Across the St. Johns River from Downtown Jacksonville, San Marco is a historic neighborhood known for its architecture, restaurants, boutiques and mature urban landscape. Here are five facts about San Marco that most Jaxsons may not know.

1. Once a city of its own

Located across the St. Johns River from Downtown Jacksonville, the residential community of South Jacksonville grew up on former plantation land just after the Civil War. Further growth came when the Florida East Coast Railway built a railroad bridge in 1890, connecting the Northbank and Southbank for the first time.

By 1907, South Jacksonville was home to 600 residents, but despite its growth it still lacked basic amenities like streetlights, sidewalks and paved roadways. The citizens voted to incorporate as a city, and a small government center developed on Hendricks Avenue including a city hall, power plant, ice plant and railroad station. 

In 1925, an 80-acre residential development named San Marco opened in South Jacksonville. In 1932, a measure to annex South Jacksonville into Jacksonville was approved by voters in both cities. In an interesting twist of toponymy, the San Marco development had such a cachet that the name “San Marco” came to be applied to most of the former town, while South Jacksonville, or Southside, spread to a much wider area south and east of the St. Johns. Today the lost city remains one of Jacksonville’s most popular urban neighborhoods.

2. Early 20th century industrial adaptive reuse

San Marco’s Marco Lake started out as a claypit for the Gamble and Stockton Brick Co. The company was founded by two of Jacksonville’s elite: Robert Gamble and Telfair Stockton. Gamble’s family owned brickworks around Florida prior to the Civil War, and he was also involved in the Florida Ice Manufacturing Co. and Florida Southern Railway. Stockton was one of Jacksonville’s most prominent developers; his company developed upscale Avondale in 1920. Their Gamble and Stockton business produced bricks, hollow blocks, roof tile, drain tile, ceramic materials and more. Workers dug up wet clay from the pit and took it to the manufacturing facilities to be molded into shape and fired. By 1923, it was producing 50,000 bricks a day.

During the 1920s Florida land boom, Gamble and Stockton determined their property would be more profitable as a residential development. In September 1925, they relocated the brickyard to a site on Doctors Inlet in Clay County, and Stockton announced the original property would be transformed into a new neighborhood called San Marco. Rather than filling the brick company’s clay pit, Stockton decided to turn it into a roughly quarter-mile-long water feature. He shored up the sides with a concrete seawall and dug a canal out to the St. Johns River, creating what became known as Marco Lake, or Lake Marco. From these industrial beginnings came one of Jacksonville’s most picturesque spaces.

3. Inspired by the Piazza San Marco in Venice, Italy

The original San Marco development was relatively small, consisting of 80 acres of the former brickyard property divided into 250 lots. To improve vehicular access to the development, Stockton created San Marco Boulevard, which connected the St. Johns River (Acosta) Bridge south to the intersection of Hendricks Avenue and Atlantic Boulevard. Where these three streets met, near the crossing of the city’s two streetcar lines, he planned a triangular-shaped commercial area, inspired by the Piazza San Marco in Venice. This commercial area, which included a multi-level fountain at its center, was called San Marco Square. Now considered one of Jacksonville’s earliest town centers, San Marco Square continues to thrive.

4. A lasting memory of World War I

Located at the intersection of Atlantic Boulevard and Belote Place, Fletcher Park was one of several parks built as a part of the federal housing development in 1918. This park was originally known as Belote Green and named after Jacksonville politician William Belote.

Now recognized as a part of San Marco, the surrounding Fletcher Park community was developed to support the military after the U.S. entered into World War I on April 6, 1917. As building ships to transport troops overseas became a major government priority, Downtown Jacksonville’s Merrill-Stevens Shipbuilding Co. was awarded large contracts to assist in the war effort. To meet those needs, Merrill-Stevens developed a South Jacksonville shipyard along Atlantic Boulevard.

By 1918, a critical housing shortage for the shipyard’s workers had emerged. To address the issue, the U.S. Shipping Board authorized the construction of a $750,000 housing project on a 48-acre tract of land between Hendricks Avenue and Kings Avenue. Named Fletcher Park, in honor of Sen. Duncan U. Fletcher, Architects H.J. Klutho, Mark & Sheftall, and Mellen Greenley developed the necessary plans quickly, leading to the April 1919 completion of the development’s 158 houses, paved streets, streetcar line, sewers, lights, gas, water, concrete sidewalks and parks. Today, San Marco’s Fletcher Park retains most of its World War I-era housing, charm, scale and character, making it a unique historic setting within the city.

5. Home to Florida’s “Mr. Big”

William “Big Bill” Johnson was a one time mutuels clerk at Sportsman Park, a Chicago horse track owned by Al Capone during Prohibition. He eventually rose to the position of public relations director for Edward O’Hare. O’Hare, also known as “Easy Eddie,” was one of Capone’s top lieutenants. O’Hare International Airport was named in honor of Easy Eddie’s son and Medal of Honor recipient Butch O’Hare.

Easy Eddie helped federal prosecutors convict Capone of tax evasion in 1933. A week before Capone was released from Alcatraz, Easy Eddie O’Hare was slain by gang bullets in 1939. After O’Hare’s death, William “Big Bill” Johnston became the head of the Capone syndicate’s dog tracks in Chicago, Jacksonville, Orange Park, Tampa, and Miami. 

In later years, Johnston, who lived with his wife Anna at 1090 Arbor Lane in San Marco, added Downtown Jacksonville’s luxurious George Washington Hotel to his list of properties. A benefactor of public education, the early San Marco resident and alleged associate of Al Capone’s Chicago mob is the namesake for Florida State University’s William Johnston Building and Bishop Kenny High School’s William Johnston Stadium.