Springfield is a historic neighborhood of

Jacksonville Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the List of United States cities by area, largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the co ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and ...

, United States, located to the north 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 ...

. Established in 1869, it experienced its greatest growth from the early 1880s through the 1920s. The Springfield Historic District is listed in the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

, and contains some of the city's best examples of 19th and early 20th century

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

Geography

The boundaries of Springfield are well defined. Hogan's Creek lies along its south edge, and railroad lines are found on the north and east. Boulevard defines the western limit of the district where a later commercial strip abuts the earlier residential area. Contemporary with the overall residential area are two commercial strips along Main and Eighth Streets which join at the heart of the district. The district contains 119 city blocks in an area of approximately 500 acres (2 km²), or slightly less than one square mile. Hogan's Creek separates the residences of Springfield from the downtown business district. North of the creek few buildings rise above two stories and parks and tree lined streets are common. The blocks of the historic district are laid out in a regular grid, with named streets running north and south and numbered streets east and west. Most of the blocks have alleys, usually arranged in an "H" pattern, although other configurations are found. A few streets retain their original brick pavers and granite curbstones, but the majority are now covered with asphalt and have concrete curbs. Sidewalks feature both the earlier hexagonal pavers and modern poured concrete sections. Trees lend considerable distinction to the neighborhood. Oaks predominate. Scattered throughout the neighborhood are such decorative elements as hitching posts, cast iron fences, rusticated concrete block walls, and carriage stepping stones, testimony to the area's turn-of-the-century origins. There is, however, no great concentration of such elements.

History

Springfield was established as a residential community in 1871 by developer John H. Norton. Its concentrated physical development began about 1882 with the formation of the Springfield Development Company and accelerated after a fire that destroyed much of downtown Jacksonville in 1901. The

Great Fire of 1901 The Great Fire of 1901 was a conflagration that occurred in Jacksonville, Florida on May 3, 1901. It was one of the worst disasters in Florida history and the third largest urban fire in the U.S., next to the Great Chicago Fire, and the 1906 Sa ...

consumed much of central Jacksonville, leaving many of the city's most prominent and wealthy citizens homeless. Smoke from the fire was reportedly so heavy it could be seen as far away as

North Carolina North Carolina () is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 28th largest and List of states and territories of the United ...

. The fire lasted 8 hours and consumed 146 city blocks, 3268 buildings, and killed seven people. After the fire, many of the Jacksonville's residents who lost homes in the fire relocated to Springfield. Contributing buildings in the district date from about 1885 to approximately 1930. The majority of the houses are wood frame vernacular structures, but there are some examples of late 19th century revival and romantic styles, including Queen Anne,

Colonial Revival The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture. The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the archit ...

, and the Stick style. 20th century types include

Prairie School Prairie School is a late 19th- and early 20th-century architectural style, most common in the Midwestern United States. The style is usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped ...

Bungalow A bungalow is a small house or cottage that is either single-story or has a second story built into a sloping roof (usually with dormer windows), and may be surrounded by wide verandas. The first house in England that was classified as a b ...

, and

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...

. The neighborhood did not experience a resurgence of construction during the 1920s, as did other residential sections of the city, and the "boom" bypassed the area since much of the land was already occupied, except in the area north of Eighth Street. Construction was, therefore, limited to the occasional vacant lot or those sites where older structures had been lost or required replacement. At the time the district was listed in the National Register, it contained 1,784 buildings fifty years old or older that contributed to its historical character. Of that number, 1,686 were classified as residential. Only 48 were commercial. The great majority of buildings, 1,595, were wood frame, and 201 were masonry. There were 1,294 buildings of two stories in height and 10 three-story structures. The remainder were all one-story structures. The January 2010 issue of ''

Southern Living ''Southern Living'' is a lifestyle magazine aimed at readers in the Southern United States featuring recipes, house plans, garden plans, and information about Southern culture and travel. It is published by Birmingham, Alabama–based Southern Pr ...

'' magazine spotlights Springfield as the #1 "comeback" neighborhood in the

South South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...

, noting significant improvement over the past decade. The December 2010 issue of Florida Trend Magazine also featured the Springfield Historic District in an article titled "A Life of Its Own". The piece detailed how, despite the down housing market, the neighborhood has continued to thrive. Recently, the neighborhood has experienced renewed interest from developers; two brewery projects have been announced for the area, as well as two restaurants and a Walgreens community pharmacy, in 2016 alone.

Features

The Hogan's Creek Park System is one of the most notable features of Springfield. These historic parks and structures which define the southern boundary of the neighborhood constitute of Springfield or approximately five percent of the total land area. Klutho Park comprises and Springfield Park another . Along the creek itself are the balustrades and bridges designed by

Henry John Klutho Henry John Klutho (1873–1964) was an American architect known for his work in the "Prairie School" style. He helped in the reconstruction of Jacksonville, Florida after the Great Fire of 1901—the largest-ever urban fire in the Southeast—by ...

in 1929. Klutho was Jacksonville's most influential architect during the first years of the twentieth century and its leading proponent of the Prairie School. The house he designed for himself in Springfield was said to be the first in Florida to draw on the "modernist" architectural movements in America. Springfield is composed mainly of wood frame residential buildings and a much smaller number of masonry commercial, religious, educational, and civic structures. There were 1,038 frame vernacular buildings in the historic district that possessed no discernible stylistic features, though in certain cases the decorative details may have been removed in later remodeling. Most of these vernacular buildings are two stories in height with a

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aest ...

hip roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus ...

. The wood-frame buildings that retain their original fabric are generally clad with weatherboard or novelty siding or, in a few cases, wood shingles. In many cases, aluminum, vinyl, or asbestos siding have been applied to the exterior of houses. One-story porches and verandas are common, and there are some porches with upper galleries. There are a variety of sash and

casement window A casement window is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges at the side. They are used singly or in pairs within a common frame, in which case they are hinged on the outside. Casement windows are often held open using a cas ...

types. Masonry vernacular buildings are generally brick or stuccoed and are either one or two stories in height. Most of these are commercial buildings with fixed glass storefronts. Few exhibit any ornamentation. Their roofs are usually the flat built-up variety with parapets on the street facade. Some additional commercial and industrial buildings are found along the northern and eastern boundaries of the district in conjunction with the railroad lines, and isolated commercial structures are found within the neighborhood. Schools, churches, multi-family residences and parks are found throughout the neighborhood. Although there are a number of modern intrusions along Springfield's main commercial arteries, these have not proved so numerous as to be overwhelming. Also, except for demolitions, the residential area remains largely unchanged, with relatively little post-1930 construction. Contributing buildings were all fifty years old or older and retained enough of their original physical character to adequately embody the sense of time, place, and historic association normally required in establishing a historic district. These comprised 95 percent of all of the buildings in the district. The non-contributing buildings were either less than fifty years old and lacked exceptional significance or were more than fifty years old but retained little, if any, of their original physical integrity. These numbered five percent of the total.

Gallery

File:Jax FL Karpeles Library Museum04.jpg, Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum Image:sphdqa.JPG, Residence File:Jax FL Klutho House01.jpg,

Henry John Klutho House The Henry John Klutho House (also known as the Klutho Residence) is a historic home in Jacksonville, Florida. The house was designed and lived in by the New York City architect Henry John Klutho, who helped in the rebuilding of Jacksonville after ...

File:Klutho Apartments.jpg, Klutho Apartments File:Klutho Park, Jacksonville, Florida 2013-06-26 14-24.jpg, Klutho Park File:Jaxscotrite2.JPG, Scottish Rite Masonic Center File:Tribute to the Women of the Confederacy.jpg, Springfield Park

References

External links