Name That Island

[Tacachale]

So there's some new interest in naming the island that contains the Jacksonville Beaches. For those of us who didn't know, yes, it's an island, and no, it doesn't have a name.

After 99 years as an island, is it time to stick a name on that sandy coastal acreage that stretches from Mayport in Duval County to Vilano Beach in St. Johns County?

Many out there already casually call it the island, in a lower-case kind of way. But an informal group at the Beaches thinks it's at least worth considering giving it a name of its own.

Kurtis Loftus of the Kurtis Group, a public relations, advertising and design company, is meeting Thursday with other Beaches residents for what he stresses is simply an exploratory meeting that has nothing â€" nothing at all â€" to do with secession or trying to disrespect Jacksonville or anything like that.

It's just that, as a marketing guy, he thinks it would help small businesses and would brand the area as the island it is â€" and who doesn't like islands?

Of course it wasn't until 1912 that it became an island, when work finished on a cut made in Palm Valley to connect the San Pablo River to the north with the Tolomato River in the south, notes Neil McGuinness, a Beaches historian. Voila: Our section of the Intracoastal Waterway was created, making everything to the east an instant island.

McGuinness, author of "The Beaches: A History and Tour," figures that 2012, then, would be an appropriate time to finally put a name on it. Any and all names are on the table, he says, but there is a strong historical precedent for the name San Pablo Island.

There was a Spanish mission there called San Pablo as far back as 1587, though its location is still a puzzle. In the 1790s, there was a plantation by that name, from Fleet Landing in Atlantic Beach to Fourth Avenue South in Jacksonville Beach. There was briefly a town called Pablo at A1A and the Wonderwood Expressway. Jacksonville Beach used to be Pablo Beach. And of course there's the San Pablo River on the Intracoastal.

This isn't a new idea: The Atlantic Beach City Commission in 2009 approved a resolution supporting the name, but it doesn't look to have gone any further.

As someone who crosses the Ditch on a daily basis â€" and who loves a good evocative place name probably more than most (I can happily spend hours wondering about the names in a book of maps) â€" I too say sure. Give the island a name.

Why not? How could it hurt? As long as it's not some cheesy developer-style thing like Paradise Oaks Island or Briny Breezes Island or Salt Life Island or some such nonsense. San Pablo Island, I think, seems solid. Relevant. Descriptive. Not silly.

What do you think? Do you like San Pablo Island? Is there a better suggestion? Or should it just be left as it is? Chime in.

By the way, Times-Union Beaches reporter Maggie Fitzroy will be at the meeting. She'll post a report on Jacksonville.com afterward.

http://jacksonville.com/opinion/blog/403251/matt-soergel/2011-06-23/mayport-vilano-help-name-island

[Steve]

Two threads started at the exact same time on the same subject.  Use this one:

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php/topic,12534.0.html