In part two of this series I focused on the film company that discovered Jacksonville, Kalem Company, who founded Florida’s first studio on the Eastside of downtown. Yet, one of the most popular, most bustling studio sites in our entire city was the Park Theatre located in Dixieland Amusement Park.
Ostrich Races, Jacksonville, Florida Memory
Yes, Jacksonville had an amusement park! Before Disney and Universal, even before the Circus World and Cypress Gardens of my youth, there was Dixieland! Billed as “The Coney Island of the South,” Dixieland covered thirty acres of riverfront property on the Southbank. Opening in 1907, it included the Ostrich Farm (where you could actually ride an ostrich), the Alligator Farm, the Old Oak (Treaty Oak), a Dance Pavilion, and other rides and attractions. It featured a beautiful merry-go-round, a roller coaster, a 160-foot bamboo slide called the Dixie Dewdrop, live animal shows, comedy acrobats, high-wire performers and stunt shows, vaudeville acts, hot air balloons and parachute jumps. About 20,000 electric lights lit up the park at night. It sounds downright magical. For just a 10 cent admission fee, visitors had access to all of this and more right on the banks of our St. Johns River.
The Park Theatre (later renamed the Dixie Theatre) was in the middle of the main promenade right in front of the bandshell. Dozens of film companies made this space their home over the years. In 1910, The Motograph Film Company was the first independent producer to rent space at Dixieland Park. However, Selig Polyscope from Chicago made history there after William Selig advanced a real life cowboy from Oklahoma named Tom Mix $250 to put together his own film team. They set up shop in Jacksonville’s Dixieland Park where Tom Mix starred in a series of films that would help to form the American cowboy genre, right here in Jacksonville! GIDDY YUP! Tom Mix became one of the first movie cowboy heroes and would go on to make over 200 films during his long career. I am from Texas and have cowboy roots in my blood so this fact about Jacksonville’s history makes me giddy!
Selig specialized in live animal films. They stored 160 trained animals at the Springfield Park Zoo (a precursor to the Jacksonville Zoo which was located at 3rd and Broad Streets). Selig’s animal stars including elephants, lions, tigers, camels and horses. Oh, MY! Kathlyn Williams was one of Selig’s most noted stars who worked with the animals. She started her early career under the famous director D.W. Griffith at Biograph before becoming a Selig star, writing storylines and even being credited as directing one of their films. Many of her Jacksonville films were exotic films set in jungles abroad with live animal encounters, like Back to the Primitive (1911) and Hearts of the Jungle (1915). Unfortunately, she was mauled by a leopard during the filming of Lost in the Jungle. Can you imagine?
Click above to watch Lost in the Jungle, filmed in Jacksonville.
“Miss Williams suffered such severe scalp wounds from the animal’s claws that nine stitches were required to close them, and she was covered with blood to her waist. A leopard is very fond of wild chickens, and at the first rehearsal of the scene, before the man began to turn the handle, everything went well. … In the second trial the chicken was thrown directly behind Miss Williams, out of the camera’s field; and although the leopard saw that the chicken had been thrown, he did not see it fall, and concluded that it was under Miss Williams. The courage shown by this lady, and her wonderful influence over wild animals, in the production of this film, are really remarkable.”
— The Moving Picture World, October 14, 1911
The French Gaumont Film Company also operated out of Dixieland Park. Their films were mainly dramas but they also made newsreels focusing on Jacksonville amusements, such as the alligator farm and the ostrich farm. These films about Jacksonville were distributed to worldwide audiences! Gaumont had their own baseball team, took part in many civic projects, and recruited Jacksonville citizens for their films. In fact, in the Idol of the Stage, Gaumont used 1,000 residents of Jacksonville in various scenes.
Technicolor of Boston moved into Dixieland Park in 1916 where they would make film history in our great city as well! The company favored Florida because Technicolor required more light than standard filming. They brought all of their equipment with them, encapsulated in a custom Pullman railroad car. It included a film processing lab, darkrooms, fireproof safes, offices, and even a power plant! It was here in Jacksonville where they produced the very first Technicolor film, A Gulf Between (1917). How cool is that, right here in our river city?
Other companies to occupy Dixieland included Ocean Film Company, Amber Star Film Company, Essanay (western and animal films), and Vitagraph (later bought out by Warner Bros). Even Edison set up for several months one winter and would visit often on his way to his winter home in Fort Meyers. By the way, if you haven’t been to the Edison Ford Winter Estate, it is worth a trip to Fort Meyers for that alone. There are historic houses, a fantastic museum, lush gardens and my favorite is the laboratory! I am a museum nut and history fanatic so bear that in mind.
Dixieland Amusement Park began to decline around the onset of World War I, which is right around the same time that the film industry started to wane in our great city. All that is left today is the Treaty Oak. Next time you visit this majestic tree, imagine the promenade before you all the way to the river with 30 acres of land full of delights for visitors and residents alike. Man, I wish I could have seen it (although the Dixie Dewdrop would not have been on my list of must dos).
As a side note, the Theatre was one of the last parts of Dixieland Amusement Park to be demolished. This was because it was converted to a roller rink that operated during the late 1950s and was demolished in 1964 to make way for development. In my next installment of Jacksonville film history, we are going to have some fun talking about the comedic film companies located in our fair city, including some of our country’s most famous silent film stars who made their start in Duval!