Instructions:
1....Print this file.
2....At its end, click on "rules" to see a copy of the trail rules, print it, and then click where indicated at the end of the 3-page rules and patch order form to get back to the list of Florida trails.
3....If you want a hand-drawn map showing the locations of all of the sites, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to Steve Rajtar, 1614 Bimini Dr., Orlando, FL 32806.
4....Hike the trail and order whatever patches you like (optional).
WARNING - This trail may pass through one or more neighborhoods which, although full of history, may now be unsafe for individuals on foot, or which may make you feel unsafe there. Hikers have been approached by individuals who have asked for handouts or who have inquired (not always in a friendly manner) why the hikers are in their neighborhood. Drugs and other inappropriate items have been found by hikers in some neighborhoods. It is suggested that you drive the hike routes first to see if you will feel comfortable walking them and, if you don't think it's a good place for you walk, you might want to consider (1) traveling with a large group, (2) doing the route on bicycles, or (3) choosing another hike route. The degree of comfort will vary with the individual and with the time and season of the hike, so you need to make the determination using your best judgment. If you hike the trail, you accept all risks involved.
On March 17, 1946, Jackie Robinson played his first game as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers' minor league farm team, the Montreal Royals. Thirteen months later, he broke the major league baseball color barrier as the first black player. Jules LaSalle's statue of him was dedicated on September 9, 1990, and is located on the other side of the stadium.
This store opened in 1918 at 120 S. Beach St. in a converted barber shop. It moved to this location in 1938 and was owned by Sam and Bessie Dobrow. It was one of several Jewish-owned retail shops between 200 N. and 200 S. Beach St. that dominated the area for most of the twentieth century.
Harry M. Griffin came to Daytona Beach for a vacation in 1925 and stayed for 24 years. In 1932, he designed this building as a W.P.A. project. The carved stone and red terra cotta tile are typical of the Spanish Renaissance style, and was inspired by a hotel in Havana. The roof tiles came from Cuba and the coral used to construct the wall was shipped from Key Largo. It features seven gargoyle figures near the roofline.
A one-room school was built here in 1876, and was also used as a community house and church.
This house was built in about 1907 and was the home of Amos H. Kling. His daughter, Florence, married Warren G. Harding in 1891 and he became the president in 1920. They frequently visited here and the house was known as Harding's winter residence.
As a mission founded on December 15, 1871, this was named after St. Mark the Evangelist.
The first service as St. Mary's took place on May 20, 1877, in the old schoolhouse on Palmetto Ave. Dr. Carter of Holly Hill served as the first rector. Services were also held in the stores of William Jackson and Lawrence Thompson. The style of this church building, erected in 1883, is Victorian Gothic. The exterior is of board and batten sheathing.
The congregation had intended to keep the name of St. Mark's, but when the engraved cornerstone they had ordered came in with the misspelled name of St. Mary's, the name of the church was changed to be consistent with it. It became a full parish in 1915.
The main U-shaped building had 123 rooms. A two-story building was erected behind the hall as an apartment at the corner of Live Oak Ave. and Segrave St., known as the Lodge and in 1952 was converted to four apartments. The complex was named the Arroyo Gardens Hotel, and then in 1940 was renamed The Daytona Terrace Hotel, after it was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Stevens.
Auto manufacturer Ransom Eli Olds and his wife, Metta Woodward, lived at 129 N. Halifax Ave. during the winter. He chose this to be a home for retired ministers and missionaries and bought it in April of 1942. It was the home of the Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society in the 1970s and was later converted to a nursing home.
Daytona Beach is named after Mathias Day, Jr. of Mansfield, Ohio, who arrived here in 1870 to operate a sawmill. He hired a group of freedmen who had settled in Freemanville, north of Port Orange, and employed them to clear land and grow crops. On the grounds is the Thoburn Oak, a registered live oak determined to be at least 250 years old.
This building was designed by the in-house architect of the S.H. Kress & Co., Edward F. Siebert. G.A. Miller, Inc. of Tampa built it in 1932. It is constructed of a steel frame with brick curtain walls, concrete floors, and terra cotta ornamentation. It is a fine example of the commercial Art Deco style of the 1930s. It was later named the International Plaza, housing offices and retail stores.
This was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 7, 1983.
In 1910, Peoples Bank of Daytona opened at this location with Dr. S.P. Leland as its president. It was renamed First National Bank of Daytona in May of 1914, and in August of 1932 became Florida Bank and Trust Company. In 1936, it relocated to the former Merchants Bank building. The bank building later became the home of Wm. Ritzi & Co., Fine Jewelers.
