Professional Fence Installation in Avondale, FL

Riverside and Avondale were developed out of former plantation land. Most of this area was part of two plantations: Dell’s Bluff, granted by the Spanish Florida government in 1801, and a tract eventually known as Magnolia Plantation, granted in 1815. Both changed hands several times before the American Civil War. In 1868, Dell’s Bluff’s then owner, Miles Price, sold off the southern part of the plantation to Florida Union editor Edward M. Cheney and Boston developer John Murray Forbes, who platted the original Riverside development. The northern part Price developed himself as Jacksonville’s Brooklyn neighborhood.

Riverside and Brooklyn saw modest growth until 1887, when the city of Jacksonville annexed them and established a streetcar line. Following the Great Fire of 1901, which destroyed most of Downtown Jacksonville, many displaced residents moved to Riverside. Wealthy citizens built mansions close to the river, while the less well-to-do purchased more modest bungalows and other homes further inland. The neighborhood grew steadily, with development continuing well beyond its original bounds to the south, until the collapse of the Florida land boom in the late 1920s. During this period, so many architects working in such a wide variety of contemporary styles experimented in Riverside that it has become the most architecturally diverse neighborhood in Florida. Largely due to Riverside’s profusion of bungalow homes, Jacksonville has what is likely the largest number of such structures in the state.

One notable section of Riverside is Silvertown, a subdivision developed in 1887 for African Americans. Initially isolated from largely white Riverside to the east, it was eventually absorbed into the growing neighborhood. As such, Silvertown residents became some of the few black homeowners in Riverside through the period of segregation. A few one-story wood-frame houses in the area may date to the original development, including one house owned by a woman and then her daughter from 1887 into the 1980s.