Our Jacksonville design carries the Florida alligator beneath an arched JACKSONVILLE and the line Florida Territory · Est. 1845, printed in a black, woodcut-style mark. The alligator is old Florida itself — the river-and-swamp country the city grew out of — and the 1845 date marks Florida statehood. It is a River City emblem: not the tourist Florida of postcards, but the lived-in city on the river that runs north.
A river that runs the wrong way. The St. Johns is one of the few major rivers in North America that flows south to north, draining toward the Atlantic past seven bridges inside the city limits. The river is the reason Jacksonville exists and the spine it still grows along — and a Navy town besides, with generations of sailors stationed at Mayport and NAS Jacksonville who carry River City with them wherever the fleet sends them.
Why People Visit Jacksonville, FL
Jacksonville rewards travelers who like a city that surprises them: Prairie School architecture in the Deep South, a river that flows north to the sea, miles of Atlantic beach, and a deep Navy heritage at Mayport and NAS Jacksonville. It is a lived-in River City, not a postcard — and that is the appeal.
