The Maceo Elks Lodge #8 at 712 West Duval Avenue.
Initially constructed because the Younger Males’s and Younger Ladies’s Hebrew Affiliation, the Maceo Elks Lodge #8 at 712 West Duval Avenue is the final surviving institutional constructing in LaVilla related to Jacksonville’s early Jewish group.
In the course of the Eighteen Eighties, Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants from Russia and Romania settled in Jacksonville, with many residing and dealing in LaVilla. On the time, Jacksonville supplied an interesting different to the crowded industrial cities of the North. These immigrants carried with them sturdy ties to Orthodox Judaism, and in 1901, they established the B’nai Israel Orthodox Temple at West Duval and Jefferson Streets.
The Younger Males’s Hebrew Affiliation (YMHA) was a part of a nationwide motion that started in Baltimore in 1854 and expanded to New York Metropolis in 1874. By 1888, the Younger Ladies’s Hebrew Affiliation was fashioned as an auxiliary group. Collectively, these organizations promoted well being, training, recreation, democratic engagement, and Jewish cultural life throughout the USA and Canada.
In 1910, LaVilla’s YMHA was proposed with the purpose of enriching group life by Jewish custom and values. Native architects, together with John Henry Willis Hawkins, Talley and Summer time, and Benjamin and Ball, have been engaged to design the constructing. The YMHA opened to the general public on February 8, 1915, with a group bazaar. Jacksonville’s mayor, Jac Swearingen, addressed the big crowd on opening evening. Nevertheless, as Jewish households progressively moved to suburban neighborhoods, the YMHA relocated to Springfield in 1932.
In 1945, the constructing was bought to the Maceo Elks Lodge #8, one of many nation’s oldest chapters of the Improved Benevolent Protecting Order of Elks of the World (IBPOEW). Established in 1898, the IBPOEW grew into the world’s largest Black fraternal group, offering very important monetary, non secular, and social help to African American communities.
Maceo Lodge #8 embraced this mission regionally, providing charitable companies, scholar help and scholarships, veterans’ help, senior help, and packages for at-risk households. It additionally fostered unity and fellowship amongst its members.
Since buying the constructing, the Maceo Elks Lodge #8 has been a cornerstone of Jacksonville’s Black cultural and civic life. It grew to become a venue for Chitlin’ Circuit performances, Civil Rights conferences, group banquets, dances, weddings, festivals, and numerous social gatherings. With seating for 125, it continues to host vibrant occasions, similar to weekly superior line dancing, G.R.I.T. line dancing on second Fridays, and the month-to-month Jazz Poetry Café, a mix of stay music and spoken phrase.
The importance of Maceo Elks Lodge #8 was formally acknowledged on October 29, 1992, when the constructing was added to the Nationwide Register of Historic Locations. In March 1993, the Jacksonville Historic Preservation Fee additionally designated it as a Historic Landmark, cementing its position as each a cultural treasure and a residing a part of town’s historical past.
A glance contained in the Maceo Elks Lodge #8
Jazz Poetry Café is a musical efficiency and spoken phrase occasion held each first Friday of every month within the Maceo Elks Lodge #8’s auditorium. | Maceo Elks Lodge #8
The Maceo Elks Lodge #8 predominant auditorium in 1992. | State Historic Preservation Workplace
The banquet room of the lodge is positioned on the constructing’s floor ground.
The Maceo Elks Lodge #8 banquet room in 1992. | State Historic Preservation Workplace
An outdated Wurlitzer juke field contained in the historic constructing. Merely known as Wurlitzer, the Rudolph Wurlitzer Firm was based in Cincinnati in 1853 by German immigrant Frank Rudolph Wurlitzer. In the course of the early twentieth century, Wurlitzer grew to become identified for its jukeboxes.
Maceo Elks Lodge #8’s Gullah Geechee menu options meals with a wealthy culinary custom mixing West African influences just like the deep frying, with regionally sourced coastal components like shrimp and fish.
Editorial by Ennis Davis, AICP. Contact Ennis at edavis@moderncities.com