Index of Springfield Sites   References

 In 1823 the Spanish government validated John Hogans' claim to the Springfield tract, known as "Hogans' Donation."  It was purchased in succession by three of Jacksonville's most prominent early settlers: William G. Dawson, Colonel John Warren, and Isaiah D. Hart.  Although Hart sold the tract in 1846, the original parcel remained intact until after the Civil War when fifty-four acres were carved out to become the suburbs of Hansontown and Franklintown. ¹

In 1869 half the remaining Hogans' Donation was divided and offered for sale by John H. Norton, one of Jacksonville's first professional real estate developers.  Jacksonville merchant Calvin L. Robinson is credited with naming the new development Springfield because of "a spring of good water located in the field through which West Fourth Street would now pass [near Broad Street]." ²   Norton's 1871 real estate guide showed that development in Springfield had begun but that the population was sparse:

Springfield's proximity to Downtown would become a major factor later, but during the 1870's Springfield grew very slowly.  The first major construction was the waterworks, located in the southern part of Springfield along Hogans Creek.  Begun in 1879 and completed a year later, the pumping station became the major water source for the City of Jacksonville.⁴ 

In May, 1882, the Springfield Company was formed by several prominent Jacksonville citizens, including S. B. Hubbard, Jonathan Greeley, and William McDuff.  They acquired the remaining six hundred acres of the Hogans' Donation and, coupled with the extension of the trolley line out Main Street (then known as Pine Street), brought about the first real surge of development in Springfield.  The street car line was built in 1882 from Bay to Eighth Street by Mr. B. Upton, who leased it in 1884 to Mr. G. A. Backenstoe.  With visions of a profitable resort at the terminus of the line, Backenstoe built a skating rink, dinner hall, and restaurant.  When profits failed to materialize, however, the line was sold to the Springfield Company.  With the street railway serving Springfield exclusively, the suburb's population grew to 356 by 1886.  In 1887 a new Jacksonville charter brought Springfield and seven other suburbs into the city limits.⁵ 

To revive tourism, the Jacksonville Board of Trade in 1887 organized "The Sub-Tropical Exposition." Constructed on the waterworks grounds, the main pavilion was a grandiose structure 325 feet long with exotic towers soaring as much as one hundred feet above Main Street.  Its opening season in 1888 was a great success, but its popularity diminished over the next several years, paralleling Jacksonville's decline as a tourist resort.⁶ 

As a residential center, however, Springfield had arrived. By 1893 there were nearly one hundred substantial residences, mainly clustered along Main, Hubbard, Market, and Laura Streets, between Phelps and Fourth Street.⁷ 

Brown's 1895 Book of Jacksonville  described Springfield as being "exclusively for white persons" with residences "of a superior character at once artistic and ornamental." ⁸  The architecture reflected mainly  the Queen Anne and Colonial Revival styles, and a number of these Victorian residences still remain, particularly along Hubbard Street.

During the latter part of the 1890's, Cuba's war of liberation against Spain attracted many sympathizers in Jacksonville.  Duval County Sheriff Napoleon Bonaparte Broward was a prominent Springfield resident (and later Governor) who gained wide notoriety by illegally running guns and men to Cuba. When the U. S. entered the war in April, 1898, Jacksonville citizens successfully petitioned the army to designate their city as a staging area for troops.  On May 22, 1898, the first trainload of soldiers arrived in Jacksonville, which became headquarters for the Seventh Army Corps and a major training center during the Spanish-American War.  Within two weeks over 8,000 soldiers were housed in a large tent encampment in East Springfield, between First and Eighth Streets along Ionia Street.  General Fitzhugh Lee, nephew of General Robert E. Lee and commander of the Seventh Army Corps, christened it "Cuba Libre."  Lee, who made his headquarters between First and Second Streets, went on to become the military governor of Cuba after the Spanish-American War ended.  ⁹ 

Typhoid fever broke out among the soldiers within three days after the first arrival.  By the end of June, with over 12,000 troops in Springfield, typhoid had spread to epidemic proportions.  During June and July, eighteen soldiers died of typhoid fever.  Local leaders tried to suppress the truth about the disease for fear that the Army, along with its thousands of free-spending men, would abandon the city.  New regiments arriving in late June camped in Panama Park, while six regiments arriving in August chose Fairfield.  By the end of October the Springfield camp had been abandoned, but the disease had spread to the other camps.  At the peak of the epidemic in September, more soldiers were hospitalized in Jacksonville on a single day than the 1,662 Americans wounded in overseas combat during the entire Spanish-American War.  Of the soldiers stricken with typhoid in Jacksonville, 362 died, as compared with 385 U.S. troops killed in combat during the war. Luckily, only about sixty local citizens died from typhoid during the epidemic.¹⁰

