Downtown
Downtown is the central business district of Jacksonville. The oldest section of the city, it is traditionally defined by the original boundaries of the city set upon its establishment. It is the center of Jacksonville's Urban Core, which includes the surrounding neighborhoods of LaVilla, Springfield, East Jacksonville, and Brooklyn, plus a section on the south side of the St. Johns River known as Southbank.
The area that became downtown Jacksonville was on the north bank of a crossing on the St. Johns River known as Wacca Pilatka to the Seminole and as the Cow Ford to the British. The land that became the town was largely drawn from two land grants from 1816, during Florida's Second Spanish Period: one to Maria Taylor, née Suarez, and one to Juan LeMaestre. By 1821 a small community had grown there, and local residents plotted out the streets for a town, which they soon named "Jacksonville" after Andrew Jackson.
The town was occupied by Union troops for much of the American Civil War, and steady growth came after the war's end, when it became one of Florida's first major tourist designations. In 1887 Jacksonville annexed several surrounding suburbs. Nearly all of downtown burned in the Great Fire of 1901; however a significant building boom followed immediately after.
Today, the city's definition of Downtown Jacksonville covers a wider area than the traditional Downtown Core, and is made up of several different neighborhoods or districts.
Read more about this topic: Neighborhoods Of Jacksonville