Bygone Jax: Our Unsung History: Recent Episodes
Brendan Rivers, Tammy Cherry
The city of Jacksonville turned 200 in 2022, but how much do Jaxsons really know about their city’s history? Bygone Jax: Our Unsung History, a podcast from WJCT Public Media, highlights some of the lesser known or little explored stories from the River City’s past.In our first episodes, we’ll take listeners back to March of 1863, when two regiments of Black Union soldiers were sent to Jacksonville to occupy the city for the third time during the Civil War. Their mission: pester Confederate troops in the area, free enslaved people along the St. Johns River and enlist as many Black men as possible. Despite their successful occupation of Jacksonville, the Union soldiers were ordered to withdraw after just three weeks.During that short span of time, media coverage of what transpired in Jacksonville helped turn the tide of public opinion on Black troops serving in the army. Seeing this as a chance to tip the scales in the Union’s favor, President Abraham Lincoln’s administration decided to move forward with the full-scale enlistment of Black troops.When those troops first made their way up the St. Johns River in March of 1863, they were two of just a handful of Black regiments serving in the Union Army. By the war’s end in 1865, nearly 180,000 Black men were wearing or had worn Yankee blue. Some historians believe the Union wouldn’t have won the war if it weren’t for this influx of manpower.This is just one of the stories from Jacksonville’s rich history that has escaped our collective memory over the years. In Bygone Jax: Our Unsung History, we aim to bring those stories back into the light with compelling sound-rich storytelling, a diversity of primary sources, and historical context from subject matter experts. Research for this podcast comes from Florida State College at Jacksonville, which launched a new History of Jacksonville course in fall of 2022.
Having conquered Jacksonville, Kalem turns its attention to an entirely different battlefield when it begins specializing in Civil War films told from the Southern perspective. But changes in the movie industry and Florida’s rapidly shifting political landscape spell the end — not only for the company itself, but also for Jacksonville’s burgeoning film industry.
On December 8, 1908, a small film production company called Kalem arrives in Jacksonville, officially kicking off the movie business in the River City. Over the next few years, Kalem will revolutionize the film industry …but who were they, and what brought them to Jacksonville?
As the story goes, the “last of the Timucua,” a man named Juan Alonso Cabale, died in Cuba in 1767. The details of Cabale’s death are true, but over time they have been fused into a broader false narrative that affects the indigenous people of Florida to this day.
In 1591, Flemish goldsmith Theodore de Bry and his sons published a book that still shapes how we picture the Timucua to this day. Supposedly its imagery was based on paintings by French painter Jacques LeMoyne, who was stationed at Fort Caroline… but was it really? And how accurate is the picture they present of local indigenous life?
Stories about an ancient Timucuan town called Ossachite buried beneath the streets of Downtown Jacksonville abound online, but did it actually exist? And does this romantic narrative of a lost city actually obscure the far more interesting indigenous history of Northeast Florida?
Union forces continue to occupy Jacksonville and the Second South Carolina Volunteers mount an expedition up the St. Johns. An unexpected order to withdraw the troops from Jacksonville confounds Higginson, but it quickly becomes clear that what his men have done there has turned the tide of public opinion on Black enlistment.
It’s March of 1863 and two of the first Black regiments in the Union Army are sent to occupy Jacksonville, Florida. Their mission: harass Confederate troops in the area, free enslaved people along the St. Johns River and enlist as many Black men as possible.
Bygone Jax: Our Unsung History from WJCT Public Media tells some of the lesser known stories — or more accurate versions of the stories people think they know — about Jacksonville’s past. The show is powered by research from the people behind Florida State College at Jacksonville’s History of Jacksonville course, which launched in fall 2022.