Lone Star Stables

Written by Cleve Powell
Originally published in the August 2007 edition of the OAI Newsletter

Those of you who have enjoyed the annual Butterfly Festival at Tree Hill Park each year may not know that in years gone by children would have enjoyed a much different, but equally enjoyable festival there. This was the former site of the Jaques family’s riding stable and every Fourth of July the family and friends formed a parade through Arlington and had a grandiose barbeque when it was over. There were also many years of barrel races, trail rides and training of horses and their young riders.

The stable’s letterhead states “same spot since 1912.” That is just a tad of an exaggeration but 1912 is the year the Alderman Realty Co. was formed. Miss Claris Ruth Johnson (Jaques) moved to Arlington April 15, 1914, just after her 7th birthday. Her maternal grandfather, F. W. Bruce, had ties to Alderman Realty Company and her father, Cleve Johnson, bought land from them on Lone Star Road. The family farmed and started a dairy, calling their new home Red Bay Ranch, so 1914 would be closer to true.

Horses were used for everything! They used them to plow and to pull wagons. They were the only means of transportation, and they rode horses to the ferry landing at the end of Arlington Road leaving them in F. W. Bruce’s paddock just up the hill from the ferry. The Johnson children, Bruce, Claris, and Mary, rode the ferry to go to school in Fairfield and Cleve Johnson and his wife Louise rode the ferry to catch a streetcar to shop in town or for Cleveland to go to work by train. One of the main uses of the horses was to round up both dairy and beef cows from the woods as this was in the days when Florida had a “No fence law.” They often had to go as far as SaintXJohns Bluff to find the cattle.

The family of George Henry Jaques, Sr. moved to Arlington from Rhode Island by way of Cape Canaveral (Merritt Island) ca. 1920. Mr. Jaques was a carpenter – ship builder – and also in the dairy business. He lived on Glenco Street by Arlington Grammar School, and he kept his cattle at his farm in the Merrill Road area at Boggy Branch (near Hartsfield Road). The Jaques had two girls and three boys, and the oldest boy, George Junior, married Claris Johnson October 31, 1930.

The young couple built a home on Lone Star Road on a parcel provided by the Johnson’s just east of Red Bay Branch. Their mutual love of horses was evident from the start. George admired the life of the western cowboys and reportedly had met the famous Tom Mix. They took over the Johnson family dairy that was known as “Red Bay Dairy,” making a living from the dairy, horses, farming, and other endeavors. George worked as a cowboy in Olustee ca. 1932 when cattle were shipped to Florida to avoid the hoof and mouth disease in Texas. Through the following years they got out of the dairy business but still did some farming and increased the size of their stables. They had five children Ruth, Naomi, Tom, Joan, and Gary.

For years, everyone called it “the stables,” and Red Bay Branch became known as Jaques Creek due to a swimming hole next to the little wooden bridge where they watered and bathed the horses. The old spring house, used for keeping milk cool, was just upstream of the bridge, and there was another spring near the driveway. Part of their 19-acre parcel was the wetlands along Red Bay Branch, which was part of the old Richard Mill Pond from ca. 1821 to 1870. The 9-acre wetlands portion was purchased by the State of Florida for the Tree Hill Nature Park ca. 1974.

George loved palominos and they had a stallion named with the registered name of “Lone Star Pal” for years. Mrs. Jaques was quoted in a news article that they bordered Tom Mix’s horse “Tony” when he was in Jacksonville in the early forties. They also boarded a buffalo, a huge Brahma bull that a clown rode with a saddle in a rodeo, and the largest spotted jackass in the world.

George worked at Humphreys Gold Mine and later on, the construction of the Arlington Expressway. Claris worked at the Arlington Grammar cafeteria, and then drove a school bus for mentally and physically challenged school children. She also worked at the original Dairy Queen in Arlington and then at Terry Parker’s cafeteria with her sister Mary. They also sold “fill dirt” off the back of their land. All this supplemented the income of what officially became “Lone Star Stables” in the early fifties.

They boarded horses for many a Jacksonville family including the daughter of one of the presidents of JU. They helped train the horses and also helped the kids learn to care for the horses as well as to ride them. In the sixties they built a “bunk house,” and Mrs. Jaques counseled a lot of young girls who confided in her with problems when they held “sleepovers.” I was shopping for a lot in Cedar Keys ca. 1975 and the realtor lady was one of Mrs. Jaques converts who had great things to say about her. This was just one of many people I have met through the years who spoke of Mrs. Jaques with reverence.

The Fourth of July parades began ca. 1955 and wound through Alderman Park to the Arlington Expressway access road down to Town n’ Country Shopping Center then down University to Arlington Road to Lone Star and back home. They had a little covered wagon and a “buckboard,” and George led the parade on Pal, and in later years, Gold Bug, sired by Pal. It was quite an event and the young riders, including my daughters, were excited to be a part of it. The Jaques raised hogs and always had a pit barbeque cooked for the party that followed. Congressman Bennett attended some of the functions. One of Mrs. Jaques granddaughters put together a DVD of years of 8 mm films made by parents, and it shows the changes of Arlington from year to year.

Mrs. Jaques’ “trail rides” would have made a great historic tour of Old Arlington. She identified many of the exotic plants and wildlife along the route(s). She talked about the Richard Mill Pond and Mill Creek and pointed out historic items like the J. M. & P. Railroad bed. She knew who had lived in the abandoned home sites from Civil War days that dotted the woods. She talked about years of baptisms at Lone Star Church, and knew the history of the gun emplacement at SaintXJohns Bluff. She also cooked over campfires on the trail.

Her black and white trucks were easy to distinguish; they were covered with decals of horses and had a statement on the tailgate (ahead of its time): “Do horses not drugs.” She made almost daily trips to the Standard Feed store on Union Street. Her great granddaughter, Erica Mears, remembers begging to go along because Mrs. Jaques bought her a chocolate nutty bar out of the machine but only if she split it with her. Having worked on her old trucks, I can give testimony that they were not always in good shape to come over the Mathews Bridge in rush hour.

By choice Mrs. Jaques lived in the most unpretentious style that anyone could live in. I stopped to pick her up to go to a Johnson reunion ca. 1985, and she wanted me to share breakfast with her before we left. Breakfast was Jalapeno cornbread cooked on a wood stove and drip or boiled coffee laced with goat’s milk. She kept a nanny on her front porch as a pet and for the milk. The breakfast was very good.

After her five children married and left, her granddaughter Sherrie Nixon Mears and her husband Robert Mears and daughter Erica sold their farm in Clay Hill and moved in with Mr. And Mrs. Jaques ca. 1980. They put a doublewide trailer in front of the bunkhouse and built a new stable. Mr. Jaques passed away in 1982, and Mrs. Jaques passed in 1993. Mrs. Jaques and her parents and family never left this land as all now rest in the Arlington Park Cemetery.

After Mrs. Jaques’ death the family decided to sell the rest of the land to Tree Hill to complete their park. That was accomplished in 1997, and the stables run by the Mears family is now located near Stark, Florida. This is the end of any tangible vestige of farm life in Old Arlington and the slowly diminishing “live off the earth” lifestyle of the Jaques family. When you go to the next Butterfly “fest” you may hear a whispered neighing or smell a whiff of hay to remind you of the past.