GOING, GOING, GONE:

                             ANIMAL-DRAWN VEHICLES, PART TWO

(Source of pictures:  Florida State Archives)

TOP PICTURE -- Today, we might load down the back of a pickup with lumber from a building supply store.  Yesteryear, it may've been a mule-drawn cart with products from one of the city's numerous saw mills.  This photo doesn't sport a date, but it probably came from around 1900.  The scene is Bay Street.  Was the business with the striped signs a barbershop?

MIDDLE IMAGE -- Here are carts & carriages in front of the Union Depot Building.  Judging by this postcard's style, the picture is from the period 1901-1907.  Some of the walls of the old train station survived a monster fire during the 1970s.  These remains stand next to Prime Osborn Convention Center.  The Skyway monorail now glides past where the horse-drawn vehicles once rolled.

BOTTOM IMAGE -- All that we know for sure about this image is that it's from Jax during the 1800s.  However, these people were most likely northern tourists posing with an ox cart -- probably a quaint southern contraption, in their opinion.  In back of this group must have been one of the city's large hotels.  Over 100 years ago, Jacksonville served as a major draw for sightseers.  They enjoyed the balmy weather, as well as visits to St. Augustine and cruises up the St. Johns and Ocklawaha rivers to the enchanting Silver Springs.

GOING AT YOUR OWN PACE -- I used to bring my lunch and eat it in a nice spot, the 15th floor of the old city hall building, located downtown near the northbank.  (The structure is now known as "City Hall Annex.")  I looked out over the River City, seeing beyond Evergreen Cemetery.  Once, I spotted a policeman on horseback plodding up Newnan Street.  As I watched his leisurely progress, it impressed upon me just how slow the horseback era had usually been.  

Even timekeeping was greatly affected.  Given today's access to atomic clocks that regulate to the nanosecond, it's hard to believe that the time of day used to be a local matter.  Each town and city kept its own time.  When the sun moved directly overhead, it was noon.  Most locales relied on some form of solar time maintained by a well-known clock, such as in a local courthouse tower, church steeple, or jeweler's window. 

To complicate matters, not everyone owned dependable watches.  If residents needed to gather at a certain place at a certain time, then this might be announced by the ringing of a bell, like at a school or church.  Jacksonville itself has long had a daily timekeeper, Big Jim, a 32-inch steam whistle.  Its blast could carry almost 10 miles.  Sounding off since 1890, Big Jim could be heard daily at 7 a.m, noon, and 1:00 and 5:00 p.m.  (Beginning recently, it doesn't blow on Saturdays anymore.)

Various railroad companies used to also keep their own times.  Not surprisingly, this resulted in train wrecks.   In 1883, the railroads finally established standard time in time zones across the US and Canada.  In addition, an invention of the mid 1800s, the telegraph, helped tie the nation together and greatly aided in the maintenance of synchronized times.  Thus, the times adopted by the railroads gradually became those by which the rest of country operated.  Standard time in time zones finally became part of federal law in 1918.

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