In 1911, the Merchants Bank of Daytona moved into this building designed by W.B. Talley and built by Barn and Hall. At that time, the building consisted of a single two-story room, and was expanded in 1926 by two-story additions to the south and west.
The bank closed on July 11, 1929, and the building remained vacant until 1936 when it was bought by Florida Bank & Trust Company. Beginning in 1964, it had several owners and uses, and in 1984 became the property of the Halifax Historical Society. In 1986, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
In 1878, William Jackson built his home here, with a store adjoining it to the south. On the second floor of the store building was a large meeting room known as Jackson Hall. It was utilized for church services.
Jackson lived in a house two lots to the west of here. It burned down in 1891. This corner is now home to the Fifth District Court of Appeals.
The Merchants Bank of Daytona opened as a branch of the Volusia County Bank in 1896 at this location. In 1901, a new coquina bank building was erected here. In 1912, the bank moved to what is now the Halifax Historical Society Museum.
In 1928, the Mary Karl Vocational Technical School opened here. It had previously known as the Opportunity School and as the Volusia County Technical School. In 1946, it moved to 210 Bay St.
This was originally the land of Lawrence Thompson who, in March of 1896, gave the club permission to build a $225 wharf. The yacht club was incorporated in May of 1896 and the clubhouse was built the following year for $1,367. Warren G. Harding liked to play cards here.
The Municipal Yacht Basin was constructed in 1948 for $250,000.
This Prairie style building sits on the site of J.H. Niver's cottage, plus his mortuary and furniture business which he ran during the 1880s. It was purchased by Thomas H. White in 1903 for use as a residence, and he hired S.H. Gove to build the present stucco-covered structure.
After White died in 1914, editor Richard H. Edmonds of Baltimore bought it. In 1937-38, the YWCA which had been sponsored by the Palmetto Club bought the building for $31,000. During World War II, the USO was located here. Several shops and offices have shared the building with the YWCA. A later tenant of the building was the Children's Advocacy Center.
Lawrence Thompson built this store on the north half of his lot in 1875, with his house on the south half. It was built of lumber being transported from Jacksonville by a ship that wrecked at Ponce de Leon Inlet, and which was salvaged from the beach.
The first floor was used as the store, and the hall upstairs was used for religious services and town council meetings. A small collection of books which later grew into the city library was also located upstairs.
Thompson sold the building in 1886, and in 1904 it was bought by Adelaide Rhodes from Ohio. She had two-story additions built on the north and south sides, converting it into the present Frame Vernacular style home. This building is also known as The Abbey. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.
This is the south half of the lot Lawrence Thompson bought from Mathias Day for $300 in 1875. Calvin Day built the two-story Frame Vernacular style house for Lawrence and Mary Thompson in 1883. It features weatherboard siding, French doors, two brick exterior chimneys and a second-story porch. Later owners included W. Wright Esch, the founder of WESH-TV. It was later converted to law offices.
On this site was a building erected by J.H. Diliman, in which Lucy A. Cross established the private Daytona Institute in 1880. In about 1904, that wooden house was replaced with this one, a Colonial Revival masonry home built for Peter Siems, builder of the Northern Pacific Railroad. The foundation is coquina and the exterior is stone.
It was donated to the county in 1948 and used as an annex to the courthouse until a new one was built in 1973. It later was the home of the Volusia County Health and Welfare Department, and later was the home of the county's Beach Services.
This was part of Orange Grove, the plantation owned by Samuel Williams beginning in the 1790s. Some believe that his plantation home, destroyed by Indians during the mid-1830s, was on this very site, and that the coquina foundation had to be removed to construct Beach St. His granddaughter sold a portion of it in 1870 to Mathias Day, who went on to establish the town.
Day sold the lot to Riley Peck in 1871, and a five-room home was built, now the oldest building in Daytona Beach. It was later bought by J.M. Garland. It has been significantly altered through the years. It is of a Frame Vernacular style with a gabled roof, wood brackets, and castellated ashlar coquina.
This lot was sold in 1871 by Mathias Day to Riley Peck, who ten years later sold it to his brother, Myron. He built this Frame Vernacular style house with a rubble chimney and coquina foundation. Coquina was also used for exterior ornamentation. It is built on a shell mound which runs north to the Thompson Store.
