“The street on the left is Main Street. The first street going to the left is Orange Street where Claude Nolan’s Cadillac was. In the center is Confederate Park which is still there. 1955. The white building on the upper right is the Scottish Rite building.” LS
Much has stayed the same as in this 1950’s aerial photograph of the Southern edge of Jacksonville’s Springfield neighborhood. Confederate Park is virtually unchanged. Opening in 1907 this park was named Dignan Park after a former chairman of the City of Jacksonville’s Board of Public Works and was one of a number of parks along Hogan Creek. It was renamed Confederate Park in 1915 after the annual reunion of United Confederate Veterans was held in Jacksonville in 1914 with around 8,000 former Confederate soldiers camping in Springfield’s parks. The Claude Nolan Pontiac, Cadillac dealership on Main Street building and their service building across Orange Street to the Southeast still stand but the businesses that they housed are gone. The lot at the South corner of Main Street and Orange Street now holds the remains of the old Heart of Jacksonville Motor Hotel which was built in 1966 and later condemned and partially demolished in 1999. It sits on the location of the Henry McClellan English Ford dealership. The Scottish Rite Masonic building built in 1923 still stands in all it’s Egyptian glory and is still in use.
Tags: 000246, aerial, auto, Cadillac, Claude Nolan, Confederate Park, duckpond, Ford, Henry McClellan, Main Street, Mason, Orange Street, park, Pontiac, Scottish Rite
