City of Jacksonville Beach history

Further transportation was added in 1910 when a winding oyster shell road was constructed near the present Atlantic Boulevard, dividing Neptune Beach and Atlantic Beach.

The city government took control of the ports in 1912 and began building its own terminals.

One of Jacksonville's first insurance titans was the Afro-American Insurance Co., founded in 1919 by Abraham Lincoln Lewis.

Growth spread from the downtown center to outlying areas in the 1920s.

On September 4, 1922, Pablo Beach came into the international limelight when First Lieutenant James H. Doolittle, after a previous attempt, broke the transcontinental speed record.

In 1925, the town was renamed Jacksonville Beach.

In 1940, what had been Camp Foster became Naval Air Station Jacksonville, which boasted an assembly and repair shop covering 1,500,000 square feet with doors 160 feet wide and 45 feet tall.

In 1968, the City of Jacksonville and the county of Duval merged into a single governmental unit in order to improve how services were delivered.

The mayor celebrated the closing of the last of the untreated outfalls in June 1977 by skiing on the river with performers from Cypress Gardens.

James returned on September 4, 1980, to unveil a marker in Jacksonville Beach's Pablo Historical Park.

Godbold worked to convert the empty Union Station on the western fringe of downtown into a convention center, helping gain City Council approval in 1982.

A beautifully restored Florida Theatre re-opened in 1983, and the Mayport Jazz Festival moved to newly developed Metropolitan Park.

Focusing on the St Johns River, the 1.2 mile Southbank Riverwalk opened in 1985 with the promise of parks, restaurants and a beautiful view of developments on the north bank of the river.

In 1986, the Mayo Clinic opened its Jacksonville facility, the first extension of the famed Mayo Clinic outside of Rochester, Minn.

The downtown canvas had changed during Godbold's two terms, but work remained when Mayor Tommy Hazouri took office in 1987.

His replacement in 1995, Mayor John Delaney, envisioned a comprehensive. $2.2 billion Better Jacksonville Plan, including major downtown developments.

In 2005, Jacksonville emerged into the international spotlight as home to Super Bowl XXXIX with a matchup of the Philadelphia Eagles versus the New England Patriots.