This was the residence of Maria Huston Davidson Brower Pope, the first white child born in Daytona. Later, it and the house next door were converted to a 13-room inn by Dr. Vinton Fisher, now known as the Live Oak Inn.
Loomis Ave. began as the sugar plantation highway of Samuel H. Williams, who bought this land in 1804. He abandoned the plantation during the Second Seminole War in 1835.
Mathias Day bought 2,144.5 acres from Williams' daughter, and in 1870 began a two-story frame building here which he intended to call the Colony House. It was to be used by new settlers as lodging while they built their own homes. When an order of shingles did not arrive from Jacksonville, he improvised with palmetto fronds and called it the Palmetto House. It had a parlor, office and large hall on the first floor, plus eight guest rooms on the second.
The hotel was sold to Mrs. Hoag in 1876, and she expanded it to 12 rooms.
Peck & Foster built a variety store on the corner of Orange Ave., and in 1910 moved it here to become the north wing of the Palmetto House. A fire destroyed it all in 1920.
On this site was the early cottage of Capt. Frank Douglas. It was replaced by a building erected in 1883 by Dr. Ball who first operated it as a sanitarium, and then as a hotel. Dr. G.A. Klock established the first hospital in Daytona Beach in about 1907 on 2nd Ave. Later, he bought the building and operated it as the Daytona Private Hospital. It was later turned into apartments.
This establishment was designed by S.H. Gove and built in 1912. During the 1920s, it was the home of Charles Nichols, a fur and hide trader from Colorado. It also housed the offices for the director of the Volusia County Health Unit, and was then the residence of ministers of the First United Methodist Church. In 1990, it was purchased by Jerry and Susan Jerzykowski and converted to a four-unit bed and breadfast furnished with a 1920s-1930s decor.
In the 1880s, Henry Bryan lived in a house on this corner which resembled a warehouse, with plain unpainted boards. He had a frontage on Beach St. of about 220 feet.
Mathias Day's sawmill was on Beach St. near this intersection in 1870.
Mr. Maley had a blacksmith shop here in the 1870s, and Mrs. Maley served as the postmaster. Next to it was his house, built in 1876. His name is memorialized in the present Maley Apartments.
This Frame Vernacular style house was built in about 1888, when this predominantly black community was known as Waycross. Dr. Howard Thurman was the first black in Florida to finish the eighth grade, and is known as one of Florida's greatest theologians and educators.
He was born here and in 1944 organized the Church of the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco, believed to be the first completely integrated church, both as to leadership and membership. He became the first full-time black faculty member at Boston University in 1953. During that year, Life magazine named him as one of the 12 outstanding preachers of the 20th century.
This is the oldest Baptist Church in Daytona Beach, having been organized in 1885 by Rev. J.B. Hankerson. It was first located in Silver Hill on Fremont Ave., then on Marion St., and later, here. The present sanctuary was built in 1921 while Rev. Hankerson was the pastor.
This church was organized on October 24, 1922, with Rev. J.H. Newman as its pastor. The sanctuary was rebuilt in 1947 during the tenure of pastor Rev. R.H. Lee.
This church was designed and built by I.H. Taylor in 1924 while Rev. G.J. Oates was its pastor. The elevator was added in 1988.
Rev. C.W. Carr was the first pastor of this church, organized on October 9, 1928. The building was erected in 1946 while Rev. A.M. Moore was the pastor.
The former sanctuary was built in 1947 under the auspices of pastor Rev. J.M. Dixon. The annex was completed in 1966, and the present sanctuary was constructed in 1982.
Mary McLeod Bethune in 1904 had only $1.50, but also had a dream of building a school for black students. On a 22-acre former city dump, she started the Daytona Normal and Industrial School for Girls, which in 1924 merged with the Cookman Institute for Boys in Jacksonville. The resulting school was the present Bethune-Cookman College.
As president of the school, she patterned it after Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, with students learning both vocational and liberal arts. She was a personal friend to five U.S. presidents, and served in Franklin Roosevelt's administration.
She lived in this two-story house for nearly 50 years until her death in 1955. Later, it was owned by the Mary McLeod Foundation, which preserved it as it appeared in the Roosevelt era. It has a Frame Vernacular style with a partially enclosed hipped porch.
This was the first Florida site commemorating the accomplishments of a black citizen to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places, which occurred on December 2, 1974.
In 1914, Bethune started McLeod's Negro Hospital on 2nd Ave. It later became part of Halifax District Hospital.
