Clay County Shipwreck's, Ghost Stories , Mysteries, and other Hmmm's
The St Johns River
The St. Johns River, which runs from Jacksonville down through the Lake Okeechobee area, is cluttered with old riverboats.
A). The steamboat Dolphin exploded and sank in 1836 at St. Johns Bar. B). In 1838, the steamboat Tempest snagged and sank at Ocheesee. C). The steamboat Mutual Safety stranded on October 11, 1846, on the St. Johns River. D). The steamboat William Barnett exploded and sank in 1859 in the St. Johns River. E). The sternwheel Kennedy burned on the St. Johns River on February 24, 1914
A Historical Hmmmmm
In the years between 1913 - 1917 Sheriff J.H. King was battling prohibition and was hot on the trail of moonshiners in the area. Unfortunately while investingating call of moonshiners in an area in Clay Hill he suddenly went missing in 1917. No one heard from him and rumors of his death surfaced but no body was ever found. Even though no picture of him existed before he became sheriff or during his service, somehow a picture showed up of him standing in front of a modern building.....over 30 years later. Hmmmm....
The Forgotten Airports at Fleming Island and Brannonfield (Click the Titles to see the enlarged photos of the airfields!)
The Fleming Island Navel Outer Landing Field, or (NOLF), is an abandoned WW2-era military airfield that was built as a satellite airfield for Jacksonville NAS. The Fleming Island airfield was evidently established at some point between 1942-43, as it was not yet depicted at all on the June 1942 17M Regional Aeronautical Chart (courtesy of Chris Kennedy). The earliest depiction of the Fleming Island airfield which has been located was the above June 1943 aerial photo (courtesy of Brian Rehwinkel). It depicted the airfield as having a total of 4 paved runways. A total of 6 single-engine aircraft were visible on the airfield. No buildings were depicted at the site.
It also depicted that the airfield had its own NDB navigational beacon - very unusual for a satellite airfield. However, the remarks in the Aerodromes table said "Closed." Fleming Island was labeled "Abandoned airport" on the 1964 Jacksonville Sectional Chart (courtesy of John Voss). Chris Alvarez recalled visiting the Flemmings Island airfield in 1974. "The field was approximately a half mile down an overgrown road into the pine woods. I knew it then as 'Thunderbolt Speedway'. In the late 1960's it was home to a local speedway. But by 1974 it was not being used & the paved runways had pretty much disintegrated."
Drag racing historian Bret Kepner confirms that "Thunderbolt Dragway was, indeed, located on the property of the abandoned Fleming Island NOLF. Local racers, (and there were plenty; this was a very popular track before closing in the early 1970s), insist the name came from a large stockpiling of P-47s [Thunderbolts] on the NOLF before it was decommissioned."
Incredibly, an elementary school built on the site has been named Thunderbolt Elementary in honor of the dragstrip."
The Brannon Field Navel Outer Landing Field (NOLF) In 1941, the Navy & Jacksonville engineering consultant Robert Angas identified the Branan's property as a suitable outlying field for NAS Jacksonville. The Federal government instituted proceedings against the Branan's real estate in the same year. In 1941, Angas supplied the Department of the Navy with preliminary plans for "Outlying Field L," or "Branan Field", indicating that the property then consisted of an "improved farm" maintained by A. W. Branan. No airfield at Branan was yet depicted on the June 1942 17M Regional Aeronautical Chart (courtesy of Chris Kennedy).
A July 1943 U.S. Government aerial photo (courtesy of the FL DOT, via Brian Rehwinkel) depicted Branan Field as the runways were being paved. The eastern half of Branan's four runways had been paved already, and construction trucks were visible in the northwest portion of the field.The airfield at Branan had a unique configuration – consisting of four paved 4,000' runways, which all intersected at the same point, with the ends of the runways ringed by a taxiway.
Following the Second World War, Branan Field was used for the development of the US Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron, later to be known as the "Blue Angels". Although NAS Jacksonville is listed as the birthplace of the Blue Angels, most of the preliminary training was done at Branan in private.
The peculiar geometry of Branan Field made it particularly suitable for training by he Blue Angels - the large symmetrical shape of Branan Field with its convergence of runways facilitated visualization by pilots approaching a single central spot from various compass points in jet aircraft.
Branan Field was labeled "Abandoned airport" on the 1964 Jacksonville Sectional Chart (courtesy of John Voss). A 1964 topo map indicated that the octagonal outline of the air field was paved,but that the runways had been eliminated. A paved road extended from Naval Air Auxiliary Station Cecil Field to the former OLF Branan,and an unimproved road extended southward to the bombing range. It lay virtually untouched for years and unused other than a brief hunting ground in the late 90's, but eventually became a subdivision about 2002 / 2003.
1943 Fleming Island Airfield Map
Original Fleming Island Airfield 4000 foot of hard-surface runway
Today the airfield is Thunderbolt Elementary and a residential area
Original 1943 Brannon Field Air Field Map
Brannon Field Air Field was active in WWII and wasy to spot from the air.
Today it is a subdivision neighborhood.
Haunted Locations
St Johns Landing Apartments in Green Cove Springs
Various apartments are haunted in this complex. Originally built as military housing back in the thirties and has a cemetery on site in the middle of the complexes grounds. When the military base closed in Green Cove Springs, the housing was sold to a private owner and over the years became slum until 1997. Then a new owner took over the apartment complex and began restoring the buildings back to their original glory. There have been many sightings of apparitions, shadows and electrical charges in the air. Tenants report voices, doors opening and closing, and footsteps up stairs and through out the apartments.
This location once had an old church next to the cemetery that was built in the 1800's. It is said that a young girl and her little brother were walking home one night in the early 1900's. They decided to cut across the cemetery. A bear chased them into the churches' bell tower were they were killed. It was said that you could go to the church at the stroke of twelve midnight and here the little children screaming. You can also here the bear with them as the church bell would ring. Now there is a new church built and the old bell tower has been relocated.
The Middleburg Meteor
Early in 1888, a colorful green meteor appeared in the night sky over Middleburg, Florida, 20 miles southwest of Jacksonville. Several witnesses watched it hit the ground in an old cultivated farm field south of town. Approaching the smoking crater, they found what looked like "a 200-pound block of limestone."
A few months later, the mystery meteorite was exhibited at the Sub-Tropical Exposition and then went on display in Jacksonville. The stone was examined by a Dr. Hahn, who claimed to have found "miniature fossils" of corals, crinoids and shells, "all of them of microscopic size" in the rock. Dr. Hahn photographed these microfossils of extraterrestrial life, wrote an article about them, and published both in Popular Science 20-83. News of the Middleburg meteor strike was reported in Science 11-118.
Dr. Hahn was roundly condemned by the scientific community for such heresy. In Knowledge 1-258, Dr. Lawrence Smith wrote, "Dr. Hahn is a kind of half-insane man, whose imagination has run away with him." Dr. Smith, who never examined the actual meteor, advanced the opinion that the fossils were actually "crystals of enstatite."
The Middleburg, Florida meteor and Dr. Hahn were rescued from oblivion by that indefatigable "foe of science," Charles Fort, who wrote about them in his 1919 work BOOK OF THE DAMNED. (See THE BOOKS OF CHARLES FORT, Dover Press 1974, pages 79 and 80.) Meteor Reference
UFO Sightings
On August 14, 2007, in Goldhead State Park in Clay County, Florida a reporting of a diamond shaped moving light hovered slowly and in several directions while a family camped outiside and was in view for over 20 minutes.
