1226 E. 16th Street/Franklin Street

Moved to: 4763 Sutton Park Court 32224

1910

To be repurposed

Originally called Graded Springfield School, and East Springfield Elementary school, its name was changed in honor of J. Allen Axson,  the former principal of the school.  The school is number 8 in the public school listing and sits on 2.7 acres of land in east Springfield.  The school was built in  1912  In his younger years, Axson became a farmer, worked as a carpenter. Later, he worked as an educator.

J. Allen Axson # 8. (Ramey Collection).

The school was designed by Richard Lewis Brown, Jacksonville’s first Black architect.  It was built in 1910 following the out-growth after the Great Jacksonville Fire of 1901. Several students who attended this school were Frank R. Williams, Eric Leonard Jenkins and Clayton Emory Smith.  Employees at the school were many including Mrs. Edie Garrett and Maury O’Cane.  The area itself was known as the “Phoenix Avenue”, had begun n 1904 and with the growing area was in need of a school for children thus the Phoenix was rising,  symbolic of “growing out and above a catastrophe”.

Things in that area grew steadily until the Haines Street Expressway was built east of the school. Traffic, transportation and true crime plagued the area. The school closed in 2005. It reopened as a Montessori school in 1991. After the school closed, vandals broke windows, and painted graffiti on walls. It was boarded up but vandals found a way in and a fire damaged its interior in 2021. 

In 2023, there has been hope to repurpose the building. 

See you tomorrow,

Nan

Sources: Duval Public Schools, Personal visit.

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