This congregation was organized in January of 1898 by Rev. W.W. Jones and the McDaniel, Jenkins and Wibborn families. The first sanctuary was rebuilt in 1910, and the Sumner Education Building was added in 1989.
The first Catholic family moved to Daytona Beach on June 1, 1881, and the first mass was celebrated on March 16, 1882, in a home about three blocks north of here. Until 1886, masses were held only twice a year, then St. Teresa's in Titusville founded a mission here.
The floor plan of the church is an exact replica of St. Teresa's, but on a smaller scale. The first mass in this building was held on December 25, 1927.
The curved pillars by the front door are based on the Bernini columns on the high altar in St. Peter's in Rome. The pecky cypress wood doors, intentionally designed to look old, are replicas of a pair in Valencia, Spain. Above the statue of St. Paul over the door is a block of stone forming the keystone of the building, weighing about five tons.
Capt. Adolphus Swift and his brother, Elonza, came here from Falmouth, Massachusetts, in 1855 to cut live oaks. They started a camp and built a wharf here, employing as many as 500 men. They continued until the Civil War, then resumed after the war until 1870. The island here near what used to be called Live Oak Point may have been formed by ballast brought in by their schooners and dropped into a basin 12 to 15 feet deep.
This home was built by David D. Rogers in 1878 and moved to 436 N. Beach St. in 1919. It has a Frame Vernacular style and features weatherboard on the first floor and decorative shingles on the second. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 and moved here in about 2000 to be the Dr. Josie Rodgers House Environmental Learning Center.
Daytona Bridge Co. built the first North Bridge in 1888. It was rebuilt in August of 1923 for $75,000. In 1959, that was replaced by the Main St. Bridge designed by architects Reynolds, Smith & Hills.
David D. Rogers bought 47 acres here in 1884, cut it into lots, and named it Seabreeze after a resort on Delaware Bay. The post office started as Halifax in 1886 in the home of William Kitchell, near the intersection of Main St. and Peninsula Dr. The name was changed in 1890 by the Post Office Department to Seabreeze.
C.C. and Helen Williams in 1896 bought an interest in the development, platted it as the town of Seabreeze, and opened Ocean Blvd. from Halifax Dr. to the ocean, paving it with marl. Seabreeze was incorporated in 1901 as a separate municipality. It consolidated with Daytona and Daytona Beach on January 1, 1926.
This Florida Spanish style mansion was built during the 1920s land boom. It has impressive holdings and stenciled ceilings from the Mizner Studios, more famous for its work in Palm Beach and Miami.
In 1924, the First National Bank of Seabreeze was chartered. It was renamed First Atlantic National Bank of Daytona in 1939, and in the mid-1950s moved to this location.
After moving from the Tourist Church on the corner of Peninsula and Glenview Aves., the Congregationalists brought that name with them and built a new sanctuary here, with the first service in it taking place on January 5, 1930. The name was changed to Seabreeze United Church in 1964 and became affiliated with the United Church of Christ.
This building was designed by Harry M. Griffin. It has a California Mission style, a mixture of designs from old Mexico and California. The softly-colored rock is known as bog rock, mined near Bellevue and Nova Rds. It contains some ancient shells, but no coquina. Five of the stained glass windows date from 1905, one from 1922, and three were produced by the Henry Keck Studio in 1929.
The first Peabody Auditorium, financed largely by Ohio lumber magnate Simon J. Peabody, opened on this site in January of 1920 for a cost of $20,000. It burned down on January 7, 1946, and was rebuilt in 1948 by James L. Ewell. It was designed by McDonough & Craig and Francis R. Walton.
When this facility was built in 1936-38 by the W.P.A. for $286,000, it was called the "Broadwalk", but later usage turned it into "Boardwalk". the first part built was the Moorish style coquina bandshell, measuring 28 x 114 feet and seating 4,500. Other items included a clock tower, concession facilities, restrooms, kiosk, subway entrances and an elevated walk from Ora to Earl Sts.
In 1903, auto racing began here on hard-packed sand. In the first race, Alexander Winston drove his "Bullet" at 68.198 mph.
Also known as Peninsula Cemetery, this contains many of the early settlers of Daytona Beach, including members of the Burgoyne, Day, Maley and Jackson families. This land was bought by Canadian John W. Smith in 1873. He called his homestead "Memento". Ten years later, he divided it into cemetery lots, and the first person buried here - his own 19-year-old daughter - was interred here in 1887.
Charles Bingham and Jerome Maley took over the cemetery in the early 1900s to go along with their furniture and undertaking business. They established the Pinewood Cemetery Corporation and had the coquina walls and archways built.
