Tag Archives: St. James Hotel

“West Ashley Street,” sang the in 1927, was the only place you could “ever lose these awful Jacksonville Blues.” That same year,  recorded a mysterious ragtime blues guitarist named playing “Ashley Street Blues,” with singing, “I’m a heartbroken woman with the Ashley Street Blues.”  recorded another version of “Jacksonville Blues” in 1928. She was “red hot” in Atlanta, she sang, “But the man I love lives down in Jacksonville.” West Ashley was the central thoroughfare for , a mostly black town after the , a slave plantation earlier in the 19th century, and during Jacksonville’s brutal Jim Crow years, one …

Laid out in the early 1820s, a public square was created by , considered to be the founder of Jacksonville. After his death, his heirs sold the piece of land to the city for $10, maintaining the vision of this square, originally called , to be a public square. The Civil War left Jacksonville decimated, but those northern troops returned as tourists. By 1869, Jacksonville had become a hot destination for visitors. Great hotels were built to accommodate, and Jacksonville had over a dozen; the biggest and fanciest two faced onto  (another one of Hemming Park’s former names). “You could …