During it’s heyday, the A Phillip Randolph commercial corridor was named Florida Avenue, but was known to locals as just “the Avenue.” In the height of Jim Crow-era Jacksonville, the Avenue was a center of commerce for the Eastside’s black community. It was the place to see and be seen. Things would change in a 1969 event involving a white cigarette salesman and a bullet in a black man’s leg.

During the 1960s, two major events negatively impacted businesses along the roadway: Hurricane Dora, in 1964, and the Race Riot of November 1969. Hurricane Dora was a Category 2 hurricane with 110 mile per hour winds that eventually caused $1.5 billion worth of damage to the City. A. Philip Randolph Boulevard suffered damage to buildings, as well as looting of businesses.

The Race Riot of 1969 was sparked by a shooting of an African-American man, Buck Riley by a white truck driver on A. Philip Randolph Boulevard. Buck Riley intended to rob the delivery truck driver when the driver was handed a gun by the storeowner and began shooting. The thief ran into a group of school children and the truck driver shot into the crowd. This angered many of the residents and began the riots that eventually led to the closing of A. Philip Randolph by Mayor Hans Tanzler and the creation of a 100-member Task Force on Civil Disorder.

Florida Avenue was renamed A. Philip Randolph Boulevard in 1995. Randolph was a well known labor organizer and civil rights activist who grew up in the neighborhood in the late 1800s. Although the City of Jacksonville invested $2.7 million in a streetscape project from Bay to First Street, as a part of the Veterans Memorial Arena construction and paid for from funds within a Better Jacksonville Plan-era infrastructure neighborhood enhancement vehicle called the Town Center Program, redevelopment has been slow to return to “the Avenue.”

Established in 1919, the George Doro Fixture Company manufactured wood office and store fixtures, partitions, shelving and lockers, many of which can be found in buildings throughout the city today. In addition, Doro’s maze of brick buildings are a few remaining fragments of an era before stadiums, arenas, ballparks and surface parking lots replaced the surrounding community. In fact, the two-story commercial building, where the business founded, dates back to 1904 when it was constructed as a mixed-use building, featuring street level retail shops and upper floor apartments in the heart of East Jacksonville.

After the Civil War, East Jacksonville emerged as a late 19th century streetcar suburb of Jacksonville. By the time it was annexed in 1887, it was home to nearly 2,000 residents. Tying the riverfront and East Jacksonville with the neighboring suburb of Oakland (now the Eastside), Florida Avenue (now A. Philip Randolph Boulevard) served as the community’s retail epicenter. When the George Doro Fixture Company was established, most of the block was occupied by single-family residences and the nearby riverfront was dominated with a building material found in great supply inside Doro’s historic walls….lumber. Two decades before World War II would bring the St. Johns Shipbuilding Company and its 20,000 employees to the area, lumber wharfs and planing mills such as Eagle Saw Mill, Standard Cypress Company and the Alligator Saw & Planing Mill dominated the landscape.

Along the riverfront, the maritime industry supplied a constant flow of people that would serve The Avenue. Jacob Brock opened the first shipbuilding operation during the 1850s on the site most know as the former Jacksonville Shipyards. After Brock’s death in 1877, the shipyards were sold to Alonzo Stevens. The Merrill-Stevens Engineering Company was formed in 1887, when James Eugene and Alexander Merrill joined Stevens as business partners. By the early 20th century, the shipyard employed 1,500 and included the largest dry dock on the east coast, between Newport News and New Orleans. During this era, the barges used in the construction of the Panama Canal were constructed on-site.

During the 1950s, Merrill-Stevens sold the shipyard and relocated to Miami, where the company still buildings yachts today. In 1963, new owner W.R. Lovett renamed the company the Jacksonville Shipyards, Inc. (JSI). By the time JSI was sold to Fruehauf Corporation, it had become Jacksonville’s largest civilian employer, with a workforce of 2,500.

JSI’s decline began in the 1980s, shutting down briefly in 1990, laying off 800 workers. It would reopen briefly, only to close permanently in 1992 after selling its drydocks to a shipyard in Bahrain.

One company standing the test of time is Maxwell House. In 1910, Maxwell House opened as the Cheek-Neal Coffee Company along Hogans Creek because it was adjacent to where coffee was once loaded onto ships. The coffee roasting complex that exists today includes buildings that were built by other businesses in the maritime district.

The four-story warehouse at the corner of Bay and Marsh Streets was built for the Laney & Delcher Storage Company in 1926. Before being taken over by Maxwell House, the Fulton Distributing Company utilized it as a whiskey and wine warehouse. Two-story brick warehouses adjacent to Hogans Creek were the home of Rosser & Fitch Merchandise Brokers in 1926.

Maxwell House around 1950. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, https://floridamemory.com/items/show/51410

The Noland Building at 929 East Bay Street was originally built for the Hajoca Corporation in 1948, a plumbing supply business. Later, another plumbing supply business called Noland would operate from the building until 2002, when their business operations moved to the Southside of town. In 2004, a group called DJM&B LLC purchased the building for $1.5 million with plans to move both the Dalton Agency and Bailey Publishing Co into the property. DJM&B was led by Dalton Agency partners Dave Josserand, Jim Dalton and Michael Munz as well as Bailey Publishing principal Jim Bailey. Before renovating the space, DJM&B sold the building to a South Florida developer named Bayard Spector for $3.25 million. Plans to demolish the building and build a high rise condo complex on site fell through with the real estate crash in the late 2000’s.

Next: East Downtown’s Seemingly Bright Future