St. Johns River History

St. Johns River Timeline

Before the Timucuan peoples settled in northeastern Florida, the St. Johns River flowed north from deep inside the region to the Atlantic Ocean. Shortly after Florida became part of the United States, a handful of men laid out Jacksonville to be on the river. The river meant transportation: carrying goods and passengers upstream into the state, and downstream for coastal trading and across the sea and facilitated commerce, enhanced security, and provided food and recreation for tourists.

Cool Timeline

2001

St. Johns Riverkeeper hired its first Riverkeeper.

1999

St. Johns Riverkeeper was chartered.

1998

The St. Johns River was designated an American Heritage River by President Clinton. The St. Johns is the only river in Florida and one of only 14 rivers in the entire United States to receive this prestigious national recognition.

1994

The Maple Leaf was designated a National Historic Landmark Shipwreck Site.

1978

Pelican and otter totems were discovered while an underwater utility cable was being repaired. These totems are the only North American totems found outside the Pacific Northwest. They had been protected from rot by the river mud.

1955

During the digging of a canal near Hontoon Island an owl totem was uncovered.

1940

The first plane landed at the newly constructed Jacksonville Air Station at Black Point on the St. Johns River. Mayport Naval Station opened in 1942 at the mouth of the river adjacent to the village of Mayport. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings book, Cross Creek, was published in 1942 and devoted most of one chapter about the St. Johns River, including: “If I could have, to hold forever, one brief place of time and beauty, I think I might choose the night on the high lonely bank above the St. Johns River.”

1935

Construction began on the Cross Florida Barge Canal. Construction continued on and off until 1991 when it was officially canceled and the land became a protected greenbelt: The Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway.

1921

The first of seven automobile bridges in Jacksonville over the St. Johns was built. This bridge was originally called the St. Johns River Bridge and later became known as the Acosta Bridge.

1918

Merrill-Stevens, the largest of eight ship yards in Jacksonville, expanded and built 25 ships in support of the war effort during World War I. From 1900 to 1970, developers drained as much as 300,000 acres of the Upper St. Johns River Basin. More than 70 percent of the marsh was claimed for agricultural and urban uses. In 1988, The St. Johns River Water Management District began one of the largest marsh restoration projects in our country’s history in the Upper Basin. As a result, over 150,000 acres of marsh in Indian River and Brevard Counties has been restored.