St. Elmo W. Acosta

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

St. Elmo W. Acosta was a native of Jacksonville, Florida and enjoyed a long career of public service to the people of Jacksonville. Although he was a noted city commissioner, state legislator, and city parks commissioner, he will always be known as the man who championed the cause of a pedestrian and automobile span across the St. Johns River for the people of Jacksonville. Now known as a city of bridges, he pushed through the funding for the first for the people. He was known during his time for a fanatical devotion to a greener Jacksonville, but was against a woman’s right to vote. When the bridge that was to eventually bear his name was completed, he led the first parade across the original metal span. Although then known as the St. Johns River Bridge, shortly after his death State Senator John Mathews (whose name would eventually grace another downtown Jacksonville Bridge) pushed that the Florida Legislature should rename the span after Acosta. Governor Fuller Warren (another bridge namesake) re-christened the bridge in 1949. The original span has since been replaced, but the new concrete and steel span still bears his name.