The Gilded Age made the river a resort. Steamboats worked the St. Johns and winter visitors filled grand hotels — Jacksonville sold itself as the Winter City in a Summer Land — until the fire of 1901 reset the town, and the rebuilt city found a stranger industry: the movies. Between 1908 and 1922 more than thirty silent-film studios set up along the river, drawn south by mild winters and long light, and Jacksonville called itself the Winter Film Capital of the World — Hollywood before Hollywood claimed the title. The studios eventually went west, but the era left its mark in Arlington, where one silent-era studio complex survives as a National Historic Landmark.
The Great Fire of May 3, 1901 destroyed 146 blocks and 2,300 buildings; its glow was seen in Savannah — and the rebuild gave Jacksonville one of the largest Prairie School collections outside the Midwest.
Why People Visit Jacksonville Florida
- Look up at the Laura Street Trio and the St. James Building downtown — the Prairie School rebuild of 1901 standing in straight modern lines.
- Walk both Riverwalks past Friendship Fountain, with the skyline across the north-flowing St. Johns.
- Stand under the Treaty Oak on the Southbank — a live oak centuries older than the city around it.
- Spend a beach day at Jacksonville Beach, Neptune Beach, or Atlantic Beach — the barrier islands are inside the city limits.
- Visit Fort Caroline National Memorial and the Timucuan Preserve for the French colony of 1564, the river marshes the Timucua knew, and the preserved, sobering history at Kingsley Plantation.
- Photograph the fallen giants of Boneyard Beach on Big Talbot Island, and swim at Little Talbot or Hanna Park.
- Ride the tiny St. Johns River Ferry at Mayport and eat local shrimp where the boats come in.
- Browse the historic districts — San Marco’s 1920s square, Five Points, Riverside-Avondale’s leafy streets, Springfield’s restored blocks, and Mandarin on the river — where Harriet Beecher Stowe wintered and wrote.
- Catch the LaVilla story downtown, where the Harlem of the South once rang with jazz and blues.