Stories - Chapter 06
From: dspvbfl@bellsouth.net Subject: Jax Bch Piers Date: December 18, 2009 9:10:07 AM EST To: woodhouse@beachesleader.com
Hi Johnny - Below is an article I wrote about the piers and the boardwalk - David Stearns - Merry Christmas
Jax Beach Piers and Boardwalk
I remember my Dad waking me and my brother George up in the wee hours of the morning in October of 1961. I was 14 and we lived one block east of Gonzales Park on 4th Avenue North. From the middle of the street we could see a giant fireball at the end of the street to the east. Rumor has it that some of the city fathers had the old pier set on fire to save demolition costs and to rid the city of an eyesore. Some of these city fathers never liked the old pier or the boardwalk either, as they brought "undesirable" elements to the beach. Interestingly enough, the boardwalk also burned down multiple times over the years under suspicious circumstances. Fast forward to the second pier at 6th Avenue South, which was built in 1959. When there was interest in reclaiming the West end of the storm damaged pier a few years ago, it burned down too. Whatever happened to the two transients accused of setting the latest pier fire? After the first pier burned down to the waterline in 1961, The pilings below the waterline and out past low tide remained until 1965 or 1966. Some lifeguards remember piling remnants into the mid 70's. I became a Jax Beach lifeguard in 1964 and we were pulling swimmers out of the water through the remnants of the pier pilings. The pilings were coated with barnacles and nasty scrapes and cuts were common to swimmers and guards alike. To make matters worse, the pilings created a runout that would suck swimmers in if they got too close. We posted signs and stayed on our whistles, but accidents occurred anyway. The guards implored the city of Jax Beach to remove the pilings, and the city's reply was "We don't know how to remove the pilings underwater." This situation endured for roughly five years. When I came home from college in the summer of 1966, the pilings were gone. The story I got, was that Navy divers came in and dynamited the remaining pilings at their base on the bottom. Last summer the city of Jax Beach removed the remnants of the 6th Avenue South pier pilings with a backhoe. I haven't heard of any pilings still out past low tide.
12/18/2009
Shad's Pier, AKA The Dancing Pier, 1922 - 1961
Bad Decisions Make Good Stories
At sixteen years of age, I became an ocean lifeguard in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, in the summer of 1964. I ran track and cross country in high school and was in pretty good condition. One day in October after schooI I was at our lifeguard station on the oceanfront about one half mile from the fishing pier to our south. Hurricane Dora was due to hit St Augustine that night and the waves were already ten feet plus. with a strong north to south current.
There was one other guard at the station, Bob Rozear, who was a couple of years older than me. We decided we would go body surfing in the two story waves. Waves in Jax Beach were generally much smaller and this was too good a chance to pass up. We suited up and without fins dove into the shorebreak in front of the station. The water was still pretty warm so we didn’t need wetsuits.
We swam as hard as we could, but could not make it past the first set of waves, about twenty yards out. The tide was all the way up to the bulkhead, which by the way did not survive the hurricane. It was soon replaced first by junk cars and then by large boulders brought in by rail from North Carolina, and by truck from the rail depot in Jacksonville.
We were half way to the pier when we realized we were not going to make it outside the shorebreak. Before Dora the pier was one quarter of a mile long. It was billed as the world’s longest fishing pier. Dora took off the eastern third of the pier and it was never replaced.
Long story short, we couldn’t swim past the end of the pier and we couldn’t make it to the beach fast enough either. The north south current was ripping. In one of those moments when everything becomes crystal clear, our eyes met and then we looked at the oncoming pilings. Both of us curled up into a fetal position, braced our selves, and were swept through the pilings by a wave that smashed against not only the pilings but also the under side of the pier itself. Miraculously both of us emerged on the south side of the pilings without a scratch. Did I mention that there was some praying going on too.
So after all that, as we dragged ourselves up on the beach, we decided we were not going to be cheated out of riding one of these giant waves. We walked around the locked entrance to the pier office on a narrow ledge and hopped over the low railing onto the pier. We walked out a hundred yards or so to where the waves were cresting. We watched for a little while before picking the back side of a giant wave to jump in. We swam out to meet the next crest and effortlessly stroked in and got the ride of our lives.
As we wearily walked back to the lifeguard station, we spoke of what an adventure we had and how lucky we were to still both be in one piece.
3/2021The boardwalk was very popular up until it burned down (again) in the 1970s. There were rides and carnival style booths and coin amusement games. People of color were not allowed on the beach or the boardwalk until 1964 (by Jax Beach city ordinance). The only black person I ever saw there was a man in the dunking booth. He would taunt the white folks so they would buy three balls for $1 (?) and try to dunk him. It was quite popular. Some of the city fathers felt the boardwalk attracted the wrong (average/poor) sort of people to the beach and eventually got rid of it. 9/2022
