park, into a larger pedestrian green space.

Features

San Marco has a number of parks of various sizes and purposes; the San Marco Preservation Society lists fourteen within its boundaries. There are two more in the Southbank:

Treaty Oak Park The Treaty Oak is an octopus-like Southern live oak (''Quercus virginiana'') in Jacksonville, Florida. The tree is estimated to be 250 years old and may be the single oldest living thing in Jacksonville,live oak Live oak or evergreen oak is any of a number of oaks in several different sections of the genus ''Quercus'' that share the characteristic of evergreen foliage. These oaks are not more closely related to each other than they are to other oaks. ...

s, and

Friendship Fountain Park Friendship Fountain is a large fountain in Jacksonville, Florida. It is in St. Johns River Park (also known as Friendship Fountain Park) at the west end of Downtown Jacksonville's Southbank Riverwalk attraction. The world's largest and tallest fou ...

. Other amenities on the Southbank include the

Museum of Science and History The Museum of Science & History (MOSH) is a museum in Jacksonville, Florida. It is a private, non-profit institution located on the Southbank Riverwalk, and the city's most visited museum. It specializes in science and local history exhibits. It ...

(MOSH) and the

Southbank Riverwalk The Jacksonville Riverwalks are a network of multi-use trails and open space developments along both the north and south banks of the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, Florida. The roughly Downtown Northbank portion travels alongside the Hyatt Re ...

. San Marco is served by an elementary school, a middle school, and the Southside Branch Public Library. Two major projects of the San Marco Preservation Society have been the restoration of the former South Jacksonville City Hall as the society's headquarters and the conversion of the former St. Paul's Episcopal Church building into Preservation Hall, a reservable banquet hall.

Notes

References

* * * * {{Neighborhoods of Jacksonville History of Jacksonville, Florida Neighborhoods in Jacksonville, Florida Historic districts in Jacksonville