The Starting
College students of Walker Enterprise School, c. 1916 | State Archives of Florida
Together with her first husband Richard Wendell Walker, Dr. Julia S. Walker-Brown based Walker’s Enterprise School in 1916. Julia Saphronia was born in Georgia and attended Florida A&M College in Tallahassee. Richard W. Walker was from Kansas and had beforehand attended Fairmont College in Wichita. The varsity’s first location was in LaVilla, throughout the road from the Masonic Temple at 417.5 Broad Road. Providing each day and night time lessons, the college targeted as a transitional bridge for veterans returning to civilian life. Throughout its early years, the Walkers have been consultants in shorthand contact typewriting, bookkeeping, business legislation, enterprise penmanship, civil service, hand portray, flower and lamp shade making. By 1922, the college title had develop into Walker’s Nationwide Enterprise School. After being positioned at 1148 West Adams Road for a yr, the school moved to 610 West Duval Road, the place it remained in operation between 1923 and 1925. In 1925, the school relocated to 611 Harrison Road within the Eastside.
The Macon years
In 1926, Florida’s roaring Nineteen Twenties actual property bubble burst, sending town into an financial recession. In 1928, the Walkers relocated to Macon, Georgia and started instructing lessons out of their home. A couple of months later, in Could 1929, they opened a brand new Walker’s Enterprise School campus in Macon. That school campus was positioned at 517.5 Cotton Avenue. The school remained in Macon till the early Thirties across the time of Richard’s demise.
Walker returns to Jacksonville
An inside view of Walkers Business and Vocational School. | Metropolis of Jacksonville
After her husband’s demise, Julia Walker returned to Jacksonville and opened Walker’s Business School at 319 Broad Road in LaVilla. In 1935, Julia S. Walker was listed in public directories as the school’s president whereas Walter C. Cogdell was listed as the college’s dean.
By 1940, listed as a widow, directories present Julia S. Walker lived at 4302 Moncrief Highway. Walker’s family included her niece Edna Mae Thompson and 4 lodgers between the ages of 66 and 18. In 1941, Julia S. Walker married Lafayette A. Brown. As soon as employed as a porter, Brown lived in Jacksonville’s Eastside. Lafayette A. Brown finally turned the school’s vice chairman. He was additionally employed as a design radio technician on the faculty.
Serving veterans transitioning into civilian life and rebranded as Walker’s Business & Vocational School, the college additionally catered to the area people, by providing programs in bookkeeping, accounting, insurance coverage, workplace machines and secretarial coaching. A commerce division supplied programs in dressmaking, tailoring, radio, tv and upholstering.
In 1950, Walker’s Business & Vocational School expanded by a relocation to Durkeeville. There it occupied buildings on each side of Myrtle Avenue between West eighth and ninth streets. Its tailoring lessons have been taught by former NAACP president and civil rights activist, Johnnie H. Goodson.
Dr. Julia Walker-Brown’s faculty additionally had ties to Bethune-Cookman College founder Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune. Margaret Bethune, the daughter-in-law of Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, was employed as an workplace secretary on the faculty throughout the Nineteen Fifties. On the time, the Bethune household resided in a close-by Sugar Hill dwelling positioned at 1048 Scriven Road.
Dr. Julia Walker-Brown’s Walker’s Business & Vocational School closed its doorways in 1970, six years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 55 years later, Dr. Julia Walker-Brown’s legacy as an early twentieth century profitable businesswoman stays and could be seen in a cluster of surviving business buildings on Myrtle Avenue that have been as soon as part of the school’s Durkeeville campus.
Accomplished in 1950, 1815 Myrtle Avenue North was as soon as occupied by the Walker Vocational & Business School. Throughout the Nineteen Fifties and 60s, it additionally was the situation of the U.S. Put up Workplace’s Carver Station. | Ennis Davis, AICP
Editorial by Ennis Davis, AICP. Contact Ennis at edavis@moderncities.com