Historic Preservation

Historic Eastside Community Development Corporation’s main goal is to preserve the rich history and heritage of the Eastside Neighborhood. Known as OUTEAST to generations of local residents, it was once a prominent African American working class community. The Eastside is the last remaining historic neighborhood that borders downtown Jacksonville, Florida. The most significant era of the Eastside's development was from 1868 to 1947.  Preservation efforts includes neighborhood's residences of frame vernacular or bungalow architecture.

Heritage Trail

HECDC is developing an Eastside heritage trail in our transitional neighborhood, that will serve as a harbinger of change. A chance — and sometimes it feels like a last chance with investor interest on the rise — to record modern history, before our neighborhood’s demographics and storefronts are reborn.

The project includes murals, markers and public art projects that depict the history of Eastside residents, patrons and historians. The trails will help ease the inevitable tensions of gentrification by visually recording stories of the Eastside, building pride as the community transitions so that newcomers understand this place that they now find so attractive to live.

View the African American Heritage Jacksonville Legacy Magazine here. This legacy magazine features the stories of Mayor Alvin Brown, Kingsley Plantation, Brewster Hospital, brothers James Weldon Johnson and John Rosamond Johnson, Dr. Eartha Mary Magdalene White, Eartha M. M. White/Museum, Zora Neale Hurston, Asa Philip Randolph, Bessie Coleman, Norman Film Studios, J. P. Small Park, Life in Jacksonville, The Ritz Theater and Museum, Abraham L. Lewis, Afro – American Life Insurance Company, Robert Lee “Bullet Bob” Hayes, A. Philip Randolph Park, Oakland Park, Florida C. Dwight Park, Hemming Plaza, Bethel Baptist Institutional Church, Mount Zion A.M.E. Church, Mother Midway A.M.E. Church, Mount Olive AME Church, Local Heroes, Edward Waters College, Nat Glover, L. Lawton Pratt, Noted African American Performing Artists Associated with Jacksonville, Multicultural Historical Timeline, and the Old City Cemetery.