Camp Cuba Libre

The “Army of the Cuban Republic” was made up from 40 Cubans from Jacksonville, 200 from New York, and 150 from Key West. They set sail on the “Florida” to join the rebels on May 21, 1898. Courtesy of the State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, https://floridamemory.com/items/show/149395

In May 1898, a military installation known as “Camp Cuba Libre” was established for the deployment of American troops in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. Within a few weeks of its establishment, trainloads of soldiers were arriving at the Camp Cuba Libre assembly point. Before the end of the war, as many as 30,000 troops came to Camp Cuba Libre, where they were under the command of Major General Fitzhugh Lee, Robert E. Lee’s nephew. Said to be a prankster and practical joker, Lee was a West Point graduate that had also previously served in the American Civil War as a Confederate officer.

Lee selected the location of Springfield as the camp site because of its higher elevation and sandy soil that alleviated the sewage problems prevalent at other camps in other communities located at lower waterfront elevations. In addition, the Daughters of the American Revolution Hospital Corps contracted with Catholic nuns as nurses who were sent to the camp prior to being assigned to another camp in Havana.

After the official end of the Spanish-American War in April 1899, Major General Fitzhugh Lee would go on to become the military governor of Havana and Pinar del Rio. Originally known as Camp Springfield, Following the Great Fire of 1901, much of the land that was once occupied by Camp Cuba Libre, developed into the present day neighborhoods of Springfield and Eastside.

Downtown’s haunted El Modelo block

The former El Modelo cigar factory building on West Bay Street in downtown Jacksonville. (Ennis Davis, AICP)

While the Spanish-American War and the Cuban cigar manufacturing scene in Jacksonville are no more, there is a ghostly story that lives on. Located in LaVilla at 501 West Bay Street, the El Modelo block is one of a handful of sites in downtown that survived the Great Fire of 1901. Originally built in 1886, during its early years, the structure was occupied by Gabriel Hidalgo Gato’s El Modelo Cigar Manufacturing Company. Hidalgo-Gato’s company was the largest cigar manufacturer in town, employing 225 and producing six million stogies annually at its height. A beacon of Jacksonville’s early Cuban community, the site was visited by José Martí multiple times during the 1890s.

After Gato’s death, the building was occupied by the Plaza Hotel and a number of bars in what became known as a seedy area of the city. In 1907, a Spanish-American War veteran entered the front door of one of these bars in what would be his last act. He was immediately shot in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun. Upset over the tragic events - and still waiting on that drink - the victim’s ghost allegedly continues to haunt this building.

Downtown and the Panama Canal

Shipyard workers pose for a photograph during the late 19th century. (State Archives of Florida)

During the 1850s, Jacob Brock established Jacksonville’s first shipbuilding operation on a waterfront site on East Bay Street, just east of Catherine Street. After Brock’s death in 1877, the shipyards were sold to Alonzo Stevens. The Merrill-Stevens Engineering Co. was formed in 1887, when James Eugene and Alexander Merrill joined Stevens as business partners. Between 1902 and 1914, the shipyard built barges used in the construction of the Panama Canal were constructed on-site. During this time, the shipyard was rebuilt, the company was renamed Merrill-Stevens Company and it was home to the largest dry dock between Newport News,VA and New Orleans, LA. By the opening of the Panama Canal, employment had increased to 1,500 workers.

During the 1950s, Merrill-Stevens sold the shipyard and relocated to Miami, where the company still builds 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 Corp., 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. Today, much of this former industrial site, related to the construction of the Panama Canal, is planned to be transformed into a riverfront park and cultural district.

LaVilla and integrating professional baseball

Manuel’s Tap Room on West Ashley Street during the 1940s. (Ritz Theatre & Museum)

Historic trade partners with the capital of Puerto Rico, 90 percent of the goods shipped to and from the mainland and the island come through Jacksonville. As a result, San Juan was declared a sister city in October 2009. Historically lumped into the generic term “African American”, Afro-Puerto Ricans were an important part of Jacksonville’s segregation era Black community evolution as a place for jazz, blues and landmark civil rights events. For example, a Puerto Rican-born pillar of Black society, Manuel Rivera operated Ashley Street’s Manuel’s Tap Room, a lounge and grill that was open 24 hours a day during the 1940s and 50s. Described by the NAACP as “the finest of its kind in the South”, Rivera hosted many up-and-coming jazz musicians including Ray Charles before he found international fame. Overcoming Jim Crow, in 1953 Rivera also opened his home to three young Black Jacksonville Braves baseball players named Puerto Rican-born Flex Mantilla, Hank Aaron and Horace Garner, thus integrating Major League Baseball in the Deep South.

Rapidly diversifying neighborhoods

The El Mofongo Dominican Restaurant & Cuban Bakery at 6011 103rd Street. (Ennis Davis, AICP)

Duval County’s Hispanic population has increased from 2.6 percent in 1990 to 11.3 percent in 2020. As a result, the cultural makeup, development pattern, and flavor of long-established neighborhoods across the city continue to evolve. Today, there are thousands of people of Latin and Caribbean descent, including from countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Dominican Republic, and Venezuela, residing in town and reshaping neighborhoods, such as the Westside’s 103rd Street corridor and Spring Park near Englewood.

Editorial by Ennis Davis, AICP. Contact Ennis at edavis@moderncities.com