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Silvertown Photo Tour
Early residents of Silvertown included Isaac and Lula Hamilton. Employed by the city’s street cleaning department, Isaac Hamilton married Lula Young, a laundress, in 1921. The couple moved to Silvertown soon after where the family would reside through the 1980s at 741 King Street.
Dating back to the 1920s, the Schell-Sasse Manufacturing Company made millwork, sash and doors for a number of clients including George E. Merrick and his Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables. After Schell-Sasse, the warehouse complex housed Tinsley White Rucker, Dixon Powdermaker Furniture Company and the Florida Pipe & Supply Company.
Today, the former Schell-Sasse factory is home to a number of businesses including Bold City Brewery, Just Brew It and Wood & Laminate.
2674 Gilmore Street
Central Riverside Elementary School opened in 1916 at Public School Number 18.
2664 Gilmore Street
Established in 1957, Leggett Heating and Air Conditioning has grown to incorporate the Dinsmore Dairy Company property. The Dinsmore Dairy Company had the largest herd of purebred registered Guemsey dairy cattle in the entire world and in the late 1950s, was the most famous retailer of dairy products in North Florida. Owned by Charles and Earl Johnson, the now defunct Dinsmore Diary Company, who’s Riverside plant dated back to the 1930s, was openly pro-desegregation. The Johnsons were involved with the NAACP, SCLC, the Human Relations Council, Urban League, Brewster Hospital, the Clara White Mission and Eartha White Nursing. Because of their work, the local KKK and white citizen council groups organized a boycott which destroyed their business in 1959. After the fall of Dinsmore in 1959, Borden Dairy Company came in. Much later, Borden closed the King Street dairy plant in 1991 as a part of a failed restructuring plan to integrate the company’s brands and marketing efforts.
717 King Street
The warehouse that is home to Intuition Ale Works, was constructed in 1960. City directories indicate that this was the site of the Grooms Doughnut plant in 1930.
Following the Great Fire of 1901, the development of Riverside engulfed the previously sparsely developed Silvertown community.
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Article by Ennis Davis, AICP. Contact Ennis at edavis@moderncities.com