Jacksonville's Great fire of 1901
Southeast's Largest Urban Fire Destroys Downtown Jacksonville
Dec 4, 2008
On a breezy May midday over a century ago, sparks from stove in a downtown Jacksonville shanty traveled through the air to a nearby mattress factory, where piles of Spanish moss were laid out to dry. Fire caught and flames quickly spread across the entire downtown corridor. By 8:30 that evening, a blaze that rivaled the famous 1871 Great Chicago Fire had cut a two-mile swath through the town, devouring 146 city blocks and 2,368 buildings. Seven locals were dead and nearly 10,000 were homeless.
"In one afternoon, Jacksonville went from being a mid-level Southern town to a total wasteland," says Dr. Wayne Wood, Jacksonville historian and author of several books, including The Great Fire of 1901, co-authored with late journalist Bill Foley. He calls the blaze "one of the most cataclysmic events in Jacksonville history."
Newspapers nationwide reported a glow seen more than 150 miles away and smoke drifting into North Carolina. Florida Governor William S. Jennings dispatched state militia units and the town remained under martial law for weeks.
Racism’s role
In his autobiography, Along this Way, writer and civil rights leader James Weldon Johnson said racism helped fan the flames that day. Just boys at the time, Johnson and his brother were riding their bicycles nearby when they spotted smoke and asked fleeing townspeople what was happening.
“The fire is traveling directly east and spreading out to the north, over the district where the bulk of Negroes in the western end of the city live,” Johnson wrote. “The firemen spend all their efforts saving a low row of frame houses just across the street on the south side of the factory, belonging to a white man named Steve Melton.”
Johnson’s book alleges that complaints to the fire chief were met with racial comments and a suggestion that the burning of black residents’ homes might be a good thing. Although no documentation or other evidence of his claims exist, local historians say Johnson is as credible a witness as they come.
“James Weldon Johnson is one of the giant figures of the 20th century,” says Dr. Carolyn Williams, history professor at the University of North Florida and author of Historic Photos of Jacksonville. “That remark sounds totally consistent with the the hardening racial climate in that period.”
After the Great Fire
When the smoke cleared, Jacksonville began to rebuild. Seeing a wide open market for work, architects and builders from around the world converged on the River City. Most notable among them was Henry Klutho, a New York architect who helped popularize Frank Lloyd Wright’s prairie style. Klutho rebuilt much of the downtown core and surrounding neighborhoods, and helped launch the careers of many of Jacksonville’s most prominent architects of the early 20th century. Today, it’s considered historically hip to own a “Klutho.”
Jacksonville’s from-the-ground-up rebuild made it the nation’s most modern city over the next few decades. The influx of new talent meant the latest architectural styles and construction techniques, as well as a major cash infusion. Among the most impressive structures was Klutho's re-design of the former St. James Hotel, which would become the Cohen Bros. department store and today houses Jacksonville's City Hall.
“By 1910 Jacksonville’s glistening modern skylines were the envy of the south,” Dr. Wood says.
This helped make the area a major tourist destination and silent filmmaking hub for about 20 years, before the industry’s fateful move to the West Coast. Today, visitors can learn all about the Great Fire of 1901 at the Jacksonville Fire Museum, housed in a former fire station built with bricks collected from burned in the blaze.
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