Three years later, catastrophe struck the city again.  As the fire on May 3, 1901, burned most of the downtown area, thousands of people escaped the blaze by fleeing to Springfield. Along a natural firebreak formed by the marshy area skirting Hogans Creek, a bucket brigade of Springfield citizens helped to keep the flames from spreading in their direction.  The fire advanced beyond Hogans Creek at only one point, just east of Main Street, destroying Hammatt's Wood Yard. ¹¹ After the fire, reconstruction of the downtown section began almost immediately and the building boom quickly spread to surrounding areas.  Many of the homeless refugees decided to move to the relative tranquility of Springfield.  A December, 1902, news article noted that Springfield was leading in new suburban construction. ¹²

The next two decades produced Springfield's greatest period of residential growth.  By 1909 the neighborhood boasted a population of over 8,000, and emerging subdivisions such as New Springfield and North Springfield pushed the concentration of residential growth north of Tenth Street.  This latter subdivision was developed by the Springfield Realty Company, owned by former mortician George W. Clark (see D-54),  who at this same time was developing Panama Park.  During this period the only paved street in Springfield was Main Street, together with small sections of Hubbard and Laura Streets.  Trolley tracks lined with palm trees bisected Main Street's two brick-paved automobile lanes, leading all the way to Twelfth Street. ¹³

Over two-thirds of the residences presently found in Springfield were built before 1921.  The houses constructed there from 1900 to 1920 were primarily of Bungalow, Prairie, and transitional Queen Anne/Colonial Revival styles. Most of the homes in Springfield were not designed by architects, but were simply concocted by their builders, often using designs copied from available plan books. ¹⁴  Ironically, Jacksonville's most outspoken architectural theorist, Henry J. Klutho, chose Springfield for early experimentation with the avant garde Prairie style in several buildings on Main Street. ¹⁵

Klutho also was involved in Jacksonville's abortive motion picture industry, building his own movie studio on West Ninth Street.  Preceded by Thanhouser Studios at 27 East Eighth Street and Klever Komedies Studios at 32 East Ninth Street, Klutho Studios was the last Springfield studio in operation when it finally closed in 1922.  ¹⁶ 

The development of Springfield was barely completed when it began to decline in the late 1920's. The Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance passed by the city in 1925 classified the entire Springfield section as "Business A," resulting in the depreciation of residential property values.  City Planning Engineer George W. Simons described Springfield's problems in May, 1931:

A half-century later, these same ills still plague Springfield, having been accentuated by the changing demographics and general urban decay that since the 1950's has caused our nation's inner-city neighborhoods to decline.  A local preservation organization, Springfield Preservation and Restoration (SPAR), was founded in 1975 to counteract this trend. In 1979 SPAR successfully led a campaign to down-zone Springfield, which became the first neighborhood in Jacksonville to change most of its commercial zoning back to residential.  Other organizations, such as the Greater Springfield Business Association, Fresh Ministries and Springfield Neighborhood Housing Services, have greatly contributed to efforts to restore this once-proud neighborhood. ¹⁸    In 1987, Springfield was listed in the National Register of Historic Places as Jacksonville's second Historic District.  With thousands of vintage houses, proximity to Downtown, and recent escalation of property values, Springfield is destined to re-emerge as one of Jacksonville's successful residential neighborhoods.

ENDNOTES
1.Spanish Land Grants in Florida, Vol. III, Confirmed Claims p.284; Davis p.49. 
2. Davis p.49. 
3. Norton p.7. 
4. Davis pp.320-321; Esgate pp.33-34. 
5. Esgate pp.25-26; Craig p.42; Davis p.373; Weaver pp.14-15; Industries and Advantages p.59. 
6. FTU 1-12-88 p.9; Martin, City Makers pp.194-205; Craig pp.19-24; Davis pp.176-178. 
7. Koch Map 1893. 
8. Brown pp.142-143. 
9. Davis p.211; Ward p.172; Martin, Century of Service pp.112-113. 
10. Martin, Century of Sevice pp.112-121, 123/77. 
11. Harrison; Davis pp.222,226. 
12. FTU 12-15-02. 
13. Clark pp.10-16. 
14. Weaver pp.24, 33-34. 
15. Broward, The Architecture pp.85-93. 
16. Broward pp.228-232; Nelson pp.165-166, 526-552.) 
17. Simons p.65. 
18. Martin "Request" pp.8-10.

For key to  references, see Bibliography.