When Merchant's Bank failed in 1929, the corporation lost its maintenance fund. As a private burial ground, the city and county refused to maintain it. In 1979, money was bequeathed by Albert Kingston to maintain not only his grave, but the entire cemetery. The last available lots were sold in the early 1970s.
This congregation organized in February in 1903 as the Community Methodist Episcopal Church, with Rev. R.B. Templeton as its pastor. This church was erected in 1925 while Rev. D.H. Rutter was the pastor. J.J. Baldwin was the architect and the stained glass windows were produced in the George Payne Studio.
C.A. Ballough built a beach cottage on this site in 1888, which was later enlarged and named the Clarendon. In 1890, the Breakers Hotel was built just across Ocean Blvd. Both were purchased by Dr. E.L. Potter who connected the two and operated them as the Clarendon Hotel. He moved a casino onto the property. The hotel's seasonal opening during the first week in January was celebrated by a cannon salute, the raising of flags, and the playing of orchestras.
The Clarendon burned down on February 14, 1909, and Potter rebuilt it in 1910-11.
An old hotel located here was used as the Halifax District Hospital during World War II. It was torn down in about 2000.
Lawrence Thompson built this four-level Victorian style house in 1885. One person who stayed here for a time was author Stephen Crane. It was later owned by Patricia Bennett, Thompson's granddaughter, and then the McDole family. Local legend says that a ghost named Lucille watches over the house. It was turned into a bed and breakfast.
Halifax River Bridge and Railway Co. built the first South Bridge in 1888, and a storm wrecked it in October of 1910. It was rebuilt, and rebuilt again in November of 1926 for $175,000. In 1930, it was rebuilt again. It was replaced by the Memorial Bridge at the same site in 1954 for $915,000.
A Guide to National Register Sites in Florida, (Florida Department of State 1984)
African Americans in Florida, by Maxine D. Jones and Kevin M. McCarthy (Pineapple Press, Inc. 1993)
Bicentennial Pictorial History of Volusia County, by Henry B. Watson (The News-Journal Corporation 1976)
Black Florida, by Kevin McCarthy (Hippocrene Books 1995)
Centennial History of Volusia County, Florida 1854-1954, by Ianthe Bond Hebel (College Publishing Company 1955)
"Early Days in Daytona Beach, Florida: How a City Was Founded", by Fred Booth (The Journal of the Halifax Historical Society, Vol. 1, No. 1 1951)
Florida Bed & Breakfast Guide, by Valerie C. Bondy (Queen of Hearts Publications 1995)
Florida From Secession to Space Age, by Merlin G. Cox and J.E. Dovell (Great Outdoors Publishing Co. 1974)
Florida Historic Markers & Sites, by Floyd E. Boone (Gulf Publishing Company 1988)
Florida Historic Stained Glass Survey: Sites of Historic Windows in Public Facilities in the State of Florida, by Robert O. Jones (Florida Members of the Stained Glass Association of America 1995)
Florida Jewish Heritage Trail, by Rachel B. Heimovics and Marcia Zerivitz (Florida Department of State 2000)
Florida's History Through Its Places: Properties in the National Register of Historic Places, by Morton D. Winsberg (Florida State University 1988)
Guide to Florida Historical Walking Tours, by Roberta Sandler (Pineapple Press, Inc. 1996)
Guide to Florida's Historic Architecture, (University of Florida Press 1989)
Guide to the Small and Historic Lodgings of Florida, by Herbert L. Hiller (Pineapple Press, Inc. 1991)
Historic Daytona Beach (a self-guided tour), (The Halifax Historical Society 1992)
Historic Homes of Florida, by Laura Stewart & Susanne Hupp (Pineapple Press, Inc. 1995)
History of Volusia County, Florida, by Pleasant Daniel Gold (The E.O. Painter Printing Co. 1927)
Hopes, Dreams, & Promises: A History of Volusia County, Florida, by Michael G. Schene (News-Journal Corporation 1976)
The New History of Florida, by Michael Gannon (University Press of Florida 1996)
Olds Hall, by Arthur C. Archibald (1963)
Remembrances of an Early Daytona Childhood, by Maria Davidson Pope (Maria M. Clifton 1977)
Wish You Were Here: A Grand Tour of Early Florida Via Old Post Cards, by Hampton Dunn (Byron Kennedy and Company 1981)
Click here for a copy of the trail rules.